After nearly two years, it's about time to change staff mechanics

Joy_Division

For most of ESO's history, the running joke was that the combat team did not play the game, or at least never PvP. We don't say that anymore. Now we say that the devs only play stam DPS. That's a problem that this patch did nothing to dispel and only reinforced this perception.

I was not expecting this patch to fix the stam-magicka divide; however, I was expecting to see at least a hint that the combat team was aware staff users and magicka in general was in a poor place and thus this patch is a colossal disappointment.

A lot of people are complaining about how underwhelming the Destruction Staff ultimate is, and rightly so. It's a telegraphed DoT that does less damage, no CC effect, or ultimate restoration than Meteor which has a 20% cheaper cost (to say nothing of the Mage Guild passives it provides). It's the absolute last thing a destruction staff user wants because she already has the best ground DoT effect in the game with elemental wall. Also every single class already has a better, cheaper, more versatile AoE DoT in class ultimate, all of which provide valuable functions (damage mitigation, heal debuffs, gravity crush, silence, etc.) that are even better than the DoT damage. The destruction staff ultimate is 100% superfluous. It is crystal clear to me that whoever designed this ultimate has not had the frustration of trying to play ESO competitively with a destruction staff.

Now, ZoS has spent so much time and resources and artwork and stuff on this lackluster and redundant ultimate there is no way that it will redesign the ultimate it to give it a function that might actually be useful and desired by a destruction staff user (**ehem, burst damage**). But I suppose it doesn't matter, because even with a good ultimate, the destruction staff would still be a poor weapon that lowered spell damage, limited armor set choices, and provided mostly lackluster skills. However it would have be nice to see an appealing ultimate that would have at least made me think: "Hey, at least ZoS is aware of that fact that magicka staves are in a bad place."

But no. Instead ZoS has gone completely the other way and removed the lightning heavy attack splash damage. Don't tell me this is a "bugfix." Ever since the IC patch, the passive has said that the heavy attack damages nearby enemies. Even if it was a "bug," it was a necessary bug and the only thing that made lightning staves ever worth using is ESO. Saying it's a "bugfix" is saying that you are in favor of having a weapon with nothing but disadvantages that should always be deconstructed by anyone who cares about character effectiveness.

With so much discussion on the poor design of the destruction ultimate, not very many people have noticed how terrible the restoration staff ultimate is. 125 ultimate to heal 1 person for a lot for 5 seconds? Think about that, you want me to blow an ultimate just to heal one person. What a colossal waste of resources. I heal, I'll never use this. It's overkill, completely unnecessary, and is totally outdone by the already poor healing ultimates in the game. The templar ultimate is the same cost and heals 6 people for 4 seconds and provides them with a flat damage reduction. Heck, even the overnerfed barrier is better in that it puts a comparable shield on 6 players (and either a HoT or ultimate restoration). The resto ultimate needs a complete overhaul. It is poorly thought out in its only use is the buff morph that a solo PvPer might want. Why am I as a healer stuck with a 1vX ultimate?

In short, this patch has given staff users nothing that would make them excited about trying something new. By way of comparison, you better believe my magicka templar is very much looking forward to using the sword and shield stamina based ultimate. This is what the Elder Scrolls has degenerated to: *** poor magicka options that have magic oriented players equipping swords and (wooden as opposed to magic) shields to compete.

*******

We got into this situation because ZoS thought that making it so that using two swords provided way more spell [!] damage than staves was a good idea and let patch after patch after patch go by without ever bothering to revisit the poorly thought out nerfs that both staffs have received since the game's launch. Also, the combat team unnecessarily provided "stamina" patches after the TG release. This was a complete misreading. TG wasn't a "magic" patch. It was a patch that made one skill busted (proximity det) and offered a poorly thought out set bonus in Vicious Death. Is it any wonder after prox det has been nerfed and the amount of burst damage, healing, damage avoidance, and stam set damage procs that 2H builds are everywhere in PvP? When I run a trial raid, ALL my DPS are melee (and the vast majority of them stam). I don't even bother using elemental drain in raids anymore.

It's unfortunate that ZoS has sunk so many resources into these poorly thought out and superfluous magicka ultimates that it won't do anything to make them anything more than watered-down replacements for ultimates we already can get elsewhere. Sure, maybe Zos will "listen" and lower the cost of the destro ultimate, but do we really need or want a ground based DoT that does not silence or provide damage mitigation? I know I don't. This is precisely that problem when Zos develops everything in its secret laboratory and leaves us out of the development process: we get stuff we don't need and didn't ask for that cannot be changed.

Zos, you need to go back to the drawing board when it comes to staves and I'm not just talking about the ultimate. With every patch you release and the accompany power creep that comes with it, the disparity is spell-weapon damage becomes exacerbated and made it such that unless you are using a Maelstrom staff, you are totally undermining the amount of damage you can do. The destruction skill line is poor:

Destrcutive touch This is too expensive, the upfront damage and the DoT are not competitive. Even with a Master's weapon, this ability still isn't efficient. There are a fair amount of Zerg surfers in PvP who love to hide in large groups and cast flame reach, but 9 times out of 10 they are just wasting their mana (I'm usually already CC'd by something else and the damage is easy to heal through).

