Suggestions for fixing the balance of Surge

code65536

The problems with Surge are complicated because Wrobel has stated that he does want Surge to work with DoTs. That seems to be the main driving factor behind this change, esp. since for DW stamsorc builds, the main DPS spammable is a channel (which the game classifies as a DoT). But if Surge were to work for DoTs, then it'll need a cooldown. But if it needs a cooldown, then it needs to be a predetermined value, otherwise, you run into the problem of a small bundle of damage "stealing" the Surge from a larger bundle--e.g., a small tick from Lightning Form might get the Surge for that 1s cooldown period instead of a frag that lands a fraction of a second later.

Essentially, if ZOS wants Surge to work with DoTs, then a flat-value cooldown system is what they have to go with. And that's what we have. And it is inadequate.

Problem 1: Getting the most out of Surge now requires consistent crit uptime, but magicka sorcs have a limited DoT toolkit.

Getting a crit every 1s cooldown is only reasonable under controlled environments, like group PvE where you have a tank holding a boss steady and the player can concentrate on dealing damage. In solo or in PvP, there will be periods when no damage is being done because you are buffing, re-warding, positioning, etc. This used to not be a problem because the burst heals from Surge made up for the periods of low uptime, but those burst heals are now gone.

This can be mitigated somewhat by keeping a DoT ticking, but magicka sorcs have no fast-ticking stick-on-target DoTs at their disposal. Of the class abilities, Liquid Lightning and Lighting Form are both position-sensitive DoTs. The only reasonably useful stick-on-target DoT is Destructive Touch, but the sorc's limited bar space means that using this still will require sacrificing other important skills. In contrast, magblades have Cripple, maplars have Sun Fire, and mDKs have Searing Strike and Fiery Breath. Magicka sorcs are the only class without any stick-on-target class DoTs, yet this change to Surge strongly favors the use of DoTs.

At least with stamina builds, there are multiple options for non-class DoTs. But for magicka builds, their DoTs are of limited usefulness outside of group PvE where a tank can help with positioning. But Surge is primarily a tool for solo survivability--in groups, sorcs usually just rely on the healer.

Problem 2: The healing from Surge no longer scales up in AoE encounters, even though incoming damage scales up in AoE encounters.

A Templar's Sweeps will heal the more targets that they're hitting. A DK's cast of Inhale heals for more if more targets are hit. A nightblade's cast of Sap heals for more if more targets are hit. And on Live, a sorc casting Impulse or Steel Tornado will get more chances at healing the more enemies that are hit.

This scaling of heals is important because the amount of incoming damage also scales up in AoE fights.

Problem 3: The lack of burst healing penalizes unfairly strategies that forgo a steady stream of damage in favor of setting up for a burst.

One of the things that I like doing in vMA is laying down a minefield and then luring a group of enemies (or one large enemy) through it. The time I spend laying the field and positioning is usually time where I'm not doing much damage. But this time spent setting up usually nets me a pretty good payoff in terms of the damage that I ultimately do, and the heals that I get from it--making up for the healing that I wasn't getting during that setup.

This will now be a much riskier strategy, as a boss that runs through the minefield will get me just a single 2K heal instead of multiple large heals.

Problem 4: In general, the healing from the new Surge is substantially less than the healing from the old Surge.

This is a result of a combination of all the problems listed above. You can't go run content using the old Surge, see an average HPS of 2-3K, and say that a 2-3K flat heal per second is sufficient.

Under the old Surge, you had bursts that could make up for periods of no uptime. The poor DoT toolkit and the basic realities of actual combat means that you can't realistically get full uptime of a crit per second.

Problem 5: The new Surge LIMITS CHOICE.

Ultimately, this is the biggest overarching problem of the new Surge.

First, the inadequacy of Surge means that you'll need other heals in addition to it. Whereas destro/destro, destro/DW, destro/1HS, and destro/resto were all valid options for a magicka sorc in vMA, the changes to Surge mean that we must now use destro/resto. Sorcs also suffer from limited bar space due to the Bound Armor toggle. We now have to devote an extra bar spot--when we are already so short on them--for healing. This limits freedom and choice in playstyle.

