[SUGGESTION] Hybridize Major/Minor Brutality/Sorcery and Major/Minor Savagery/Prophecy

twing1_ · July 20

TL;DR:

In line with ZOS's goals of hybridizing the Major/Minor buff system, Brutality and Sorcery should be hybridized into Major/Minor Brutality, which would grant bonuses to both Spell and Weapon Damage. Similarly, Savagery and Prophecy should be hybridized into Major/Minor Savagery, which would grant bonuses to both Spell and Weapon Critical.

Then, Major/Minor Sorcery should be renamed to Major/Minor Physique, which would provide bonuses to the player's Maximum Stamina and Magicka (10% for Major, 5% or Minor). Similarly, Major/Minor Prophecy should be renamed to Major/Minor Piercing, which would grant bonuses to the player's Offensive Penetration (5948 for Major, 2974 for Minor).

This change would still allow each of the 4 original classes (Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer, Templar) of ESO to contribute a unique Minor buff to their party, making sure they all remain desirable for endgame group play. The introduction of Major buffs providing bonuses to Maximum Stamina/Magicka and Offensive Penetration could also help standardize bonuses to Maximum Stamina/Magicka and Offensive Penetration found elsewhere throughout the game.

INTRODUCTION

ZOS has clearly stated it is their goal to hybridize the Major/Minor buff system, which is indisputably the right direction to move in. Hybridization of abilities has proven to increase build flexibility and simplify the game to make it more understandable and easier to pick up for new players. On top of this, almost all of the Major/Minor buffs have already been hybridized (Major/Minor Resolve granting both Physical and Spell Resistance, Major/Minor Breach lowering both Physical and Spell Resistance, etc).

The remaining outliers that have not yet been hybridized are Major/Minor Brutality (Weapon Damage), Major/Minor Sorcery (Spell Damage), Major/Minor Savagery (Weapon Critical Rating), and Major/Minor Prophecy (Spell Critical Rating). If I were to guess why these buffs in particular have not yet been hybridized, I would assume it is because the 4 original classes of ESO (Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer, and Templar) were each designed with a way of providing the Minor version of one of these buffs to their party to give them a way of contributing to group play and ensuring that class diversity was desirable. Dragonknights could provide Minor Brutality to the party, Nighbtlades could provide Minor Savagery to the party, Sorcerers could provide Minor Prophecy to the party, and Templars could provide Minor Sorcery to the party. When class balance in group play is so dependent on the non-hybridized versions of these buffs, I can understand how it could be difficult to find a way to hybridize Brutality/Sorcery and Savagery/Prophecy. Hybridizing these buffs would remove the unique party buff each of these 4 original classes contribute to group play, which could eventually leave some classes out of the endgame meta. Therefore, this situation should be handled delicately, and when hybridization of these buffs occurs, it is important to replace each of these 4 class's unique party buffs with a desirable substitute.

That being said, it is long past time that hybridization of these buffs occur.

THE PROPOSAL

This proposal at its core has 4 distinct components:

1. Major/Minor Brutality (currently offering a 20%/10% bonus to Weapon Damage) should be hybridized to offer a 20%/10% bonus to both Weapon and Spell Damage. This would exist simply as a hybridized version of the old Major/Minor Brutality and Sorcery that would be provided by the Dragonknight toolkit.

2. Major/Minor Savagery (currently offering a 2629/1314 bonus to Weapon Critical Rating) should be hybridized to offer a 2629/1314 bonus to both Weapon and Spell Critical Rating. This would exist simply as a hybridized version of the old Major/Minor Savagery and Prophecy that would be provided by the Nightblade toolkit.

3. Major/Minor Sorcery (currently offering a 20%/10% bonus to Spell Damage) should be renamed to Major/Minor Physique and be changed to offer a 10%/5% bonus to Maximum Stamina and Maximum Magicka. This would exist as a new unique buff that would be provided by the Templar toolkit.

4. Major/Minor Prophecy (currently offering a 2629/1314 bonus to Spell Critical Rating) should be renamed to Major/Minor Piercing and be changed to offer a 5948/2974 bonus to Offensive Penetration. This would exist as a new unique buff, and the player-centered buff complement to the target-centered Major/Minor Breach debuff, that would be provided by the Sorcerer toolkit.

THE IMPACT

This change, if implemented, would finally conclude the effort to hybridize the Major/Minor buff system, while at the same time retaining the current game balance of having each of the 4 original classes provide a unique Minor buff to the party as a contribution to group play. The introduction of Major/Minor Physique and Major/Minor piercing would marginally contribute to overall power creep within the game by providing a new and easily sourced 5% bonus to Maximum Stamina/Magicka and 2974 bonus to Offensive Penetration, but in the overall scheme of things this would be fairly negligible.

The 5% Maximum Stamina/Magicka provided by the proposed Minor Physique would hardly affect end game damage output, but would still be desirable for score pushers.

The introduction of an extra 2974 Offensive Penetration by the proposed Minor Piercing would have a slightly larger impact that would allow Medium Armor DPS to drop either the 2 lines of Offensive Penetration set bonuses or the Sharpened weapons they are expected to bring in the current meta, but this could actually positively impact build variety. Under this change, a Medium Armor DPS player could bring Armor Sets that offer no lines of Offensive Penetration at all and still get close enough to the penetration cap by bringing Sharpened weapons, or they could instead bring 2 lines of Offensive Penetration set bonuses and forgo Sharpened weapons altogether. This is ultimately a good thing, as it would allow give players more flexibility in the sets they can bring to trial compositions.

