Official Feedback Thread for Item Traits

Jesh

I love the new traits, however I would strongly suggest creating Trait Slots instead of baking the trait into the weapon/armor (maybe jewelry?). This would make traits more similar to Enchants, which I think would be really cool to make the crafting system a little less onerous and more flexible, allow for a diversity of builds to be tried and tested.
Something to consider.

exiledtyrant

I did some extensive testing for the traits Charged, Powered, and Well Fitted.

Charged - Charged does exactly what it says on the box. There are still 3 main issues with this enchant however. First of all you get no benefit from going to gold. The trait goes from 100% proc chance at purple to 110% proc chance at gold. Completely redundant as your glyph will proc every time at purple level. Secondly the status effects only last 3 seconds while the rune has a 6 second CD. It would be nice if the Charged trait also increased the up time of the status effect. Lastly the status effects themselves have not kept up with the power level of the game. Status effects from glyphs need to be boosted in power. Flame weapon is still only proccing a minuscule 250ish burn damage DOT. The same for poison. Concussion is less relevant now with maim poisons. Frost is still just a simple snare. Disease may be the only status that still holds some weight.

Powered - Powered has become awesome. It finally has a good base damage to work off of and a noticeable increase in proc frequency. Purple VR 16 glyphs now give 2800 damage with powered, 3500 with powered + 100 cp in a damage star, and 4500 with powered, 100 cp in a damage star, and Torug's Pact. Pretty impressive to me. Seeing as dual wield skills gets an increase of around 10-12% base damage per 500 weapon power I may be stacking flat damage like this instead. Now all we need are a few more enchantment based sets or flat damage sets scaled up to relevant damage numbers ( Looking at you Ashen grip, Way of Fire, Red Mountain etc..)

Well fitted - The trait is pretty nice. You can now even make dodge build with heavy armor using this trait. 100 CP in roll dodge reduction and a 5 piece set of gold well fitted heavy armor took my dodge consumption down considerably. I went from 15% resources used to 9% resources used per dodge. Full Medium could probably get the resource usages down to 5% and around 8% on consecutive dodges. Very neat.

Saucy_Jack

*raises hand politely*

We have fortune seeker and treasure hunter perks, which increase gold and loot quality/quantity from *chests.*

Is it possible to have the prosperous trait modified so that in addition to increased gold drops from *mobs*, it would also up our chances of increased loot quality/quantity from *mobs*?

Not a ton, since that would be overpowered...but I'm a sucker for a luck stat in any game I play.

*Reminisces fondly about Oblivion*

nathan_bri

You need to hold off making this change until you provide a way for players to re-trait existing gear... gear which, in some cases, required nearly a million in gold to put together... either directly or via opportunity cost.

ContraTempo

RoyJade wrote: »

The exploration trait give only a few xp, the new training can give a 86-91,5% xp bonus (so 75-80% with a full purple gear, who is easy to get). It's enormous, nearly the anniversary bonus everytime on normal xp, cp xp and skill xp. I call it a good trade.

Ok, I see what I was missing. These are now ADDITIVE. The old training trait only applied to the contributions to that ONE weapon or piece of armor. If you wanted a 42% bonus to all points going to your armor skill tree you have to have the training trait on all your pieces of armor. With this new trait you ADD each bonus so 7 pieces of purple armor = 70% bonus.

Objection withdrawn. It's still not specific to a particular armor or weapon line, but I'll take it.

I just crafted all of these myself to get the exact numbers. Full numbers are:
Color.........Weapon........Armor

---

White..........+2.5%..........+7%
Green..........+3%.............+8%
Blue.............+3.5%..........+9%
Purple..........+4%...........+10%
Gold.............+4.5%........+11%

The numbers on the armor are looking a lot better than the numbers on the weapons.

NOTE: This was confusing to me AND to some other people with whom I have been discussing this issue. I suggest a more complete explanation in the Natch Potes, specifically mentioning that these are cumulative. Including the numbers above would also be helpful.

STEVIL

UnBelievaBill wrote: »

sAnn92 wrote: »

SublimeSparo wrote: »

sAnn92 wrote: »

SublimeSparo wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Nirnhoned is now a useless trait. At CP160 gold, it grants an additional 146 extra WD/SD. Compare to the 5160 extra penetration from Sharpened.

For a trait that is so difficult to obtain, turning it from BiS to such crap is... disappointing.

so i have to remake nearly all my f'kin weapons. What an utter pisstake.
Sorc 1 staff, 2 swords
Dk 2 staves
NB 1 staff 2 swords
Templar 2 swords 2 staffs
...
There just aren't words

Would you rather have the same gear forever then? geez.

I applaud this change.

