PvP Dynamics and Class Balance (Strongest vs. Weakest)

bikerangelo

I'm gonna start out with my background in ESO, so if you just want to skip to the actual topic, scroll to the line of underscores.
I have not been playing ESO since beta. I picked it up during a summer Steam sale and started playing it in late July of this year. My first character was a breton templar and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I treated the game like Skyrim, assigning attribute points evenly across magic, health and stam, wore green tempered heavy armor, used spells while wielding a greatsword while trying to spam wrecking blow, and hardly did any damage whatsoever. At level 20 I entered PvP for the first time and wrecked this terrible high elf templar wandering around in Chorrol. After that ego boost, I ran to Glade or somewhere and got destroyed by a DK. I got into a few other fights and skirmishes, died very quickly, and figured I was too low of a level to be competitive. After that, I only did PvE until a few weeks ago.
What I've learned so far;
1. PvE encourages bad gamestyles. Granted, not everyone comes from PvE with terrible habits, but if all you do is the quests and side missions until Vet 1, it's not enough of a challenge to prepare yourself for PvP. That's why I was incredibly excited for Maelstrom arena, since it's a good simulator for single players to test their class builds and see if their character has enough sustain and damage. It's not the same as PvP, but it's a better test of ability than saving the leader of your faction over and over again.
2. ESO's terrible introduction to PvP in general. In order for a new player to even have a chance in PvP, they can't walk in with a chip on their shoulder or else they'll rage quit and never touch it again. You either need in-game friends to give you helpful advice, or find somebody to duel with to figure out which skills work and which don't. That's why every time I get ganked and a decent fight ensues, regardless of the outcome, I whisper the other person "good fight" and ask for a rematch. I've made several friends that way, and we occassionally get together and test out builds on each other. This small-scale PvP has spoiled me, because it has so much potential, works very well, yet there's no official support for it from ZOS. I'll get to that later. Aside from the social introduction to PvP, ZOS does a terrible job of preparing a player for any actual encounter. Sure, there's a tutorial on sieging and Cyrodiil PvE, but that's it. This is a big problem.
3. PvP should require an excessive amount of homework. Everytime something gets nerfed, I always picture a teary eyed RPG fan crying over his scarring experience with the mean nightblade who killed him with 2 hits. If that's the case, learn what your class' strengths and weakenesses are. Better yet, learn how to counter nightblades, because counters for every class do exist. If you're a DK, keep up the hard CC, if you're a sorc, keep curse on him, if you're another nightblade, keep up mark, and if you're a magic templar, just run or accept your fate. Seriously though, the only way to be halfway decent is to practice, and I don't mean zerging while spamming one or two abilities, I mean engaging in small scale combat.

Alright

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PvP Dynamics
1. Zergs: We all hate them. They cause lag, they're excessivly rewarding thanks to ZOS, and they're effective. My idea of a fun PvP experience isn't watching a 4fps powerpoint presentation of a group of 40 people spamming proxy det, healing springs, impulse, and steel tornado running through a broken wall in a keep. Not only does this affect the players in the area of the zerg, it affects every player on the server. Sometimes I can feel a zerg coming when my screen starts to skip and my ping spikes over 600, and then I'm hit with a recap screen of how many AoE's simultaneously hit me. The only other option is to try and get together with friends from other factions and find a low population server, and that's if we can even get in due to the ridiculous server swapping policies. I'm definitely not the first to say this, but the zerg gameplay has to stop, and the biggest irony is that ZOS supports the zergs through gameplay mechanics yet can't support it from a performance standpoint.
2. Broken Mechanics: The biggest complaints I've heard and voiced myself involve the broken CC mechanics. Whether it's a delay in breaking it or the lack of immunity after breaking CC, it's a cheap way of getting killed. Similar to the zerg scenario, it rewards players who spam abilities, such as the nightblade who spams ambush or lotus fan to root you until his group catches up. I was actually feared off a cliff to my death, because even though I had full stamina, the CC in fear can cause a delay for players to actually get out of it. It was kind of funny as my character screamed while running over a cliff's edge, but the mechanics require a lot of attention. Also, I understand the difference between soft and hard CC, and I have gotten hard CC'd twice in a row within 2 seconds, which shouldn't happen mechanically.
3. Alternative PvP gameplay modes: Cyrodiil can feel like a job. Get up, go to a keep, repel a faction, repair the wall, wash rinse and repeat. Imperial City can feel like hell. Fight a group of 3 people only to get spawn killed by a mob. Seriously, there's so many mobs and so much other condensed content in Imperial City that it's not even a PvP zone. You can farm tel var stones and get PvP gear without even running into another player. So here's a proposition;
PvP Arenas: ZOS has been bombarded with pleas for PvP arenas for ages, and there's a right way and an incredibly wrong way to do this. On the one hand, a 1v1 arena with a leaderboard is a terrible idea. I'm ok with a leaderboard for vet Maelstrom, but we've already seen the class imbalance in those leaderboards. Just imagine the nerfs and gameplay changes because of a 1v1 PvP arena. It'd be ridiculous. That being said, here are some arena ideas;
-1v1 Sparring ring: No leaderboards, all instanced gameplay in either an empty sparring ring or another ring with a couple line-of-sight obstacles. This will be more than enough for 2 players to group up and experiment on their builds in a lag-free environment. It will also save duelists the extensive 10 minute horse simulator after the end of every duel in Cyrodiil just to get back to their dueling buddy. The primary emphasis on this arena would be instanced, scoreless gameplay that 2 players can voluntarily engage in.
-Group PvP arena: There's so much potential for this type of game mode. Also, I'm suggesting what was originally constructed as a playable demo during the beta for ESO; a small scale group vs group arena, and potentially even have 3 groups against each other. The arena settings can and should be varied to cater to different playstyles and class strengths, but what it shouldn't do is have only one arena in a colosseum setting, that will get boring very quickly. This also might be a long shot, but a PvP town would be amazing, involving running over and through buildings or fighting in streets or alleyways, pretty much what Imperial City should've been but without the daedra and op bosses.