Wall of elements This is purely a PvE skill. A very good one that is required for remotely decent DPS and necessitates people having a Maelstrom weapon, but PvE nevertheless since the wall is so skinny and the secondary effects are so minor.

Crushing Shock A low damage spammable. It's just a boring filler skill that does nothing but damage that is easy to outheal in PvP. This is probably the most boring and generic skill in the game that has zero purpose to it since ZoS nerfed the burning, concussed, and chilled procs. The most boring and generic skill of the game is the spammable for magicka users. *Not* fun.

Elemental Drain It's good, but tanks give the debuff and many times isn't even providing back resources given the amount of stam DPS and tempalrs sweeps + NB funnel aren't elemental. This debuff should do something unique so it's always useful.

Impulse. Never should have been nerfed in the first place. It is a terrible skill that only does damage and is totally outperformed by each class's own PBAOE, which have larger range and additional functions besides damage. It is thus redundant and bad, which means it should be totally redesigned

The only reason I use a Destruction staff is because of the Elemental Wall skill in PvE and the lightning heavy attack, which is one of the very very few out-of-the-box, non cookie-cutter, legitimately interesting uses for a non best-in-slot item in this game. Shame on ZoS for removing it. Everything it is does can be attained by a better options that exists elsewhere. As that elsewhere will also mean more spell damage and armor set bonuses, using a destruction means you're basically settling for the last person at the bar. Take a look around in Cyrodiil sometime. The few diehard magicka DKs remaining won't go near this thing with a 12 foot pole.

Another thing to cosndier about destruction staffs is that there are only 4 skills that actually attack and do damage. Stam users have 4 weapon lines to diversify their builds and do something else besides crushing shock, crushing shock, crushing shock... There really ought to be either another magic DPS weapon or some thought to making the lightning, frost, and fire staves actually different.

The restoration staff is also a poor weapon. I see people in Cyrodiil trying to heal with this, but whenever they get focused they die. Think about it, we all know DKs have been begging ZoS for over a year to rework Dragon's Blood because it is so outdated and inefficient, yet they still run around cyrodiil with sword and shield rather than relying on a resto staff to heal. It just doesn't provide much and using one means players are throwing away spell damage, an armor set bonus set, and the defense benefits (and extra stats) that come with using sword and shield.

Grand Healing PvE raid requirement since raid bosses mean spamming this spell.

Regeneration I only use this to get armor set procs. It is *very* annoying trying to maintain this on a trial raid. The morph choices should have been quantity Vs. quality. People who say this is as good as vigor are not considering the huge benefit that you can get the Vigor HoT while using any weapon you want (aside from the fact that vigor will actually heal the caster and hits more allies). Vigor is an excellent and versatile skill used by just about every stamina player. Restoration is a marginal skill that restricts magicka players to using a poor weapon and is not used by most magicka players. It's not even a comparison.

Blessing of Restoration I think it's a problem when what my raid wants from this "heal" is a short and small damage buff. I would much prefer this to be my HoT rather than regeneration.

Healing Ward It's good ... far far better than Dragon's Blood. That DKs don't use it should be all there needs to be said just how poor a weapon restoration staffs are.

Siphon spirit The most inefficient skill in the game. A tiny HoT that requires a player to hit a specific target that has a cooldown from a skill that requires a cast time? Wow, that is terrible. Would the game and PvP be just a bit more interesting and diverse, if, I dunno, a skill like this could actually sustain a magic oriented player? Nope. Apparently ESO is meant to be played by 2H + bow builds that have excellent HoTs freely available to them without restrictions and usable by weapons capable of terrifying burst damage. This skill is a utter joke and proof to me that when the combat team punches their timecard and goes home, they log onto their stam builds with their viper/widowmaker/velindreth sets and their ...ehem ... two handed swords that heal for more than the magicka suckers out there trying use resto staff.

One of the huge reasons stam is so dominant in PvP because they can freely choose their attack weapon (2H), not gimped their weapon power or armor sets, and still put out ridiculously high healing because their heals are not tied to a crummy weapon!. Magic users have to use this bad weapon, which undercuts their defenses and stats, just to use heals that aren't even as good as what stam has access to for free. It's absolutely crazy that it has been like this for nearly two years. Do something! Can you please log into Cyodiil, run around siphon spiriting these stam 2H builds and see exactly have far that gets you?

This patch in a nutshell:



Set created by someone who loves stam DPS.



Set created by someone who doesn't heal.

Pandorii

I agree with everything that you are saying @Joy_Division. I expect that this thread will generate quite a bit of constructive discussion from the staff community. I also expect to see some trolls trying to argue that buffs are not needed. Go away trolls, you are not welcome here!

