The whole Jabs Animation thing

Woodenplank · May 7

Since I don't want to disappear in the next forum purge let me state first; I am not clamouring for changes, or s**tposting about Templar state - I am just here to encourage explanation and discussion.
Since the Templar Jabs/Sweeps received fundamental changes in U35, two years have already passed, and many new players might not even understand the issue of "new" jabs animation. And even older players, who just didn't play Templar at the time, may not be exactly aware of how it changed.
For those, I shall try to lay out the facts and popular notions on what changed.

Animation
Jabs changed for 4 hits channeled over 1 second ---> to 3 hits channeled over 0.8 seconds.
Instead of the "light spear" seen in other Templar skills (e.g. Blessed Shards), the animation now uses a (transparent, yellow) image of the Nighthollow staff style.

This change had in fact been requested by some players prior to U35. ESO's global cooldown (GCD) for skill casting is 1 second, but initiating a Light Attack (LA) in the last 0.2-0.1 seconds of the GCD, allows you to cancel the animation and weave it into the next skill.
Since Jabs ran on a full 1 second channel, you can to try to fill in an LA between the 3rd and 4th jab somehow, and it made weaving sort of clunky. As can be seen in the second gif above, the new jabs rolls very easily into the next cast (spam).

Adjustment
Since the ability changed so fundamentally, ZOS packackaged it with several other adjustments.

Reduced the cost of this ability and the Puncturing Sweeps morph to 2295, down from 2700.
The ability could now be cast more frequently (at reduced power), so it makes sense for the cost to be toned down.
And 2295/2700 = 85% of original cost, so it blends fairly well with the 80% of original channel time.
Reduced the overall damage of the primary attack by approximately 21% since this ability no longer incurs a DPS loss while weaving within the 1 second global cooldown window.
Herein lies probably the most fundamental change. The damage of a full Jab (3 hits @ ~79% damage) was now significantly lower than before (4 hits @ 100%), but ZOS reasoned that Templars would recuperate the DPS loss through better LA weaving.
However - as many Templar players will corroborate - Jabs and Sweeps feel somewhat lacklustre in PVP. And I believe the above change is at the crux of the matter. In PVP you simply don't always get perfect weaving, you might not weave LAs into your jabs at all, if you're swapping bars and using heals, roll-dodging or blocking, you won't hit that 0.2-second weave window with any consistency. In a 1v1, Jabs will never hit as hard as it once did.
Increased the damage of the Area of Effect hits by approximately 7%.
That is; damage dealt to enemies *beyond* the main target take more damage. Not quite enough to bridge the gab between 3 and 4 total hits, but the attack is executed faster, and more cheaply, so for AoE purposes efficiency was mostly retained, I think.
Reduced the duration of the snare to 0.5 seconds per hit, down from 1 second.
I frankly don't see how this connects to the rest of the changes, but it is what it is.
Puncturing Sweeps (morph): Reduced the healing of this morph to 33%, down from 40%.
This change, however, seems to directly contradict the other changes. The ability's damage was decreased, thus decreasing the healing - now only 3/4 hits and dealing 21% less damage per hit. And it's not like Magplars could recuperate the healing loss with better LA weaving.

If ZOS simply felt that the healing was overtuned, and due a nerf, it seems strange to package such a nerf along with such drastic changes to the rest of the ability.
Regardless, a Magplar fighting a 1v1 would now generate significantly less self-healing from Puncturing Sweeps.
Biting Jabs (morph):This morph now also increases the damage of the Area of Effect portion of the attack by 25%, in addition to the base 7% damage increase.
Again, the AoE damage of the ability receiving some love. Of course, we have to remember yet again that additional LA weaving won't help area damage, so a 25% damage increase still doesn't quite acount for the lower base damage/number of hits.

In summary
The U35 changes to Puncturing Strikes and its morphs

Reduced the channel time, and number of hits to 3 hits over 0.8 seconds; down from the original 4 hits over 1 seconds.
Made the ability easier to weave for DPS rotations, animation cancelling with light attacks.
Reduced the overall single-target damage each hit by ~21%, and area damage by ~15-19%.
Changed duration of the snare to 0.5 seconds, down from 1 second
Reduced the healing (of the magicka morph) from 40% to 33%.

I hope this was interesting, or at least informative.

AcadianPaladin · May 7

The bad news is that the animation is now ugly.

The good news is that the animation doesn't matter since the skill was nerfed enough so that it is no longer worth slotting.

reazea · May 7

Ya, they gutted templar in other ways with U35 too. They nerfed power of the light too.

