ZOS just obliterated the Azureblight set with the upcoming U44

JiubLeRepenti

https://youtube.com/watch?v=KrKAwsox2nI

Base damage was cut by 60%. Sixty percent. For a set that is five years old... Really?

Before telling me it’s not that bad, please check the screen. And if you still think it’s not that bad, please check it twice.

Once again, we have to endure an uncontrolled and large-scale nerf that responds to a very specific abuse (in this case, mostly, PvP ball groups).

This is the first time I’ll tag someone here, but... @ZOS_Kevin is it definitive and irrevocable?

Azureblight was just working fine in PvE and was greatly helping people playing solo. I always use it when running four people dungeons in solo.

BXR_Lonestar

I'm not sure what this is in reference to, but as someone who plays in a ballgroup a few times a week - I never see this set. I keep hearing about it over-performing, but I see no evidence of it. I never see this set in PVP, I've actually tried using it in PVP, and unless you coordinate it with a large amount of other players who are also using it, the effects are very underwhelming. That takes a huge commitment to actually make it work, and if people are making that commitment, so be it, let them enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The set is okayish in PVE, but I'm finding Macabre's vintage much more reliable and easy to use in PVE.

JiubLeRepenti

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I'm not sure what this is in reference to, but as someone who plays in a ballgroup a few times a week - I never see this set. I keep hearing about it over-performing, but I see no evidence of it. I never see this set in PVP, I've actually tried using it in PVP, and unless you coordinate it with a large amount of other players who are also using it, the effects are very underwhelming. That takes a huge commitment to actually make it work, and if people are making that commitment, so be it, let them enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The set is okayish in PVE, but I'm finding Macabre's vintage much more reliable and easy to use in PVE.

The set was not used in ball groups; it was used against them, to wipe them out.

JiubLeRepenti

Azureblight nerf in a shell...

Kisakee

Did you ever heared the tragedy of Darth Plaguebreak the Wise?

JiubLeRepenti

Kisakee wrote: »

Did you ever heared the tragedy of Darh Plaguebreak the Wise?

I did.

And I'm afraid the same thing might happen to other nice farm/grind/solo sets like these ones. Just in order to fix a very specific problem in a very specific field.

Just feel like ZOS is fixing a porcelain doll with boxing gloves.

katanagirl1

Kisakee wrote: »

Did you ever heared the tragedy of Darh Plaguebreak the Wise?

Yes, that one made me retire my Grand Overlord templar.

Funny no one mentions that in the list of templar nerfs. It just killed the whole class in PvP.

moderatelyfatman

Kisakee wrote: »

Did you ever heared the tragedy of Darh Plaguebreak the Wise?

You just made my day!

JiubLeRepenti

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Kisakee wrote: »

Did you ever heared the tragedy of Darh Plaguebreak the Wise?

Yes, that one made me retire my Grand Overlord templar.

Funny no one mentions that in the list of templar nerfs. It just killed the whole class in PvP.

This make we wonder how ZOS decides which are the sets/classes to nerf, why they do it...

For instance here with Azurblight, what's the goal? To allow ballgroups to spread through Cyrodil without any resistance?

acastanza_ESO

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Kisakee wrote: »

Did you ever heared the tragedy of Darh Plaguebreak the Wise?

Yes, that one made me retire my Grand Overlord templar.

Funny no one mentions that in the list of templar nerfs. It just killed the whole class in PvP.

This make we wonder how ZOS decides which are the sets/classes to nerf, why they do it...

For instance here with Azurblight, what's the goal? To allow ballgroups to spread through Cyrodil without any resistance?

That's literally what happened, Ballgroup leads made forum threads crying that they were dying for once, and ZOS, instead of seeing that nearly every page of those threads was calling out those ballgroupers on their outright fabrications and misrepresentation decided to listen to the people making things up and nerf the set instead of the obvious and vocal majority opposition. It's actually insane.

gamma71

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Kisakee wrote: »

Did you ever heared the tragedy of Darh Plaguebreak the Wise?

Yes, that one made me retire my Grand Overlord templar.

