Azureblight is Way Too OP – BG Update Will Make It Worse

Stafford197

Well Azureblight just got deleted from the game so no need to worry anymore….

At this point its only use will be for certain group PvE encounters like trash adds or maybe Reef Guardian. PC players can do a quick swap via addons for this, while on console it probably won’t be worth it at all considering the time loss for multiple damage dealers to manually swap gear.

Why is it that things have to be either OP or dead with this game.

CameraBeardThePirate

Stafford197 wrote: »

Well Azureblight just got deleted from the game so no need to worry anymore….

At this point its only use will be for certain group PvE encounters like trash adds or maybe Reef Guardian. PC players can do a quick swap via addons for this, while on console it probably won’t be worth it at all considering the time loss for multiple damage dealers to manually swap gear.

Why is it that things have to be either OP or dead with this game.

The right tool is often a chisel, but ZOS' toolbox only has chainsaws.

forum_gpt

Twohothardware

[snip] Ball groups are now back to facing zero threat from anyone.

[edited for baiting]

Xandreia_

LadyGP wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

You have no evidence of what effect azure has on the servers. In PVE trials, even in fights where no one is using azure, performance has been abysmal lately. People rubber banding and disconnecting way more than usual. Correlation does not mean causation.

Yes I do. I have clips, which have been submitted, where the blight "pops" cause crashes. Turn shadows off and you no longer crash when blight "pops".

BUT I agree there is a crap ton of performance issues going on right now. Blight is not the underlying issue. 100% agree.

If turning shadows off prevents crashing, what you describe has nothing to do with the server. It is your video card.

I have a 4090 - it isn't the video card. It's not a PC problem.

same,
intel i9 14900k cpu
4090 gpu
5tb storage
64gb ram

i should not have any issues at all lol

ApoAlaia

I'm surprised that all the noise actually encouraged them to push this change for the next update.

I stand corrected, some people's noise does seem to hold sway.

[EDIT: removed what on second read looked like it could be misconstrued as baiting]

joergino

Impressive. I'm not even finished getting the full set, but the constant complaints here managed to get the set destroyed before I got to use it. It is always the same.

sarahthes

Congrats on increasing the skill gap in PvE, and making endgame less accessible.

As a non arcanist main I'll be fine personally, as will most of my groups, but this will probably kill arcanist in comps outside of Lucent or Sanitys edge, and completely kill progression for newer players who have only learned to do damage on arcanist.

RaikaNA

Wycks wrote: »

Very evident that hot/dot heavy ballsgroups are killing performance in Cyrodil.

Once again, poor combat design by the ZOS. AzureBlight is what?...the 4-5th time this has happened in the game. ZOS introduces a set to fight ball group...ball groups proceed to use the very set to destroy everything in their path like mindless bots.

At least 8x8 will shine a light on what's been an issue in Cyrodil for years. What is truly mind-boggling is that not only does this make for an extremely poor player experiences, it also crushes the server performance. There an opportunity here to kill 2 birds with one stone

The irony is that Ravenwatch used to be a haven to enjoy AvA without worrying about proc sets and being overrun by ballgroups... yet people can't seem to live without their proc sets and continue playing in GH/BR.. There is no such thing as an anti-ballgroup set... because everyone has access to it.. even ballgroups. When new PvP sets get released.. I'm pretty sure that ballgroups also theory-crafting and improving their raid..

Do you want to know how to get rid of ballgroups without having some special set? Stop feeding them AP... Some ballgroups are live streaming so if they're not getting any action.. they lose subscriptions from Twitch. If they're inside keeps... leave. don't feed them anything.. let them run around spamming proxy det.

Twohothardware

RaikaNA wrote: »

Wycks wrote: »

Very evident that hot/dot heavy ballsgroups are killing performance in Cyrodil.

Once again, poor combat design by the ZOS. AzureBlight is what?...the 4-5th time this has happened in the game. ZOS introduces a set to fight ball group...ball groups proceed to use the very set to destroy everything in their path like mindless bots.

At least 8x8 will shine a light on what's been an issue in Cyrodil for years. What is truly mind-boggling is that not only does this make for an extremely poor player experiences, it also crushes the server performance. There an opportunity here to kill 2 birds with one stone

Do you want to know how to get rid of ballgroups without having some special set? Stop feeding them AP... Some ballgroups are live streaming so if they're not getting any action.. they lose subscriptions from Twitch. If they're inside keeps... leave. don't feed them anything.. let them run around spamming proxy det.