I wouldn't mind grinding for new/ better gear/sets, but ruining my current gear isn't the same thing

Ruining?? How so. Cut off with the dramatic reaction, please.

The value of said materials to make those pieces, kutas, potent nirncrux, gold tempers... Seriously dude? An overhaul of these traits now with no fair compensation or consideration of what the players have put into them is totally uncalled for!

At what point did you become convinced that things wont change in an ongoing living mmo?

I knew day one and still know day 700+ that things will change and frequently today's best will be tomorrow's not best.

I know that ever so often I will have to See changes in action, Analyze the impact, Change how i do things and Kill the enemy in new ways.

I LIKE that. I LOVE that.

Nobody ever said to me anything about refunds on gear when the meta or fotm changes.

SACK

Teridaxus

Impenetrable still needs a real use in pve.

Being forced to have a sperate pve, pvp and dps equipment is really annoying, espiaclly with those silly prices for metal tempers.

exiledtyrant

I just finished some test used the Weighted trait. I was pleasantly surprised. 17% chance to gen 1 ultimate seemed terrible but it really does offer good gains. I tested how long it would take to generate enough ultimate for a level 1 werewolf ultimate. Instead of a time based test on an enemy with a lot of hp I killed open world mobs with around the same time to kill ( in this case gold coast wolves).

The first test was using two dual wield weapon without weighted. It took exactly 12 kills to generate enough ultimate for a werewolf transformation.

The second test used 2 gold axes with weighted. It took 7 kills to generate enough ultimate for a werewolf transformation. So about a 42% decrease in time needed to fill my ultimate. I didn't even think about them stacking but the results seem to indicate that the bonus does.

Next I decided to see what it would be like adding another layer of ultimate gen. The easiest way was to simply go sword and shield and slot heroic slash. First test had me use a weapon without weighted weaving heroic with light attacks. It took 9 kills to generate enough ultimate for werewolf form.

The second test had me using a weighted weapon and heroic slash. It took 6 kills to generate enough ultimate for werewolf form. Again a fairly large gain at 34% time decrease to generate a full ultimate.

Weighted also seems to attack slightly faster than non weighted weapons. This may be a remnant of the old attack speed trait.

All in all I think this trait accomplishes what it set out to do. With a build dedicated to ultimate gen the gains could prove to be substantial. What build wants to revolve around an ultimate besides vampire or werewolf I'm not sure however. I'll be running more test using tava's favor later.

Shadesofkin

Armitas wrote: »

A lot of heavy armor users want block cost reduction recoupled with heavy armor and removed from item traits. If you need something to fill that slot I believe Bastion would make a good replacement trait for it. Bastion - Armor trait "Increase shields by X%".

This could be a point of balance that will allow you to control Defenses that run parallel to Offense such as magicka and stamina based shields. By slotting Bastion you are getting defense at the cost of offense such as divines or infused. The suggestion is a raw thought which will take some fine tuning before it can be introduced accurately and appropriately.

Using Sturdy in place of Infused or Divines is economically stupid in terms of optimal builds.

Glory

I found decisive to be underwhelming with it on one item. 17% on legendary to generate one extra ultimate seems low. Maybe bump up the proc chance or make it so you generate a few more ulti from it?

Also, I find Nirnhoned on armor to be super sad

Armitas

Shadesofkin wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

A lot of heavy armor users want block cost reduction recoupled with heavy armor and removed from item traits. If you need something to fill that slot I believe Bastion would make a good replacement trait for it. Bastion - Armor trait "Increase shields by X%".

This could be a point of balance that will allow you to control Defenses that run parallel to Offense such as magicka and stamina based shields. By slotting Bastion you are getting defense at the cost of offense such as divines or infused. The suggestion is a raw thought which will take some fine tuning before it can be introduced accurately and appropriately.

Using Sturdy in place of Infused or Divines is economically stupid in terms of optimal builds.

I suppose you are thinking of stat based shields through which infused and divines would increase? That depends on the value that bastion provides compared to the increased value that infused and divines provide per piece. Those values were not given to make a comparison.

Fischblut

New Well-fitted... I don't care about roll dodge because I use it rarely.
Currently, on all gold armor my werewolf has 70% less sprint cost, it's truly a blessing and one of few nice things available for this play style. After new awful patch, I will have lower values on my gold gear than I had even on green gear before

GreenSoup2HoT

Fischblut wrote: »

New Well-fitted... I don't care about roll dodge because I use it rarely.
Currently, on all gold armor my werewolf has 70% less sprint cost, it's truly a blessing and one of few nice things available for this play style. After new awful patch, I will have lower values on my gold gear than I had even on green gear before

I think the roll dodge cost reduction is great. I do understand your pain, zos could maybe bump up the sprint reduction percentage but in my opinion its already pretty good.