The night hollow stave change to jabs is the most inexplicable though, by far. Why didn't they at least leave the animation as the same spear of light as the other templar spear animations are? And what's with the jerky side motion?

I'll forever be mystified as to how these changes made it through quality control.

Woodenplank · May 7

reazea wrote: »

Ya, they gutted templar in other ways with U35 too. They nerfed power of the light too.

This happened in another update, I believe. The 8.1.5 (aka. Update 35) patch notes only changed Jabs, Spear Shards, and the Burning Light passive.

reazea wrote: »

The night hollow stave change to jabs is the most inexplicable though, by far. Why didn't they at least leave the animation as the same spear of light as the other templar spear animations are? And what's with the jerky side motion?

Yeah, I understand that the animation had to change somehow when changing the number of hits. But jamming in a vampiric motif staff with a big ol' sideways backswing feels... awkward in comparison to the old look.

sneakymitchell · May 7

I can see the issue with damage loss cause it forces you to light attack often. But if you use melee it be hard to swing if you can’t tell where the max range is. Even though best spamable aoe in the game. It still lacks damage in single target fights most times cause needing to light attack always.

Not every one has the best pc or sometimes the servers are lagging behind on attacks.

Reason why I might just go sorc cause the rotation is simple and substain is great if you use pet build.

Templar execute is the best. That’s only thing that makes Templar viable.

Necrotech_Master · May 7

sneakymitchell wrote: »

I can see the issue with damage loss cause it forces you to light attack often. But if you use melee it be hard to swing if you can’t tell where the max range is. Even though best spamable aoe in the game. It still lacks damage in single target fights most times cause needing to light attack always.

Not every one has the best pc or sometimes the servers are lagging behind on attacks.

Reason why I might just go sorc cause the rotation is simple and substain is great if you use pet build.

Templar execute is the best. That’s only thing that makes Templar viable.

the range on jabs is 8 meters, melee range is 7 meters so its close enough that there shouldnt be a large gap

an avg character takes up about 1-1.5 meter radius circle in terms of physical space but the hitbox is probably at least 2 meters

my templar still uses jabs, though its stam and i use biting jabs instead of sweeps, but i do like how i can actually use the jesus beam on a stam build and sustain it decently lol

Woodenplank · May 7

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

my templar still uses jabs, though its stam and i use biting jabs instead of sweeps, but i do like how i can actually use the jesus beam on a stam build and sustain it decently lol

Likewise.

But I can't help but feel, at least from a PVP perspective, that it's just stubbornness. I mean... just having an Arcanist in group pops Minor Evasion on everyone, and there goes 10% of my Spammable damage.
... Kynareth save you if they're also packing the Major variant from Quick Cloak or whatever...

Hotdog_23 · May 8

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

The bad news is that the animation is now ugly.

The good news is that the animation doesn't matter since the skill was nerfed enough so that it is no longer worth slotting.

Same no longer use Jabs, which is a shame because it was the second character I ever made, and the reason I made it was because of how it looked. I wonder what the metrics are on how often it was used prior to all the changes vs. how often it is used now.

Don't see ZOS ever going back and changing the skill back, as they would have to admit failure same as Necros GLS ability. Better to just say and do nothing.

Stay safe

Necrotech_Master · May 8

Woodenplank wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

my templar still uses jabs, though its stam and i use biting jabs instead of sweeps, but i do like how i can actually use the jesus beam on a stam build and sustain it decently lol

Likewise.

But I can't help but feel, at least from a PVP perspective, that it's just stubbornness. I mean... just having an Arcanist in group pops Minor Evasion on everyone, and there goes 10% of my Spammable damage.
... Kynareth save you if they're also packing the Major variant from Quick Cloak or whatever...

i dont play my templar in pvp, but i understand where people are coming from with the jabs being "weak", in pvp they are absolutely weak unless your rocking huge amounts of penetration

LukosCreyden · May 8

The jabs animation change is bad and has in fact ruined the class for many people.

The animation looks awful; I would genuinely be happy if templar reverted back to before U35.
It is inexplicable. It uses a vampire motif for the 'spear'.
It looks wonky. The weird shovel sweep, the way your weapon boops out of existence when you cast it is especially noticeable.
It is lazy. Jabs is the only skill that uses the new 'spear'. All the other skills use the old one.
Jabs and flurry are by far the worst animations in the game. They both look ridiculous and ugly. No animator worth their salt could make such things and feel any pride in their work.

