Merciless Resolve bug/exploit - Stacks do not expire - Wait in stealth with 5 stacks for easy wins!!

SkaraMinoc · October 24

This needs to be fixed ASAP.

Nightblades can build up 5 stacks of Merciless and sit on them indefinitely while hiding. Then pop out and use them after a 500 balorgh for 35-40k damage. There is no counter for this bug/exploit.

and another..

SkaraMinoc · October 24

Doesn't Anthelmir need a heavy attack? It's not showing in CMX. That means they hit me for 35k+ damage in 1 second.

27k armor, 1848 crit resist, Minor Protection + Contingency (8% mitigation) + Duelist's Rebuff (6%) + Ironclad (6%)

How many stacks of Merciless does a heavy attack give? 13k damage Merciless seems too much for 1 heavy attack.

Caecus0 · October 24

Merciless does NOT have an expiration. It's funny because the Stamina morph, Relentless, DOES have an expiration.

1 LA gives 1 stack. A Heavy Attack gives 2 stacks.

SkaraMinoc · October 24

Caecus0 wrote: »

Merciless does NOT have an expiration. It's funny because the Stamina morph, Relentless, DOES have an expiration.

1 LA gives 1 stack. A Heavy Attack gives 2 stacks.

So you can frontload a ton of damage by sitting on Merciless stacks indefinitely? How nice.

Zabagad · October 24

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

Merciless does NOT have an expiration. It's funny because the Stamina morph, Relentless, DOES have an expiration.

1 LA gives 1 stack. A Heavy Attack gives 2 stacks.

So you can frontload a ton of damage by sitting on Merciless stacks indefinitely? How nice.

This is an issue since 1 year or so (Interesting that someone as well informed as you missed it for so long!) when they changed Merciless and Bound Armaments. (but BA kept the 10s timer.)
I'm still convinced that this was not on purpose and just a sideeffect of the change.
But everybody (there was a very small discussion about the real problem) was just complaining about the permanent red glow

Edit: it was from Update 39

Turtle_Bot · October 24

Yes, MR stacks are permanent until the ability is cast (or until you switch zones).

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

So you can frontload a ton of damage by sitting on Merciless stacks indefinitely? How nice.

So, yes, NB can easily do this, light attack a wolf somewhere 5 times, front loading 300 (or 400) weapon/spell damage and a pre-charged MR proc that remains with them permanently until they cast the MR proc (or switch zones).

This issue was raised back when MR and BA were changed in U39, but was left in and never addressed, probably because the loudest complaints at the time were about the perma-glow it had (apparently glowing weapons is more important to fix than the hardest hitting non-ultimate ability (second hardest hitting ability in the game including ultimates, behind only DK stam leap) having a permanent (on both bars) 5 piece set bonus on a class that can force it to crit, which also procs the latest, broken proc set at the same time).

xylena_lazarow · October 24

Yeah I'm unclear why I'm seeing players stealth gank with this skill. I thought the whole 5 light attack thing was to prevent exactly that? Merciless shouldn't even work at all against targets you haven't fully visibly engaged.

gariondavey · October 24

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Yes, MR stacks are permanent until the ability is cast (or until you switch zones).

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

So you can frontload a ton of damage by sitting on Merciless stacks indefinitely? How nice.

So, yes, NB can easily do this, light attack a wolf somewhere 5 times, front loading 300 (or 400) weapon/spell damage and a pre-charged MR proc that remains with them permanently until they cast the MR proc (or switch zones).

This issue was raised back when MR and BA were changed in U39, but was left in and never addressed, probably because the loudest complaints at the time were about the perma-glow it had (apparently glowing weapons is more important to fix than the hardest hitting non-ultimate ability (second hardest hitting ability in the game including ultimates, behind only DK stam leap) having a permanent (on both bars) 5 piece set bonus on a class that can force it to crit, which also procs the latest, broken proc set at the same time).

Doesn't seem like an issue to me...

xylena_lazarow · October 24

gariondavey wrote: »

Doesn't seem like an issue to me...

You can circumvent the reason it was given its specific charge mechanic in the first place.

Turtle_Bot · October 24

gariondavey wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Yes, MR stacks are permanent until the ability is cast (or until you switch zones).

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

So you can frontload a ton of damage by sitting on Merciless stacks indefinitely? How nice.

So, yes, NB can easily do this, light attack a wolf somewhere 5 times, front loading 300 (or 400) weapon/spell damage and a pre-charged MR proc that remains with them permanently until they cast the MR proc (or switch zones).

This issue was raised back when MR and BA were changed in U39, but was left in and never addressed, probably because the loudest complaints at the time were about the perma-glow it had (apparently glowing weapons is more important to fix than the hardest hitting non-ultimate ability (second hardest hitting ability in the game including ultimates, behind only DK stam leap) having a permanent (on both bars) 5 piece set bonus on a class that can force it to crit, which also procs the latest, broken proc set at the same time).

Doesn't seem like an issue to me...

pre-loading a full 5 piece set that works on both bars + the second strongest burst ability in the game (including ultimates) on a class that has the most damage modifiers in the game as well as the ability to force a guaranteed crit on any ability they choose that can do all of this at any point without even being seen at all...
Yeah definitely sounds fair and balanced and not open to abuse/exploitation at all 🙄🙄🙄

Turtle_Bot · October 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Doesn't seem like an issue to me...