Helluin

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the changes for Item Traits. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• After reviewing the changes we’ve made to item traits, are there any traits that you still don’t find appealing?
• Were there any traits in particular that you were excited about?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

• Some changements are nice for some niche builds but unfortunately to maximize offense and defense, there aren't big changements, especially after I read Asayre's thread. The calculations made by Asayre were always correct and I presume it's the same also for this PTS. You should read carefully that topic and make tweaks accordingly.
• Honestly no.
• I'd prefer to see some traits with an improved/buffed effect when applied on some specific part of the armor or some specific weapons. This happens already with Reinforced and Infused, it could be the same with other traits (example: Well-fitted on boots giving double the values, Divine on head giving double the value, Sturdy on bracers giving double the value, Sharpened on bow stronger than on other weapons, Precise stronger on swords and daggers than on other weapons, etc.).
  In general: Well-fitted and Sturdy could be buffed a little. Nirnhoned for weapons, if still rare as before (this depends by how many weapons and armor drop which this trait), should be buffed; if it becomes more common because of drop, it should be just an alternative as it is. Nirnhoned for armor is giving too much to Light Armor, so it should be balanced with the gain of Medium and Heavy armors (improving the effect on these two or lowering it on light armor). Impenetrable could be more useful in PvE.

Joy_Division

exiledtyrant wrote: »

I just finished some test used the Weighted trait. I was pleasantly surprised. 17% chance to gen 1 ultimate seemed terrible but it really does offer good gains. I tested how long it would take to generate enough ultimate for a level 1 werewolf ultimate. Instead of a time based test on an enemy with a lot of hp I killed open world mobs with around the same time to kill ( in this case gold coast wolves).

The first test was using two dual wield weapon without weighted. It took exactly 12 kills to generate enough ultimate for a werewolf transformation.

The second test used 2 gold axes with weighted. It took 7 kills to generate enough ultimate for a werewolf transformation. So about a 42% decrease in time needed to fill my ultimate. I didn't even think about them stacking but the results seem to indicate that the bonus does.

Next I decided to see what it would be like adding another layer of ultimate gen. The easiest way was to simply go sword and shield and slot heroic slash. First test had me use a weapon without weighted weaving heroic with light attacks. It took 9 kills to generate enough ultimate for werewolf form.

The second test had me using a weighted weapon and heroic slash. It took 6 kills to generate enough ultimate for werewolf form. Again a fairly large gain at 34% time decrease to generate a full ultimate.

Weighted also seems to attack slightly faster than non weighted weapons. This may be a remnant of the old attack speed trait.

All in all I think this trait accomplishes what it set out to do. With a build dedicated to ultimate gen the gains could prove to be substantial. What build wants to revolve around an ultimate besides vampire or werewolf I'm not sure however. I'll be running more test using tava's favor later.

I'm not sure running around in Zenimax's open world, where it's possible to go AFK and still survive, killing random wolves is a proper test for this trait or alleviates my concerns for it.

Ultimate gain in constant, competitive combat is the litmus test. Most of the ultimate ticks players get is from the heroism buff that comes from light attack/healing and the passives from skills like templar's using a dawn's wrath ability. There are 30 ticks in a minute and assuming best case scenario where every one of those ticks had 2 instances of ultimate being generated - a highly unlikely scenario is competitive situations - I am still only gaining 20 ultimate in a minute, assuming the weapon is even eligible to proc multiple times during the same tick. This means I am going to get mad when RNG gives me a decisive weapon instead of a sharpened, which is precisely what we are trying to avoid here.

Or am I not understanding this trait correctly?

Ishammael

Joy_Division wrote: »

exiledtyrant wrote: »

I just finished some test used the Weighted trait. I was pleasantly surprised. 17% chance to gen 1 ultimate seemed terrible but it really does offer good gains. I tested how long it would take to generate enough ultimate for a level 1 werewolf ultimate. Instead of a time based test on an enemy with a lot of hp I killed open world mobs with around the same time to kill ( in this case gold coast wolves).

The first test was using two dual wield weapon without weighted. It took exactly 12 kills to generate enough ultimate for a werewolf transformation.

The second test used 2 gold axes with weighted. It took 7 kills to generate enough ultimate for a werewolf transformation. So about a 42% decrease in time needed to fill my ultimate. I didn't even think about them stacking but the results seem to indicate that the bonus does.

Next I decided to see what it would be like adding another layer of ultimate gen. The easiest way was to simply go sword and shield and slot heroic slash. First test had me use a weapon without weighted weaving heroic with light attacks. It took 9 kills to generate enough ultimate for werewolf form.

The second test had me using a weighted weapon and heroic slash. It took 6 kills to generate enough ultimate for werewolf form. Again a fairly large gain at 34% time decrease to generate a full ultimate.

