Stamina Equivalent of Vicious Death

SwaminoNowlino

Want to have a positive and constructive discussion here regarding the ability for Stam characters to counter Zerg balls.

Currently Mag characters have Mag Det and Vicious Death. Stam characters have an AOE capped whirlwind. Everything else does damage in a forward cone and is also AOE capped.

Dark Brotherhood was supposed to be the update to provide balance between Mag and Stam. I wouldn't even be writing this post if ZOS didn't mention during ESO Live that they would specifically be giving Stamina characters their own version of Zerg management when responding to player questions. I think it was actually Rich who said it, and it prompted Jessica to make the statement about executioner being AOE that everyone went nuts laughing about.

Buffing Proxy and adding VD was intended to reduce the number of huge groups running around and destroying PVP. It has changed nothing, at least on Xbox NA. It is so easy to get both that everyone now runs both. A group of 4 cannot go through the hole in a keep because of VD. Despite the changes made in DB, there is still no disincentive to Zerg. The changes to IC Districts have only increased the incentives and will turn into nothing but Zerg fights, given the single flag. Which really should be multiple flags to maintain balance.

So how is this a Stam balance update? There is still no balance in regards to Stam vs Mag. No disincentive to Zerg + Stam characters have no way to counter them means they are still subpar for the meta in PVP.. Rich or Wrobel said they were adding something specifically for this, but they did not.

Frankly, it doesn't even need to be a set. Just add a VD like change to some unused class abilities and make them scale off physical damage. 1 morph of the Templar Ultimate sweep could have it, or power of the light. The Sorcerers execute ability could have a Stam morph that procs this when it kills someone, and would be giving Stam Sorcs SOMETHING this update (hard not to think they ignored Stam Sorcs specifically to chase @FENGRUSH away.) Dk's new poison breath could have this effect. Nightblades soul tether morph or impale or something.

Of course could be done through the promised and forgotten Weapon Ultimates... Anyway, please keep any discussion positive and hopefully we can get ZOS to hear us.

Sunburnt_Penguin

I think the only change that's needed is to make VD proc if you're wearing it and get killed, increasing the damage for the number of people in your area. VD itself isn't an issue in my eyes, what is the issue is that zergs run this to wipe out smaller groups.

staracino_ESO

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

I think the only change that's needed is to make VD proc if you're wearing it and get killed, increasing the damage for the number of people in your area. VD itself isn't an issue in my eyes, what is the issue is that zergs run this to wipe out smaller groups.

Even though I love this set, I completely agree with you. If they increase the radius to 8-10 meters and make it scale with # hit, it would be sort of a speed-bump set for large zergs, while being fairly useless for them to wear. They would probably have to add a small passive bonus to the 5 pc. as well to make it worth wearing while alive.

SwaminoNowlino

@Sunburnt_Penguin Amen! That is an idea I've been kicking around for a while. Wearing VD should be a double-edged sword. Zergs wouldn't run it then, and you wouldn't need to add something to stamina abilities for it. Plus if you reduce the zeros you reduce the lag and the game performs better overall.

@Wrobel Have you all considered this idea? Simply add an effect to Vicious Death that makes it proc on the wearers death, and escalates like Mag Det in terms of damage based on the number of friendlies around you. That way it lets small groups still wear it, but the big zergs definitely would not. Probably much easier to add this effect than wholesale changes to skills and such. Would also be worth looking at making VD come in both medium and light armor and making it look like the Hybrid set that will be released in DB.

Sunburnt_Penguin

staracino_ESO wrote: »

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

I think the only change that's needed is to make VD proc if you're wearing it and get killed, increasing the damage for the number of people in your area. VD itself isn't an issue in my eyes, what is the issue is that zergs run this to wipe out smaller groups.

Even though I love this set, I completely agree with you. If they increase the radius to 8-10 meters and make it scale with # hit, it would be sort of a speed-bump set for large zergs, while being fairly useless for them to wear. They would probably have to add a small passive bonus to the 5 pc. as well to make it worth wearing while alive.

I mean, if most of the people who are wearing something are those who it's intended to negatively affect: then there's obviously a problem.

blabafat

How about we remove AoE Caps, Mag Det, AND VICIOUS DEATH

:O :O :O

staracino_ESO

They are more likely to make tweaks to their silly sets than remove AOE caps. I'm working with what I got, here.

NBrookus

If it procs on a the player wearer's death, we'd just have more kamakaze players. I'm not sure that's a solution when there's no downside really to getting killed in PvP.

SwaminoNowlino

@blabafat I'm not for taking out well established skills, I.e. Proxy. Maybe add a Stam morph or something, but even then that wouldn't make sense. And I like the concept of vicious death, but it's having the opposite effect. Ideally removing AOE caps would be great, but I wasn't around before so I'm not sure why the changed. Can't speak to that.