I wanted to just add three comments:

1. During one of the PAX livestreams, the devs said they would be looking into set equality before the patch goes live. I also expect that they will make meaningful alternations to the weapon ultimates, taking into account player feedback. Let's make clear our ideas and suggestions for them. For example, what sets need to be changed and how? What stam sets are too powerful and exacerbate the gap between them and us? I think it's clear that we are not happy with the current proposed system. One idea that I hold about weapon ultimates that you did not mention is a viable magicka morph for DW.
3. Similarly, @ZOS_GinaBruno posted in a thread about the ninja nerf to lightning staff that they did not intend to leave out information from the PTS. This could mean either that it was intended, but they forgot to add it to the patch notes, or it was not intended. We still haven't heard back from her yet, but she mentioned she would look into it.
4. @Wrobel has made clear that class balancing will not happen until Update 13. We should focus on the things that we can impact during the PTS cycle before it goes live so that the next three months aren't totally unbearable for magicka types. They've already been quite unbearable for almost 6 months.

The fights I think we can fight are: destro/resto ultis and mirror armor sets. For both of these you made great points in your thread.

Asmael

Meteor is miles ahead of the Destruction staff ultimate. You even said it's 20% cheaper, but it's actually even less with Shooting star...

Restoration staff ultimate doesn't even remotely compare to Aggressive Warhorn in dungeons / trials. In PvP, literally everything out there is better. It's basically a ult just to heal, as the side effects are ridiculous (WTB 8 second CC / snare / root immunity while being resist capped). If it affects only one target for 5 seconds, it better makes the target 100% unkillable, no matter what you use for this duration, but even the SnB ultimate does a better job for this...

Lightning staff AoE on heavy attack down = RIP sustained AoE DPS. All hail Inferno staves on 100% of all magicka specs. So much for diversity.

Siphon Spirit / Elemental Drain: Hey you there? Why do I need to have 2 debuffs permanently on a target to not run dry in 10 seconds while a stamina build literally never needs a shard with VO equipped? Like, literally, I've been using 2p Kena on a stam spec and had more sustain than a standard magicka spec >.> (except NBs with sipho strikes & funnel, but that's the exception, not the rule).

Elemental susceptibility: The ability that no one uses for good reason.
Unstable wall of elements: We'll make a wall, and magicka users will pay for it. A very, very tiny wall.
Tri focus (passive): The damage shield for cold staves can be doubled or even tripled before it becomes "ok".
Elemental Force (passive): Know the old saying? Twice zero is still zero. Proc chances must be increased.

Light speaker Robe...............

....

I don't even........

SwaminoNowlino

@Joy_Division Just throwing this out there as a discussion prompt: What does "balance" mean to you? What do you consider balanced to be? Just DPS numbers? Class performance holistically? Or how they synergize (which apparently isn't a word but I am using it anyways) within a group setting?

Qwazzy

A dawnbreaker like burst damage ult for magic users would be nice!

Xvorg

Totally agre with you @Joy_Division . Magicka is in a bad shape and not only because staves... light armor is also in a dire position, but that's a discussion for another post

Regarding the resto skills, as mDK 've been trying to use resto staff in my rotation, but I think it is quite ineffective. Mutagen's heal needs you half dead for a lame burst, and rapid regen ticks, though stronger as matugen's, are outclassed by any templar heal... even coag blood is more reliable. In few words, the only skill useful for a DK is healing ward. The thing is that mDKs do have a class shield so, do we have to use 2 shields which last 6 secs to be nearly competitive? With my mageblade is sometimes more useful but not that much.

On the other hand we have destro skills which are just bad. The only good offensive skill with a resto staff is a full heavy attack (only in flame and lightning staves, because frost full heavy is crap) since it's cost nothing and the dmg pretty high, besides being highly combinable.

Destro touch main use is the CC. With my mDK I use a lightning staff and shock clench for the stun, then whip, but it only works for one enemy which is nothing compared to talons (which cost the same than shock clench). Flame touch can have certain use before meteor, but 99% of the times it is way better to slot a stronger (and cheaper) class CC such as petrify or agony. Yes, it is combinable with force shock, but the extra dmg is not worth the costs of both skills (6750 magicka without reduction... Dizz swing costs 3250 without reduction and does moar dmg)

Force shock is just a spammable that do dmg, nothing else. The only interesting thing about it is the fact that each effect is independent from the other, so you can crit continously. If magicka had a version of NMG 5 pcs, that skill should be for sure the star in any desro staff build, but that's a parallel universe where everything is balanced. And, being a reflectable skill makes force pulse the only option, otherwise you will end up setting yourself off balance anytime you hit a mDK.

Weakness is just ... weak. Elemental drain is somewhat useful for magicka recovery... but we live in Dodgeland and unless you use a lightning staff (because elemental drain as you pointed out doesn't effect magic dmg), you need to win the lottery to hit the enemy.

Finally we have Impulse, which was the most feared skill until 1.6. Some weeks ago I tried it again in IC (Pulsar, since I wanted it as a spammable) and it is still great in PvE (for a mDK). With my mDK I combined it with embers and engulfing flames and kills mobs quite fast (with the benefit of returning magicka and health for each mob killed). But in PvP... how do I beat the templar spamming punct strikes, who outheals my dots?

At this point and considering how magicka performs, ZoS should get rid of the entire magicka concept, including staves and light armor. One resource for everything and just 1h, 2h, shields and bows (maybe spears and xbows to fill the missing gaps)

Dracane

I think, the way staff users are treated is not fair. Staves have the lowest base damage of all weapons.
2 handed swords etc have a higher damage value, dual wield and even sword and board.
Not to mention that DW and S&B offer 1 additional set slot. 2 handed sword can at least somewhat compensate by having a high base damage value.