Weighted also seems to attack slightly faster than non weighted weapons. This may be a remnant of the old attack speed trait.

All in all I think this trait accomplishes what it set out to do. With a build dedicated to ultimate gen the gains could prove to be substantial. What build wants to revolve around an ultimate besides vampire or werewolf I'm not sure however. I'll be running more test using tava's favor later.

I'm not sure running around in Zenimax's open world, where it's possible to go AFK and still survive, killing random wolves is a proper test for this trait or alleviates my concerns for it.

Ultimate gain in constant, competitive combat is the litmus test. Most of the ultimate ticks players get is from the heroism buff that comes from light attack/healing and the passives from skills like templar's using a dawn's wrath ability. There are 30 ticks in a minute and assuming best case scenario where every one of those ticks had 2 instances of ultimate being generated - a highly unlikely scenario is competitive situations - I am still only gaining 20 ultimate in a minute, assuming the weapon is even eligible to proc multiple times during the same tick. This means I am going to get mad when RNG gives me a decisive weapon instead of a sharpened, which is precisely what we are trying to avoid here.

Or am I not understanding this trait correctly?

No, you understand it correctly. The trait is terrible. It was a bad test -- which yielded bad results.

Overall trait feedback:
1. Impen is still king in PvP. There really is no comparison. Especially since shields are now 6s. The other armor traits would probably need to be increased 50% to make them competitive -- but then they would likely be imbalanced in PvE.
2. Study on armor is still the worst choice. In PvP, see (1). In PvE divines and infused are much better. Sturdy needs to be additive (not multiplicative) and provide ~0.5 - 1% more block cost reduction per piece.
3. Reinforced and Nirnhoned are bad. The armor cap needs to be increased probably 30% and these traits doubled to make them viable.
3. The changes to weapon traits are excellent. How they balance against poisons is still TBD (need more testing).

Reorx_Holybeard

Joy_Division wrote: »

exiledtyrant wrote: »

I just finished some test used the Weighted trait. I was pleasantly surprised. 17% chance to gen 1 ultimate seemed terrible but it really does offer good gains. I tested how long it would take to generate enough ultimate for a level 1 werewolf ultimate. Instead of a time based test on an enemy with a lot of hp I killed open world mobs with around the same time to kill ( in this case gold coast wolves).

The first test was using two dual wield weapon without weighted. It took exactly 12 kills to generate enough ultimate for a werewolf transformation.

The second test used 2 gold axes with weighted. It took 7 kills to generate enough ultimate for a werewolf transformation. So about a 42% decrease in time needed to fill my ultimate. I didn't even think about them stacking but the results seem to indicate that the bonus does.

Next I decided to see what it would be like adding another layer of ultimate gen. The easiest way was to simply go sword and shield and slot heroic slash. First test had me use a weapon without weighted weaving heroic with light attacks. It took 9 kills to generate enough ultimate for werewolf form.

The second test had me using a weighted weapon and heroic slash. It took 6 kills to generate enough ultimate for werewolf form. Again a fairly large gain at 34% time decrease to generate a full ultimate.

Weighted also seems to attack slightly faster than non weighted weapons. This may be a remnant of the old attack speed trait.

All in all I think this trait accomplishes what it set out to do. With a build dedicated to ultimate gen the gains could prove to be substantial. What build wants to revolve around an ultimate besides vampire or werewolf I'm not sure however. I'll be running more test using tava's favor later.

I'm not sure running around in Zenimax's open world, where it's possible to go AFK and still survive, killing random wolves is a proper test for this trait or alleviates my concerns for it.

Ultimate gain in constant, competitive combat is the litmus test. Most of the ultimate ticks players get is from the heroism buff that comes from light attack/healing and the passives from skills like templar's using a dawn's wrath ability. There are 30 ticks in a minute and assuming best case scenario where every one of those ticks had 2 instances of ultimate being generated - a highly unlikely scenario is competitive situations - I am still only gaining 20 ultimate in a minute, assuming the weapon is even eligible to proc multiple times during the same tick. This means I am going to get mad when RNG gives me a decisive weapon instead of a sharpened, which is precisely what we are trying to avoid here.

Or am I not understanding this trait correctly?

I was curious about the Decisive trait so I tried it with my Stamina DK tank using his "Ultimate" build (Tava's Favour, Blood Spawn). A relatively quick test in veteran Wayrest tanking the first group of mobs to see how long it took to gain 200 ultimate. Test repeated 5 times with and without a Decisive weapon slotted:

1. Without Decisive = 28.6 sec (24-37 sec)
2. With Decisive = 30.2 sec (26-33 sec)

So its actually *worse* with Decisive? Granted this build has a lot of variation due to the sources of Ultimate but I expected to at least see some result with Decisive instead of this. Either it doesn't work very well or at such a low amount it is not noticeable. I wonder if it works with all sources of Ultimate or just specific types.