This change could also standardize other sources of bonuses to Maximum Stamina/Magicka and Offensive Penetration found throughout the game. As an example, Warhorn's currently unnamed bonus of 10% Maximum Stamina/Magicka would become part of the Major/Minor system by being adopted under the Major Physique buff that would grant a 10% bonuses to Maximum Stamina/Magicka. Similarly, the armor debuffs provided by Roar of Alkosh and Crimson Oath's Rive could be converted into the proposed, player-centered Major Piercing buff, which would increase the ease-of-use of both of these sets and potentially increase the frequency at which they are used in group content. I am sure there are other bonuses throughout the game that can fit under the umbrella of the proposed Major Physique and Piercing buffs as well, but these examples are all that are coming to mind right now.

CONCLUSION

Overall, the changes I am proposing in this post could benefit the overall health of ESO by finalizing the hybridization of the Major/Minor buff system and potentially increasing build diversity, without dramatically upsetting the current meta or status quo of class balance.

Let me know what you think of this proposed change, especially if there are parts of the picture that I am missing or have not yet considered.

Necrotech_Master · July 20

they literally already have plans to do this lol

edit: the ETA is likely unknown due to their shifting schedule due to the layoffs, but it was slated for next update

IZZEFlameLash · July 20

They are doing this and that is why Sorc and Templars are losing Minor Prophecy and Minor Sorcery respectively, replaced by some small penetration bonus and armor bonus respectively.

LunaFlora · July 20

September 21.
update 51 has this

twing1_ · July 20

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

They are doing this and that is why Sorc and Templars are losing Minor Prophecy and Minor Sorcery respectively, replaced by some small penetration bonus and armor bonus respectively.

This is an awful solution to this problem, and I am sad to hear they are going this route. It should be retained that each of the 4 original classes provide a minor buff to the party so they can contribute to group play. It sounds like ZOS's planned changes would likely keep Minor Brutality/Sorcery for DKs and Minor Savagery/Prophecy for NBs, while Sorcerers are to be given a small unnamed buff to Offensive Penetration that is likely to affect only themselves, and Templars are to be given a small unnamed buff to Physical/Spell Resistance that is likely to affect only themselves.

I understand that some of each class's value in group play was redistributed to the class mastery skills when those were implemented, but it still doesn't make sense to me that some classes will still provide value to the team through these mastery skills and also the unique minor buff they provide, while other classes will have their unique minor buff removed entirely. This is sure to affect the desirability of bringing the classes who lost their minor buffs into end game content.

The much more elegant solution would have been to replace the minor buffs being removed from a class's toolkit with a different, but still desirable minor buff that can be provided by that class to the entire team. A solution that implements this, like the one I have outlined above, would do a better job of preserving the intended class balance.

IZZEFlameLash · July 20

twing1_ wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

They are doing this and that is why Sorc and Templars are losing Minor Prophecy and Minor Sorcery respectively, replaced by some small penetration bonus and armor bonus respectively.

This is an awful solution to this problem, and I am sad to hear they are going this route. It should be retained that each of the 4 original classes provide a minor buff to the party so they can contribute to group play. It sounds like ZOS's planned changes would likely keep Minor Brutality/Sorcery for DKs and Minor Savagery/Prophecy for NBs, while Sorcerers are to be given a small unnamed buff to Offensive Penetration that is likely to affect only themselves, and Templars are to be given a small unnamed buff to Physical/Spell Resistance that is likely to affect only themselves.

I understand that some of each class's value in group play was redistributed to the class mastery skills when those were implemented, but it still doesn't make sense to me that some classes will still provide value to the team through these mastery skills and also the unique minor buff they provide, while other classes will have their unique minor buff removed entirely. This is sure to affect the desirability of bringing the classes who lost their minor buffs into end game content.

The much more elegant solution would have been to replace the minor buffs being removed from a class's toolkit with a different, but still desirable minor buff that can be provided by that class to the entire team. A solution that implements this, like the one I have outlined above, would do a better job of preserving the intended class balance.

Yeah, it is quite tragic that they'd rather give small amount buffs (iirc, the values were around 1000s) to replace lost minor buffs.

madmufffin · July 20

twing1_ wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

They are doing this and that is why Sorc and Templars are losing Minor Prophecy and Minor Sorcery respectively, replaced by some small penetration bonus and armor bonus respectively.

This is an awful solution to this problem, and I am sad to hear they are going this route. It should be retained that each of the 4 original classes provide a minor buff to the party so they can contribute to group play. It sounds like ZOS's planned changes would likely keep Minor Brutality/Sorcery for DKs and Minor Savagery/Prophecy for NBs, while Sorcerers are to be given a small unnamed buff to Offensive Penetration that is likely to affect only themselves, and Templars are to be given a small unnamed buff to Physical/Spell Resistance that is likely to affect only themselves.

I understand that some of each class's value in group play was redistributed to the class mastery skills when those were implemented, but it still doesn't make sense to me that some classes will still provide value to the team through these mastery skills and also the unique minor buff they provide, while other classes will have their unique minor buff removed entirely. This is sure to affect the desirability of bringing the classes who lost their minor buffs into end game content.

The much more elegant solution would have been to replace the minor buffs being removed from a class's toolkit with a different, but still desirable minor buff that can be provided by that class to the entire team. A solution that implements this, like the one I have outlined above, would do a better job of preserving the intended class balance.

Until we get an actual value, I wouldn't worry about getting upset about it. Group pen actually sounds very effective and could mitigate the need for a light armor piece in a lot of content. No reason to belief the buffs wouldn't be group wide though given how all class passives are group buffs.

madmufffin · July 20

Also, 6k pen on a sorc would be diabolical for pvp.