The ends of the spectrum

DeanTheCat

Hello,

I am Dean the Cat and I would like to discuss about the "End of the spectrum" builds that currently proliferate PvP, namely, Max Weapon Damage builds, Max Stamina Regen builds, Max Spell Damage builds and finally Max Magicka Regen builds.

Please leave discussions about nirnhoned and bugs out of this thread. ZoS already said that nirnhoned is going to be nerfed, so soon the playing field will even out. Also, no TL;DR version of this thread.


To ensure that we are all on the same page, these are my definitions on what defines each type of build.

Max Weapon Damage --- Stacks Weapon Damage at the cost of pretty much every other stat, usually has round 800-1k stam regen as food is usually preferred to boost more damage on such builds. Also known as the famous "Ganker" styled builds, capable of the insane 17k+ snipes and wreaking blows that are being thrown around Cyrodiil. Typical weapon damage on such builds are 3.7k+ fully buffed.

Max Stam Regen --- Stacks Stamina Regen and cost reductions to pretty much use any stamina based skill for free, coupled with "Permadodge" and "Permabreakfree". These sorts of build usually use a two handed weapon, spamming Critical Rush to deal damage before finishing with Executioner. Regeneration on such builds are often over 3k regen. Usually has round 2k Weapon Damage.

Max Spell Damage --- Stacks Spell Damage at the cost of pretty much every other stat, usually done by Sorcs to deal their famous 15k+ Crystal Fragments hits. These sorts of builds often have a huge magicka pool to back them up, so they will have huge shields as well. Assuming food is eaten to further boost damage, these sort of builds have round 800-1k magicka regen. Spell damage on such builds vary, based on if the player is a Sorc or not.

Max Magicka Regen --- Stack Magicka Regen and cost reductions to pretty much cast spells for free. These builds have have round 2.5k+ regen, and results in different class flavored ways of playing, namely "Permacloak", "Permabolt" (I know there is a cost increase after use, but sorcs still can bolt a lot when built for it), "Permashieldstack" and the more uncommon Templar Breath of Life spam. Dragonknights with this sort of build usually spam DoTs and hold block, counting on their rain of Skoria Meteors to demolish the enemy along with whip spam.


Cyrodiil is one massive arms race, where if you want to fight the OP FotM, you have to use another OP FotM. As a result, users of these builds justify their existence based on the existence of their counterpart. For example, to shatter the shield of a max shields sorc, you need to have maximum weapon damage else the sorc's ward will never be broken (It will be refreshed before you can deal enough damage to it). Fights between two equally skilled users of these "Max" builds either last for 2 seconds or lesser (Instagib) or 15+ minutes (Infinite battle till someone's controls bug out or help arrives). In a way, not much has changed about fights from 1.5 to 1.6, the tools and means have changed, but the end result is still the same.

ESO's combat is balanced around resource management, allowing for spam of high damage high cost nukes if the player desired, but it would run the player out of resources fast. However, due to the generally high regeneration rates (Stealth builds not included, same goes for the "Blink in, nuke, blink out, dark exchange" sorcs), this balance is thrown out of the window, leading to everyone picking 1 high damage nuke they like, and spamming it without a care in the world for their resources, as either they die before they run out, or they kill the enemy so fast, that the battle is over before they empty their resource. This has resulted in today's meta, which coincidentally puts a lot of strain on the server, as the constant barrage of abilities fired on all sides of the battlefield causes poor Bubbles the server hamster to faint. I highly doubt that any server built with today's technology can handle that many server side calculations with no drop in performance without employing Time Dilation technology.

Resource regeneration in general are way too high, and it should be reduced. This would solve the "Permadodge" and "Permabolt" and "Permashieldstack" issues that both sides of the spectrum love to complain about, as evidenced by the numerous complaint threads daily that appear on these forums. On the other hand, to solve the problem in excessive damage in Cyrodiil, the battle spirit buff could be tweaked, to offer increased health and damage mitigation in Cyrodiil. This would be a better solution then just nerfing damage outright, as nerfing damage outright would affect PvE, and thereby upset the balance of power there.