If I have time I'll try a longer test to see if I can get the random variation minimized or see if I can track when exactly the trait fires to give me an extra utlimate.

Reorx_Holybeard

I did a bit more testing with Decisive as I wanted to figure out how it works and what sort of improvement it could possibly be to an "Ultimate" type tank build. The short story is that it only actually increases my ultimate gain by around 5% (see below for testing results and some theory crafting). So an interesting trait but even for tanking it is not particularly worth it. At a 5% gain I would rather have the Defending trait. For DPS a Sharpened/Precisie/Nirnhoned would get you far more return. I'm not sure what the dev's target for Decisive is but I would like to see it significantly higher than 5%. An actual 17/34% gain would be reasonable and perhaps worth it for some builds but that's not what it is currently giving us.

A few things about Decisive:

• It seems to give a chance for anything that gives you Ultimate to gain a +1. So when this fires a gain from a Light Attack would give you +4 (normally +3), from Heroic Slash +2 (+1 normally), from Tava's Favour set +4 (+3 normally), and from Blood Spawn set +16 (+15 normally). This immediately reduces its effectiveness from +17% to around 6% as most normal ultimate gains are +3 and you only get +4 when Decisive fires.
• I didn't compute the chance from tests but it seems to be around the +17% value based on how often it fires.
• Using 2 Decisive weapons merely increases the chance of getting +1 Ultimate. I was thinking it might have a small chance to give +2 but I never saw that happen over a good number of tests.

For my tests I went into normal Wayrest and tanked the first group of 4 rats five times and then the second group of 8 rats five times and averaged my results using a Decisive trait and without. The times are for generating 200 ultimate.

• 4 Rats Without = 34.4 sec (5.8 Ult/sec)
• 4 Rats With Decisive = 29.8 sec (6.7 Ult/sec, +13%)
• 8 Rats Without = 29.0 sec (6.9 Ult/sec)
• 8 Rats With Decisive = 27.0 sec (7.4 Ult/sec, +7%)

So a noticeable difference this time with a bit more controlled test. Due to the random nature of some of my Ultimate sources I'd have to do a really long or very many tests to remove the random element from the results. My sources of Ultimate are:

• Light Attacks / Blocking = 3 Ult/sec
• Heroic Slash = 0.7 Ult/sec
• Blood Spawn = 6% chance on hit to get 15 Ult, 6 sec cooldown
• Tava's Favour = Gain 3 Ult/sec over 3 secs when you dodge (using Shuffle, 20% dodge)

From this you can get a rough estimate of how much Ultimate you gain per second. The last two are a little tricky as it depends on how often you are hit. Using a typical dungeon trash pull the average of 2 hits/second seems reasonable. This gives an average return for Blood Spawn of around 1.5 Ult/sec (2.5 Ult/sec max) and for Tava around 2.3 Ult/sec (3 Ult/sec max).

So using these values we can estimate our ultimate gain with and without a Decisive weapon:

• Average Without = 7.7 Ult/sec
• Average With Decisive = 8.1 Ult/sec (+5%)
• Max Without = 9.2 Ult/sec
• Max With Decisive = 9.7 Ult/sec (+5%)

This roughly matches my "8 Rat" test results. For a boss you're going to be hit far less often so the Ultimate gain from Blood Spawn/Tava will be less but I would still expect a 5% gain for 1 Decisive weapon since most of your Ultimate will be the +3/+4 from Light Attacks. Using 2 Decisive weapons would likely get you +10% Ultimate gain.

exiledtyrant

Just to add some more data for decisive trait I did some single target ultimate gen testing using minotuars, and multi hit testing using wayrest rats. I timed the ultimate gen up against my Greater Atronach Summon which last 28.6 seconds so basically 29 seconds. The gen was accounted for from drop down to death animation.

My findings were:

minotuars
Dual light attacks without decisive
96
96
96
96
96
Average : 96 ultimate per 29 seconds

Dual light attacks with decisive
108
108
108
108
109
Average = 108 ultimate every 29 seconds

Gain 12% more ultimate on average over a period of 29 seconds.

Wayrest skeevers

Dual light attacks without decisive + tava
129
120
126
135
126

Average = 127 ultimate every 29 seconds

Dual light attacks with decisive + tava
140
152
138
145
151

Average = 145 ultimate every 29 seconds

Gain of 14% more ultimate over a period of 29 seconds.

Minotuars

Sword and shield light attacks without decisive + heroic
115
115
115
115
115
Average = 115 ultimate every 29 seconds

Sword and shield light attacks with decisive + heroic
122
124
124
120
122
Average = 122 ultimate every 29 seconds

Gain of 6% more ultimate over 29 seconds.