@NBrookus Not sure what problem you are talking about here regarding kamikaze. We are talking about making it proc on wearer's death to hit friendlies. For example, you're in a Zerg wearing it and you die, you blow up your own Zerg. You could have a problem with sabotage in a group, but you'd learn to quit being around that person, especially with the nameplate changes.

NBrookus

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

@NBrookus Not sure what problem you are talking about here regarding kamikaze. We are talking about making it proc on wearer's death to hit friendlies. For example, you're in a Zerg wearing it and you die, you blow up your own Zerg. You could have a problem with sabotage in a group, but you'd learn to quit being around that person, especially with the nameplate changes.

Oooh... that's a different kettle of fish. Interesting concept. I don't think ZOS has the mechanics for friendly fire at all, so I doubt this option can even go on the table.

Nonetheless if there's a set I'd like to see get a huge hit with the nerf-hammer, this is the one.

SwaminoNowlino

@NBrookus They kind of have it right now with the current VD mechanic and several of the mechanics in the trials. Sure with current VD you get killed by enemy player, but it procs off your death to kill your allies.

Also the thing is it needs to escalate like proxy does. ZOS says they're happy with VD as is, so I wouldn't count on that nerf.

NBrookus

I agree that were are probably stuck with Vicious Death.

staracino_ESO

I WAS talking about using it as a kamikaze set.

SwaminoNowlino

@staracino_ESO So you're talking about having it so that when you die it kills your enemies? That would just be a huge nerf to stamina, which for the most part is close range. If I close range kill someone and it procs and kills me? No thanks. Need to break up zergs, that wouldn't do the trick. Basic point of post is there needs to be a way for Stam characters to work towards breaking up zergs.

staracino_ESO

It would scale based on the number of enemies present when you die. It would do about 3k damage before battle spirit with 0-1 enemies, and then scale up from there.

Rohamad_Ali

Maybe like the Wuxi finger skadoosh ?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=31P4DgkW9Ns

staracino_ESO

Also, I know this post is about stam equivalent for VD, but if VD gets changed into a nich type of set, then there won't be anything for stam to be jelly of.

Recremen

Yeah I was a bit disappointed that there was no zergbuster stam addition this patch. The difference in ability to earn AP without this set is huge, especially if you aren't a Magicka Knightblade with Soul Tether and Proxy Det.

Solariken

blabafat wrote: »

How about we remove AoE Caps, Mag Det, AND VICIOUS DEATH

:O :O :O

YEEASSSSS!!!1!

I support this idea. All of the above mechanics are garbage and should be deleted immediately.

I just don't understand - we have great AoE abilities in game but they put an arbitrary cap on the # of targets hit, but THEN add in dumb abilities and procs that specifically ignore the caps that all other abilities have to follow, thereby pidgeon-holing everyone into using lame bomb builds instead of tactical PvP. Senseless.

mr_wazzabi

I think the reason zos doesn't want to remove aoe caps is for 2 things:

1. They're a company who's policy is to never admit they made a mistake. Putting the cap in place and removing it a year and a half later is admitting a mistake
2. It might make aoe situations in pve a joke. When they're 20+ mobs swarming the group and one ultimate hits them all for 20k, the devs don't like that. They only want you to hit 6 for 20k and make you struggle to kill the 15 other mobs left.

SwaminoNowlino

Removing AOE caps just isn't going to happen. I'd love it if they did, but they just aren't going to do it. So to keep asking and demanding and moving conversation in that direction is not constructive. I'd like to have a stickied forum for that so we can keep asking in the same place and make every eventually get a real answer from the devs.

ZOS actually will admit when they mess up, go look at the thread for enchanting, they admitted they messed up and have revised.

Vicious death and proxy aren't going to go away. I actually like them conceptually, but for that great power, there should be a little risk involved. Small groups would wear VD to bust up the zergs, zergs would eventually fall by the wayside, and PVP would be so much better. Stam should have something to combat these zergs with as well, and you could make it just as gimmicky as VD if you want to so that it falls out of style if/when the zergs disappear.

Xsorus

Recremen wrote: »

Yeah I was a bit disappointed that there was no zergbuster stam addition this patch. The difference in ability to earn AP without this set is huge, especially if you aren't a Magicka Knightblade with Soul Tether and Proxy Det.

Actually; having played this setup vs stamina right now I'll say the AP difference isn't all that different.

While I don't have the ability to wipe stacks as stamina as a bow user I'm able to get far more single target kills in general instead of waiting around for stacks of players; and when stacks do happen I can bombard that stack and leech from the soon to be bomb on it.

The biggest difference is my ability to function in IC; that is where you'll see the disparity.

