New Serpent Trial

Zheg

There's a new trial coming down the pipe, and more to follow most likely. We don't need another thread talking about the demoralizing balance issues between magicka and stamina builds, or the fact that even among magicka builds most of the time you're forced into cookie cutter builds in order to hit a certain required dps.

What I think should become gospel for the ZOS team that covers testing of new trials is the following:
New trials cannot be released unless they can be completed (read: doesn't need to be optimal) with ~half of the dps comes from stamina builds and ~half of the dps comes from magicka builds.
I, and many others feel we can't even participate in the current trials because of (yes balance issues... but also) the trial mechanics pigeonholing the player-base into certain cookie cutter builds. Using the above guideline, it would ensure that if by some miracle stamina builds suddenly became much more powerful than magicka builds, for the end-game pve vision ZOS has, the pendulum wouldn't swing so far to the other side that people running magicka builds would be locked out of trials like stamina users currently are.

We know balance is a hard thing to get right, and while you've made great efforts so far, you still have a long way to go. With that in mind, whoever is designing your trials needs to work in mechanics that promote build and class diversity, otherwise what's the point? If they can't design mechanics that stay true to the general vision for the game that you all led us to believe, they shouldn't be on that particular development team.

nerevarine1138

I'm currently running trials just fine with my stamina build. So I guess they've already managed to do what you asked for.

The_Sadist

What @nerevarine1138‌ said. I've ran trials with an amazing Templar who was / is stamina based. The notion of limiting trials (or any content for that matter) with your proposed idea is a bit silly and counterproductive if you ask me.

Soloeus

Zheg wrote: »

There's a new trial coming down the pipe, and more to follow most likely. We don't need another thread talking about the demoralizing balance issues between magicka and stamina builds, or the fact that even among magicka builds most of the time you're forced into cookie cutter builds in order to hit a certain required dps.

What I think should become gospel for the ZOS team that covers testing of new trials is the following:
New trials cannot be released unless they can be completed (read: doesn't need to be optimal) with ~half of the dps comes from stamina builds and ~half of the dps comes from magicka builds.
I, and many others feel we can't even participate in the current trials because of (yes balance issues... but also) the trial mechanics pigeonholing the player-base into certain cookie cutter builds. Using the above guideline, it would ensure that if by some miracle stamina builds suddenly became much more powerful than magicka builds, for the end-game pve vision ZOS has, the pendulum wouldn't swing so far to the other side that people running magicka builds would be locked out of trials like stamina users currently are.

We know balance is a hard thing to get right, and while you've made great efforts so far, you still have a long way to go. With that in mind, whoever is designing your trials needs to work in mechanics that promote build and class diversity, otherwise what's the point? If they can't design mechanics that stay true to the general vision for the game that you all led us to believe, they shouldn't be on that particular development team.

1. There is no such thing as a Stamina Build.

That is a silly term invented by people who are confused. I will demonstrate this: Lets start with the "Magicka Build" as you call it. Every Class Ability uses Magicka. That means everyone is already a "Magicka Build" by Inherent Design.

Now, the Stamina Build... Every weapon line, one Alliance War line, Fighters Guild use "Stamina" as a Resource Pool instead of Magicka. To be a "Stamina Build" you use "Stamina Skills" instead of Magicka Skills, so you aren't using your Class Abilities, Mages Guild or the other Alliance War line?

No offense, but restricting yourself like this, I wouldn't want to be in a group with you either.

2. Many people use "Hybrid" under your definitions. That is, even Sorcerer DPS builds have room for Silver Shards.

The best Melee/Archer DK's and NB's that I know who can pull well over 1.4k DPS tell me they use a 2/3 or 3/2 ratio.

To quote one of these players, she said "I don't put thought into being a Magicka or Stamina Build. I use whatever abilities I need, and that usually means a mix of both."

In Conclusion we should not be forced to group with people we don't want to be grouped with. I should be allowed to run PVP, Trials, etc. with any player no matter their build, and I should be permitted to reject them for any reason or no reason.

We can call this "At Will" policy.