Wayrest Sewer rats

Sword and shield light attacks without decisive + heroic + tava
155
164
144
169
146
Average = 156 ultimate every 29 seconds

Sword and shield light attacks with decisive + heroic + tava
156
163
173
155
164

Average = 162 ultimate every 29 seconds

Gain of 4% increased ultimate every 29 seconds

********************************************************************************

As you can see there is a trend showing more investment in ultimate gen leads to less actual gains from decisive. Whether this is due to a cap, an ICD, or just small sample size I can't be sure. I don't think it is fair to compare this trait to other DPS traits though. Ultimate gen is pure utility. Also most ultimate gen is centered around being attacked. With that in mind decisive is best compared against other defensive traits. Is it's power level high enough to make it comparable to other defensive traits? I am not sure.

Ultimate generation and reduction are very rare to come by. They usually require a 5 piece set bonus investment or a class specific passive. With the ultimate gen available now ultimates at 170 or below are practically free and those in the 200 range are not far off. I guess it comes down to how much ultimate gen is ok to make it competitive without allowing for perma atronahcs/ annulments/ standards/ warhorns etc. If anything decisive should made in a way that the more you invest into ultimate gen the better it gets. Right now that doesn't seem to be the case.

Ra'Shtar

You need to buff the ''new'' trait Decisive to 2 ultimate gain instead of 1 its a lot weaker than Sharpened and Precise by a big margin and same with the new effect of Nirnhoned in weapons they need to be buffed or we are back to square 1 having 3 traits that are good and the rest is way weaker.

Liofa

Ra'Shtar wrote: »

You need to buff the ''new'' trait Decisive to 2 ultimate gain instead of 1 its a lot weaker than Sharpened and Precise by a big margin and same with the new effect of Nirnhoned in weapons they need to be buffed or we are back to square 1 having 3 traits that are good and the rest is way weaker.

(PvE) I completely agree on the DPS perspective but can't say the same for tanking . Tanks can generate insane Ultimate already . Buffing it will make tanks very powerful in Ultimate regenerating . Also , however they buff the Ultimate regeneration on the trait , it won't be as good as Sharpened for DPS builds . It looks like this trait designed to used by tanks ( and maybe healers ) and should stay that way . Buffing it most likely will make tanks ( especially DK tanks ) very overpowered .

Armitas

I still cant download pts yet. Anyone tried well fitted? I am a bit worried that well fitted on top of medium armor and CP will bring back perma roll as a thing...only now with shields.

hrothbern

.

NoS_smoke

I wish they would allow imperial city sets in new traits. Only impen sucks.

hrothbern

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

I did a bit more testing with Decisive as I wanted to figure out how it works and what sort of improvement it could possibly be to an "Ultimate" type tank build. The short story is that it only actually increases my ultimate gain by around 5% (see below for testing results and some theory crafting). So an interesting trait but even for tanking it is not particularly worth it. At a 5% gain I would rather have the Defending trait. For DPS a Sharpened/Precisie/Nirnhoned would get you far more return. I'm not sure what the dev's target for Decisive is but I would like to see it significantly higher than 5%. An actual 17/34% gain would be reasonable and perhaps worth it for some builds but that's not what it is currently giving us.

A few things about Decisive:

• It seems to give a chance for anything that gives you Ultimate to gain a +1. So when this fires a gain from a Light Attack would give you +4 (normally +3), from Heroic Slash +2 (+1 normally), from Tava's Favour set +4 (+3 normally), and from Blood Spawn set +16 (+15 normally). This immediately reduces its effectiveness from +17% to around 6% as most normal ultimate gains are +3 and you only get +4 when Decisive fires.
• I didn't compute the chance from tests but it seems to be around the +17% value based on how often it fires.
• Using 2 Decisive weapons merely increases the chance of getting +1 Ultimate. I was thinking it might have a small chance to give +2 but I never saw that happen over a good number of tests.

For my tests I went into normal Wayrest and tanked the first group of 4 rats five times and then the second group of 8 rats five times and averaged my results using a Decisive trait and without. The times are for generating 200 ultimate.