With that being said, it's time to add some kind of glove or so, that can be enchanted with a minor armor enchant and which can be crafted at any set workbench. Not saying 2 handed swords need buffs, but it's only fair when they get the same.
It's unfair that sword and board and dual wield have access to so many set choices.

Best example is, that they can have 2 5 set pieces AND 2 monster set pieces. Nobody can tell me, that this is not a huge advantage, while having no downside.

Xvorg

Qwazz wrote: »

A dawnbreaker like burst damage ult for magic users would be nice!

I'm currentl using DBoS with my Mageblade...

Faulgor

Dracane wrote: »

I think, the way staff users are treated is not fair. Staves have the lowest base damage of all weapons.

Hey now! Don't forget about poor bows!

RinaldoGandolphi

@Joy_Division

You simply nailed it with this post. The nerfs to Destro staff hurt Sorcs more then any other class, but they also hurt other magicka class as well.

Last but not least your right that Destro Staff Ultimate is atrocious. I can't think of even one situation i would ever use it over Meteor or any other ultimate.

Carbonised

As a MagDK in light armor with primarily destro staff and sometimes resto staff, I can just second everything Joy_Division writes in this post.

MagDK has serious issues, primarily in pvp, beyond destro staff, and light armor is still retardedly useless compared to heavy & medium, but definitely the suckiness of destro/resto is one of the main issues as well.

I have tried inferno staff, I have tried lightning staff, I hav tried resto staff. In PvP the amount of dodge rolling and shuffle/dodge means that my inferno staff never hits. I mean literally, never. With medium/heavy attacks I hit maybe 1 time out of 12, everything else is dodged. Resto staff channels are so extremely low on damage that it's not even funny, and as Joy has pointed out, their 'benefit' of allowing you to heal yourself is extremely lackluster as well. Any half baked 2hander stam can easily out DPS even if you apply every sh*tty heal available in your resto staff.
Lightning staff was a least something niche to use in pvp, since the channel wasn't dodgeable. Damage was still mediocre before patch, and with this recent change, it will be worthless post-pach.

Destro and resto staff are in a bad place, and these godawful ultimates you're proposing in the next patch for staffs is just adding insult to injury.

WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER LACKLUSTER EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE GROUND BASED DOT WITH A 2 SECOND TELEGRAPH!!!

Rykmaar

@Joy_Division

Well said.

We've seen a progressive neutering of magicka combat viability in recent patches that goes 100% against what Wrobel himself said: they don't want to nerf, they want to buff. What actually happened is the opposite, they nerfed magicka and buffed stamina.

This is not to say that stamina didn't need buffs, they definitely needed more combat viability than when the game launched. However this game has gone down the path where everyone is rolling stamina with a 2h and bow, or with SnB and black rose and, lest we not forget, Dawnbreaker of Facerolling.

In the ultimate feedback thread, I posted an idea to fix the ultimate that would make it single target primarily that I think would fix this problem and make everyone happy. However, with one month until launch of 1T, I can't say that I'm optimistic. Wrobel will probably give us that stupid destro ultimate whether we like it or not.

I think that staves need a fundamental redesign. They need to split the weapon into three different lines. Now that they have sets for increased frost and shock damage, they need to do this.

Fire staves should focus on single target, fireballs, dots, etc.

Shock should focus on things like chain lightning, an electrocution CC, etc

Frost should be all about CC with slows and roots.


What we also need is to look at light armor itself and what it offers. Light armor users are at an EXTREME disadvantage over stamina users in survivability because of resources.

Also, can someone please tell me why vigor+rally out heals all dots in the game, and why it out heals what a resto staff user can do? That is simply terrible design.

Qwazzy

Xvorg wrote: »

Qwazz wrote: »

A dawnbreaker like burst damage ult for magic users would be nice!

I'm currentl using DBoS with my Mageblade...

I'm using it on a magic build as well. But it's physical damage the blanket CC is nice though.

f047ys3v3n

Right on Joy.

1) The only mag users that were getting anywhere near competitive dps were shock staff users. They were still usually well behind the stam dps in their group and they only got this semi competitive dps in fights where there were some adds right at the boss to get some splash damage on. For the most part they also got this dps using the tripple proc from infal armor and vMA weapons combined (something I don't think was intended though I sure think the splash damage was). I have never seen a mag user doing anything else breaking 40k. I rarely see mag users break 30k. Stam users over 40k are the norm with the best ones doing over 50k. The norm is to see melee stam dps close to double ranged mag dps. Should I mention stam vs mag aoe here? Probably not since mag aoe is often lower than mag single target. It is a rare raid pull that I bother with AOE on. I figure it is more useful to single out the particularly bad baddies as a mag user since my aoe is crap anyway. As for pvp... Mag is so bad VD users are rare despite how incredible this set is. Your chances are just so low to actually kill somebody that the incredible proc is not worth it. VD is for siege machines and noobs praying for a lucky Jesus beam. The only dps factor that favored mag users was ultimate (power level, crit percent, secondary effects in bleed or wep power, skills, boss damage resistance, and gear, gear, gear favor stamina users). Guess we had to fix that.