Unfortunately, no matter what ZoS does to fix issues and balance problems, we players are the main culprit behind most of the issues we see in Cyrodiil, as it's the people among us who seek an easy win at any cost, even to using exploits and broken abilities to win. Even so, by reducing the current level of high resource regeneration in PvP, it will indirectly effect the performance of the server as well, as there will be less spam and therefore less calculations per second for Bubbles to handle. Even then, any solution to fix the abovementioned "Max" builds should only affect the highest ends of the spectrum, as we need to take into account poor John Doe, who cannot even get half the stats of the better players in Cyrodiil. We must take into account the lower skilled players as well, as when you are taking a keep, you need them to soak up your foe's oils and attacks, rather then take them yourself.

What are your thoughts about this?

May your road lead to warm sands.

Regards,
Dean the Cat

frozywozy

Great post. I fully support all your ideas mentioned.

iseko

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

Joy_Division

Insightful post, but you lost me on the last paragraph:

"Unfortunately, no matter what ZoS does to fix issues and balance problems, we players are the main culprit behind most of the issues we see in Cyrodiil, as it's the people among us who seek an easy win at any cost, even to using exploits and broken abilities to win. "

No, no, no, no This is all on Zenimax. You should not blame the players for trying to find good builds and combination with the tools that Zenimax has provided, especially when much of what goes on in PvP in working as intended. ZoS was asked in Live if the TTK was too high in Cyrodiil and Gina responded that ZoS does not see it as a problem, although she did say that some of the data indicated it was a bit faster than they would find ideal. Zenimax has said nothing about perma-dodge rolling being a problem, let alone an exploit, and the same for stuff like shield stacking, Jesus beaming, proximity detonation as single target burst, siege sniping, and most of the stuff people complain about. I could care less about 4 DC nightblades who think it's fun to ambush through the Bleakers Postern because I only have to deal with that. I do care about balance issues that I have to deal with every time I log into Cyrodiil. I also care about ZoS's apathy and lack of communication about the direction PvP is heading.

Above all, this is the only RPG I have played where it was an advantage to blob a group together. Every other game I have played has provided players with effective tools to deal with mass formations that they WANTED the enemy to blob together because it made it easier to kill them. Not here though. Again this is all Zenimax. I will excuse their inability to anticipate how dominant the "stack on crown" strategy would turn out to be, but it has been a year and it is painfully obvious to anyone who spends a little time in Cryodiil that these coordinated "pain trains" have no counter except another train or overwhelming them with numbers. They have taken to asking us nicely to spread out. How about instead you look at RPG standard spells such as confusion, chain lightning, and cloudkill to make it a viable strategy to spread out?

DeanTheCat

Joy_Division wrote: »

Insightful post, but you lost me on the last paragraph:

"Unfortunately, no matter what ZoS does to fix issues and balance problems, we players are the main culprit behind most of the issues we see in Cyrodiil, as it's the people among us who seek an easy win at any cost, even to using exploits and broken abilities to win. "

No, no, no, no This is all on Zenimax. You should not blame the players for trying to find good builds and combination with the tools that Zenimax has provided, especially when much of what goes on in PvP in working as intended. ZoS was asked in Live if the TTK was too high in Cyrodiil and Gina responded that ZoS does not see it as a problem, although she did say that some of the data indicated it was a bit faster than they would find ideal. Zenimax has said nothing about perma-dodge rolling being a problem, let alone an exploit, and the same for stuff like shield stacking, Jesus beaming, proximity detonation as single target burst, siege sniping, and most of the stuff people complain about. I could care less about 4 DC nightblades who think it's fun to ambush through the Bleakers Postern because I only have to deal with that. I do care about balance issues that I have to deal with every time I log into Cyrodiil. I also care about ZoS's apathy and lack of communication about the direction PvP is heading.

Above all, this is the only RPG I have played where it was an advantage to blob a group together. Every other game I have played has provided players with effective tools to deal with mass formations that they WANTED the enemy to blob together because it made it easier to kill them. Not here though. Again this is all Zenimax. I will excuse their inability to anticipate how dominant the "stack on crown" strategy would turn out to be, but it has been a year and it is painfully obvious to anyone who spends a little time in Cryodiil that these coordinated "pain trains" have no counter except another train or overwhelming them with numbers. They have taken to asking us nicely to spread out. How about instead you look at RPG standard spells such as confusion, chain lightning, and cloudkill to make it a viable strategy to spread out?

