the amount of combat changes is baffling

bar_boss_A

I have been waiting the whole year for this update as this is the patch which addresses combat (as promised in several announcements). Aaaaaand the combat changes are minuscule although there are lots of threads discussing multiple pain points of the community. Additionally I, and I assume my dear forum warriors as well, write multiple in-game feed-backs as well. So here I present a small handcrafted "Book Of Grudges":

- hybridization is still unfinished
- still existing critical damage hardcap instead of a softcap
- heavy attack play style gutted in favor of Arcanist
- over 100 obsolete 5-piece sets not worth even looking at
- no working burst damage proc set delay/handling
- magicka and stamina obsolete in build crafting for PvE and PvP
- light and medium armor resource management skills are still limited to either stam or mag

feel free to add so the developers see that there is plenty to do instead of a new random overhaul (looking at you light attack overhaul, looking at you status effects overhaul)

Skjaldbjorn

Honestly, the removal of Stam/Mag "identity" is a terrific change. It further skewed Class Identity to boil down to linear, nonsensical delineation based on which max resource you had. Unless you meant something else by what you said, I firmly disagree there.

MakeMeUhSamich

Make No-Pet MagSorcs great again!

#hatethebloodyflappybird

ecru

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Honestly, the removal of Stam/Mag "identity" is a terrific change. It further skewed Class Identity to boil down to linear, nonsensical delineation based on which max resource you had. Unless you meant something else by what you said, I firmly disagree there.

Disagree 100%. It ruined class identity by making most builds a combination of skills that exist outside of class skill lines, with a few class skills sprinkled in. Now nearly ever class plays the same because everyone is using mostly the same abilities. It isn't interesting at all.

Tannus15

ecru wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Honestly, the removal of Stam/Mag "identity" is a terrific change. It further skewed Class Identity to boil down to linear, nonsensical delineation based on which max resource you had. Unless you meant something else by what you said, I firmly disagree there.

Disagree 100%. It ruined class identity by making most builds a combination of skills that exist outside of class skill lines, with a few class skills sprinkled in. Now nearly ever class plays the same because everyone is using mostly the same abilities. It isn't interesting at all.

I disagree with your disagree!

The majority of class skills are magicka, especially for the base game classes. This meant that most stam builds used to be mostly weapon skills with 1 or 2 mag utility skills from the class kit to complement. Further more mag builds were limited to the inferior light armour sets, making them far weaker than their stam counterparts.

Is hybridization finished? No. Clearly. I don't know why it's taken so long to just dot the i and cross the t and finish the consolidation, but whatever.
Could further improvements be made now that we basically have green and blue versions of the same skill? Absolutely. I would love to see some class passives changed so that each class has a specialization that actually mattered when it comes to builds.
It goes without saying that the older sets need to be looked at again and adjusted to be not trash.

But overall hybridization was a positive step that improved the game.

Skjaldbjorn

ecru wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Honestly, the removal of Stam/Mag "identity" is a terrific change. It further skewed Class Identity to boil down to linear, nonsensical delineation based on which max resource you had. Unless you meant something else by what you said, I firmly disagree there.

Disagree 100%. It ruined class identity by making most builds a combination of skills that exist outside of class skill lines, with a few class skills sprinkled in. Now nearly ever class plays the same because everyone is using mostly the same abilities. It isn't interesting at all.

Which is still better than half your class being blocked off because you wear medium armor or whatever. The class identity needs work. Class skills need buffs. But the direction is 100% correct.

YandereGirlfriend

Tannus15 wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Honestly, the removal of Stam/Mag "identity" is a terrific change. It further skewed Class Identity to boil down to linear, nonsensical delineation based on which max resource you had. Unless you meant something else by what you said, I firmly disagree there.

Disagree 100%. It ruined class identity by making most builds a combination of skills that exist outside of class skill lines, with a few class skills sprinkled in. Now nearly ever class plays the same because everyone is using mostly the same abilities. It isn't interesting at all.

I disagree with your disagree!

The majority of class skills are magicka, especially for the base game classes. This meant that most stam builds used to be mostly weapon skills with 1 or 2 mag utility skills from the class kit to complement. Further more mag builds were limited to the inferior light armour sets, making them far weaker than their stam counterparts.