The fact that they haven't backtracked this change is baffling, the only explanation is a bizarre sense of pride and stubborness; they won't accept that this change is bad.

It reminds me of the grim focus glow, except that is a bug and the whole 'collecting feedback' thing was purely to buy time to try and find a fix, which evidently they were unable to do.

I live.in constant fear of the day that sorc receives animation "upgrades".

Woodenplank · May 8

LukosCreyden wrote: »

Jabs and flurry are by far the worst animations in the game. They both look ridiculous and ugly.

At the risk of getting [SNIPPED] for offensive language, I must admit the new Flurry is particularly upsetting. The old version may have looked a little off with, say, maces, since it was all stabby-stabby-stabby, but the new one has your character flailing around their weapons like they're one of those inflatable tube figures on top of sketchy used car dealerships.

LukosCreyden wrote: »

The fact that they haven't backtracked this change is baffling, the only explanation is a bizarre sense of pride and stubborness; they won't accept that this change is bad.

I can sympathize with this somewhat. Stubbornness might be one of the most silly human notions, but it is human, after all.
And in this case, if ZOS changed the animation back/undid the U35 changes, you run into "admitting you were wrong" and "sunk cost fallacy" - and people hate both of those.

Still wish they would just take the hit though...

Cast_El · May 13

They never did any communication about those nerfs (jab+burning light). Same for U36 Hen they destroyed power of the light... Now templar is the only class without burst delay skill

huskandhunger · October 22

please @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin has there been any discussion on the spear the Templar uses? Potentially options related to the models visuals?

Joy_Division · October 23

They went through all that trouble to allow Templars to weave in a regular Light attack, and then they release a mythic (Velothi Ur-Mage's Amulet) ideally suited for a Templar that reduces Light attack damage by 99%.

To me, the Jabs change epitomizes why ZOS balance-by-spreadsheet approach doesn't work. In their mind, because some people might be able to hit the same DPS on a target dummy, everything is fine and the skill is balanced.

No it isn't. I really dislike the visuals/sound/aesthetic. The AoE damage is much less. Fewer hits = Fewer potential procs. The healing is noticeably less. The skill was iconic and should not have been so fundamentally altered.

The thing is, even if ZOS reverted the change, I don;t think it would do enough for jabs. The reality is with the introduction to an easily accessible damage reductions of 20% and 10% via Evasion, slotting the Templar spammable for PvP is just a bad strategy, a roleplay choice rather than a strategic or efficient one. It might not make a difference fighting PuGs or glass cannons indifferent to defensive aspects of their build, but competitive players will leverage that disadvantage and a 30% reduction in damage from a spammable is just crazy.

For PvE purposes, I highly disliked the 6.1.5 changes, which gutted the healing from the AoE component of the skill, which basically removed the class's distinctiveness of relying on large incoming healing Vs. numerous enemies. They are now no better at this than NBs and worse than sorcerers and Arcanists.

The_Meathead · October 23

Joy_Division wrote: »

The reality is with the introduction to an easily accessible damage reductions of 20% and 10% via Evasion, slotting the Templar spammable for PvP is just a bad strategy, a roleplay choice rather than a strategic or efficient one. It might not make a difference fighting PuGs or glass cannons indifferent to defensive aspects of their build, but competitive players will leverage that disadvantage and a 30% reduction in damage from a spammable is just crazy.

I feel called out.

It's me.

I'm the guy who still plays a PvP Jabs build about 2/3 of the time just because I love the ability so much, even with the decidedly less attractive current appearance.

I'm the guy who goes in and builds with all the damage modifiers and stacks Spell Damage so high (~10K with Torc) that Jabs still does *something* in PvP, but man is it an uphill climb. There's zero question I'm taking a massive loss to efficiency when I do it, and I perform far, far better/easier on Rangeplar or arguably even with a Bash Build (not really ideal on Templar, unfortunately, which makes it all the sillier.)

Everything you said is so on point.

Jabs was destroyed for no good reason and even if it fully reverted to pre-U35 tomorrow, the freebie Minor Evasion from Arcanists to their groups, especially, and the prevalence of Evasion in general would still be problematic for the ability.

Jabs really needs some work and a reversion to the old animation. The fact it's not only NOT happening or acknowledged (see: all the posts about the disconnect from Customer Feedback), but that ZOS recently went out of its way to nerf the Maelstrom 2h's effects on *specifically stated* Jabs... it's ludicrous.

Please ZOS, GIVE US BACK ER JABS.