I understand what you are trying to say. On the part about forcing people to spread out, I don't like trains any more then you do. I especially have a hatred for meteor and it's morphs, and I complain about it quite a fair bit on Arena guild chat as meteor is often used by zergs vs other zergs and causes performance to take a crap down the drain. I have the utmost respect for anyone who can come up with a good build by themselves and win with it. The last parts about exploits was more referring to the constant exploiting that goes on in Cyro on a daily basis, along with purposeful lag of the server by spamming abilities. No amount of balance changes by ZoS is going to stop a dedicated group from spamming meteor or healing springs to turn Cyrodiil into a PowerPoint presentation.

Magicka Detonation ought to be reworked, but I suspect the main reason why in the first place they didn't make the damage scale based on number of targets hit was because of PvE, as then those trials players would just pull all the trash together before lighting them up with a single detonation cast. In any case, we need a skill that breaks zergs up. That I absolutely agree.

Still, if the current regen levels were toned down, one can hope that there would be less spam and therefore less lag. I'm trying to still maintain a bright outlook on things.

Soulac

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

Ppl will put everything in reduction and Reg until cap, then try to get huge resource pools.
In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.
Now you got even lower skillcost and the Champion-System, so it doesn't matter if you have soft caps or not.
There will always be a way to gain infinity Ressources, soft caps will just reduce the amount of possible / viable builds.

Anyway it's really awesome how you're able to kill enemys even if they've Ressources left, not like in endless-fight-1.5.
I think I'm the only one who likes the low ttk as well, just cause mistakes are more noticeable.

Of course the whole system needs some changes, but softcaps is a step backwards.
Also I'm aware of Shield spam, dodge spam, perm block etc. but I don't see a problem in that.
Someone who spams dodge is not able to dmg you and can be countered using abilitys ignoring dodge, Shield stack is strong in 1v1 situations but the sorc can't attack you while casting his shields.
Block is.. Well you can't animation cancel :P

Derra

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

Ppl will put everything in reduction and Reg until cap, then try to get huge resource pools.
In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.
Now you got even lower skillcost and the Champion-System, so it doesn't matter if you have soft caps or not.
There will always be a way to gain infinity Ressources, soft caps will just reduce the amount of possible / viable builds.

Anyway it's really awesome how you're able to kill enemys even if they've Ressources left, not like in endless-fight-1.5.
I think I'm the only one who likes the low ttk as well, just cause mistakes are more noticeable.

Of course the whole system needs some changes, but softcaps is a step backwards.
Also I'm aware of Shield spam, dodge spam, perm block etc. but I don't see a problem in that.
Someone who spams dodge is not able to dmg you and can be countered using abilitys ignoring dodge, Shield stack is strong in 1v1 situations but the sorc can't attack you while casting his shields.
Block is.. Well you can't animation cancel :P

Bolded the important part for me response:
I would love the current system if we´d be fighting on a reliable playing field. The problem is poor server performance and still shady mechanics and bugs.

Just yesterday after 1 week of witcher3 i´ve logged in and literally the second fight was against an absolute scrub sorc with overload with 300+ ping and serverlag. I´ve hit bol - nothing happens - i hit weapon switch to recast shields my bar does not switch while i see 2 overload projectiles flying towards me. Then the server catches up i get teleported backwards and am instantly killed by 3 overloads bc i got teleported backwards into the sorc chasing me.

I could live with the outcome if there would have been anything i could have done to prevent it. Sadly i could not bc my char just did not respond to my commands.

The game as it currently is would be insanely fun
- if weaponswitch would work reliable in every situation (this is still whats killing me the most - weapon switch in this game has never worked truely reliable for me once ping hits 150+ what happens basically every evening)
- lag would affect every ability and player in the same way (no huge lagspikes at all would be even better )
- cc breaks would be truely instant and without animation delays
- animation delay on fear and some knockdowns
- silence + root (WTF?!) on charges
- no health desync on bow attacks
- no desync on stealth attacks where character models don´t appear before you´re dead with no animation playing at all

In short: I´d agree with you if the system would let skill and reactiontime come into to play which just does not happen at the moment.

