Elephant in the Room - The End-Game PVP Culture is Declining. How Can ZOS Mitigate This?

i11ionward · November 21

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I do want to add though, the current WardenBladeX build (where X is just insert 3rd skill line of choice) that plagues PvP needs addressing. Solving Charm will fix most of the warden aspect of this build, but the elephant in the room with this build is the Assassination skill line. This skill line needs massive nerfs to it's insane crit chance bonuses (that makes it a mandatory skill line for DPS in both PvE and PvP) and the removal of firing multiple bow procs back to back that are basically ultimate level abilities, but without the long build up time (30s+) that ultimates are supposed to have.

Honestly, while the Assassination skill line shows up in almost every build and can feel repetitive or annoying, I actually like the amount of damage it brings. For the first time in years, I’m seeing some of the BG veterans — the ones who used to tank five people and still counterkill — actually having a hard time surviving against 2–3 opponents. That’s a healthy shift, in my opinion.

As long as healing stays as overtuned as it currently is, I really don’t think the Assassination line needs damage nerfs. If anything, I’d rather see more skill lines brought up to its level, instead of dragging this one down.

And also, @Turtle_Bot, I’m assuming you’re an experienced player — you’ve definitely noticed that, against mid- to high-skill players, maybe 1 out of 4 bow procs actually lands for meaningful damage. Most people just dodge or block them. Looking at bow procs against below-average players doesn’t make sense either, because those players die with or without them. So to me, the whole “bow proc problem” is pretty overblown.

AD_ThisIsTheWay · November 21

i11ionward wrote: »

Honestly, while the Assassination skill line shows up in almost every build and can feel repetitive or annoying, I actually like the amount of damage it brings. For the first time in years, I’m seeing some of the BG veterans — the ones who used to tank five people and still counterkill — actually having a hard time surviving against 2–3 opponents. That’s a healthy shift, in my opinion.

@i11ionward I really appreciate and respect your optimistic perspective here. We should ABSOLUTELY be speaking highly about the positive things subclassing has done for the meta. It isn't all bad. The changes have definitely made the game refreshing.

Turtle_Bot · 6:03AM

i11ionward wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I do want to add though, the current WardenBladeX build (where X is just insert 3rd skill line of choice) that plagues PvP needs addressing. Solving Charm will fix most of the warden aspect of this build, but the elephant in the room with this build is the Assassination skill line. This skill line needs massive nerfs to it's insane crit chance bonuses (that makes it a mandatory skill line for DPS in both PvE and PvP) and the removal of firing multiple bow procs back to back that are basically ultimate level abilities, but without the long build up time (30s+) that ultimates are supposed to have.

Honestly, while the Assassination skill line shows up in almost every build and can feel repetitive or annoying, I actually like the amount of damage it brings. For the first time in years, I’m seeing some of the BG veterans — the ones who used to tank five people and still counterkill — actually having a hard time surviving against 2–3 opponents. That’s a healthy shift, in my opinion.

As long as healing stays as overtuned as it currently is, I really don’t think the Assassination line needs damage nerfs. If anything, I’d rather see more skill lines brought up to its level, instead of dragging this one down.

And also, @Turtle_Bot, I’m assuming you’re an experienced player — you’ve definitely noticed that, against mid- to high-skill players, maybe 1 out of 4 bow procs actually lands for meaningful damage. Most people just dodge or block them. Looking at bow procs against below-average players doesn’t make sense either, because those players die with or without them. So to me, the whole “bow proc problem” is pretty overblown.

@i11ionward One of the issues I have with the Assassination line as a whole, is that it's stale, but that's not the only issue I have with the line.

Being Stale:

In PvP, we have seen NBs everywhere, ever since the class got completely overhauled (giga-buffed) in U35, with the only (very brief) reprieve being during U41 when Hardened Ward got mega buffed (which has since been nerfed to even weaker than pre-U41). PvE used to be a nice respite from seeing NB (assassination) everywhere, but since sub-classing was introduced we have also been seeing NB everywhere in PvE as well (well alongside beam, but it's still NB/Assassination).