Second, if we want to get the most out of Surge, we now must use a particular play style where we are doing a consistent stream of damage. This is simply unrealistic in places like vMA and it also penalizes strategies that favor bursts of damage (and heals) instead of a steady stream of them. This limits freedom and choice in playstyle.

How not to fix Surge:

The easiest fix would be to simply tweak the flat value of Surge. You can bump up the flat value and/or make it scale with player stats such that, on average, it provides a similar average HPS as the old Surge.

But this solution is fraught with problems. For example, increasing the flat value high enough such that it still heals the same as before in an AoE encounter would require a flat value that's too high for a single-target encounter. A flat value that keeps the same average healing as the old Surge in a lull-then-a-burst scenario would require a flat value that's too high in a steady-damage scenario.

The really nice thing about the old Surge was that, in a way, it was self-balancing and self-scaling. A flat value heal loses the kind of self-scaling that we used to have, and you simply can't reach a good balance for one type of scenario without unbalancing another type.

How Surge should be fixed:

Surge has two morphs. Please take advantage of this.

1. Have one morph be the new behavior, where it works on any kind of damage, including DoTs, and it returns a flat value with a cooldown.
2. Have another morph be the old behavior, where it returns a variable amount on direct damage, can burst, and has no cooldown.
3. Give both morphs Major Brutality and Major Sorcery, so players choose the morph based on their desired combat strategy, not based on whether they are magicka or stamina.
4. Add a limit to the maximum heal from the "old" morph. For example, "40% of the damage done, up to 35% of your maximum health." This will address edge cases where the old Surge could get ridiculous, such as when a sorc pops overload and essentially becomes unkillable, and making the limit health-based is also a nice boost to the usefulness of the health stat.

(Also, I would strongly urge that the flat value for the flat value morph not be hard-coded as it is now, but scalable with a player's stats; all other heals function this way, and it makes the flat value morph more resilient to future changes in player power levels.)

@Wrobel Please consider these suggestions. I know Surge is a difficult balancing act, and there is merit in your wanting to make Surge work with DoTs (and Rapid Strike in particular) and also reining in the edge cases like Surge during Overload. But the current approach is just too penalizing with respect the efficacy of the heals and too rigid with respect to the options available to the player. A more surgical approach, where you offer both flavors of Surge and address edge case issues separately is preferable to taking a sledgehammer approach that creates as many problems than it solves.

Derra

Great post with problem analysis aswell as good solutions to solve them.

Jar_Ek

@code65536
I agree with Dera, good analysis and sensible solution. Let's hope @Wrobel sees it.

Rohamad_Ali

Good write up . I like these options better .

Tyrannitar

code65536 wrote: »

The problems with Surge are complicated because Wrobel has stated that he does want Surge to work with DoTs. That seems to be the main driving factor behind this change, esp. since for DW stamsorc builds, the main DPS spammable is a channel (which the game classifies as a DoT). But if Surge were to work for DoTs, then it'll need a cooldown. But if it needs a cooldown, then it needs to be a predetermined value, otherwise, you run into the problem of a small bundle of damage "stealing" the Surge from a larger bundle--e.g., a small tick from Lightning Form might get the Surge for that 1s cooldown period instead of a frag that lands a fraction of a second later.

Essentially, if ZOS wants Surge to work with DoTs, then a flat-value cooldown system is what they have to go with. And that's what we have. And it is inadequate.

Problem 1: Getting the most out of Surge now requires consistent crit uptime, but magicka sorcs have a limited DoT toolkit.

Getting a crit every 1s cooldown is only reasonable under controlled environments, like group PvE where you have a tank holding a boss steady and the player can concentrate on dealing damage. In solo or in PvP, there will be periods when no damage is being done because you are buffing, re-warding, positioning, etc. This used to not be a problem because the burst heals from Surge made up for the periods of low uptime, but those burst heals are now gone.