Class Balance
I'll keep this short, it's just a list of the top PvP classes I've seen so far. This is my subjective opinion, btw.
1. Stamina Nightblade: insane amounts of burst damage and great defense if played properly.
2. Magicka Nightblade: cloak, mark, lotus fan, fear, magicka nightblades have a lot going for them.
3. Magicka Sorcerer: a close 2nd to magicka nightblade due to shield stacking and burst damage, along with pretty good sustain.
4. Stamina Dragonknight: stamina builds are stronger than magicka builds simply because of their increased ability to stack weapon damage and stam regen, and if a Dragonknight is played properly, they can wreck anyone.
5. Stamina Templar: some of the best stamina morphs out of all the classes with great sustain and survivability.
6. Stamina Sorcerer: high mobility and burst dps, although not many sorc abilities can be used for stamina builds.
7. Magicka Dragonknight: kind of got screwed over in the most current patch, but I'm not familiar enough with the class.
8. Magicka Templar: I won't give a laundry list of problems with magic temps, but they're the weakest class in 1vX, and sometimes in 1v1. There are some people out there who find really good builds for magic temps, but a strong magic temp is rare due to painfully useless abilities and lots of practice required.

If you survived until the end, feel free to let me know what you think. Like I said earlier, even though I've played the game quite a bit, I'm not as well versed in other class abilities and would like to learn more about them.

Kutsuu

You play a magicka templar, eh?

Derra

Viability of classes is dependand on setting mostly.

I´d rate mag templar as #1 when it comes to anything more than 6ppl in grp.

Waffennacht

I agree for the most part. Many many people want 1v1 or at least a way to make it slightly rewarding. People like myself whom exist in Cyrodiil yet have no pvp skill lines, it is bother some, they should say "group pvp" as you get jack for killing one player. Also bothers me that emperor and zergs are the only way to get cool skill lines, extended passives and actual gold or drops, completely ignoring small scale.

The whole not preparing for PvP, that's fine. Playing PvP has no drawbacks outside of a slight armor reduction. So you really shouldn't fear death, its just a learning experience.

Also would basically agree with your list

Maulkin

Let's start with the real questions @bikerangelo. What kind of a biker are you? Motor, pedal.... or both?

Helgi_Skotina

NB has bad selfheal so not really the strongest. Strongest is mag sorcerer - huse shields and can run if can lose.

bikerangelo

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Let's start with the real questions @bikerangelo. What kind of a biker are you? Motor, pedal.... or both?

I like your priorities, mate. I ride a Yamaha Fz6r.

Kutsuu wrote: »

You play a magicka templar, eh?

I still have him, yeah. I also made a sorc and found them better at 1vX, mostly because they fit my playstyle better. Templars are definitely viable assets in a group though, no doubt there, I just haven't found a strong build yet for small scale.

Waffennacht wrote: »

I agree for the most part. Many many people want 1v1 or at least a way to make it slightly rewarding. People like myself whom exist in Cyrodiil yet have no pvp skill lines, it is bother some, they should say "group pvp" as you get jack for killing one player. Also bothers me that emperor and zergs are the only way to get cool skill lines, extended passives and actual gold or drops, completely ignoring small scale.

The whole not preparing for PvP, that's fine. Playing PvP has no drawbacks outside of a slight armor reduction. So you really shouldn't fear death, its just a learning experience.

Also would basically agree with your list

I'm with you there. Player skill isn't rewarded nearly as much as it should be.

Titan1373

Off on that order. Definitely mag sorcerer #1. On a side note surprised to hear mark named as a good move. TBH if it wasn't for other NB I do think think many people would use it. I find it strange that it lowers the casters armor as well. Kinda stupid if you ask me as NB are easily the squishy class in this game.

dodgehopper_ESO

PVE to PVP thoughts...
1) True, although people who play challenging content probably don't have an issue here and are aware of what abilities and their morphs do.