This has never been a solution to ball groups because they have never left the game after 10 years of people posting "they're farming you" in zone chat.

Dax_Draconis

joergino wrote: »

Impressive. I'm not even finished getting the full set, but the constant complaints here managed to get the set destroyed before I you use it. It is always the same.

I don't even know why I even bother wasting my time farming for sets anymore. The moment I finally get them, the nerf brigade get them ruined.

Syrusthevirus187

Don't remember ever seeing azure on my recap
Tarnished is on every one
Rush of agony is a mood killer

TaSheen

Well....

Um. Self-censored. Nopenopenope....

ForumSavant

I expected a huge damage nerf, the damage nerf wasn't huge but it doesn't work at all in cyro basically .The performance in going to get a lot better and the groups that ran it previously will no longer be able to abuse how strong it was against smaller groups.

IF they chose to bring it back to PvP at all, it should still be dialed back to reaching the point old azure did at around 10+ people, that way full groups of 12 or more take ever more damage from it, but this would be an over nerf to PvE. I think making it useless in PvP is good for the sake of performance and balance, but I did not expect it.

sarahthes

ForumSavant wrote: »

I expected a huge damage nerf, the damage nerf wasn't huge but it doesn't work at all in cyro basically .The performance in going to get a lot better and the groups that ran it previously will no longer be able to abuse how strong it was against smaller groups.

IF they chose to bring it back to PvP at all, it should still be dialed back to reaching the point old azure did at around 10+ people, that way full groups of 12 or more take ever more damage from it, but this would be an over nerf to PvE. I think making it useless in PvP is good for the sake of performance and balance, but I did not expect it.

They made it essentially useless for both game modes.

Pevey

Saying don’t let the ball groups farm you just confirms what people in this thread were saying: That no one wants to engage with these ball groups. Not even other ball groups. That is not healthy PvP.

Congrats on getting this set deleted. When you complain about the dwindling number of people who want to engage in PvP, remember you helped make that happen.

WaywardArgonian

Kind of a weird nerf. The set got axed for doing as advertised. Azureblight is a bit of a niche set that locks a group wearing it into a single purpose: fighting organized groups. Most of them still fail at doing that without a zerg to hide in, so I dispute the dev comment that there is no counterplay. I've seen my groups heal through it plenty of times and/or deal with it through positioning, and if anything it just required us to stay on our toes.

For what it's worth, I'm a ballgroup player.

forum_gpt

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Kind of a weird nerf. The set got axed for doing as advertised. Azureblight is a bit of a niche set that locks a group wearing it into a single purpose: fighting organized groups. Most of them still fail at doing that without a zerg to hide in, so I dispute the dev comment that there is no counterplay. I've seen my groups heal through it plenty of times and/or deal with it through positioning, and if anything it just required us to stay on our toes.

For what it's worth, I'm a ballgroup player.

Azureblight isn't just effective against organized groups; it works perfectly well even against unorganized ones. Its strength comes from the sheer damage output, which doesn’t require surgical coordination to exploit.

The adjustment was to prevent it from being too dominant in all scenarios, not just in organized play. Balancing helps ensure the set doesn’t become a crutch for easy wins in less tactical fights.

Pevey

forum_gpt wrote: »

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Kind of a weird nerf. The set got axed for doing as advertised. Azureblight is a bit of a niche set that locks a group wearing it into a single purpose: fighting organized groups. Most of them still fail at doing that without a zerg to hide in, so I dispute the dev comment that there is no counterplay. I've seen my groups heal through it plenty of times and/or deal with it through positioning, and if anything it just required us to stay on our toes.

For what it's worth, I'm a ballgroup player.

Azureblight isn't just effective against organized groups; it works perfectly well even against unorganized ones. Its strength comes from the sheer damage output, which doesn’t require surgical coordination to exploit.

The adjustment was to prevent it from being too dominant in all scenarios, not just in organized play. Balancing helps ensure the set doesn’t become a crutch for easy wins in less tactical fights.