2) Speaking of gear, Strength of Automation and light speaker, Lol. You realize right now stam users get a 15k dps increase from vMA weapons and mag users get less than 3k and that this is the biggest root cause of your balance problems in PvE. Your must also realize also that VO is an incredible stam set and that IA is a mag set that is only very marginally BIS, often, and more often with the shock staff splash change has to be worn by healers for the group boss debuff since there are no mag dps in group anymore, and most users don't even get a 5 peice strength buff from since the fully charged heavy thing is a huge dps loss for all flame users. Yet, you drop in a new BIS 5 peice dps set for stam users that will also be excellent in PVP and give mag users a healing set that healers can't even use since healing is about buffs / debuffs and not magnitude of heals. Raids will need healers in 5 infal / 5 spc with masters staff and 5 gossmer / 5 spc with masters staff. Literally no one who knows anything will wear light speaker.

3) Joy is right about all those staff abilities being crap. They are crap. Ironically, I remember a time when many were BIS. They are utter garbage now, make no mistake. The worst part is that some, force pulse/crushing shock, actually have to be used by some builds despite this because they have not much else to spam while their dot's tick. As for that wall of elements that all mag users have to use because it is a decent DOT. Even this does not well suit a mag build who's purpose is range and movement as the wall is small in size, intolerant of movement, and, worst of all, is far shorter in range than the rest of a ranged mag dp's suite therefore wall of elements hampering the entire purpose of the build.

4) Honestly, the lack of new good quest content coupled with the mag vs stam scaling issues has me down to playing once a week. I don't really like the ball up and leg hump the boss stam melee world. Things were much more fun in the lets actually try to avoid boss mechanics ranged times. I also refuse to spend the time in vMA to get the weapons that are a requirement for relevance, with all the traits out there, that is a fools errand as you could try all year with only a marginal chance of getting what you need. Right on Joy for your post. Sorry, ZOS, the trend line of balance and decision making in this game is pretty clear. Hope you eventually can get things together.

Makkir

Nice post dude.
This patch has me as disappointed as Ralphie when Santa told him "you'll shoot your eye out kid" after asking for a red rider BB gun.


So there you have it stave users...we get the football instead because ZOS is afraid well shoot our eyes out otherwise.

Armitas

Nailed it.

Iselin

Good post and lol at the + spell damage for resto abilities set bonus.

andreasranasen

Just commenting to keep this conversation going and fresh!

// Magicka Sorc

Vyle_Byte

Spot on as always Joy. Magicka is in a bad spot and has been for a while now. Doing some reworking with staves would go a long way. Too long now, staff users have been the underdog. Time to wake up ZOS.

Izaki

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Right on Joy.

1) The only mag users that were getting anywhere near competitive dps were shock staff users. They were still usually well behind the stam dps in their group and they only got this semi competitive dps in fights where there were some adds right at the boss to get some splash damage on. For the most part they also got this dps using the tripple proc from infal armor and vMA weapons combined (something I don't think was intended though I sure think the splash damage was). I have never seen a mag user doing anything else breaking 40k. I rarely see mag users break 30k. Stam users over 40k are the norm with the best ones doing over 50k. The norm is to see melee stam dps close to double ranged mag dps. Should I mention stam vs mag aoe here? Probably not since mag aoe is often lower than mag single target. It is a rare raid pull that I bother with AOE on. I figure it is more useful to single out the particularly bad baddies as a mag user since my aoe is crap anyway. As for pvp... Mag is so bad VD users are rare despite how incredible this set is. Your chances are just so low to actually kill somebody that the incredible proc is not worth it. VD is for siege machines and noobs praying for a lucky Jesus beam. The only dps factor that favored mag users was ultimate (power level, crit percent, secondary effects in bleed or wep power, skills, boss damage resistance, and gear, gear, gear favor stamina users). Guess we had to fix that.

2) Speaking of gear, Strength of Automation and light speaker, Lol. You realize right now stam users get a 15k dps increase from vMA weapons and mag users get less than 3k and that this is the biggest root cause of your balance problems in PvE. Your must also realize also that VO is an incredible stam set and that IA is a mag set that is only very marginally BIS, often, and more often with the shock staff splash change has to be worn by healers for the group boss debuff since there are no mag dps in group anymore, and most users don't even get a 5 peice strength buff from since the fully charged heavy thing is a huge dps loss for all flame users. Yet, you drop in a new BIS 5 peice dps set for stam users that will also be excellent in PVP and give mag users a healing set that healers can't even use since healing is about buffs / debuffs and not magnitude of heals. Raids will need healers in 5 infal / 5 spc with masters staff and 5 gossmer / 5 spc with masters staff. Literally no one who knows anything will wear light speaker.

3) Joy is right about all those staff abilities being crap. They are crap. Ironically, I remember a time when many were BIS. They are utter garbage now, make no mistake. The worst part is that some, force pulse/crushing shock, actually have to be used by some builds despite this because they have not much else to spam while their dot's tick. As for that wall of elements that all mag users have to use because it is a decent DOT. Even this does not well suit a mag build who's purpose is range and movement as the wall is small in size, intolerant of movement, and, worst of all, is far shorter in range than the rest of a ranged mag dp's suite therefore wall of elements hampering the entire purpose of the build.