Soulac

Derra wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

Ppl will put everything in reduction and Reg until cap, then try to get huge resource pools.
In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.
Now you got even lower skillcost and the Champion-System, so it doesn't matter if you have soft caps or not.
There will always be a way to gain infinity Ressources, soft caps will just reduce the amount of possible / viable builds.

Anyway it's really awesome how you're able to kill enemys even if they've Ressources left, not like in endless-fight-1.5.
I think I'm the only one who likes the low ttk as well, just cause mistakes are more noticeable.

Of course the whole system needs some changes, but softcaps is a step backwards.
Also I'm aware of Shield spam, dodge spam, perm block etc. but I don't see a problem in that.
Someone who spams dodge is not able to dmg you and can be countered using abilitys ignoring dodge, Shield stack is strong in 1v1 situations but the sorc can't attack you while casting his shields.
Block is.. Well you can't animation cancel :P

Bolded the important part for me response:
I would love the current system if we´d be fighting on a reliable playing field. The problem is poor server performance and still shady mechanics and bugs.

Just yesterday after 1 week of witcher3 i´ve logged in and literally the second fight was against an absolute scrub sorc with overload with 300+ ping and serverlag. I´ve hit bol - nothing happens - i hit weapon switch to recast shields my bar does not switch while i see 2 overload projectiles flying towards me. Then the server catches up i get teleported backwards and am instantly killed by 3 overloads bc i got teleported backwards into the sorc chasing me.

I could live with the outcome if there would have been anything i could have done to prevent it. Sadly i could not bc my char just did not respond to my commands.

The game as it currently is would be insanely fun
- if weaponswitch would work reliable in every situation (this is still whats killing me the most - weapon switch in this game has never worked truely reliable for me once ping hits 150+ what happens basically every evening)
- lag would affect every ability and player in the same way (no huge lagspikes at all would be even better )
- cc breaks would be truely instant and without animation delays
- animation delay on fear and some knockdowns
- silence + root (WTF?!) on charges
- no health desync on bow attacks
- no desync on stealth attacks where character models don´t appear before you´re dead with no animation playing at all

In short: I´d agree with you if the system would let skill and reactiontime come into to play which just does not happen at the moment.

Oh yeah, silence and root on charges is one of the most annoying things..

Mumyo

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

Ppl will put everything in reduction and Reg until cap, then try to get huge resource pools.
In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.
Now you got even lower skillcost and the Champion-System, so it doesn't matter if you have soft caps or not.
There will always be a way to gain infinity Ressources, soft caps will just reduce the amount of possible / viable builds.

Anyway it's really awesome how you're able to kill enemys even if they've Ressources left, not like in endless-fight-1.5.
I think I'm the only one who likes the low ttk as well, just cause mistakes are more noticeable.

Of course the whole system needs some changes, but softcaps is a step backwards.
Also I'm aware of Shield spam, dodge spam, perm block etc. but I don't see a problem in that.
Someone who spams dodge is not able to dmg you and can be countered using abilitys ignoring dodge, Shield stack is strong in 1v1 situations but the sorc can't attack you while casting his shields.
Block is.. Well you can't animation cancel :P

U ever tried ur infinitestuff builds with 145 regen builds? I disagree with ur arguments since i know u run around with 2k+ regen instead of 1.5k because u would simply run out pretty fast.

Soulac

Mumyo wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

Ppl will put everything in reduction and Reg until cap, then try to get huge resource pools.
In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.
Now you got even lower skillcost and the Champion-System, so it doesn't matter if you have soft caps or not.
There will always be a way to gain infinity Ressources, soft caps will just reduce the amount of possible / viable builds.

Anyway it's really awesome how you're able to kill enemys even if they've Ressources left, not like in endless-fight-1.5.
I think I'm the only one who likes the low ttk as well, just cause mistakes are more noticeable.

Of course the whole system needs some changes, but softcaps is a step backwards.
Also I'm aware of Shield spam, dodge spam, perm block etc. but I don't see a problem in that.
Someone who spams dodge is not able to dmg you and can be countered using abilitys ignoring dodge, Shield stack is strong in 1v1 situations but the sorc can't attack you while casting his shields.
Block is.. Well you can't animation cancel :P

U ever tried ur infinitestuff builds with 145 regen builds? I disagree with ur arguments since i know u run around with 2k+ regen instead of 1.5k because u would simply run out pretty fast.