This can be mitigated somewhat by keeping a DoT ticking, but magicka sorcs have no fast-ticking stick-on-target DoTs at their disposal. Of the class abilities, Liquid Lightning and Lighting Form are both position-sensitive DoTs. The only reasonably useful stick-on-target DoT is Destructive Touch, but the sorc's limited bar space means that using this still will require sacrificing other important skills. In contrast, magblades have Cripple, maplars have Sun Fire, and mDKs have Searing Strike and Fiery Breath. Magicka sorcs are the only class without any stick-on-target class DoTs, yet this change to Surge strongly favors the use of DoTs.

At least with stamina builds, there are multiple options for non-class DoTs. But for magicka builds, their DoTs are of limited usefulness outside of group PvE where a tank can help with positioning. But Surge is primarily a tool for solo survivability--in groups, sorcs usually just rely on the healer.

Problem 2: The healing from Surge no longer scales up in AoE encounters, even though incoming damage scales up in AoE encounters.

A Templar's Sweeps will heal the more targets that they're hitting. A DK's cast of Inhale heals for more if more targets are hit. A nightblade's cast of Sap heals for more if more targets are hit. And on Live, a sorc casting Impulse or Steel Tornado will get more chances at healing the more enemies that are hit.

This scaling of heals is important because the amount of incoming damage also scales up in AoE fights.

Problem 3: The lack of burst healing penalizes unfairly strategies that forgo a steady stream of damage in favor of setting up for a burst.

One of the things that I like doing in vMA is laying down a minefield and then luring a group of enemies (or one large enemy) through it. The time I spend laying the field and positioning is usually time where I'm not doing much damage. But this time spent setting up usually nets me a pretty good payoff in terms of the damage that I ultimately do, and the heals that I get from it--making up for the healing that I wasn't getting during that setup.

This will now be a much riskier strategy, as a boss that runs through the minefield will get me just a single 2K heal instead of multiple large heals.

Problem 4: In general, the healing from the new Surge is substantially less than the healing from the old Surge.

This is a result of a combination of all the problems listed above. You can't go run content using the old Surge, see an average HPS of 2-3K, and say that a 2-3K flat heal per second is sufficient.

Under the old Surge, you had bursts that could make up for periods of no uptime. The poor DoT toolkit and the basic realities of actual combat means that you can't realistically get full uptime of a crit per second.

Problem 5: The new Surge LIMITS CHOICE.

Ultimately, this is the biggest overarching problem of the new Surge.

First, the inadequacy of Surge means that you'll need other heals in addition to it. Whereas destro/destro, destro/DW, destro/1HS, and destro/resto were all valid options for a magicka sorc in vMA, the changes to Surge mean that we must now use destro/resto. Sorcs also suffer from limited bar space due to the Bound Armor toggle. We now have to devote an extra bar spot--when we are already so short on them--for healing. This limits freedom and choice in playstyle.

Second, if we want to get the most out of Surge, we now must use a particular play style where we are doing a consistent stream of damage. This is simply unrealistic in places like vMA and it also penalizes strategies that favor bursts of damage (and heals) instead of a steady stream of them. This limits freedom and choice in playstyle.

How not to fix Surge:

The easiest fix would be to simply tweak the flat value of Surge. You can bump up the flat value and/or make it scale with player stats such that, on average, it provides a similar average HPS as the old Surge.

But this solution is fraught with problems. For example, increasing the flat value high enough such that it still heals the same as before in an AoE encounter would require a flat value that's too high for a single-target encounter. A flat value that keeps the same average healing as the old Surge in a lull-then-a-burst scenario would require a flat value that's too high in a steady-damage scenario.

The really nice thing about the old Surge was that, in a way, it was self-balancing and self-scaling. A flat value heal loses the kind of self-scaling that we used to have, and you simply can't reach a good balance for one type of scenario without unbalancing another type.

How Surge should be fixed:

Surge has two morphs. Please take advantage of this.