4) Honestly, the lack of new good quest content coupled with the mag vs stam scaling issues has me down to playing once a week. I don't really like the ball up and leg hump the boss stam melee world. Things were much more fun in the lets actually try to avoid boss mechanics ranged times. I also refuse to spend the time in vMA to get the weapons that are a requirement for relevance, with all the traits out there, that is a fools errand as you could try all year with only a marginal chance of getting what you need. Right on Joy for your post. Sorry, ZOS, the trend line of balance and decision making in this game is pretty clear. Hope you eventually can get things together.

I'm sorry i just can't agree with you. You say that stamina DPS is always higher than mage, but thats a lie. When you look at Hodor and Beyond Infinity, most of their DPS is magicka. You see sorcs like YoloWizard and Streak One pull 48k DPS. Mashinate is a crazy nightblade too. I have a templar friend who's Radiant D consistently hits for 70-80k a tick. There are just examples. Also stamina DPS without vMSA weapons is not as good as magicka DPS, aside from Stamplars. The DPS in a correctly built raid group is more or less the same for mage and stam toons.

Automaton is also not BiS as it doesn't provide crit which is the base of all PvE DPS builds. With vMSA daggers/axes there comes a specific rotation and really you're exaggerating on the 15k DPS increase. Its big, but not that big.

Although I do agree on the fact that Force Pulse and all other destro abilities are s*** (aside from Wall), Force Pulse has many many benefits. Scathing Mage arguably the BiS magicka DPS set in the game and the best possible uptime comes from Force Pulse. Its not that bad to be fair, although a secondary effect other than the crap AoE is very welcome.

Wall of Elements is a very strong DoT. One of the best along with Liquid Lightning and Endless Hail. And really I don't know how you manage to position yourself to not make it hit the target. Its one of the largest ground places DoTs.

I agree with Joy, but what you say is just not true. You're making things sound waaay worse then they actually are.

Xvorg

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Right on Joy.

1) The only mag users that were getting anywhere near competitive dps were shock staff users. They were still usually well behind the stam dps in their group and they only got this semi competitive dps in fights where there were some adds right at the boss to get some splash damage on. For the most part they also got this dps using the tripple proc from infal armor and vMA weapons combined (something I don't think was intended though I sure think the splash damage was). I have never seen a mag user doing anything else breaking 40k. I rarely see mag users break 30k. Stam users over 40k are the norm with the best ones doing over 50k. The norm is to see melee stam dps close to double ranged mag dps. Should I mention stam vs mag aoe here? Probably not since mag aoe is often lower than mag single target. It is a rare raid pull that I bother with AOE on. I figure it is more useful to single out the particularly bad baddies as a mag user since my aoe is crap anyway. As for pvp... Mag is so bad VD users are rare despite how incredible this set is. Your chances are just so low to actually kill somebody that the incredible proc is not worth it. VD is for siege machines and noobs praying for a lucky Jesus beam. The only dps factor that favored mag users was ultimate (power level, crit percent, secondary effects in bleed or wep power, skills, boss damage resistance, and gear, gear, gear favor stamina users). Guess we had to fix that.

2) Speaking of gear, Strength of Automation and light speaker, Lol. You realize right now stam users get a 15k dps increase from vMA weapons and mag users get less than 3k and that this is the biggest root cause of your balance problems in PvE. Your must also realize also that VO is an incredible stam set and that IA is a mag set that is only very marginally BIS, often, and more often with the shock staff splash change has to be worn by healers for the group boss debuff since there are no mag dps in group anymore, and most users don't even get a 5 peice strength buff from since the fully charged heavy thing is a huge dps loss for all flame users. Yet, you drop in a new BIS 5 peice dps set for stam users that will also be excellent in PVP and give mag users a healing set that healers can't even use since healing is about buffs / debuffs and not magnitude of heals. Raids will need healers in 5 infal / 5 spc with masters staff and 5 gossmer / 5 spc with masters staff. Literally no one who knows anything will wear light speaker.

3) Joy is right about all those staff abilities being crap. They are crap. Ironically, I remember a time when many were BIS. They are utter garbage now, make no mistake. The worst part is that some, force pulse/crushing shock, actually have to be used by some builds despite this because they have not much else to spam while their dot's tick. As for that wall of elements that all mag users have to use because it is a decent DOT. Even this does not well suit a mag build who's purpose is range and movement as the wall is small in size, intolerant of movement, and, worst of all, is far shorter in range than the rest of a ranged mag dp's suite therefore wall of elements hampering the entire purpose of the build.

4) Honestly, the lack of new good quest content coupled with the mag vs stam scaling issues has me down to playing once a week. I don't really like the ball up and leg hump the boss stam melee world. Things were much more fun in the lets actually try to avoid boss mechanics ranged times. I also refuse to spend the time in vMA to get the weapons that are a requirement for relevance, with all the traits out there, that is a fools errand as you could try all year with only a marginal chance of getting what you need. Right on Joy for your post. Sorry, ZOS, the trend line of balance and decision making in this game is pretty clear. Hope you eventually can get things together.