P.S. - I have enjoyed many group runs with Melee Build characters who wear Medium or Heavy Armor, and find that the best teammates could play about anything. I would much rather be grouped with someone who likes their character and adapts to the situation than about anyone else. Those are the kinds of players you can have fun with.

Wifeaggro13

Zheg wrote: »

There's a new trial coming down the pipe, and more to follow most likely. We don't need another thread talking about the demoralizing balance issues between magicka and stamina builds, or the fact that even among magicka builds most of the time you're forced into cookie cutter builds in order to hit a certain required dps.

What I think should become gospel for the ZOS team that covers testing of new trials is the following:
New trials cannot be released unless they can be completed (read: doesn't need to be optimal) with ~half of the dps comes from stamina builds and ~half of the dps comes from magicka builds.
I, and many others feel we can't even participate in the current trials because of (yes balance issues... but also) the trial mechanics pigeonholing the player-base into certain cookie cutter builds. Using the above guideline, it would ensure that if by some miracle stamina builds suddenly became much more powerful than magicka builds, for the end-game pve vision ZOS has, the pendulum wouldn't swing so far to the other side that people running magicka builds would be locked out of trials like stamina users currently are.

We know balance is a hard thing to get right, and while you've made great efforts so far, you still have a long way to go. With that in mind, whoever is designing your trials needs to work in mechanics that promote build and class diversity, otherwise what's the point? If they can't design mechanics that stay true to the general vision for the game that you all led us to believe, they shouldn't be on that particular development team.

both trials are doable , just not by using the intended mechanics. all the 10 minute guilds do them by exploiting mechanics and the ignoring of them. the whole trial system needs an overhaul and a additional option to do them with out limited res at the very least. Trails on the whole are a poor implementation of end game activities.

Zheg

To the above two posters, have you been able to do a trial group where a few people are running stamina builds and still meeting the dps requirements? Because you being the lone wolf and 95% of the other group needing to run magicka builds still sounds broken to me.

Mechanics to promote build diversity sounds the complete opposite of 'limiting' to me. The game itself promotes a play as you want style, and you have an insane amount of options to develop your build. End game PVE should not run entirely counter to what they promoted their game as.

Which sounds better?
1) Turtling in a clump to get hit by aoe heals and defensive buffs while cookie cutter dps rotations are spammed (current mechanics)
2) Every 10% hp lost the boss goes into danger mode for 30 seconds, each player has an aoe over time attack centered on them that increases damage when you overlap red circles with another player, and the boss is dropping heavy hitting aoe on the ground that you need to run around and avoid/use defensive abilities.

That sounds far more fun to me, and would give really good groups a chance to demonstrate real skill by both having a low finish time AND keeping group members alive during that.

Xnemesis

I prefer hybrid players, they tend not to die as much because they obey the mechanics and don't stand in fire. They didnt have the luxury of being able to faceroll everything pre trials so they tend to play the game and understand things better.

A person who moves from danger, dodges, blocks, and interrupts is much better than a clothy wondering why they aren't top dps and claiming lag while going over their death recap.

Zheg

Soloeus wrote: »

1. There is no such thing as a Stamina Build.

That is a silly term invented by people who are confused. I will demonstrate this: Lets start with the "Magicka Build" as you call it. Every Class Ability uses Magicka. That means everyone is already a "Magicka Build" by Inherent Design.

Now, the Stamina Build... Every weapon line, one Alliance War line, Fighters Guild use "Stamina" as a Resource Pool instead of Magicka. To be a "Stamina Build" you use "Stamina Skills" instead of Magicka Skills, so you aren't using your Class Abilities, Mages Guild or the other Alliance War line?

No offense, but restricting yourself like this, I wouldn't want to be in a group with you either.

2. Many people use "Hybrid" under your definitions. That is, even Sorcerer DPS builds have room for Silver Shards.

The best Melee/Archer DK's and NB's that I know who can pull well over 1.4k DPS tell me they use a 2/3 or 3/2 ratio.

To quote one of these players, she said "I don't put thought into being a Magicka or Stamina Build. I use whatever abilities I need, and that usually means a mix of both."

In Conclusion we should not be forced to group with people we don't want to be grouped with. I should be allowed to run PVP, Trials, etc. with any player no matter their build, and I should be permitted to reject them for any reason or no reason.