Magicka Build as I said, Stamina needs more Reg thanks to dodge / Break-Free / bash / block
1.5 145 Magicka Reg and infinity Magicka, you still disagree?
Never said this applys on Stamina as well, they just need more :P

Sublime

As you mentioned in OP each build has it's weaknesses, (regen builds have low damage, damage builds have low regen, etc.) which basically allow them to be counterplayed up to a certain point. Which means I agree that some abilities might need a bit of tweaking, the Battle Spirit is however only the right tool if it allows to change single abilities, because I don't think chaning everything would bring more balance due to the unique properties of each skill (Blazing Shield after 15% nerf vs Hardened Ward).

In my eyes the main problem is something different, currently the only Information you get about your opponent is his Max HP and if he/she is a vamp/ww. For good players this in combination with the knowledge of the playerbase is enough to get a good insight into the enemy to play accordingly. However, new players only see a HP values from 15k (very rare) to 40k (very rare too), while those peak values give some information on the enemy character most players run around with 20-25k HP, which yields close to zero information about his/her setup.

This results in every fight being a russian roulette, since you only know after the first couple of seconds what you are up against. If an enemy is regeneration based it is even more difficult to figure out. I do not know right now how to solve this problem in a ZOS-friendly way but I think new players would have an interest in knowing what they are up against.

Apart from that I'd like to see more information from ZOS for new players on how to play PvP. Not necessarily "how to siege a keep"/"how to claim a ressource" style but rather "how to use your abilities correctly", "how to creat synergies between skills" and especially "how to counterplay specific builds/skills" or "how to punish mistakes".

Erondil

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.

I doubt you had 130 cost surprise attack as khajiit with whitestreake... to get that I think you need archmage+seducer wth 3 reduce cost enchants and 7 light... your damages were really low with such setup.

Maulkin

Derra wrote: »

The game as it currently is would be insanely fun
- if weaponswitch would work reliable in every situation (this is still whats killing me the most - weapon switch in this game has never worked truely reliable for me once ping hits 150+ what happens basically every evening)
- lag would affect every ability and player in the same way (no huge lagspikes at all would be even better )
- cc breaks would be truely instant and without animation delays
- animation delay on fear and some knockdowns
- silence + root (WTF?!) on charges
- no health desync on bow attacks
- no desync on stealth attacks where character models don´t appear before you´re dead with no animation playing at all

In short: I´d agree with you if the system would let skill and reactiontime come into to play which just does not happen at the moment.

On the bolded...

The silence + root on charges is apparently intended if what @cozmon3c_ESO says is true. He was allegedly told by Eric Wobble that it was added to help people catch up to Bolt Escaping sorcs and that it's here to stay.

I'm not happy about it, but I've kind of adapted. However when you get 2-3 people crit-rushing you, you get locked for like 2" which is enough to get a snipe or jesus beam in the face and just die there pressing buttons while nothing happens. Then when you spawn, your char skills are still locked and when you press escape it plays the animation for whatever skill you were spamming to keep yourself alive. GG

Soulac

Erondil wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.

I doubt you had 130 cost surprise attack as khajiit with whitestreake... to get that I think you need archmage+seducer wth 3 reduce cost enchants and 7 light... your damages were really low with such setup.

Didn't use whitestrake in the last two months of 1.5, only against DKs sometimes.

Armitas

How are you able to type so well with those tiny paw hands?

Derra

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

The game as it currently is would be insanely fun
- if weaponswitch would work reliable in every situation (this is still whats killing me the most - weapon switch in this game has never worked truely reliable for me once ping hits 150+ what happens basically every evening)
- lag would affect every ability and player in the same way (no huge lagspikes at all would be even better )
- cc breaks would be truely instant and without animation delays
- animation delay on fear and some knockdowns
- silence + root (WTF?!) on charges
- no health desync on bow attacks
- no desync on stealth attacks where character models don´t appear before you´re dead with no animation playing at all

In short: I´d agree with you if the system would let skill and reactiontime come into to play which just does not happen at the moment.

On the bolded...

The silence + root on charges is apparently intended if what @cozmon3c_ESO says is true. He was allegedly told by Eric Wobble that it was added to help people catch up to Bolt Escaping sorcs and that it's here to stay.

