[1.6.4] Elemental Blockade : Fix it!

Brasseurfb16_ESO · February 2015

Ok, I made some tests with a Destruction Staff lately on PTS and I was wondering why ennemies were dieing so slowly with my AoEs. I made some calculation based on the way different abilities scaled with the new attributes and Elemental Blockade totaly got messed up... The skill lost over 50% DpS!!!

Bellows are the values I get on both Live and PTS servers.

Live :
Elemental Blockade -> 42 x 4 = 168 (over 3,5sec) // Average DpS = 48 dmg/sec
Funnel Health -> 157 x 1 = 157

PTS :
Elemental Blockade -> 89 x 13 = 1157 (over 6sec) // Average DpS = 178 dmg/sec
Funnel Health -> 1208 x 1 = 1208

Comparative scaling values :
Elemental Blockade -> 178 : 48 = 3,70+- multiplicator
Funnel Health -> 1208 : 157 = 7,69+- multiplicator

3,70 : 7,69 = 48% +-

So basicaly Elemental Blockade AoE/DpS has been nerfed on PTS and will deal less total damage over 6sec duration instead of 3,5sec. It is basicaly over a 50% AoE/DpS decrease with this change alone.

How to fix it :
To deal similar DpS, Elemental Blockade should at least deal -> (168 x 7,69) / 3,5 x 6 or 2214+- Total damage (over 6sec) to be even close to its current AoE/DpS on Live.

Asgari · February 2015

Wall of Elements was changed because of what My guild and myself did in pvp and turned it into the fotm. If you watch any of my older Ariana Kishi videos you'll notice no one was using walls and then once people realized the dos it dealt in pvp was devastating they started using it.

In one of my video a group of AD purged in my walls at a breach and I held close to 6k dps for roughly 30 seconds because of the purge bug. This was why WoE was nerfed into oblivion.

Brasseurfb16_ESO · February 2015

This makes no sense at all, if an ability causes a bug which drasticaly increases your DpS you don't nerf the ability to Oblivion... You fix the bug to prevent that kind of exploits instead...

Edit : From PTS note 1.6
Wall of Elements
- Increased the durations of all ranks and morphs of Wall of Elements by 2 seconds.
- Reduced the cost of Wall of Elements for all ranks.
- The damage dealt by Wall of Elements will now stack correctly with other instances of Wall of Elements cast - by other player characters that affect the same target.
- Only one Wall of Element per caster may be active at any time.
- Unstable Wall (morph): Increased the explosion damage of this ability by 30% for all ranks.

I don't see anything about reducing the damage done by the ability, I think the devs just might have miscalculated the whole conversion in damage and duration from this ability...

Asgari · February 2015

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

This makes no sense at all, if an ability causes a bug which drasticaly increases your DpS you don't nerf the ability to Oblivion... You fix the bug to prevent that kind of exploits instead...

They don't know how to fix the bug that causes the added dos issue. It's been like this for months, and when I say months I mean since launch haha.

Brasseurfb16_ESO · February 2015

Princess_Asgari wrote: »

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

This makes no sense at all, if an ability causes a bug which drasticaly increases your DpS you don't nerf the ability to Oblivion... You fix the bug to prevent that kind of exploits instead...

They don't know how to fix the bug that causes the added dos issue. It's been like this for months, and when I say months I mean since launch haha.

I just watched your video and I don't get it. What does purging actualy do in the Wall of Elements? Does it allow you to stack walls? Also what's a "dos"?

Sallington · February 2015

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

This makes no sense at all, if an ability causes a bug which drasticaly increases your DpS you don't nerf the ability to Oblivion... You fix the bug to prevent that kind of exploits instead...

You would think, right? It's crappy little bugs like this all over the place in Cyrodil that are ruining it, especially with no fixes in sight.

daemonios · February 2015

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

Princess_Asgari wrote: »

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

This makes no sense at all, if an ability causes a bug which drasticaly increases your DpS you don't nerf the ability to Oblivion... You fix the bug to prevent that kind of exploits instead...

They don't know how to fix the bug that causes the added dos issue. It's been like this for months, and when I say months I mean since launch haha.

I just watched your video and I don't get it. What does purging actualy do in the Wall of Elements? Does it allow you to stack walls? Also what's a "dos"?

What purge does is that it makes Wall of Elements explode immediately. I think in practical terms, all of the "ticks" deal damage at once. It's been a widely known issue in PvP, to the extent that purge is simply not used by many raids. And I think (though I'm no sure) that "dos" was meant to be "DoT" (Damage over Time).

C0pp3rhead · February 2015

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

Princess_Asgari wrote: »

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

This makes no sense at all, if an ability causes a bug which drasticaly increases your DpS you don't nerf the ability to Oblivion... You fix the bug to prevent that kind of exploits instead...

They don't know how to fix the bug that causes the added dos issue. It's been like this for months, and when I say months I mean since launch haha.

I just watched your video and I don't get it. What does purging actualy do in the Wall of Elements? Does it allow you to stack walls? Also what's a "dos"?

The Alliance skill Purge is bugged. If you use it to get rid of the dot from a ground-based AoE effect, such as WoE, Burning Oil siege, etc. it will probably kill you. Instead of canceling out the DoT effect, it makes all the damage tick off at once, thereby ending the dot. Because ZOS can't fix purge, they just decided to nerf WoE.

danno8 · February 2015

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

Princess_Asgari wrote: »

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

This makes no sense at all, if an ability causes a bug which drasticaly increases your DpS you don't nerf the ability to Oblivion... You fix the bug to prevent that kind of exploits instead...