We can call this "At Will" policy.

P.S. - I have enjoyed many group runs with Melee Build characters who wear Medium or Heavy Armor, and find that the best teammates could play about anything. I would much rather be grouped with someone who likes their character and adapts to the situation than about anyone else. Those are the kinds of players you can have fun with.

Rather than focus on semantics (and wrongly), when people say stamina build 99% don't mean that all 5 abilities are stamina based. We mean that if we put a good amount of points into stamina, and if we spec so that we try to get our weapon abilities to be our heavy hitters, we should be able to perform the minimum dps required for end game pve trials in a majority of cases. I use whatever abilities I need to as well, but unfortunately, at the current state of trials, in most cases this doesn't just mean I need to do slight tweaks to abilities, but I need to change my weapon itself, and my armor type.

Having a token 'melee character' in your trial group doesn't mean that trial mechanics or build balance is fine and dandy. If you're able to complete trials with multiple melee characters in your group, then we're making progress.

If you're out running around in the world (including Cyrodil) you see a fantastic mix of staves, bows, DW, 2H, and 1H + Shield (though probably more staves at this point...). When you're inside of one of the trial instances, look around and tell me what kind of weapon diversity you see and maybe then you'll realize the issue. All I'm saying is that the same diversity they encourage us to have in the rest of the game should represented at least a little bit in their end game PVE vision.

guybrushtb16_ESO

Soloeus wrote: »

1. There is no such thing as a Stamina Build.

That is a silly term invented by people who are confused. I will demonstrate this: Lets start with the "Magicka Build" as you call it. Every Class Ability uses Magicka. That means everyone is already a "Magicka Build" by Inherent Design.

Now, the Stamina Build... Every weapon line, one Alliance War line, Fighters Guild use "Stamina" as a Resource Pool instead of Magicka. To be a "Stamina Build" you use "Stamina Skills" instead of Magicka Skills, so you aren't using your Class Abilities, Mages Guild or the other Alliance War line?

No offense, but restricting yourself like this, I wouldn't want to be in a group with you either.

Wow, you just demonstrated that magicka builds will use stamina occasionally, and stamina builds use magicka the same way. No one ever disputed that, and actually, it does not refute the argument at all.

Both the itemization and the trait system make it abundantly clear that you can chose to focus on either stamina skills (i.e. medium armor, weapon power, spell crit, maxed stamina pool, stamina enchants, stamina cost reduction etc.) or magicka skills (light armor, maxed magicka pool, spellpower, spell crit etc.), everything in those 2 lines synergizes heavily with aligned parts, and very little with their respective counterparts, and many choices are mutually exclusive.

At this point, it seems very adequate to speak of stamina and magicka builds.

Right now, if you chose to focus on the former line, and pick stamina related enchants, skills, and so on, your dps will suffer. There is no argument about that, there are parses that clearly show that, right now, magicka simply puts out more dps, across classes. There is really nothing that stamina builds are better at, and quite a lot (aoe dps, sustained dps, ultimate scaling) of areas where magicka builds are better.

Thus, we can conclude that indeed, stamina builds are worse then magicka builds.

Now I don't think that was too hard really.

Denaia

It's not just an issue of stamina/magicka but also of melee/ranged as there are currently some fights where you cannot even do any melee damage. Ra kotu is a good example, once he starts his whirlwind at 35% you cannot do ANY melee damage. For other fights outside the trials its the same issue, some fights cannot be done in melee mode.

And while I don't mind having some mechanics that melee/ranged have to solve they should be able to complete the fight. So I wonder, why are there even mechanics like Ra Kotu (where he has to be zerged down) where melees cannot participate without being one shot?

That is an issue that should be solved.

Wifeaggro13

Zheg wrote: »

To the above two posters, have you been able to do a trial group where a few people are running stamina builds and still meeting the dps requirements? Because you being the lone wolf and 95% of the other group needing to run magicka builds still sounds broken to me.

Mechanics to promote build diversity sounds the complete opposite of 'limiting' to me. The game itself promotes a play as you want style, and you have an insane amount of options to develop your build. End game PVE should not run entirely counter to what they promoted their game as.