Is hybridization finished? No. Clearly. I don't know why it's taken so long to just dot the i and cross the t and finish the consolidation, but whatever.
Could further improvements be made now that we basically have green and blue versions of the same skill? Absolutely. I would love to see some class passives changed so that each class has a specialization that actually mattered when it comes to builds.
It goes without saying that the older sets need to be looked at again and adjusted to be not trash.

But overall hybridization was a positive step that improved the game.

I agree with you on the merits but also greatly sympathize with the person that you were replying to.

Mag builds were definitely able to use the more interesting skills (StamSorc was especially hard-up in that regard as the class-less class) pre-hybridization... but now we live in the dystopian world where every build runs the exact same gear pieces and classes have all been liquefied into a formless grey ooze. I don't miss the days of rigid MagDK vs. StamDK but, IMO, casters using DW Daggers is nothing short of a travesty. But they are forced to. Because hybridization killed-off everything else.

That mess could be sorted out by a more thoughtful mapping of stat category buffs to things like weapon choices and armor weights, but, sadly, those decisions haven't been revisited in years and seem unlikely to be any time soon.

Skjaldbjorn

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I agree with you on the merits but also greatly sympathize with the person that you were replying to.

Mag builds were definitely able to use the more interesting skills (StamSorc was especially hard-up in that regard as the class-less class) pre-hybridization... but now we live in the dystopian world where every build runs the exact same gear pieces and classes have all been liquefied into a formless grey ooze. I don't miss the days of rigid MagDK vs. StamDK but, IMO, casters using DW Daggers is nothing short of a travesty. But they are forced to. Because hybridization killed-off everything else.

That mess could be sorted out by a more thoughtful mapping of stat category buffs to things like weapon choices and armor weights, but, sadly, those decisions haven't been revisited in years and seem unlikely to be any time soon.

Honestly, not trying to be rude but, blaming hybridization for the dagger meta is kinda...lazy. Even before they did that, mag DPS were running around in DW daggers in like Bahsei, because it actually helped them keep their mag low to maximize the damage bonus of the set. Daggers on mag DPS really isn't new - we had multiple patches where that was the norm tbh. Hybridization just made it better and let people stop using Bahsei and its terrible resource juggling.

The only class, atm, that's crazy limited imo is Arcanist. There's a lot of really viable sets atm because the normalization brought most things in line. Rele, Aegis, Ansuul, Null Arca, Bahsei, AY, Selene's, Zaan, Pillar, Depths, Deadly, Coral, Azure, Sul-Xan, etc are all viable in at least some levels of content, and then there's the buff sets like EC, Zen and Alkosh.

Overall, the main thing crushing build diversity is honestly Arc lmao.

bar_boss_A

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Honestly, the removal of Stam/Mag "identity" is a terrific change. It further skewed Class Identity to boil down to linear, nonsensical delineation based on which max resource you had. Unless you meant something else by what you said, I firmly disagree there.

understandable that my one line grudges did spark a discussion. To further clarify: nowadays speccing into max magicka or stamina is not worth the investment as all other stats scale much better and easier. Additionally, now that resource management is easy af there is no incentive to go this route. There should be a new incentive to stack into one resource or maybe both, some examples which come to my mind:

• hybridization on weapon/spell damage and crits but not on max resource would help distinguish hybrids from mono builds. You could either slot all the strongest skills and they are a bit less effective as you sit around 20k max mag and stam. Or you restrict yourself on skills by investing into only one resource but therefore your chosen skills hit/heal/tank a bit harder.
• alternatively healing could get a stronger max stat modifier and a weaker weapon/spell damage modifier. So you could invest more into spell/weapon damage and have higher damage but weaker heals or invest into max resources and have lower damage but higher heals (this would bring max Hp based heals in line)

Just some ideas to make max resource stacking interesting again

bar_boss_A

MakeMeUhSamich wrote: »

Make No-Pet MagSorcs great again!

#hatethebloodyflappybird

yeah absolutely! I just did not want to go into the grudges in classes rabbit hole...

bar_boss_A

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Which is still better than half your class being blocked off because you wear medium armor or whatever. The class identity needs work. Class skills need buffs. But the direction is 100% correct.

Valid point will add the armor pain point in the main post if I ever find the edit button

James-Wayne

Just remove classes all together and give us a bunch of skills and passives to unlock via some new class tree so we don't need to worry about Arcanist being top tier, we just respec into what we want so we can play how we want. Simples.