• 4 Rats Without = 34.4 sec (5.8 Ult/sec)
• 4 Rats With Decisive = 29.8 sec (6.7 Ult/sec, +13%)
• 8 Rats Without = 29.0 sec (6.9 Ult/sec)
• 8 Rats With Decisive = 27.0 sec (7.4 Ult/sec, +7%)

So a noticeable difference this time with a bit more controlled test. Due to the random nature of some of my Ultimate sources I'd have to do a really long or very many tests to remove the random element from the results. My sources of Ultimate are:

• Light Attacks / Blocking = 3 Ult/sec
• Heroic Slash = 0.7 Ult/sec
• Blood Spawn = 6% chance on hit to get 15 Ult, 6 sec cooldown
• Tava's Favour = Gain 3 Ult/sec over 3 secs when you dodge (using Shuffle, 20% dodge)

From this you can get a rough estimate of how much Ultimate you gain per second. The last two are a little tricky as it depends on how often you are hit. Using a typical dungeon trash pull the average of 2 hits/second seems reasonable. This gives an average return for Blood Spawn of around 1.5 Ult/sec (2.5 Ult/sec max) and for Tava around 2.3 Ult/sec (3 Ult/sec max).

So using these values we can estimate our ultimate gain with and without a Decisive weapon:

• Average Without = 7.7 Ult/sec
• Average With Decisive = 8.1 Ult/sec (+5%)
• Max Without = 9.2 Ult/sec
• Max With Decisive = 9.7 Ult/sec (+5%)

This roughly matches my "8 Rat" test results. For a boss you're going to be hit far less often so the Ultimate gain from Blood Spawn/Tava will be less but I would still expect a 5% gain for 1 Decisive weapon since most of your Ultimate will be the +3/+4 from Light Attacks. Using 2 Decisive weapons would likely get you +10% Ultimate gain.

exiledtyrant wrote: »

Just to add some more data for decisive trait I did some single target ultimate gen testing using minotuars, and multi hit testing using wayrest rats. I timed the ultimate gen up against my Greater Atronach Summon which last 28.6 seconds so basically 29 seconds. The gen was accounted for from drop down to death animation.

My findings were:

minotuars
Dual light attacks without decisive
96
96
96
96
96
Average : 96 ultimate per 29 seconds

Dual light attacks with decisive
108
108
108
108
109
Average = 108 ultimate every 29 seconds

Gain 12% more ultimate on average over a period of 29 seconds.

Wayrest skeevers

Dual light attacks without decisive + tava
129
120
126
135
126

Average = 127 ultimate every 29 seconds

Dual light attacks with decisive + tava
140
152
138
145
151

Average = 145 ultimate every 29 seconds

Gain of 14% more ultimate over a period of 29 seconds.

Minotuars

Sword and shield light attacks without decisive + heroic
115
115
115
115
115
Average = 115 ultimate every 29 seconds

Sword and shield light attacks with decisive + heroic
122
124
124
120
122
Average = 122 ultimate every 29 seconds

Gain of 6% more ultimate over 29 seconds.

Wayrest Sewer rats

Sword and shield light attacks without decisive + heroic + tava
155
164
144
169
146
Average = 156 ultimate every 29 seconds

Sword and shield light attacks with decisive + heroic + tava
156
163
173
155
164

Average = 162 ultimate every 29 seconds

Gain of 4% increased ultimate every 29 seconds

********************************************************************************

As you can see there is a trend showing more investment in ultimate gen leads to less actual gains from decisive. Whether this is due to a cap, an ICD, or just small sample size I can't be sure. I don't think it is fair to compare this trait to other DPS traits though. Ultimate gen is pure utility. Also most ultimate gen is centered around being attacked. With that in mind decisive is best compared against other defensive traits. Is it's power level high enough to make it comparable to other defensive traits? I am not sure.

Ultimate generation and reduction are very rare to come by. They usually require a 5 piece set bonus investment or a class specific passive. With the ultimate gen available now ultimates at 170 or below are practically free and those in the 200 range are not far off. I guess it comes down to how much ultimate gen is ok to make it competitive without allowing for perma atronahcs/ annulments/ standards/ warhorns etc. If anything decisive should made in a way that the more you invest into ultimate gen the better it gets. Right now that doesn't seem to be the case.

Is Decisive a good Trait to choose ? For a DD or a Tank.

Thanks @Reorx_Holybeard and @exiledtyrant for the tests done so far (your posts in the two spoilers above), resulting in approx 6% increase Ultimates for one-handed and 12% for Dual.

If I theocraft the effective % Ultimate gain should be slightly better than 6% for one-handed and 12% for two-handed if you also use NB Transfer and S&B Heroic Slash, but that will not influence the 6% that much.

What I wanted to try is to compare the Decisive Trait with other options for a DPS build (increasing DPS from Precise or more Ulti) and the same choice for a Group Tank (increasing Group DPS with Agressive Warhorn).