1. Have one morph be the new behavior, where it works on any kind of damage, including DoTs, and it returns a flat value with a cooldown.
2. Have another morph be the old behavior, where it returns a variable amount on direct damage, can burst, and has no cooldown.
3. Give both morphs Major Brutality and Major Sorcery, so players choose the morph based on their desired combat strategy, not based on whether they are magicka or stamina.
4. Add a limit to the maximum heal from the "old" morph. For example, "40% of the damage done, up to 35% of your maximum health." This will address edge cases where the old Surge could get ridiculous, such as when a sorc pops overload and essentially becomes unkillable, and making the limit health-based is also a nice boost to the usefulness of the health stat.

(Also, I would strongly urge that the flat value for the flat value morph not be hard-coded as it is now, but scalable with a player's stats; all other heals function this way, and it makes the flat value morph more resilient to future changes in player power levels.)

@Wrobel Please consider these suggestions. I know Surge is a difficult balancing act, and there is merit in your wanting to make Surge work with DoTs (and Rapid Strike in particular) and also reining in the edge cases like Surge during Overload. But the current approach is just too penalizing with respect the efficacy of the heals and too rigid with respect to the options available to the player. A more surgical approach, where you offer both flavors of Surge and address edge case issues separately is preferable to taking a sledgehammer approach that creates as many problems than it solves.

Something that most people don't realize is that at one point, crit surge had NO cooldown.

Re-read that.

Crit surge dropped with NO COOLDOWN

as in, smaller DoTs wouldn't take the incoming burst heals from spike damage.

As in, ALL crits counted towards the skill.

As in; @Wrobel, your job has already been done. Revert crit surge to how it was at launch. It wasn't OP then, it won't be OP now.

RoyJade

One another solution could be to proc the old surge without cooldown, but only on direct hit. That's mean all non dot attack, but also all channelled dot who are directly applied to the target, like rapid strike. It prevent the "put a dot and run for good heal" situation (except for mines/curse/detonation, they aren't dot anymore) AND give all playstyle a chance. Moreover, the heal will be auto balanced, because most of the time, the more you hit, the less powerful each hit are, and the less powerful the healing is.

Having a cap for the maximum healing in one proc (like 35% of the sorc maximum life) is also a good idea for balance in aoe situation.

CasNation

Excellent post. Very well thought out and informative. However...I really miss the old surge from launch...I understand that they nerfed it because sorcs couldn't die in an AoE scenario...

But then I think about DK inhale, NB sap essence, and templar sweeps, and wonder if the launch surge is really that differentire from those abilities in terms of balance...

Septimus_Magna

@Tyrannitar

There were softcaps and there was no CP-system when the game launched.
Without softcaps and with the CP-system Crit Surge would have been really really OP.

Elemental Blockade and Liquid Lighting currently hit pretty hard and tick often so without CD sorcs would be immortal in PVE.

This was somewhat the case in the beginning of the game as long as you had enough magicka to cast spells.
Resource management was harder with softcaps and without the CP-system.

CasNation

With regards to the comments that Surge would be OP without a CD now....yeah, it absolutely would, in its CURRENT state.

If you remove the CD and also lower the percent that it healed on damage to bring it more in line with other classes, it would be a really good change. It could even be as low as 10-15%, since ticking with Dots and big hits would allow for a reliable, steady stream of heals. I think this would be a fair ability to make it something really good without being too strong, rather than being a wasteacher of skill points like it is on the PTS.

Ajax_22

CasNation wrote: »

With regards to the comments that Surge would be OP without a CD now....yeah, it absolutely would, in its CURRENT state.

If you remove the CD and also lower the percent that it healed on damage to bring it more in line with other classes, it would be a really good change. It could even be as low as 10-15%, since ticking with Dots and big hits would allow for a reliable, steady stream of heals. I think this would be a fair ability to make it something really good without being too strong, rather than being a wasteacher of skill points like it is on the PTS.

I think Surge would be in a perfect state if it retained its .1 second cooldown, and direct damage healing was reduced by maybe 10-15%, and healing from DoTs was only 10-25%. This would prevent DoTs from taking over the big hits in direct damage builds, and allow DoT builds to use Surge as a constant HoT like heal without it becoming to powerful for either build.