I've been asking for no classes for years, lets just do it!

bar_boss_A

James-Wayne wrote: »

Just remove classes all together and give us a bunch of skills and passives to unlock via some new class tree so we don't need to worry about Arcanist being top tier, we just respec into what we want so we can play how we want. Simples.

I've been asking for no classes for years, lets just do it!

could be done via a new class: "the changeling" which can choose freely three class trees from the already existing ones. Needs to have a caveat though, so probably no class ultimates?

Veinblood1965

Very simple to see how stamina is the red headed step-child. Name a quick use short duration potion that increases stamina recovery? I mean we have food and drink "buff" potions that last for hours however there are no pot's that last 30 seconds that increase stam, there are several for maj. It's an obvious dedicated design.

CameraBeardThePirate

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

Very simple to see how stamina is the red headed step-child. Name a quick use short duration potion that increases stamina recovery? I mean we have food and drink "buff" potions that last for hours however there are no pot's that last 30 seconds that increase stam, there are several for maj. It's an obvious dedicated design.

Uh what? There are just as many stamina/stamina recovery potions as there are for mag. Four off the top of my head: Tri-pots, Green pots (stam/brut/sav), Stam/Immov/Expedition pots, Essence of Weapon Crit pots.

Skjaldbjorn

bar_boss_A wrote: »

understandable that my one line grudges did spark a discussion. To further clarify: nowadays speccing into max magicka or stamina is not worth the investment as all other stats scale much better and easier. Additionally, now that resource management is easy af there is no incentive to go this route. There should be a new incentive to stack into one resource or maybe both, some examples which come to my mind:

I don't know if this is a PVP perspective, but basically every PVE DPS specs fully into Stam or Mag. Like...yeah.

xylena_lazarow

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

I don't know if this is a PVP perspective

Yeah in PvP pretty much everything has congealed into a mag leaning hybrid, except Sorcs, and you can still do almost any PvP playstyle leaning into either resource anyway.

bar_boss_A

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

I don't know if this is a PVP perspective, but basically every PVE DPS specs fully into Stam or Mag. Like...yeah.

Solemnly disagree. What you are talking about is the choice which resource you take. Well there are three resources in which you can put your attribute points so of course there is a choice. But even there you will not prioritize mag/stam - priority is health: you will spec first into health to get to the minimum health value required for the content you want to run (18-20k for a dps depending on content) after that you spec into the resource you chose and of course stick to your choice.

Fully speccing into max magicka/stamina means: choosing arkane/robust jewelry over infused/bloodthirsty, choosing infused armor over divine, choosing mage/tower mundus stone over thief, choosing necropotence set over pillar of nirn.

I do understand that these were not on your mind as these build choices are below bad and you would be lucky to find a person which does even play one of the above. But that is exactly my problem max mag/stam. They are the dump stat: the stat all left over points, which can not be put somewhere else, are put into. They should never be top tier but there should be an incentive to create niche setups investing heavily into max stat.

alpha_synuclein

bar_boss_A wrote: »

But even there you will not prioritize mag/stam - priority is health: you will spec first into health to get to the minimum health value required for the content you want to run (18-20k for a dps depending on content) after that you spec into the resource you chose and of course stick to your choice.

As a PVE damage dealer you should never put any points into health. That's what food is for.

bar_boss_A wrote: »

Fully speccing into max magicka/stamina means: choosing arkane/robust jewelry over infused/bloodthirsty, choosing infused armor over divine, choosing mage/tower mundus stone over thief, choosing necropotence set over pillar of nirn.

No PVE dd worth their daggers would ever do any of this...

bar_boss_A

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

No PVE dd worth their daggers would ever do any of this...

continue reading

alpha_synuclein

bar_boss_A wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

No PVE dd worth their daggers would ever do any of this...

continue reading

Emmmm... I did read all of what you wrote.

And if I understood you correctly (which was not easy btw...) you are saying that PVE dd need to put some points in health, otherwise they are left with those inferior build choices.

And that is what I was disagreeing with, since PVE dds should not put any points in health.

xylena_lazarow

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

As a PVE damage dealer

Most PvP builds have congealed into mag leaning hybrids, usually with 64 hp. Yet years later, many PvPers are still trying to bang their heads against the wall of a mag/stam split archetype system that no longer exists, because ZOS never finished hybridization, just like they never finished polishing the mag/stam split before that.