You can circumvent the reason it was given its specific charge mechanic in the first place.

interesting, found the notes regarding that and yep, the whole reason it was changed in back in 5.0.5 was to reduce the free passive damage it was enabling on top of the strong burst.

Screenshot of the 5.0.5 change notes in UESP wiki including the dev comments:

Highlighted the relevant point from the dev comments

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · October 24

Only the merciless morph holds it's charge like this out of combat iirc, so it seems more likely just a bug in ZOS's code then intended behaviour

gariondavey · October 24

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Yes, MR stacks are permanent until the ability is cast (or until you switch zones).

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

So you can frontload a ton of damage by sitting on Merciless stacks indefinitely? How nice.

So, yes, NB can easily do this, light attack a wolf somewhere 5 times, front loading 300 (or 400) weapon/spell damage and a pre-charged MR proc that remains with them permanently until they cast the MR proc (or switch zones).

This issue was raised back when MR and BA were changed in U39, but was left in and never addressed, probably because the loudest complaints at the time were about the perma-glow it had (apparently glowing weapons is more important to fix than the hardest hitting non-ultimate ability (second hardest hitting ability in the game including ultimates, behind only DK stam leap) having a permanent (on both bars) 5 piece set bonus on a class that can force it to crit, which also procs the latest, broken proc set at the same time).

Doesn't seem like an issue to me...

pre-loading a full 5 piece set that works on both bars + the second strongest burst ability in the game (including ultimates) on a class that has the most damage modifiers in the game as well as the ability to force a guaranteed crit on any ability they choose that can do all of this at any point without even being seen at all...
Yeah definitely sounds fair and balanced and not open to abuse/exploitation at all 🙄🙄🙄

Exactly :P

CameraBeardThePirate · October 24

So Nightblades can stack Merciless ahead of time but Necros can't even consume corpses that were created in combat once combat ends? Seems about right.

Cast_El · October 30

Caecus0 wrote: »

Merciless does NOT have an expiration. It's funny because the Stamina morph, Relentless, DOES have an expiration.

1 LA gives 1 stack. A Heavy Attack gives 2 stacks.

I reported the difference to Zos one year ago. They didn't change it

SkaraMinoc · November 16

This needs to be fixed ASAP.

SkaraMinoc · November 16

This 17k bow should not be possible with only 2 light attacks.

There was nobody around and they were sitting in stealth with 3 to 5 Merciless stacks waiting to use them.

SkaraMinoc · November 16

@ZOS_BrianWheeler How do you feel about front loading 35k+ damage from stealth? Do you feel that's balanced? I'd love to hear your opinion on this.

Vaqual · November 16

It's just one of those things were it is not clear to me how this can exist for months without even being addressed.

dark_hunterxmg · November 17

The change to merciless happened many patches ago(maybe U36?) . The problem with the stacks expiring is that they would expire randomly with the timer still going(back when it had a timer). Before the change I could be fighting a player and then move on to another player very nearby, but the stacks would go away because I was "out of combat" for a millisecond. They would even drop in the middle of the cast of an incap. Other instances would be when fighting tower runners. I would find myself no longer in combat and lose all stacks even though I was still in the tower chasing. It was very annoying to use, and I often would not even slot the skill at all because of that. While an expiration time would be okay to have, I don't think it should be tied to being in combat since "in combat" is not always clear or correct.

RomanRex · November 17

seems to be by design and not miistake

warm_blanket · November 17

I've been vaporized by cloaked nb's comboing anthelmir's into a bow proc while I was fighting another player. Never thought to complain about it though, as it's not hard to dodge it if you're paying attention to the incoming audio cues.

The annoying part of that specific combo is that it's ranged. As for getting opened on by melee bow proc combos, those really shouldn't be critting on anyone at all unless there is weird lag happening. The minimum delay on the projectile is enough to dodge/block it, and again there's often audio cues that allow avoiding the burst attempt altogether.

Maybe what people are really looking for is a built-in visual cue for when the projectile is flying at them from stealth, like the arcanist stun or what tarnished got.

Vaqual · November 17

RomanRex wrote: »

seems to be by design and not miistake

Arguing against it would be that both morphs behave differently, they did not announce the change and the ability text does not indicate the behaviour.
You could argue that the stam morph deserves to lose the stacks because it give 30 % more WD, but allowing to pre-load the bigger hit of the mag morph is then just as nonsensical.

Ever since they introduced this change I thought they are going to either address or fix it in the respectively next patch, but still nothing happened. I don't think most people can afford this level of sloppiness at their job.

Cast_El · November 25

Here the thread from October 2023 :
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/645036/merciless-resolve-keep-your-stack-outside-of-combat-bug#latest

Cast_El · November 25

Didn't get any response, @ZOS_Kevin can you comment on this?

The_Meathead · November 25

RomanRex wrote: »

seems to be by design and not miistake

Seems more likely to be an oversight or something left lazily hanging after an attempted fix another problem.

Hopefully it gets addressed or we at least get a response.

Turtle_Bot · 05:28

Cast_El wrote: »

Didn't get any response, @ZOS_Kevin can you comment on this?

We won't get a response anytime this week since most of ZOS, including @ZOS_Kevin are away for thanks giving. Hopefully we can get a response (preferably one that's more than just "we will look into it") when they return.

Even if it was the intended design, at least let us know, and maybe we can then provide more appropriate feedback on the other similar abilities that have this stack mechanic but don't keep their stacks permanently (relentless focus, bound armaments, whip, crux, corpses, etc) to get those abilities fixed.