Funny no one mentions that in the list of templar nerfs. It just killed the whole class in PvP.

This make we wonder how ZOS decides which are the sets/classes to nerf, why they do it...

For instance here with Azurblight, what's the goal? To allow ballgroups to spread through Cyrodil without any resistance?

They use their own stupid RNG system probably to make decisions there's no intelligent thought involved in most things.

Synapsis123

That video proved why they are nerfing that set. 5 targets and the set makes up 40% of your damage. On live all you need is 2 targets and you it can make up 40% of your damage. Name me another set that is that impactful due to the 5 piece?

Rkindaleft

Synapsis123 wrote: »

That video proved why they are nerfing that set. 5 targets and the set makes up 40% of your damage. On live all you need is 2 targets and you it can make up 40% of your damage. Name me another set that is that impactful due to the 5 piece?

It's probably a good thing that ball groups were dying to it in PvP. It's the only set in the whole game that is a viable counter to them. All the majority of ball groups do is farm casuals and PvErs and avoid all other ball groups anyway which is kind of cringe.

This change is really bad for PvE. If ZoS wants the set to be less impactful in PvE they just have to stop designing fights that require an unrealistic amount of cleave. After the past 3-4 years of creating fights that require high levels of cleave damage (Bahsei HM, Reef Guardian HM, Ansuul HM, pretty much all of Lucent Citadel...) they then decide to nerf cleave damage potential - the set has been out for 5 years and nobody ever complained about it in PvE. I really don't get the philosophy. All this is doing is annoying trials players and forcing them to do significant reprogression of content they've already done, which while maybe not to the scale of U35, gives shades of it.

baconaura

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=KrKAwsox2nI

Base damage was cut by 60%. Sixty percent. For a set that is five years old... Really?

Before telling me it’s not that bad, please check the screen. And if you still think it’s not that bad, please check it twice.

Once again, we have to endure an uncontrolled and large-scale nerf that responds to a very specific abuse (in this case, mostly, PvP ball groups).

This is the first time I’ll tag someone here, but... @ZOS_Kevin is it definitive and irrevocable?

Azureblight was just working fine in PvE and was greatly helping people playing solo. I always use it when running four people dungeons in solo.

its actually worse than that. the time between azureblight explosions also doubled from 0.5s to 1s. so effective another half off the dps ontop of the 60% base damage reduction

baconaura

Synapsis123 wrote: »

That video proved why they are nerfing that set. 5 targets and the set makes up 40% of your damage. On live all you need is 2 targets and you it can make up 40% of your damage. Name me another set that is that impactful due to the 5 piece?

i dunno. coral? relequen? those make up signifcant part of a dps's damage, and they are still meta for so long. but there are choices if they remove those sets, or nerf them. but for sets like azureblight, where we need to stack 1-3 things together, there arent any good alternatives.

basically if the nerf goes through, it will mean asking for more arcanist in group compositions with everyone wearing coral/deadly. so basically you lost build/set diversity for different situations. now its just boring and everyone wearing the samething for all encounters. classes that dont have much cleave, or dont have specialized jobs like mk/zenkosh/ec groups would probably end up asking for arcanist to fill instead of those other classes.

Synapsis123

baconaura wrote: »

Synapsis123 wrote: »

That video proved why they are nerfing that set. 5 targets and the set makes up 40% of your damage. On live all you need is 2 targets and you it can make up 40% of your damage. Name me another set that is that impactful due to the 5 piece?

i dunno. coral? relequen? those make up signifcant part of a dps's damage, and they are still meta for so long. but there are choices if they remove those sets, or nerf them. but for sets like azureblight, where we need to stack 1-3 things together, there arent any good alternatives.

basically if the nerf goes through, it will mean asking for more arcanist in group compositions with everyone wearing coral/deadly. so basically you lost build/set diversity for different situations. now its just boring and everyone wearing the samething for all encounters. classes that dont have much cleave, or dont have specialized jobs like mk/zenkosh/ec groups would probably end up asking for arcanist to fill instead of those other classes.