Skjaldbjorn

bar_boss_A wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

I don't know if this is a PVP perspective, but basically every PVE DPS specs fully into Stam or Mag. Like...yeah.

Solemnly disagree. What you are talking about is the choice which resource you take. Well there are three resources in which you can put your attribute points so of course there is a choice. But even there you will not prioritize mag/stam - priority is health: you will spec first into health to get to the minimum health value required for the content you want to run (18-20k for a dps depending on content) after that you spec into the resource you chose and of course stick to your choice.

Fully speccing into max magicka/stamina means: choosing arkane/robust jewelry over infused/bloodthirsty, choosing infused armor over divine, choosing mage/tower mundus stone over thief, choosing necropotence set over pillar of nirn.

I do understand that these were not on your mind as these build choices are below bad and you would be lucky to find a person which does even play one of the above. But that is exactly my problem max mag/stam. They are the dump stat: the stat all left over points, which can not be put somewhere else, are put into. They should never be top tier but there should be an incentive to create niche setups investing heavily into max stat.

As the above poster said, I have been a PVE DPS since Morrowind, I have DPSed every trial in the game through vet HMs, and most of the trifectas. I have never put points into health on any class. I have no idea what you mean here.

FoJul

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Honestly, the removal of Stam/Mag "identity" is a terrific change. It further skewed Class Identity to boil down to linear, nonsensical delineation based on which max resource you had. Unless you meant something else by what you said, I firmly disagree there.

I dont like hybridization at all. Since you can stack buffs so efficiently, people tend to flock to proc sets. In both PvE and PvP. What happened to rangeblade running bahsei's and kinra's and could parse 100k+? Now im not breaking 100k unless I use 3 proc sets.

I can't play how I want. Im forced to play a specific way. That's the opposite of what these devs told us to do. Unless of course they were talking about questing. In no trifecta run ever, will I be a serious DPS role as a rangeblade.

silky_soft

The game really does needs a shake up and QOL fixes. Not even just like the class skills balance. The game overall is really stale.

- Procs shouldn't scale on stats but item level and quality. Whether they are offensive, defensive or buff. Still let them crit and be affected by damage modifiers, but no stat scaling.

- Procs should only activate on a skill or base combat ability by a player. Not on a dot or ground damage. They also need to obey a cooldown, global 1 proc per second. Only execption to this would be on target death procs.

- Make more sets relevant,

- All % damage reduction need to be % of your armor value. Far too easy to get mitigation without sacrifice or focus.

- Battlespirit needs to have the range buff removed. Only the keep buff from passive needs to remain. Buff that further if you need.

Alchimiste1

Personally, I would start by getting rid of hybridization and then

• Gutting cross heal stacking.
• Nerfing a ton of proc sets so you have to be in melee range and visable in order for them to proc.
• Slightly nerfing some burst heals.
• Diminishing returns on Damage scaling after passing a certain health threshold (35kish).
• Focus on balancing through class skills and not new sets.

Also, I know the whole logic behind hybridization was to make the power difference between each class less, but I don't really think the method used is working in a fun way. I feel like every class should have 1 or 2 standout skills that make people want to play them. Stamplar for example used to hit very hard, but stam sustain was tough, nb should have incredible burst, but not so strong heals, dk--> strong dots not so good mobility. That made each class fun to play.

bar_boss_A

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Personally, I would start by getting rid of hybridization and then

• Gutting cross heal stacking.
• Nerfing a ton of proc sets so you have to be in melee range and visable in order for them to proc.
• Slightly nerfing some burst heals.
• Diminishing returns on Damage scaling after passing a certain health threshold (35kish).
• Focus on balancing through class skills and not new sets.

Also, I know the whole logic behind hybridization was to make the power difference between each class less, but I don't really think the method used is working in a fun way. I feel like every class should have 1 or 2 standout skills that make people want to play them. Stamplar for example used to hit very hard, but stam sustain was tough, nb should have incredible burst, but not so strong heals, dk--> strong dots not so good mobility. That made each class fun to play.

interesting takes. Especially that softcap on damage skaling - that would be really nice. But I think that would push players even more in the direction of proc sets

NuarBlack

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Personally, I would start by getting rid of hybridization and then

• Gutting cross heal stacking.
• Nerfing a ton of proc sets so you have to be in melee range and visable in order for them to proc.
• Slightly nerfing some burst heals.
• Diminishing returns on Damage scaling after passing a certain health threshold (35kish).
• Focus on balancing through class skills and not new sets.

