Nerf Sharpened!

Dubhliam

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

RazorCaltrops wrote: »

People mentioned before, but here's another repeat:

There will always be one trait to rule them all, and it will be the one that gives the most penetration which is currently sharpened.

Speaking for PVE, the only irreplaceable weapons with a crafted one are the VMA dual wield which got nerfed anyway and VMA bow. You can use just 1 sharpened of them if your team provides enough armor shredding. For magicka that's very easy because you can just craft a non-set sharpened inferno (that's what i'm doing currently) if you aren't lucky to get a VMA/Moondancer/Infallible Aether and still be competitive, lack of these 3 staves is not the end of the world. Dps increase ? Yes but not a game changer.

Therefore changing the topic to "increase the drop rate of sharpened trait in vma" would be better.

This was not always the case. A year ago, precise was better in a raid, and sharp was better solo or in PVP. Nirn was actually better on things like DW swords for casters. There were options. It wasnt until they changed sharp to a ridiculously high penetration value that this all change.

Something to thing about, the trait on your weapon gives twice the penetration value of the main 5 piece armor pen set, Nightmothers. It is a ridiculously huge amount of penetration for one trait. This idea that one thing will always be the best is just nonsense. Balance works best when certain things are better in different situations. It used to be that way, but that is no longer the case.

Precise is still better when bosses are debuffed to the point where sharpened no longer does anything, i.e. full raids. I've always had an addon that displayed my spell pen on my char sheet. Back when nirnhoned was BiS for a staff I had 16k spell pen. Now I have a sharpened staff, 60+ cp in spell erosion and 5x spinners and I have exactly 17.8k spell pen. Just a bit of perspective; penetration levels are slightly higher (at least for a mag sorc) than they were, they just altered how you get there and made you invest more to get there. I'm a pvper and see the prevalence of heavy armour in pvp and a nerf to sharpened would be an indirect buff to heavy armour. If you're lamenting the demise of precise then why not campaign for a buff to that trait?

This is one of those situations where theorycrafting and reall life butt heads. Yes you can get to a point on paper where precise>sharp with enough raid debuffs, but it's not real life. The best DPS in the best raids still go sharp because you just can't keep that scenario up enough of the time for precise to over take sharp throughout a 6 minute fight. Sharp>precise even in a really good raid.

I'll take your word on that cos I'm not a huge pve'r. What you say makes sense. The fact still stands though; unless penetration numbers mean something different than they did a year ago, I only have 1.8k more penetration than I did then, and I sure as hell invest more into it now than just a nirnhoned staff and 7/7 light.

The Nirnhoned trait was only available from crafting, limiting the options where you could benefit from that broken trait. And it WAS broken, why do you think it got changed?

At that time, all traits were viable in certain scenarios.
Now they are not.

Birdovic

What about changing precise a little?

Currently its looking like this:

For 2h: (crit chance)
3% (normal)
4%
5%
6%
7% (Legendary)


Ideas:

For 2h: (crit chance + crit damage)
3% + 1% (normal)
4% + 2%
5% + 3%
6% + 4%
7% + 5% (Legendary)

Now, these numbers are just there to explain the examples better, they can be adjusted, its basically about the idea, maybe the chosen percentages are not that bad?

Anyway, another idea is, to completely remove Crit Chance increase on precise, and instead add even more Crit Damage Bonus.

I think these are nice ideas to play with, especially with the introduction of many critbased sets like

mothers sorrow(mag)/leviathan(stam):
(2 items) Adds 967 Max Magicka
(3 items) Adds 688 Spell Critical
(4 items) Adds 688 Spell Critical
(5 items) Adds 1643 Spell Critical

or
toothrow(stam)/treasure hunte(mag)r:
(2 items) Adds 967 Max Stamina
(3 items) Adds 688 Weapon Critical
(4 items) Adds 688 Weapon Critical
(5 items) Gain Major Savagery at all times, increasing your Weapon Critical rating by 2191.
(5 items) Adds 100 Weapon Damage


For what we could do with Nirnhoned, I have no idea currently.