If a set is the only thing propping up classes versus arcanist then either arcanist is broken and needs nerfs or the other class needs buffs. It doesn't mean we should be continuing to prop up the classes with a broken set.

baconaura

Synapsis123 wrote: »

If a set is the only thing propping up classes versus arcanist then either arcanist is broken and needs nerfs or the other class needs buffs. It doesn't mean we should be continuing to prop up the classes with a broken set.

This set alone is not propping up other classes against arcanist. Some of the other classes just dont have any good built in cleave or aoe/dot dmg. until they fix that, there will be certain classes that lag behind arcanist and dk even with azureblight in some of the newer trials where there is alot of stuff that needs to be stacked and cleaved.

If we are looking at more singletarget oriented fights, it tells a different story, and arcanists are nowhere near the front in terms of dmg. maybe 3rd place behind templars and dks, and other classes like sorcs, and wardens compete with arcanists well.

noone says the templar beam is broken, because with the content requirements in vlc, vdsr, vrg just dont play to templar's strengths, but plays to arcanist strength. vka probably templar could be top parser easily.

As a community, instead of asking for zos to nerf arcanist, or sets, we should be asking them to buff or increase the toolkit for classes and redo some of the dead sets to make them viable alternatives.

Synapsis123

You claim that the Azureblight set isn’t solely propping up classes against arcanists, but it undeniably skews balance. If other classes lack effective cleave or AoE/DOT damage, that’s a design flaw that needs addressing, not an excuse to let arcanists dominate or leave in an overpowered set.

In the first sentence of your response you disagree with me, but in the second one you agree with me. Which one is it? Should we leave the broken set alone to prop up the other classes versus arcanist or should we nerf the set and fix the classes?

MidniteOwl1913

This is one of the few very good sets that doesn't require trials. That alone should be a reason for ZOS to reconsider, but I doubt they will. My faith in them hasn't recovered from U35.

baconaura

Synapsis123 wrote: »

You claim that the Azureblight set isn’t solely propping up classes against arcanists, but it undeniably skews balance. If other classes lack effective cleave or AoE/DOT damage, that’s a design flaw that needs addressing, not an excuse to let arcanists dominate or leave in an overpowered set.

In the first sentence of your response you disagree with me, but in the second one you agree with me. Which one is it? Should we leave the broken set alone to prop up the other classes versus arcanist or should we nerf the set and fix the classes?

yeah, until they give us alternatives, and address the lack of effective cleave, and aoe for classes, they shouldnt be taking away the only viable way for them to accomplish that cleave and be on a similar playing field.

how is the set broken if its doing what it was intended for... for situations requiring cleave? other classes can wear azureblight and be competitive with arcanist in cleave fights. in situations where you dont need cleave you run other sets, and like i said, multiple classes wearing the same sets as arcanist, beat out those arcanists in fights where azureblight isnt optimal and wouldnt wear it.

JiubLeRepenti

baconaura wrote: »

Synapsis123 wrote: »

You claim that the Azureblight set isn’t solely propping up classes against arcanists, but it undeniably skews balance. If other classes lack effective cleave or AoE/DOT damage, that’s a design flaw that needs addressing, not an excuse to let arcanists dominate or leave in an overpowered set.

In the first sentence of your response you disagree with me, but in the second one you agree with me. Which one is it? Should we leave the broken set alone to prop up the other classes versus arcanist or should we nerf the set and fix the classes?

yeah, until they give us alternatives, and address the lack of effective cleave, and aoe for classes, they shouldnt be taking away the only viable way for them to accomplish that cleave and be on a similar playing field.

how is the set broken if its doing what it was intended for... for situations requiring cleave? other classes can wear azureblight and be competitive with arcanist in cleave fights. in situations where you dont need cleave you run other sets, and like i said, multiple classes wearing the same sets as arcanist, beat out those arcanists in fights where azureblight isnt optimal and wouldnt wear it.

Fully agree with this.

JiubLeRepenti

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

This is one of the few very good sets that doesn't require trials. That alone should be a reason for ZOS to reconsider, but I doubt they will. My faith in them hasn't recovered from U35.