Also, I know the whole logic behind hybridization was to make the power difference between each class less, but I don't really think the method used is working in a fun way. I feel like every class should have 1 or 2 standout skills that make people want to play them. Stamplar for example used to hit very hard, but stam sustain was tough, nb should have incredible burst, but not so strong heals, dk--> strong dots not so good mobility. That made each class fun to play.

Hybridization wasn't a bad idea in theory. There were a lot of left out power fantasies under the Magicka/Stamina dichotomy such as spell blades and such. It just being half done is what was bad. To where it becomes a red herring. Players just choosing the best morph isn't a problem of Hybridization. It's a problem because there is clearly a "best" morph. It seems that ZoS used Hybridization to be lazy rather than provide more player options.

Skjaldbjorn

NuarBlack wrote: »

Hybridization wasn't a bad idea in theory. There were a lot of left out power fantasies under the Magicka/Stamina dichotomy such as spell blades and such. It just being half done is what was bad. To where it becomes a red herring. Players just choosing the best morph isn't a problem of Hybridization. It's a problem because there is clearly a "best" morph. It seems that ZoS used Hybridization to be lazy rather than provide more player options.

To be honest, it's really impossible for there not to be a "best" morph. Power scales vary wildly. Unless the two skills are literally identical across morphs and the only variance is the resource cost, which defeats the purpose really, there will always be one side of a skill that is superior for a litany of reasons.

NuarBlack

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

To be honest, it's really impossible for there not to be a "best" morph. Power scales vary wildly. Unless the two skills are literally identical across morphs and the only variance is the resource cost, which defeats the purpose really, there will always be one side of a skill that is superior for a litany of reasons.

Under the current state of the game I may agree. But, I'd also say it almost always has to do with the major buff and debuff system. In almost every situation the morph that provides one of the key major buffs or debuffs is always going to be the better option. Cause so many of those buffs and debuffs are mandatory to have on a build. Oakensoul was very telling in this regard.

Cause hot take, if you got rid of major brutality/sorcery, resolve, savagery/prophecy, etc. you would see build options open up dramatically. You could get more creative with morphs. Cause skills like Crystal frags and Crystal weapon that don't fall along into the major buff/debuff I think give meaningful choice. Problem is this takes effort and doesn't neatly fit into ZoS spreadsheet power balance approach.

ESO_Nightingale

bar_boss_A wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Honestly, the removal of Stam/Mag "identity" is a terrific change. It further skewed Class Identity to boil down to linear, nonsensical delineation based on which max resource you had. Unless you meant something else by what you said, I firmly disagree there.

understandable that my one line grudges did spark a discussion. To further clarify: nowadays speccing into max magicka or stamina is not worth the investment as all other stats scale much better and easier. Additionally, now that resource management is easy af there is no incentive to go this route. There should be a new incentive to stack into one resource or maybe both, some examples which come to my mind:

• hybridization on weapon/spell damage and crits but not on max resource would help distinguish hybrids from mono builds. You could either slot all the strongest skills and they are a bit less effective as you sit around 20k max mag and stam. Or you restrict yourself on skills by investing into only one resource but therefore your chosen skills hit/heal/tank a bit harder.
• alternatively healing could get a stronger max stat modifier and a weaker weapon/spell damage modifier. So you could invest more into spell/weapon damage and have higher damage but weaker heals or invest into max resources and have lower damage but higher heals (this would bring max Hp based heals in line)

Just some ideas to make max resource stacking interesting again

bit of a radical idea from me and some people ive discussed this with, and i'm sure many other people have suggested it, but i think for the health of the game and healers as a role, healing should be massively reduced across the board. healing in pve is simply ridiculous in the fact that topping people up is easy to do with 1-2 abilities and playing healer doesn't feel like it's about healing. tanks and healers are just supports. i think to solve this, healing should be entirely removed from weapon/spell damage scaling. when heals do as much as they currently do, you can mostly sustain yourself without any healers with just a tiny amount of investment, usually in 1 slot in your bar, or through strong passive healing in a rotational buff/skill. pvp healing is so high its also a bit of a disaster as well, though damage too is also incredibly strong. making a change like this would also require adjustments to damage outputs and tankiness as well, so it seems like an unlikely thing to happen. but after playing WoW and realising that healers can actually exist as a real thing and not like an afterthought in that game was pretty crazy to me.