2) I agree the intro dumps players into Cyrodiil, and drops high costs on those players to use siege equipment which in turn makes them less likely to use that siege (They are new). I personally feel that Siege weapons should be craftable. The game needs more siege use not less. I also wish that there were player collision (friendly and enemy) as long as you can shove each other. We should not be able to have 40 people occupy the same 6'x2'x2' box, and this is the core of the lag and combat style flaws. I have no problem with people setting up formations though, and that would be fantastic. The issue is whether the game engine could even handle this, though it seems to do so in PVE-land just fine.

3) This is true of every pvp game I have ever played, whether it is an MMO like STO or Swtor, or the old shooters like counterstrike or halo. The people who get high blood pressure don't last, even if they are really good players. Eventually, you just can't contain that much rage all the time, and it will either make your friends upset with you, or you'll come to hate the game. Excitement is one thing, but people need to learn to rein their emotions in sometimes.

Your PVP Suggestions:
1) Zergs: Again the issue is with that 40 man pileup that exists in a 6'x2'x2' box. People marching in formation would be fantastic, the problem is really that there is no natural spacing between characters.

2) There are a lot of broken mechanics. I'm all too aware of a multitude of them having played the Templar class and Nightblade class significantly (when Nightblade wasn't considered cool). Many things in this game are considered hard cc when they should not be (like the infinitesimally brief knockback from jabs that puts someone on a hard cc cooldown), and many soft cc are functionally hard cc because of other changes to the game (talons vs. dodge roll for example). The game has broken mechanics from its very beginnings, and to some extent as an mmo player we've come to expect broken mechanics in the games we play. On this front we can only hope that things will get better with time.

3) IC has potential to be fantastic, and actually for what it does I think it is fun. In essence, IC offers the 'dungeon delving' experience with the threat of pvp around every corner. When I got bored of taking keeps, a lot of times I would seek out pvp in Cyrodiil by doing townie missions or diving into a delve. I think if you look at it from this perspective it isn't so bad. It gives you as the player an option to do pvp in a completely different way, and that is good. I'm hopeful however that they eventually add a PVP based Arena. This game really needs it. I love the idea of having multiple arenas throughout Reman's former empire, and I don't really see why the coliseum culture would necessarily disappear just because the empire broke apart. 1v1 Play should be purely 'trainer mode' and I think it would be great for people to not only refine a new build but also to test the functionality of abilities (like when they make some crazy new changes on PTS). 1v1 Play is a must for this game. I also feel it should reward the player absolutely nothing apart from the fun of pvping with a friend and developing your education. Other Arena play would ideally be something players could watch as well as queue for. I love the suggestion you make to have different regions be the different battlegrounds. On another thread I made this suggestion as well, with each arena having its own flavor. The Argonian arena for instance could have a lot of water traps, perhaps even crocodiles or wamasu wandering about. The Bosmer Arena could be amongst trees, perhaps even with multiple levels in grahtwood style treehouses. If they could find some way to tie the story together with the IC Arena, this would be even better. Perhaps the arena in the IC could be the culmination of work completed in the city (a faction reclaiming the territory). Which brings up another point, I'd really like to see a reasonable function for reclaiming the IC zones, and have them be claimable in a meaningful way.

4) As far as class balance goes, its going to be extremely hard for them to balance the classes when they keep changing the fundamentals of the underlying game work. I don't see how they're going to keep class passives the way they are now if they release Spellcrafting. Why? Because no class will benefit from spellcrafting more than Sorcerers, since sorcerers have some of the best innate regenerations and the best cost reductions globally to stamina (5%), magicka (5%) and ultimates (15%). I suspect this is why they are holding off on doing any major overhauls right now. Templar will to a lesser extent be able to take better advantage of the Spellcrafting system as well with a global 4% reduction on Stam/Mag/Ulti. Spellcrafting isn't the only source of the problem however, as they've changed so many things in the last 6-9 months. Not everyone will agree on my balance suggestions, and I don't really want to make them because honestly there are a lot of ways they could go about it, I'm only suggesting that currently there are too many variables involved in their system to make it easy for them to balance the game right away. Once some of those major changes calm down we can hopefully see them move toward better balance.

TLDR: I generally agree with the entire sentiment of what you said, and I think ZOS has its work cut out for them on the balancing front.

bikerangelo

Titan1373 wrote: »

Off on that order. Definitely mag sorcerer #1. On a side note surprised to hear mark named as a good move. TBH if it wasn't for other NB I do think think many people would use it. I find it strange that it lowers the casters armor as well. Kinda stupid if you ask me as NB are easily the squishy class in this game.

I probably wouldn't use it, I was just mentioning counters to NB since they're the class lots of people complain about. Also I get marked a ton running around in Cyrodiil by gankers, so it's not uncommon.
Sorcs are pretty good, they can almost stack spell damage as well as stamina builds can stack weapon damage. These are just my thoughts though, so you're probably right on sorcs being stronger than NB's. NB is a squishy class, especially in pledges, but they also have a pretty solid defensive game with cloak and shadow image. Again, I'm not familiar enough with the class to give the best opinion.