Thanks for the extra group buffs in PVP ZOS

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · April 13

The community as a whole has been calling out for pvp group buffs so it's of great relief to see that ZOS has listened to the feedback yet again.

Free Major Berserk and Protection from DK's in group regardless of the ultimate they cast.
Lead From the Front: This passive upgrades rank 2 of The Storm Voice to also apply Major Berserk and Protection for 1 second per 15 Ultimate spent to you and group members within 28m of you.

Free Major Heroism and Major Brittle on your enemies from Warden.
Tundra’s Maw: This passive upgrades the Chilled status effect to also apply Major Brittle for 2 seconds upon application.
Nature’s Bounty: This passive upgrades rank 2 of Nature’s Gift to grant the healed target Major Heroism for 4.5 seconds and an additional 250 Magicka and Stamina.

Extra 15% HP shields on Shielded targets from Pure Sorc.
Sphere of Influence: This passive causes your damage shield abilities to grant an additional damage shield to the target for 3 seconds that absorbs up to 15% of their Max Health as damage, scaling with 25% of the higher of your Max Magicka or Health. Targets also gain 150 Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery for 4 seconds.

This surely is the pinnacle of balance.

YandereGirlfriend · April 13

It isn't really free, though. You have to intentionally downgrade the value of a role by choosing not to subclass it. Most of these are not worth that trade when you consider the vast benefits of subclassing.

The most problematic of them is the DK passive, which is already heavily nerfed from its pre-release version (which additionally provided Major Heroism and scaled at 1 second / 10 ult rather than per 15 ult). It provides the greatest group benefits for the easiest proc condition AND it completely dumpsters Sorcerers by snatching their final remaining unique group buff (Major Berserk) away from them. So it fails on multiple levels. It robs from the poor (Sorcerers) and gives to the rich (Dragonknights), the rare reverse Robinhood.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · April 13

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

It isn't really free, though. You have to intentionally downgrade the value of a role by choosing not to subclass it. Most of these are not worth that trade when you consider the vast benefits of subclassing.

This would be the case if it really mattered to have the subclassed roles on the healers which you would be assigning to play the pure class instead.

DK for example can spec into healing no problem, sure you loose a little in the way of passives but nothing major, can decide to use barrier or magma for group support ulti and having the extra Soul of Flame for sustain / extra burst will be fine.

Warden you only need 1 of to gain the full benefit of the buffs, A full warden on Support/Heals is completely fine to play, its going to bring a lot of extra dmg by from Major brittle (can also assign it to the minor brittle role too), you lose some slight burst if you want to play full dd on it but compared to the extra Major Brittle / Major heroism I think thats a small price to pay (especially with RC and Trans being nerfed)

Similarly 1 Shield spammer swapping to full sorc whilst traditionally being DK, Necro or Arc (for the IA / Class Mastery on the scribed skills etc) won't really affect much (The sustain from losing siphoning hurts a little but made up for with the other sorc mastery passive and the huge amount of group sustain Rec Con still provides). This is also the weakest of the buffs but still any shield which scales on health is just poor for general balance.

YandereGirlfriend · April 13

Your uptime on Major Heroism in a 12-man is going to be abysmal if you are relying upon Budding Seeds and Mushrooms on a single healer to carry the uptime.

You are limited by the target cap and the reality that you need to do a real heal on a target to get the proc. In the high-shielding era and when accounting for the presence of other healers that you compete for heals with, the odds that you, a) have actual damage on a target to heal, b) get healed from the pure Warden, c) get healed specifically from a GB ability from that pure Warden, are not particularly high.

This is like Trans uptime except way, way more difficult to proc. Since instead of proccing off of any HOT (of which you will have many running on most targets at literally every moment), you are locked out of proccing the effect from sticky HOTs entirely and are relying exclusively on a ground ability, that can only ever hit half of your group on any given tick, and your burst heal, which you will only be using situationally.

OTOH, this passive would be pretty good in a small-man or especially solo, since you gain access to more abilities that can be used to proc it and are no longer fighting against mass shields, other healers, and target caps for procs. You could probably keep this up 100% as a solo using Vines on yourself and nothing else from GB. But then that loops around to giving up subclassing and that you could probably keep up Major Heroism as a solo from Shimmering while still enjoying subclassing.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · April 13

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Your uptime on Major Heroism in a 12-man is going to be abysmal if you are relying upon Budding Seeds and Mushrooms on a single healer to carry the uptime.
you are locked out of proccing the effect from sticky HOTs entirely and are relying exclusively on a ground ability.

Healing thicket is a sticky hot in the green balance tree and at 90 ulti is effectively a spamable when you have Major and Minor heroism + decisive + ulti coming from other sources.

Additionally this line from the patch notes will require testing but I imagine it will affect this too.

The following effects now update per tick instead of on area enter:
Budding Seed’s heal

You can just stick the transmutation set onto this warden and then it fulfils both roles in the raid.

Again, even without perfect 100% uptime giving major heroism to groups like this just isn't required.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · April 27

Further group buffs in today's patch notes highlights below:

Nature’s Gift: This passive now activates on Overhealing done, rather than healing done, at the behest of you all.
& This passive now grants you and group members Major Heroism for 3 seconds and 125 Magicka and Stamina,

Now 1 warden will basically perma keep up Major Heroism more easily they don't even need to heal the player to give the buff and it will always proc.

Arcanist now gives high group buffs and basically perma uptime of Major force which will allow DPS to move off Monomyth potentially + Major Vitality and Cowardice on enemies..

Ink-Scribe's Verve: This passive now grants you and group members Major Force for 10 seconds when it activates. Increased the activation threshold to 100k Health healed or overhealed, up from 75k, to account for the new power it can grant.
Erudite's Rigor: This passive now inflicts Minor Cowardice on the attacker and Major Vitality to you and your group for 4 seconds,

they only need to heal 100k in 10 seconds to proc on cooldown (from reading it without testing). That's 100k/12 = 8400 so 16800 in PVP which is basically 2 burst heals or 1 burst and 2 ticks of a couple HoTs.
lets hope the Major Vitality to their group for 4 seconds any time they take dmg is capped at 3 not 11?

xylena · April 27

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Further group buffs

Isn't this basically how they've chosen to powercreep raid PvE progression? Not sure how they manage that for PvP, unless they do a major balance pass that adds "while Battle Spirit is inactive" to a whole lot of stuff. Something like this could solve many many balance problems.