The DPS build.
Assume that a DPS build compares Decisive with Precise: 34% more chance on 1 Ultimate per ultimate tick or 7% more Crit Chance for Dual Wield or a Staf.
Say without the Trait the Ultimate of the DD does approx 7% of his total Damage and he has 68% Crit Chance and 75% Crit Damage modifier in a Raid.
If he uses the Precise Trait his DPS will go up with 3.48% (and not to completely ignore, his self-HPS also).
If he uses Decisive, he will get roughly 12% more Ultimates and can cast his Ultimate (100%/88%-100%) = 13.6% more.
The Damage of his Ultimate is now 113.6%*7% = 7.95%.
So... if he uses the Decisive Trait his DPS will go up with just under 1%.
Conclusion: For a DPS the Precise Trait is 3-4 times as effective as Decisive: 3.5% DPS increase against 1%.

The Tank build supporting his group with Agressive Warhorn.
I start with the calculation for a Pledge, where only the Tank uses Warhorn (more simple calculation than 2-3 players doing Warhorn in a Trial)
You could say that the Tank has not much choice. He either needs the 2.5k of Defensive badly or not. And if not, every tiny little bit to support the Group helps. So the calculation does nothing else than calculating the increased DPS of the Group.
Agressive Warhorn: 30 seconds 10% higher stats and 8 seconds 30% Crit Damage increase.
If we assume that the 10% stat increase delivers 7% more DPS, the 30% Crit Damage increase around 15% more DPS and the uptime is 30 seconds per 62.5 seconds (4 Ultimates per second), we get:
Total Warhorn DPS increase is: (30*7% + 8*15% + 32.5*0%)/62.5 = (210% + 120%)/62.5 = 330%/62.5 = 5.28%.
IF for a one-handed S&B Tank Decisive increases Ultimate gain with 6%, the uptime is 30 seconds per 58.75 seconds (94%*62.5).
The Decisive Warhorn DPS increase is: (30*7% + 8*15% + 28.75*0%)/58.75 = 330%/58.75 = 5.62%.
Conclusion: The decisive Trait increases the Warhorn Group Damage from 5.28% to 5.62%, or only 0.34%.
The 0.34% is exactly the Decisive 6% from the base value of 5.28%.

I must say that this is lower, for both the DPS build and the Tank, than I guessed before doing the precise Math.
And the current low effect really invites to increase the Decisive effect substantially to get it useful.

The only risks I see are semi-permanent DK Ultimates and perhaps Negate.
Whereby the defensive DK Ultimates will only benefit from half of the max Decisive value (S&B).

EDIT:
If you use now 3 players in a Trial to get Agressive Warhorn to 100% uptime, it could be that with Decisive you are able to do it with 2. But if you use 3 anyway, to be sure you get always that roughly 11%, there is no benefit of Decisive in a Trial.

Reorx_Holybeard

hrothbern wrote: »

...
I must say that this is lower, for both the DPS build and the Tank, than I guessed before doing the precise Math.
And the current low effect really invites to increase the Decisive effect substantially to get it useful.

The only risks I see are semi-permanent DK Ultimates and perhaps Negate.
Whereby the defensive DK Ultimates will only benefit from half of the max Decisive value (S&B).

Good stuff! As a DK tank running an ultimate build that was basically my opinion as well. With a 6% increase to Ultimate gain it basically means I can cast a 250 Ultimate 2 seconds faster on average (35.7 vs 33.7 sec). Given the random nature of my ultimate gain that is not near enough to make it worth losing the Defender trait or a DPS trait.

Justice31st

Nirnhoned is suppose to be that one rare trait that takes more time to get; there is a whole quest line around it as a reward. Why would you nerf the spell resistance on the nirnhoned in Dark Brotherhood and make a trait such as sharpened stronger? Please leave nirnhoned un-nerfed for weapons and keep it as the strongest trait in the game. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_Finn @Wrobel @ZOS

Arethan09

Could we finally get a traitchange craftingability pleeease ZOS ?^^

hrothbern

I did some weapon crafting in PTS and there is an oddity with the Nirn Weapon Trait:
For Dual Wield: Nirn + Nirn gives hardly more benefit than Nirn + another Trait on the other weapon: 1,777 against 1,743.

IDK if that is intended.

Spell and Weapon Damage from stat overview value. Weapons are CP-160, gold:
One handed:

1. Other: 1,335 (is the normal base value)
2. Nirn: 1,481 (is incl the 11% or 146 increase of Nirn)

Dual Wield:

1. Other + Other: 1,602 (is the normal benefit of DW)
2. Other + Nirn: 1,748 (is above with the 146 increase of 1 Nirn)
3. Nirn + Nirn: 1,777 (this is odd: the additional Nirn gives only 29 increase !!!)

Two-handed (Maul, Axe, Sword):

1. Other: 1,571 (is the normal base value)
2. Nirn: 1,743 (is incl the 11% or 172 increase of Nirn)

Gottbeard

I think if sturdy gave cc break cost reduction per piece as well as block cost reduction it might be more appealing. Maybe 3 to 5 percent reduction per legendary piece?

I would also like the block cost reduction to be higher per piece.