Recremen

Xsorus wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Yeah I was a bit disappointed that there was no zergbuster stam addition this patch. The difference in ability to earn AP without this set is huge, especially if you aren't a Magicka Knightblade with Soul Tether and Proxy Det.

Actually; having played this setup vs stamina right now I'll say the AP difference isn't all that different.

While I don't have the ability to wipe stacks as stamina as a bow user I'm able to get far more single target kills in general instead of waiting around for stacks of players; and when stacks do happen I can bombard that stack and leech from the soon to be bomb on it.

The biggest difference is my ability to function in IC; that is where you'll see the disparity.

Might be your own methodology at play there. Even before VD, magicka NB was top AP farming with the right build by what I am pretty sure was a literal order of magnitude. VD just means you can now secure the kills yourself instead of relying on the other two factions to kill each other.

Xsorus

Recremen wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Yeah I was a bit disappointed that there was no zergbuster stam addition this patch. The difference in ability to earn AP without this set is huge, especially if you aren't a Magicka Knightblade with Soul Tether and Proxy Det.

Actually; having played this setup vs stamina right now I'll say the AP difference isn't all that different.

While I don't have the ability to wipe stacks as stamina as a bow user I'm able to get far more single target kills in general instead of waiting around for stacks of players; and when stacks do happen I can bombard that stack and leech from the soon to be bomb on it.

The biggest difference is my ability to function in IC; that is where you'll see the disparity.

Might be your own methodology at play there. Even before VD, magicka NB was top AP farming with the right build by what I am pretty sure was a literal order of magnitude. VD just means you can now secure the kills yourself instead of relying on the other two factions to kill each other.

I can do fairly decent single target damage and Zerg surf fairly easy on the nightblade; but getting the long range kills isn't as easy as on the stamina bow user. Now if I wanted to make a magicka nb build designed around single targets I could; however I would not run VD with it.

PlagueMonk

They probably thought that the changing of all the magicka based damage in Stamina abilities to physical was "sufficient". It's of course not and was simply the "balance" to what they gave magicka last go around with CP abilities. (even though magicka still reigns supreme with their ability to get to 50k resources)

I also disagree with adding abilities to every class since that's a LOT of retooling when they just did a lot of retooling. I would much prefer doing exactly what they did with VD.........Just add a similar set and an ability in the fighters guild to be the foil to PD. It would be boring but the most balanced counter.

If I had my way though it would be nice if the stamina set/ability was similar but in some way subtly different. What that would be idk but it would show Zenimax are willing to put forth some effort.

SwaminoNowlino

@PlagueMonk I'm not so much worried about the counter to proxy det, as I don't see it being a problem after the patch. I want the Zerg busting abilities we were told were coming in this patch for Stam users. If you wanted to add a set instead of abilities, you could just make an exact copy of VD but in medium with weapon and Stam boosts, and have it proc a cloud of 12k poison when you kill someone. Simple as that and it keeps with the changes they've made to date.

Could even call it Plague Death or something!

Junkogen

Stamina has shield breaker, magicka doesn't. Does every item set need to be made for each stat?

They have stamina sets that could act as zerg busters. There's that one that sets a mine down when you roll dodge. Get a group and roll into a zerg. What about steel tornado?

SwaminoNowlino

No, there is and should be unique stuff between the builds and such.

They do not have any Stam sets or abilities that can be used as Zerg busters. ZOS said as much on ESO Live, hence the point of this post. The gimmicky and useless mine set and steel tornado are both AOE capped. Vicious Death exclusively is not. A single nightblade can proxy+soul tether in a breech and blow up 100 people if they wanted. Stamina has nothing that allows them to solo a zerg.

The whole point of Vicious Death is to break up the Zergs that are rampant in PVP, all spamming caltrops and other AOE's which create lag. ZOS has confirmed that this causes lag. Stamina doesn't necessarily need a set or ability to do this, hence the idea of making VD a double edged sword and impose some risk on the wearer.

Sallington

We definitely don't need more gimmicky 5-piece set bonuses.

Nightenhowl

Jeez stamina doesn't always need the same toys as Magika, if you want VD roll a magic build or even use that new set that matches WP with SP depending on the higher value.

SwaminoNowlino

@Nightenhowl What an incredibly constructive and helpful comment. You're right, we could just roll a Magicka Nightblade. We could have a game with nothing but Magicka Nightblades running around. That would be fun. And in fact I did roll a Magicka Nightblade for this exact reason and built it as a detonation build just like everyone else.

The problem with what you're saying, aside from PVP being nothing but Magicka Nightblades being incredibly healthy for the game, is that ZOS acknowledged that there needed to be a stamina based counter to Zergs. They said it was coming in this patch, but as of 2.4.0 it does not exist. The point of this discussion is to provide insight and constructive commentary to advance the conversation. "Reroll Magicka" does not fall into that category.