Dark_Aether

From someone who plays sorcs primarily, magika and stamina, these are good suggestions and should be taken into consideration; which i doubt will happen.

code65536

@Wrobel Thank you for voicing your insights into why you made these Surge changes on today's ESO Live episode.

The reason I created this thread was because you had indicated earlier that your future plans for Surge was just a tweak of the numbers, and I wanted to point out why this is inadequate.

Opening up more freedom of play

I appreciate your goal here to make Surge more useful in more styles of play. The changes do make Surge more useful for DoT builds and for sorc tanks (because flat values favor low-damage builds). But in making Surge valuable for these less common use cases, you severely crippled its usefulness in the common use case.

I've detailed in the original post the problems with the new Surge. Namely, that it requires a constant stream of crit damage to even come close to matching what Surge used to do. For situations where Surge matters--i.e., solo play without healers or tanks in support--this is unreasonable. You can't just take the average non-Overload HPS that people got with the old Surge and use that for the flat value of the new Surge because average HPS on the old Surge had burst heals that would compensate for breaks in damage/healing.

It also limits playstyle choices. Yes, it enables healing from DoT builds. But with the way the new Surge works, you pretty much have to run a DoT build (which is difficult given our lack of stick-on-target DoTs) to get consistent heals from Surge. This is not an expansion playstyle choices: this is a forced shift of playstyle choices.

Overload vs. Non-Overload

You mentioned Overload, and I agree that's a bit of a case that should be addressed. I don't agree that this is the way to address it. Also, I'm not sure if your comment on ESO Live that people just pair Surge with Overload to be an unfortunate off-the-cuff remark, or a misunderstanding of what most of the use cases of Surge are.

For me, and for many sorcs that I know, Surge on Live is quite useful outside of Overload--with Force Pulse, Impulse, and Frags. I don't need to pop Overload to get good healing (in fact, Overload almost always overheals me)--I can get sufficient Surge healing on Live without ever touching Overload. This is no longer possible on the PTS. In fact, doing a quick run-through of the first stage of vMA, my non-Overload Surge is healing me for about 1/3 of what it heals me for on Live. This is a severe loss of healing, resulting mostly from how Surge works in actual combat situations vs. in an ideal scenario on paper, and not something that can be fixed by a "slight tweak" of the Surge numbers.

If a "tweak" was large enough to make in-the-field combat Surge on par with what I get on Live in vMA, then it would almost certainly be too large for an ideal situation. The old Surge without cooldowns was good about balancing itself outside of Overload. The new Surge requires a specific style and cadence of combat and is far too limiting and rigid.

Please use different morphs

Right now, the two morphs are simply too similar and don't offer much meaningful choice. Do I either use the version with more healing and chug Spell Power potions, or do I use cheaper magicka potions and get lesser healing?

You said you want to give us more choices regarding play style. Then please make good on this and give us two interesting, meaningful morphs, one with the old behavior, one with the new behavior.

This lets DoT builds and low-damage builds to take advantage of the new Surge without crippling the playstyle choices of everyone else who benefit more from the old Surge. This should also make your job of balancing numbers easier, as you don't have to worry about making that flat value too high.

And as I suggested, addressing edge cases like Overload can be simply done by capping the maximum value of each "old morph" Surge to something like 35% of the player's health. There's no need to change the entire Surge system to address something as simple as that.

Tyrannitar

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

@Tyrannitar

There were softcaps and there was no CP-system when the game launched.
Without softcaps and with the CP-system Crit Surge would have been really really OP.

Elemental Blockade and Liquid Lighting currently hit pretty hard and tick often so without CD sorcs would be immortal in PVE.

This was somewhat the case in the beginning of the game as long as you had enough magicka to cast spells.
Resource management was harder with softcaps and without the CP-system.

I've always played as a stam sorc, so this hasn't really affected me.... Ever.

If only the words "OP and stam sorc" could be synonymous for ONE patch... fa;lkejkl;wje