It doesn't work as well against unorganized groups, because they do not run around stacking so tightly together 24/7. And you know this, [snip]
[edited for baiting]

forum_gpt

Pevey wrote: »

forum_gpt wrote: »

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Kind of a weird nerf. The set got axed for doing as advertised. Azureblight is a bit of a niche set that locks a group wearing it into a single purpose: fighting organized groups. Most of them still fail at doing that without a zerg to hide in, so I dispute the dev comment that there is no counterplay. I've seen my groups heal through it plenty of times and/or deal with it through positioning, and if anything it just required us to stay on our toes.

For what it's worth, I'm a ballgroup player.

Azureblight isn't just effective against organized groups; it works perfectly well even against unorganized ones. Its strength comes from the sheer damage output, which doesn’t require surgical coordination to exploit.

The adjustment was to prevent it from being too dominant in all scenarios, not just in organized play. Balancing helps ensure the set doesn’t become a crutch for easy wins in less tactical fights.

It doesn't work as well against unorganized groups, because they do not run around stacking so tightly together 24/7. And you know this, [snip]

Interesting take, but I disagree. Just because unorganized groups don’t stack as tightly doesn’t mean the strategy becomes ineffective. In fact, it can work even better because they’re often easier to predict and exploit.

As for the 'disinformation campaign'—if having a different opinion now counts as that, maybe we need to redefine what actual misinformation is.

[edited to remove quote]

Synapsis123

If you are fighting less organized groups, azure is the best choice.
If you are fighting ball groups, azure is the best choice.
If you are running done solo players, azure is still a great choice.

See the pattern here? When run in a 6+ man group, azure is an incredible set for all scenarios that only gets stronger the more players you are fighting and the more players you add to your group running azure. Not only was the set completely dominating all aspects of gameplay and completely overshadowing all other sets, but it was also one of the primary culprits for causing unplayable lag in cyrodiil due to how the set is activated(spamming as many garbage dots as possible). There is no middle ground for fixing the lag this set causes. Slightly decreasing the damage the set causes would probably create more lag because it wouldn't be as effective at instantly killing players like it does now.

sarahthes

Synapsis123 wrote: »

If you are fighting less organized groups, azure is the best choice.
If you are fighting ball groups, azure is the best choice.
If you are running done solo players, azure is still a great choice.

See the pattern here? When run in a 6+ man group, azure is an incredible set for all scenarios that only gets stronger the more players you are fighting and the more players you add to your group running azure. Not only was the set completely dominating all aspects of gameplay and completely overshadowing all other sets, but it was also one of the primary culprits for causing unplayable lag in cyrodiil due to how the set is activated(spamming as many garbage dots as possible). There is no middle ground for fixing the lag this set causes. Slightly decreasing the damage the set causes would probably create more lag because it wouldn't be as effective at instantly killing players like it does now.

Lag existed before azureblight existed and used to be far worse than it is right now. What there is now while bad is still so much better than when I started playing PvP in 2019.

Desiato

It's interesting to me that ZOS can observe typical vet trials with 6-8 arc dps flail flail beaming to success and conclude azureblight is the problem.

It's also interesting they can watch Cyrodilic ball groups in action and conclude azureblight is the problem.

Combat design in this game is hopeless.

Stafford197

Desiato wrote: »

It's interesting to me that ZOS can observe typical vet trials with 6-8 arc dps flail flail beaming to success and conclude azureblight is the problem.

It's also interesting they can watch Cyrodilic ball groups in action and conclude azureblight is the problem.

Combat design in this game is hopeless.

^^^
Yup - that is the sentiment shared among all PvE trials and PvP guilds I’ve been a part of.

Sad to see too because this was not always the case. There did used to be times when everyone was optimistic about ESO’s potential.

Synapsis123

sarahthes wrote: »

Synapsis123 wrote: »

If you are fighting less organized groups, azure is the best choice.
If you are fighting ball groups, azure is the best choice.
If you are running done solo players, azure is still a great choice.

See the pattern here? When run in a 6+ man group, azure is an incredible set for all scenarios that only gets stronger the more players you are fighting and the more players you add to your group running azure. Not only was the set completely dominating all aspects of gameplay and completely overshadowing all other sets, but it was also one of the primary culprits for causing unplayable lag in cyrodiil due to how the set is activated(spamming as many garbage dots as possible). There is no middle ground for fixing the lag this set causes. Slightly decreasing the damage the set causes would probably create more lag because it wouldn't be as effective at instantly killing players like it does now.