Yup but I don't know how we can reach devs (I'm not very used with this forum and the way ZOS interacts with it).

TaSheen

The people you need to "reach" are the devs. And they don't interact with the forum at all. Kevin will occasionally state he's referring something to "the team". And that's as far as it goes.

DigiAngel

Hehe...I'm glad I stopped playing. The constant moving target of sets is beyond annoying.

BXR_Lonestar

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I'm not sure what this is in reference to, but as someone who plays in a ballgroup a few times a week - I never see this set. I keep hearing about it over-performing, but I see no evidence of it. I never see this set in PVP, I've actually tried using it in PVP, and unless you coordinate it with a large amount of other players who are also using it, the effects are very underwhelming. That takes a huge commitment to actually make it work, and if people are making that commitment, so be it, let them enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The set is okayish in PVE, but I'm finding Macabre's vintage much more reliable and easy to use in PVE.

The set was not used in ball groups; it was used against them, to wipe them out.

Fair enough, but when? I play in a ball group at least a few times a week and I've never seen it or been killed by it.

ArchMikem

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

[nd if you still think it’s not that bad, Azureblight was just working fine in PvE and was greatly helping people playing solo. I always use it when running four people dungeons in solo.

I mean, you were never meant to solo content designed for groups in the first place.

Aggrovious

ArchMikem wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

[nd if you still think it’s not that bad, Azureblight was just working fine in PvE and was greatly helping people playing solo. I always use it when running four people dungeons in solo.

I mean, you were never meant to solo content designed for groups in the first place.

You are so right. Forgot about fun, because this set and Plaguebreak were fun. Go to Skyreach and test it before its nerfed. I already scrapped mine to get my transmutes back. ZOS hates AOE sets so much.

JiubLeRepenti

ArchMikem wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

[nd if you still think it’s not that bad, Azureblight was just working fine in PvE and was greatly helping people playing solo. I always use it when running four people dungeons in solo.

I mean, you were never meant to solo content designed for groups in the first place.

I disagree on this. It's clear that in a MMO, first and easiest part of group content is about to be done by HL solo players.

All the non-DLC dungeons, for instance, are feasible alone.

And even if it was not the case, I don't really see how/why it justifies to nerf a five years old set with a butcher's knife that is easily in the top five of the most used sets by PvE DDs just because it affect a small portion of PvP players.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I'm not sure what this is in reference to, but as someone who plays in a ballgroup a few times a week - I never see this set. I keep hearing about it over-performing, but I see no evidence of it. I never see this set in PVP, I've actually tried using it in PVP, and unless you coordinate it with a large amount of other players who are also using it, the effects are very underwhelming. That takes a huge commitment to actually make it work, and if people are making that commitment, so be it, let them enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The set is okayish in PVE, but I'm finding Macabre's vintage much more reliable and easy to use in PVE.

The set was not used in ball groups; it was used against them, to wipe them out.

Fair enough, but when? I play in a ball group at least a few times a week and I've never seen it or been killed by it.

Just check the dozens of comments under the video I posted in my initial post. Everybody's complaining ballgroups and how Azureblight was helping players to fight against them.

And it's kinda logical that a set that is very powerful against stacked enemies, is very powerful against ballgroups.

o_Primate_o

AB great for trash but <snip> for bosses. Unless u don't mind swapping sets during dungeon raids, go back to pillar.

<snipped for Cursing and Profanity>

exoib

@ZOS_Kevin would appreciate some more responses to the feedback given by the community on the changes, the set is completely useless now for all scenarios, pve/pvp, multi-target, single target.

My feedback is to just reverse the base damage and keep the target cap to 6 to reach max stacks of damage, also the set should be disabled in pvp.

Major_Mangle

exoib wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin would appreciate some more responses to the feedback given by the community on the changes, the set is completely useless now for all scenarios, pve/pvp, multi-target, single target.

My feedback is to just reverse the base damage and keep the target cap to 6 to reach max stacks of damage, also the set should be disabled in pvp.

It absolutely shouldn't be disabled in pvp.