Which sounds better?
1) Turtling in a clump to get hit by aoe heals and defensive buffs while cookie cutter dps rotations are spammed (current mechanics)
2) Every 10% hp lost the boss goes into danger mode for 30 seconds, each player has an aoe over time attack centered on them that increases damage when you overlap red circles with another player, and the boss is dropping heavy hitting aoe on the ground that you need to run around and avoid/use defensive abilities.

That sounds far more fun to me, and would give really good groups a chance to demonstrate real skill by both having a low finish time AND keeping group members alive during that.

im not saying its not broken. hell just look at my posts im constantly blasting ZOS for letting the melee magica and heavy armor vs light builds even getting out of beta.

It is broken in end game not so much levleing and the imbalance in VR dungeons is a bit better now that they most lowered the skill lvl to complete them . I think ZOS thought the community would just gobble up what they thought was a revolutionary change to Group mechanics. In the end all it was was a removal of more rolls from a grouping system. all they did was take the melee role (tank , and ST melee DPS role and put it into the casters) Creating a Caster DPS with a taunt and a caster DPS with ST sutainablility. then made all the other group mechanics large AOE battles. I dont appluad this design at all. it chased more subs off then their bugs.

TehMagnus

I saw 2H DK pulling 1,3k DPS (on first try of the build) in AA's first boss the other day without the PVP buffs.

Still **** IMO (at least in AA) because those stamina users take up the room around the Mage, leaving less room for Magicka DKs to do their mojo close range (and pull more dps in any case).

But in any case, you can no longer cry about stamina needing buff.

Denaia wrote: »

It's not just an issue of stamina/magicka but also of melee/ranged as there are currently some fights where you cannot even do any melee damage. Ra kotu is a good example, once he starts his whirlwind at 35% you cannot do ANY melee damage. For other fights outside the trials its the same issue, some fights cannot be done in melee mode.

And while I don't mind having some mechanics that melee/ranged have to solve they should be able to complete the fight. So I wonder, why are there even mechanics like Ra Kotu (where he has to be zerged down) where melees cannot participate without being one shot?

That is an issue that should be solved.

This is only an issue in your mind. As a DK, to achieve max DPS, I need to get almost as close as a melee to a boss. During Ra Kotu's burn phase, I just move away & start using ranged skills.

You can't expect all fights to be doable with melee range, you should have a destro, resto staf or bow equiped on your second bar. If you don't have them leveled up, I guess you now have a new goal. It is unrealistic to expect all fights to be melee just because YOU only use melee.

Denaia

@above, I used ranged too. But this is another reason to not take any melee's, as your average skirt & stick is way more viable then a melee is (who also does much worse dps then any skirt & stick)

Wifeaggro13

magnusnet wrote: »

I saw 2H DK pulling 1,3k DPS (on first try of the build) in AA's first boss the other day without the PVP buffs.

Still **** IMO (at least in AA) because those stamina users take up the room around the Mage, leaving less room for Magicka DKs to do their mojo close range (and pull more dps in any case).

But in any case, you can no longer cry about stamina needing buff.

Denaia wrote: »

It's not just an issue of stamina/magicka but also of melee/ranged as there are currently some fights where you cannot even do any melee damage. Ra kotu is a good example, once he starts his whirlwind at 35% you cannot do ANY melee damage. For other fights outside the trials its the same issue, some fights cannot be done in melee mode.

And while I don't mind having some mechanics that melee/ranged have to solve they should be able to complete the fight. So I wonder, why are there even mechanics like Ra Kotu (where he has to be zerged down) where melees cannot participate without being one shot?

That is an issue that should be solved.

This is only an issue in your mind. As a DK, to achieve max DPS, I need to get almost as close as a melee to a boss. During Ra Kotu's burn phase, I just move away & start using ranged skills.

You can't expect all fights to be doable with melee range, you should have a destro, resto staf or bow equiped on your second bar. If you don't have them leveled up, I guess you now have a new goal. It is unrealistic to expect all fights to be melee just because YOU only use melee.

Can we please see the gear set up ? i am very interested in this build.