It's time for NB to face the same nerf hammer that the rest of the classes have been forced to cycle through over the past 5 years to finally cycle that class out of the meta and bring some fresh playstyles into the game (DoTs/Pressure, Bash, Brawlers, etc.), especially for PvP, and a big part of that is adjusting Assassination and Spec Bow in particular.

Other issues with Assassination:

People complained during the U46 PTS about Storm Calling being too strong for having a mix of Offense and Defense power in the one skill line, but Assassination has that same mix of power, turned up to the extreme.

Assassination is significantly stronger that Storm Calling because it not only buffs damage in a way that no other skill line can (via crit chance, crit damage and massive unique damage done/taken modifiers), but it also buffs the already overpowered healing on top of this. It is so strong compared to other mixed lines because healing gets buffed even more than damage does by those same crit stats because there's no healing mitigation stat in this game like there is armor/percent bonuses/blocking for damage taken. This is why Healthy Offering seemed so overpowered pre-U46 despite being a reskinned Honor the Dead on paper, it was being buffed like crazy by the crit passives from Assassination that no other class had access to within their skill lines.

There's a reason crit chance outside of the named buffs are supposed to be super hard to get in ESO and even more so in PvP. This stat is the strongest stat in the game and it is that strong for both damage and healing, the later of which does not need any such buffs.

As for Spec bow in particular:

It's the combination of everything that ability has.
- It has the highest base and scaling co-efficient in the entire game.
- It gets to stack up multiple procs to fire off back to back to back and the stacks last indefinitely (in PvE) and for a long enough duration in PvP, meaning there's no thought/skill involved in building up at the right time, just build and hold for the combo.
- It gets one of the best named buffs in the game, that being Major Prophecy/Savagery, that buffs both healing and damage significantly, just for slotting it on either bar, not even having to use it.
The above would be more than strong enough of an ability on its own, but this ability also gets a free burst heal on-top of everything listed above.

Spec bow is quite literally the 1 button do everything ability that players were claiming ward used to be. To give an example, I have been using Spec Bow as my sole burst heal in PvE, no need for another heal, barely any need for pale order either when playing solo due to how frequently bow can be cast and how much it heals for on top of how much damage it does meaning I don't need to waste a damage GCD or bar slot on a burst Heal like I would if not using Spec bow. This is absurd power for a single ability to have and is only really matched (in PvE) by Arc Beam, which is also getting a lot of complaints about it because it's so strong for DPS while also providing very strong defensive utility on top of that massive damage.

While I appreciate the higher damage of recent patches, there are some abilities and skill lines that take even this aspect too far or do so in ways that also unintentionally buff healing on top of this. This is why I have issues with Assassination line as a whole and Spec Bow in particular and it is why we are seeing this line on nearly every single build across both PvE and PvP. Other lines need bringing up, sure, but not to the level of Assassination/Spec Bow.

Imo, Aedric Spear is about the level that I would like to see DPS lines be brought up to and Assassination nerfed down to, where they provide strong DPS options, and some unique defensive options for the characters using those lines for different playstyles, but nothing that is so universally strong/universally buffs aspects across multiple roles in the game as crit chance.

We also need to remember that Spec Bow was originally balanced around never having access to other delayed burst to stack with it, but sub-classing has completely eliminated this designed balance factor to Spec Bow, while ZOS failed to rework Spec bow to account for losing this balance aspect when they introduced sub-classing.

There's a lot ZOS can do to balance Spec bow and Assassination while keeping damage high.

- Make the crit passives/secondary effects only work for damage, not healing (this removes the unnecessary, and probably unintended, buffs this line gives to healing).
- Remove the burst heal from Bow proc and make the stacks fall off after a shorter duration (20 seconds max), (this introduces skill in actually building up and timing the burst).
- Adjust some of the percent damage modifiers (incap, concealed, etc) to have their current max values only apply to Assassination/NB skills, and only at half values for non-NB abilities/damage (this limits the generic buff everything that Assassination currently grants sub-classed builds).

These changes would barely hit pure NB too, since the damage remains the same, healing will need to be slightly adjusted, but this can be done with changes to the Siphoning line, which appears to be NBs designated healing line.