I'm sorry i just can't agree with you. You say that stamina DPS is always higher than mage, but thats a lie. When you look at Hodor and Beyond Infinity, most of their DPS is magicka. You see sorcs like YoloWizard and Streak One pull 48k DPS. Mashinate is a crazy nightblade too. I have a templar friend who's Radiant D consistently hits for 70-80k a tick. There are just examples. Also stamina DPS without vMSA weapons is not as good as magicka DPS, aside from Stamplars. The DPS in a correctly built raid group is more or less the same for mage and stam toons.

Automaton is also not BiS as it doesn't provide crit which is the base of all PvE DPS builds. With vMSA daggers/axes there comes a specific rotation and really you're exaggerating on the 15k DPS increase. Its big, but not that big.

Although I do agree on the fact that Force Pulse and all other destro abilities are s*** (aside from Wall), Force Pulse has many many benefits. Scathing Mage arguably the BiS magicka DPS set in the game and the best possible uptime comes from Force Pulse. Its not that bad to be fair, although a secondary effect other than the crap AoE is very welcome.

Wall of Elements is a very strong DoT. One of the best along with Liquid Lightning and Endless Hail. And really I don't know how you manage to position yourself to not make it hit the target. Its one of the largest ground places DoTs.

I agree with Joy, but what you say is just not true. You're making things sound waaay worse then they actually are.

To achieve strong DPS as magicka user (mDK) you need to: put a (strong)dot (burning embers), weave a light attack, cast WoE, cast talons/petrify, whip, whip, burning embers (to regain health) whip, whip, whip and finally go to the doctor to treat tha carpal tunnel you got.

As a stamina user you need crit charge, light attack, dizz swing and vigor... sometimes.

Humatiel

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

@Joy_Division Just throwing this out there as a discussion prompt: What does "balance" mean to you? What do you consider balanced to be? Just DPS numbers? Class performance holistically? Or how they synergize (which apparently isn't a word but I am using it anyways) within a group setting?

unfortunately if we were to break it down into the traditional aspect, things are still unbalanced. Lets say Templars are the best healers (they are), DKs are the best tanks (they are), nightblades are the most suited for pvp (they are) and sorcs are the best at pve.

Now we all know the paragraph above is a bit of a joke, but traditionally that would be the balance.

Izaki

Xvorg wrote: »

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Right on Joy.

1) The only mag users that were getting anywhere near competitive dps were shock staff users. They were still usually well behind the stam dps in their group and they only got this semi competitive dps in fights where there were some adds right at the boss to get some splash damage on. For the most part they also got this dps using the tripple proc from infal armor and vMA weapons combined (something I don't think was intended though I sure think the splash damage was). I have never seen a mag user doing anything else breaking 40k. I rarely see mag users break 30k. Stam users over 40k are the norm with the best ones doing over 50k. The norm is to see melee stam dps close to double ranged mag dps. Should I mention stam vs mag aoe here? Probably not since mag aoe is often lower than mag single target. It is a rare raid pull that I bother with AOE on. I figure it is more useful to single out the particularly bad baddies as a mag user since my aoe is crap anyway. As for pvp... Mag is so bad VD users are rare despite how incredible this set is. Your chances are just so low to actually kill somebody that the incredible proc is not worth it. VD is for siege machines and noobs praying for a lucky Jesus beam. The only dps factor that favored mag users was ultimate (power level, crit percent, secondary effects in bleed or wep power, skills, boss damage resistance, and gear, gear, gear favor stamina users). Guess we had to fix that.

2) Speaking of gear, Strength of Automation and light speaker, Lol. You realize right now stam users get a 15k dps increase from vMA weapons and mag users get less than 3k and that this is the biggest root cause of your balance problems in PvE. Your must also realize also that VO is an incredible stam set and that IA is a mag set that is only very marginally BIS, often, and more often with the shock staff splash change has to be worn by healers for the group boss debuff since there are no mag dps in group anymore, and most users don't even get a 5 peice strength buff from since the fully charged heavy thing is a huge dps loss for all flame users. Yet, you drop in a new BIS 5 peice dps set for stam users that will also be excellent in PVP and give mag users a healing set that healers can't even use since healing is about buffs / debuffs and not magnitude of heals. Raids will need healers in 5 infal / 5 spc with masters staff and 5 gossmer / 5 spc with masters staff. Literally no one who knows anything will wear light speaker.

3) Joy is right about all those staff abilities being crap. They are crap. Ironically, I remember a time when many were BIS. They are utter garbage now, make no mistake. The worst part is that some, force pulse/crushing shock, actually have to be used by some builds despite this because they have not much else to spam while their dot's tick. As for that wall of elements that all mag users have to use because it is a decent DOT. Even this does not well suit a mag build who's purpose is range and movement as the wall is small in size, intolerant of movement, and, worst of all, is far shorter in range than the rest of a ranged mag dp's suite therefore wall of elements hampering the entire purpose of the build.

4) Honestly, the lack of new good quest content coupled with the mag vs stam scaling issues has me down to playing once a week. I don't really like the ball up and leg hump the boss stam melee world. Things were much more fun in the lets actually try to avoid boss mechanics ranged times. I also refuse to spend the time in vMA to get the weapons that are a requirement for relevance, with all the traits out there, that is a fools errand as you could try all year with only a marginal chance of getting what you need. Right on Joy for your post. Sorry, ZOS, the trend line of balance and decision making in this game is pretty clear. Hope you eventually can get things together.