I'm not happy about it, but I've kind of adapted. However when you get 2-3 people crit-rushing you, you get locked for like 2" which is enough to get a snipe or jesus beam in the face and just die there pressing buttons while nothing happens. Then when you spawn, your char skills are still locked and when you press escape it plays the animation for whatever skill you were spamming to keep yourself alive. GG

I know it´s intended. I just question the sanity of the person that came up with the idea...

cozmon3c_ESO

Derra wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

The game as it currently is would be insanely fun
- if weaponswitch would work reliable in every situation (this is still whats killing me the most - weapon switch in this game has never worked truely reliable for me once ping hits 150+ what happens basically every evening)
- lag would affect every ability and player in the same way (no huge lagspikes at all would be even better )
- cc breaks would be truely instant and without animation delays
- animation delay on fear and some knockdowns
- silence + root (WTF?!) on charges
- no health desync on bow attacks
- no desync on stealth attacks where character models don´t appear before you´re dead with no animation playing at all

In short: I´d agree with you if the system would let skill and reactiontime come into to play which just does not happen at the moment.

On the bolded...

The silence + root on charges is apparently intended if what @cozmon3c_ESO says is true. He was allegedly told by Eric Wobble that it was added to help people catch up to Bolt Escaping sorcs and that it's here to stay.

I'm not happy about it, but I've kind of adapted. However when you get 2-3 people crit-rushing you, you get locked for like 2" which is enough to get a snipe or jesus beam in the face and just die there pressing buttons while nothing happens. Then when you spawn, your char skills are still locked and when you press escape it plays the animation for whatever skill you were spamming to keep yourself alive. GG

I know it´s intended. I just question the sanity of the person that came up with the idea...

agreed, they dont listen to me and my guild about it, how it should go to hell, how it should go to hell and die.

LegendaryMage

I had infinite resources in 1.5 when fighting certain types of opponents but that was a specific build. Even without the skills that make it truly self sustainable forever (I even gained back resources the more I fought, vs certain opponents only of course), I was still running with 3 cost reduce glyphs, seducer+warlock and 170 mag regen.

I agree with Dean, this game needs a bit more tweaking, some things are just too strong. When a dk has an instant 10K damage spell (crit, but then again my shards crit for 10-12K too) then it becomes obvious that softcaps might not have been such a bad idea after all. You could push high weapon dmg in 1.5, but you had to pay the price for it. Much less sustain. Nowadays, you can make a hybrid sorc with tons of sustain as well as tons of damage. So I don't think that's totally balanced, but alright.

Erondil

Soulac wrote: »

Erondil wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.

I doubt you had 130 cost surprise attack as khajiit with whitestreake... to get that I think you need archmage+seducer wth 3 reduce cost enchants and 7 light... your damages were really low with such setup.

Didn't use whitestrake in the last two months of 1.5, only against DKs sometimes.

I still don't believe to your 130 SA cost stroy. I'm not sure it was reachable even with full light + 3 cost reduc jewelry + archmage and seducer. Even if it was, you would pay it by very low damages... endless ressources builds was needing much more sacrificies then now. And glasscanon aswell.

iseko

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

Ppl will put everything in reduction and Reg until cap, then try to get huge resource pools.
In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.
Now you got even lower skillcost and the Champion-System, so it doesn't matter if you have soft caps or not.
There will always be a way to gain infinity Ressources, soft caps will just reduce the amount of possible / viable builds.

It forces you too spread out your resources more. Plus with added buffs like major sorcery increasing potentially limitless spellpower gives you insane amounts of dmg. Soft caps prevent certain tresholds from being breached. Unless uncourse you keep investing in spell power with deminishing returns (thus sacrificing majorly on sustain). The variety in builds comes from 5 piece set bonuses, skill usage and general player skills. Not from stacking all points into one resource infinitely untill your farts become the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb...

Anyway it's really awesome how you're able to kill enemys even if they've Ressources left, not like in endless-fight-1.5.
I think I'm the only one who likes the low ttk as well, just cause mistakes are more noticeable.