They don't know how to fix the bug that causes the added dos issue. It's been like this for months, and when I say months I mean since launch haha.

I just watched your video and I don't get it. What does purging actualy do in the Wall of Elements? Does it allow you to stack walls? Also what's a "dos"?

The Alliance skill Purge is bugged. If you use it to get rid of the dot from a ground-based AoE effect, such as WoE, Burning Oil siege, etc. it will probably kill you. Instead of canceling out the DoT effect, it makes all the damage tick off at once, thereby ending the dot. Because ZOS can't fix purge, they just decided to nerf WoE.

Add to that the fact that each player can stack around 3 of them at the same time (most AoE in the game will cancel a first AoE when the same AoE is cast a second time) and you had devastating explosions of dozens of WoE at the same time + ticks.

Jahosefat · February 2015

When larger groups are running through both wall of elements and flaming oil they have to choose to purge or not purge. That is essentially the situation the bug created; which was not necessarily a bad mechanic. The have preserved this "do I purge?!?" mechanic with the new alliance war dot. So they liked the unintended mechanic, but made it so you can't use wall of elements to do that.

But yeah, the new wall of elements dmg seems low, but all the destro staff damage feels low compared to live until you have ~30k mag.

C0pp3rhead · February 2015

Jahosefat wrote: »

When larger groups are running through both wall of elements and flaming oil they have to choose to purge or not purge. That is essentially the situation the bug created; which was not necessarily a bad mechanic. The have preserved this "do I purge?!?" mechanic with the new alliance war dot. So they liked the unintended mechanic, but made it so you can't use wall of elements to do that.

But yeah, the new wall of elements dmg seems low, but all the destro staff damage feels low compared to live until you have ~30k mag.

I think you're missing the point here: the reason to use purge is to remove the DoT status effect without doing damage to the caster or his allies. It's supposed to be a counter. Unfortunately, it's bugged and works as a 'splosion-maker.

Fruitdog · February 2015

I'm too lazy to check but I swear one of the devs said that purge is fixed in 1.6. I take it from this thread that it isn't. Why am I not surprised...

C0pp3rhead · February 2015

Fruitdog wrote: »

I'm too lazy to check but I swear one of the devs said that purge is fixed in 1.6. I take it from this thread that it isn't. Why am I not surprised...

Sorry @Fruitdog , haven't had the opportunity to test out purge on the PTS. Wouldn't be surprised either way. If it's fixed then it's even more of a mystery why you can only lay down 1 WoE at a time. That's like saying only 1 DK standard in an 12-meter radius.

Joy_Division · February 2015

Elemental Wall is just bad now.

Instead of comparing it to a dingle target spell like funnel health, just compare it to what is was in 1.5 like I did here:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/152996/elemental-wall-is-still-bad#latest

Brasseurfb16_ESO · February 2015

Joy_Division wrote: »

Elemental Wall is just bad now.

Instead of comparing it to a dingle target spell like funnel health, just compare it to what is was in 1.5 like I did here:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/152996/elemental-wall-is-still-bad#latest

If you at least took time to read my post, you would have noticed by now that's what I did. I compared my values on Live and PTS for both Elemental Blockade and Funnel Health to show the huge disparity between the new scaling values from Live to PTS proving the skill only deals 48% of its former version.

OtarTheMad · February 2015

I can't believe that this was intended. I mean I knew Unstable Wall/Blockade was powerful because I have been using that as my primary AoE since launch (even getting laughed at by Impulse spammers) but now it's a joke of an ability. A bag of marshmallows will hit players harder than this lol. We'll see... maybe it wasn't intended after all or ZOS will buff it a little.

Jahosefat · February 2015

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

Jahosefat wrote: »

When larger groups are running through both wall of elements and flaming oil they have to choose to purge or not purge. That is essentially the situation the bug created; which was not necessarily a bad mechanic. The have preserved this "do I purge?!?" mechanic with the new alliance war dot. So they liked the unintended mechanic, but made it so you can't use wall of elements to do that.

But yeah, the new wall of elements dmg seems low, but all the destro staff damage feels low compared to live until you have ~30k mag.

I think you're missing the point here: the reason to use purge is to remove the DoT status effect without doing damage to the caster or his allies. It's supposed to be a counter. Unfortunately, it's bugged and works as a 'splosion-maker.

Check out "Inevitable Detonation" on the PTS- "If effect is dispelled or removed early it detonates immediately". So yeah... purging to remove status effects without doing damage to the caster or his allies is kind of a thing of the past. They fixed/neutered wall of elements and introduced the beautiful blob killer "inevitable detonation" (at the same time they raised the aoe caps to 60). So yeah, now the thing to do will be flaming oil/meatbag + inevitable detonation and you will get kills off the purges.

Bouvin · February 2015

Princess_Asgari wrote: »

Wall of Elements was changed because of what My guild and myself did in pvp and turned it into the fotm. If you watch any of my older Ariana Kishi videos you'll notice no one was using walls and then once people realized the dos it dealt in pvp was devastating they started using it.

In one of my video a group of AD purged in my walls at a breach and I held close to 6k dps for roughly 30 seconds because of the purge bug. This was why WoE was nerfed into oblivion.

That was due to stacking.

Now, the ground effect doesn't stack...so why nerf?