I'm sorry i just can't agree with you. You say that stamina DPS is always higher than mage, but thats a lie. When you look at Hodor and Beyond Infinity, most of their DPS is magicka. You see sorcs like YoloWizard and Streak One pull 48k DPS. Mashinate is a crazy nightblade too. I have a templar friend who's Radiant D consistently hits for 70-80k a tick. There are just examples. Also stamina DPS without vMSA weapons is not as good as magicka DPS, aside from Stamplars. The DPS in a correctly built raid group is more or less the same for mage and stam toons.

Automaton is also not BiS as it doesn't provide crit which is the base of all PvE DPS builds. With vMSA daggers/axes there comes a specific rotation and really you're exaggerating on the 15k DPS increase. Its big, but not that big.

Although I do agree on the fact that Force Pulse and all other destro abilities are s*** (aside from Wall), Force Pulse has many many benefits. Scathing Mage arguably the BiS magicka DPS set in the game and the best possible uptime comes from Force Pulse. Its not that bad to be fair, although a secondary effect other than the crap AoE is very welcome.

Wall of Elements is a very strong DoT. One of the best along with Liquid Lightning and Endless Hail. And really I don't know how you manage to position yourself to not make it hit the target. Its one of the largest ground places DoTs.

I agree with Joy, but what you say is just not true. You're making things sound waaay worse then they actually are.

To achieve strong DPS as magicka user (mDK) you need to: put a (strong)dot (burning embers), weave a light attack, cast WoE, cast talons/petrify, whip, whip, burning embers (to regain health) whip, whip, whip and finally go to the doctor to treat tha carpal tunnel you got.

As a stamina user you need crit charge, light attack, dizz swing and vigor... sometimes.

You have absolutely no idea how stamina DPS operates then. You use DW vMSA weaps or you're wasting your time doing stamina DPS (Templars are different). in between all your DoTs (poison injection, rending slashes, rearming etc.) you have to weave in Flurry + Light Attack. And you must keep in mind that every DoT must be refreshed as soon as it goes out. Oh and the ground AoEs must be refreshed too. The rotation ain't easy, especially without buff trackers (#console). Rearming Trap is also a b*tch to empower correctly, as it doesn't consume the Maelstrom enchantment and you have to use 1 Flurry to empower 2 skills. Its hard to get used to and not f*ck up.
I agree that there isn't much balance between magicka and stamina, but do not claim that stamina is easy mode. Try vMSA on a stam build. Even if you've got Flawless on a mage toon, you'll die a quite few times on your stam toon.

Iselin

Stamina got over-buffed due to the same old thinking that the poor guys also need to use stamina to block and dodge. Magicka is used for abilities only so it got over nerfed. This is what has led to the current state of affairs.

I suggested a drastic change two years ago that no doubt would take away a lot of the build flavor but would be a hell of a lot easier to balance fairly: make all abilities for all classes and weapons magicka and reserve stamina for just dodging, interrupts, blocking and sprinting.

DKsUnite

i like the part about the stuff about the things about the mDK

Solariken

Agreed, OP is well stated and accurate.

psychotic13

They shouldn't have gave stamina the physical damage set and not Magicka a 'magic damage' set so it would atleast apply to our class abilities as that's what we rely on for damage.

Or instead, change the ice and shock damage sets to an 'elemental damage' so it has a wider range of uses. It's too specific as there are not many ice abilities other than what's tied to the Destro, and shock only really is going to apply to mages wrath and overload, overload sucks in PvP so the set wouldn't be justified enough, when I feel I could easily pick a cheaper, stronger counterpart that gives a spell damage bonus and applies to lots of class abilities (frags,curse,jabs,funnel health,concealed weapon) making it ultimately better.

Cronopoly

Looking at all the PTS Armor Sets, the new Ults especially, and talking to friends, nothing will change in PVP regarding the Stamina Domination divide.

---

When they do decide to open their eyes and take a look they might realize that Magicka toons DK, Sorc, NB having the massive vulnerability to a small Stamina survival pool in PVP has been highlighted by compounded Nerfs.

With so much Stamina Insta-Gib Burst, and "Sharpened", all Magicka classes have no choice but to use Stamina to CCbreak, Block, Sprint to reposition, Dodgeroll. Using any of these typically spells your doom shortly afterwards against any competant player.

Sorcs past multiple Shield stacking hid this vulnerability that all Magicka classes had. Same with Cloak on NB...when it worked that is mDK I don't even know where to begin, however they do share the same vulnerabilities to a lower Stam pool.

Mojmir

can I a rage ultimate for when I snap my staff in 2 pcs?

Good post

jhharvest

Good OP. Also, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use a frost destro staff. I'm sure it must be a coincidence and not because it's terrible. (:

Mojmir

jhharvest wrote: »

Good OP. Also, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use a frost destro staff. I'm sure it must be a coincidence and not because it's terrible. (:

I see them used quite a bit,not effectively, but still.