I play a templar. Everything has a GCD. The only mistake I ever made was roll templar xD (#fixtemps)

Of course the whole system needs some changes, but softcaps is a step backwards.
Also I'm aware of Shield spam, dodge spam, perm block etc. but I don't see a problem in that.
Someone who spams dodge is not able to dmg you and can be countered using abilitys ignoring dodge, Shield stack is strong in 1v1 situations but the sorc can't attack you while casting his shields.
Block is.. Well you can't animation cancel :P

Infinite roll dodging combined with vigor (which stacks from multiple casters, *** annoying) is an amazing defense. Kind of like streak. They nerfed streak (increased cost). Vote to unnerf streak or your argument is invalid.

Soris

Soulac wrote: »

There will always be a way to gain infinity Ressources, soft caps will just reduce the amount of possible / viable builds.

Umm no. Softcaps didn't really blocked build diversity. They just put a "limit" to the damage or sustain you can get by stacking. And they actually allowed many different types of builds such as hybrids. You could combine endless amount of things once you keep your stats close to softcaps. And they were also competitive with "one way focused" builds. Thus this allowed diversity on builds.

Removing them did just flat out reduced the possibilities of many viable unique builds and put them in one single shape or another to stay competitive.

Soulac

Erondil wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

Erondil wrote: »

Soulac wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Bring back softcaps! Awesome post

In 1.5 I ran a melee Magicka NB with an infinity Magicka pool thanks to 130 cost surprise attack and 145 Magicka Reg.

I doubt you had 130 cost surprise attack as khajiit with whitestreake... to get that I think you need archmage+seducer wth 3 reduce cost enchants and 7 light... your damages were really low with such setup.

Didn't use whitestrake in the last two months of 1.5, only against DKs sometimes.

I still don't believe to your 130 SA cost stroy. I'm not sure it was reachable even with full light + 3 cost reduc jewelry + archmage and seducer. Even if it was, you would pay it by very low damages... endless ressources builds was needing much more sacrificies then now. And glasscanon aswell.

Recalculated it, cost was ~145, with Breton it´d be 138. Regeneration was 155.
2.4k Magicka and ~115 Spelldmg, i got my dmg through bash cancel.

Anything else you want to know? :P

PS:
155 Reg = 4.650 Magicka every minute
This alone allows me to cast surprise attack roughly 32 times, while a full rotation takes around 1.3 seconds.
I´d need 14 additional casts to actually NEVER run out of magicka.
Since i used potions it wasn´t a problem.

Gargragrond

LegendaryMage wrote: »

I agree with Dean, this game needs a bit more tweaking, some things are just too strong. When a dk has an instant 10K damage spell (crit, but then again my shards crit for 10-12K too) then it becomes obvious that softcaps might not have been such a bad idea after all

Which spell is that?

[Moderator Note: Fixed quote]

LegendaryMage

Gargragrond wrote: »

LegendaryMage wrote: »

I agree with Dean, this game needs a bit more tweaking, some things are just too strong. When a dk has an instant 10K damage spell (crit, but then again my shards crit for 10-12K too) then it becomes obvious that softcaps might not have been such a bad idea after all

Which spell is that?

I've been hit with whip crits for 9.3K or so the other day continually. Not that it kills you, but it's insane to have a (almost) 10K insta damage spell that's spammable and non reflectable/dodgeable or whatever.

As a DK you just have to get the sorc out of shields (not a huge task tbh), > petrify > leap > whips and he's gone. Maybe even meteor instead of leap, that's what I'd do if I was playing a dk. Not just to sorcs, to anyone really. If it's another dk, just make sure your scales are up before meteor cast and it's gonna hit him even harder.

[Moderator Note: Fixed quote]

Muizer

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Max Stam Regen --- Stacks Stamina Regen and cost reductions to pretty much use any stamina based skill for free, coupled with "Permadodge" and "Permabreakfree". These sorts of build usually use a two handed weapon, spamming Critical Rush to deal damage before finishing with Executioner. Regeneration on such builds are often over 3k regen. Usually has round 2k Weapon Damage.