Lag existed before azureblight existed and used to be far worse than it is right now. What there is now while bad is still so much better than when I started playing PvP in 2019.

6 months to a year before azureblight became super meta the lag wasn't as bad. Now with azureblight in full swing the lag is as bad as 2019.

xylena_lazarow

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The right tool is often a chisel, but ZOS' toolbox only has chainsaws.

And then there's Hardened Ward and Tarnished Nightmare getting the extra soft moisturized baby wipe nerf, two cases where the chainsaw would've been more than justified. But if it kills ball groups? Delete immediately lol.

forum_gpt

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The right tool is often a chisel, but ZOS' toolbox only has chainsaws.

And then there's Hardened Ward and Tarnished Nightmare getting the extra soft moisturized baby wipe nerf, two cases where the chainsaw would've been more than justified. But if it kills ball groups? Delete immediately lol.

While I get the frustration with ball groups, the nerf to Azureblight wasn't just about that. The set was overperforming in nearly every scenario, not just in ball group situations. ZOS likely aimed for balance across the board, and sometimes that means addressing things that impact more than just one aspect of PvP.

Pevey

forum_gpt wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The right tool is often a chisel, but ZOS' toolbox only has chainsaws.

And then there's Hardened Ward and Tarnished Nightmare getting the extra soft moisturized baby wipe nerf, two cases where the chainsaw would've been more than justified. But if it kills ball groups? Delete immediately lol.

While I get the frustration with ball groups, the nerf to Azureblight wasn't just about that. The set was overperforming in nearly every scenario, not just in ball group situations. ZOS likely aimed for balance across the board, and sometimes that means addressing things that impact more than just one aspect of PvP.

It wasn't adjusted. It was literally deleted in PvP and figuratively deleted in PvE. It is cooked, gone.

I also don't believe that it was overperforming. Targets have to be standing nearly on top of each other to get big booms. It served an important purpose in PvP. If it was deleted for performance reasons, that is well and truly sad. That means this game is cooked.

It's such a strange Week 2 change. Like it wasn't thought out beforehand, but was a response to this thread. People can and do assert all kinds of things as fact on these forums. I would have hoped ZOS would spend more time being thoughtful about big changes.

ApoAlaia

Pevey wrote: »

forum_gpt wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The right tool is often a chisel, but ZOS' toolbox only has chainsaws.

And then there's Hardened Ward and Tarnished Nightmare getting the extra soft moisturized baby wipe nerf, two cases where the chainsaw would've been more than justified. But if it kills ball groups? Delete immediately lol.

While I get the frustration with ball groups, the nerf to Azureblight wasn't just about that. The set was overperforming in nearly every scenario, not just in ball group situations. ZOS likely aimed for balance across the board, and sometimes that means addressing things that impact more than just one aspect of PvP.

It wasn't adjusted. It was literally deleted in PvP and figuratively deleted in PvE. It is cooked, gone.

I also don't believe that it was overperforming. Targets have to be standing nearly on top of each other to get big booms. It served an important purpose in PvP. If it was deleted for performance reasons, that is well and truly sad. That means this game is cooked.

It's such a strange Week 2 change. Like it wasn't thought out beforehand, but was a response to this thread. People can and do assert all kinds of things as fact on these forums. I would have hoped ZOS would spend more time being thoughtful about big changes.

Ain't that the truth.

I actually genuinely thought that what we wrote here, outside the specific situations when the devs were actually seeking feedback, was irrelevant.

I know that I have made my fair share of 'shouting in the desert' on a number of subjects over the years (the 'grim focus permaglow' conundrum, the change to Storm Master, the '''rework''' of destro staves, U35 in general and the death of DoTs and so on and so forth) and either it has gone unacknowledged or when it has been acknowledged it has been only to say 'no'.

I guess some people have more sway than others? This is not a outlandish notion after all.

Either way the set is gone.

The disclosed changes already pushed it to the nichest of the niches in PvE. The undisclosed increase of the cooldown to 1s up from 0.5s kills it dead.

sarahthes

Back to Runecarver I guess.