Pillow fight between heals topping off health, massive AOE pulls to constantly try to avoid, and 1 shot heavy attack builds. Fun.

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Hybridization was the biggest mistake this game has ever made.

What they've done is fundamentally incompatible with the core game design! They've created a "have your cake and eat it too" meta with regards to players just taking the strongest abilities without any consequences. Having access to the strongest Stam abilities should limit the strongest Magicka abilities in some way and vice versa. The core game design balanced this by having the abilities scale off different stats so you could Min/Max but couldn't Max/Max. There is a reason why Max/Max-ing isn't a thing in games, ZOS has created that.

It's also made balance all but impossible because if say, Stamina Sorcerer is overperforming and Magicka Sorcerer is underperforming (both painfully true) anything they buff to bring Magicka Sorcerer up to par is just going to be snatched by StamSorc to make it even more overpowered, and anything they nerf to reign in StamSorc is going to hurt MagSorc just as much.

It's past time for ZOS to admit their mistake and start rolling this back. The current meta SUCKS. Give us back distinct identities for Magicka and Stamina!

This sounds plausible and I kind of want to belive it, but does it really hold up? One class variant being beaten into pulp by legitimate nerfs to the other, or to an entirely different class, isn't new. I feel magblade has historically suffered from nerfs directed at stamblades and (shield nerfs / changes) directed at magsorcs. We always had shared weapon and armor skill lines, e.g. particularly resto staff / Healing Ward and the light armor shield.

Even an Oakensoul DK needs to be min/maxed. You want Bloodspawn. You want Decisive. You probably want another ulti-gen set.

Everyone went out and got Oakensoul first. I did. I get it. I'm playing a hybrid NB. Sustain-wise I'm still a magblade using Concealed, but I'm also using Whirlwind and the equivalent stamblade is darn similar. Both stam and mag DK use Molten Whip these days too.

With that said, there are other playstyles. I'm trying the Lefthander's Belt, which everyone says is crap, but well, Jorvuld's <cough>, Arcane Alacrity CP <cough>. Not saying it's meta good, but it's certainly interesting and I feel I'm not on top of it yet. My habits of dodging versus blocking need to change with that set. It plays differently. Point is some things - Oakensoul - will likely be nerfed and some others - Dov Rha / Sea Serpents - are actually hard to farm and currently overshadowed, because people are busy with Oakensoul.

I get your point about the hybrid meta. I get that good players can't kill each other. That's not exactly new, though. That happens every patch. If a patch starts out super high damage, give it 3 weeks and everyone's wearing Pariah or something along those lines. That has happened and I don't blame ZOS for this, or only partially. Players want this. They want to be the one to survive and 1vX, because that's probably the sexiest thing you can do to show off on Twitch / YouTube. You tend to get locked into certain playstyles by your habits and muscle memory too. If you know how to 1vX on a tanky character, that's what you know and gravitate towards. You're probably wise to be tanky, because of the lag. I mostly play squishy characters. The slightest hint of lag, I'm out of there. Squishy characters are only viable in low lag, at least when you try to play a versatile, rounded character.