Are these figures realistic? Guess I'm doing something very wrong then . I mean, assuming jewelry is used for cost reduction (logical, as regen is the worse option since 1.6) I don't see where you could possible get anywhere near 3k regen from.

k2blader

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Max Spell Damage --- Stacks Spell Damage at the cost of pretty much every other stat, usually done by Sorcs to deal their famous 15k+ Crystal Fragments hits. These sorts of builds often have a huge magicka pool to back them up, so they will have huge shields as well. Assuming food is eaten to further boost damage, these sort of builds have round 800-1k magicka regen. Spell damage on such builds vary, based on if the player is a Sorc or not.

Do sorcs who stack spell damage really have "huge magicka pools"? If a sorc is stacking spell damage at the expense of magicka and magicka regen, he'll have a smaller magicka pool, less regen, weaker hardened ward, fewer BEs, and will be the most squishable type of sorc.

Talking about your average player, not max-CP-grinder types.

Erondil

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Gargragrond wrote: »

LegendaryMage wrote: »

I agree with Dean, this game needs a bit more tweaking, some things are just too strong. When a dk has an instant 10K damage spell (crit, but then again my shards crit for 10-12K too) then it becomes obvious that softcaps might not have been such a bad idea after all

Which spell is that?

I've been hit with whip crits for 9.3K or so the other day continually. Not that it kills you, but it's insane to have a (almost) 10K insta damage spell that's spammable and non reflectable/dodgeable or whatever.

As a DK you just have to get the sorc out of shields (not a huge task tbh), > petrify > leap > whips and he's gone. Maybe even meteor instead of leap, that's what I'd do if I was playing a dk. Not just to sorcs, to anyone really. If it's another dk, just make sure your scales are up before meteor cast and it's gonna hit him even harder.

9.3k whip crit is with a high damages build on a light armor player. You're running with a ressources mangmeny setup (you are far from 2k spell damages) and ypur CF already hits for more. CF has much more counter indeed bit its distance and damages are much much higher. If you think that whip damages are too high, you're very wrong I gotta say. Even as vamp with 0 fire resist DKs don't hurt me (beside capslock and fluffy). I only saw once a whip around 10k, but I'm vamp woth light armor...

[Moderator Note: Fixed quote]

Yonkit

What about those of us that have 4k weapon dmg and 2.5k regen? You left us out

And 17k snipes come from a low weapon dmg build So far my record for a snipe is 22k (not counting that time I sniped a werewolf :P) and that's with around 2700 weapon dmg.

Ezareth

Muizer wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Max Stam Regen --- Stacks Stamina Regen and cost reductions to pretty much use any stamina based skill for free, coupled with "Permadodge" and "Permabreakfree". These sorts of build usually use a two handed weapon, spamming Critical Rush to deal damage before finishing with Executioner. Regeneration on such builds are often over 3k regen. Usually has round 2k Weapon Damage.

Are these figures realistic? Guess I'm doing something very wrong then . I mean, assuming jewelry is used for cost reduction (logical, as regen is the worse option since 1.6) I don't see where you could possible get anywhere near 3k regen from.

My VR1 NB has 2300 stamina regen right now wearing L46 gear and garbage blue rings...with no regen on the jewelry enchants. I'll be over 3K easily by VR14 and over 4K when you include Tri-stat regen + Battle Rush + continous assault etc.

Yonkit

Ezareth wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Max Stam Regen --- Stacks Stamina Regen and cost reductions to pretty much use any stamina based skill for free, coupled with "Permadodge" and "Permabreakfree". These sorts of build usually use a two handed weapon, spamming Critical Rush to deal damage before finishing with Executioner. Regeneration on such builds are often over 3k regen. Usually has round 2k Weapon Damage.

Are these figures realistic? Guess I'm doing something very wrong then . I mean, assuming jewelry is used for cost reduction (logical, as regen is the worse option since 1.6) I don't see where you could possible get anywhere near 3k regen from.

My VR1 NB has 2300 stamina regen right now wearing L46 gear and garbage blue rings...with no regen on the jewelry enchants. I'll be over 3K easily by VR14 and over 4K when you include Tri-stat regen + Battle Rush + continous assault etc.

I hope you get whipped in the face you perma-roller!

Gargragrond

Muizer wrote: »

Are these figures realistic? Guess I'm doing something very wrong then . I mean, assuming jewelry is used for cost reduction (logical, as regen is the worse option since 1.6) I don't see where you could possible get anywhere near 3k regen from.

Those figures apply only to NBs and bosmers, not to mere mortals.