Dubhliam

Birdovic wrote: »

What about changing precise a little?

Currently its looking like this:

For 2h: (crit chance)
3% (normal)
4%
5%
6%
7% (Legendary)


Ideas:

For 2h: (crit chance + crit damage)
3% + 1% (normal)
4% + 2%
5% + 3%
6% + 4%
7% + 5% (Legendary)

Now, these numbers are just there to explain the examples better, they can be adjusted, its basically about the idea, maybe the chosen percentages are not that bad?

Anyway, another idea is, to completely remove Crit Chance increase on precise, and instead add even more Crit Damage Bonus.

I think these are nice ideas to play with, especially with the introduction of many critbased sets like

mothers sorrow(mag)/leviathan(stam):
(2 items) Adds 967 Max Magicka
(3 items) Adds 688 Spell Critical
(4 items) Adds 688 Spell Critical
(5 items) Adds 1643 Spell Critical

or
toothrow(stam)/treasure hunte(mag)r:
(2 items) Adds 967 Max Stamina
(3 items) Adds 688 Weapon Critical
(4 items) Adds 688 Weapon Critical
(5 items) Gain Major Savagery at all times, increasing your Weapon Critical rating by 2191.
(5 items) Adds 100 Weapon Damage


For what we could do with Nirnhoned, I have no idea currently.

I'm sorry, but buffing other traits is not the answer here.

Remember how you have been farming that elusive Divines trait?
For all your pieces?

Well, each Divine piece with a Thief mundus will raise your Critical strike chance by 0,825%
0,825%
So basically, 7 divines pieces raise your Crit chance by 5,775%
If you had 50% Critical without 7 Divines, those 7 traits would raise your DPS by a whooping 2,31%
Adding a Precise weapon to that equation results in a 5,11% DPS increase.
Compare it to Sharpened - a single trait that will raise your DPS by 10,858%
and then tell me it doesn't need a nerf.

If you are wearing all divines, but you have Precise instead of Sharpened, a person wearing all Prosperous but with a Sharpened weapon will have 5% more damage than you.

dagonbeer

Agreed with sharpened being OP.

IMO sharpened should be bumped down to !2500 penetration, which is ~3.78% more damage in pvp, and ~5% damage in pve.

They should get rid of charged, which has virtually no use at the moment, and bring back the old sharpened, mitigating 12% of target armor. So in pvp against light armor users, you'd do ~2% damage, and ~6% vs full mitigation builds, and ~3.6% in pve.

Nirn and decisive could use a slight buff.

Precise, infused and powered can remain the same.

Ultimately, around ~5% difference should be the max ballpark for a weapon trait, not 10%+.

Birdovic

Remember how you have been farming that elusive Divines trait?
For all your pieces?

Well, each Divine piece with a Thief mundus will raise your Critical strike chance by 0,825%
0,825%
So basically, 7 divines pieces raise your Crit chance by 5,775%
If you had 50% Critical without 7 Divines, those 7 traits would raise your DPS by a whooping 2,31%
Adding a Precise weapon to that equation results in a 5,11% DPS increase.
Compare it to Sharpened - a single trait that will raise your DPS by 10,858%
and then tell me it doesn't need a nerf.

If you are wearing all divines, but you have Precise instead of Sharpened, a person wearing all Prosperous but with a Sharpened weapon will have 5% more damage than you.

Calm down, I have no idea why you're telling me that, lol.
I just made some suggestions to the "Precise" Trait, since I think its boring as it currently is, and I think adding crit damage /replacing crit chance with crit damage completely, would make that trait interesting for some builds, in combination with certain sets that I mentioned (and more).

I also didnt say I want to buff, in fact Im all for stopping the damage creep, since that is, what will make this game horrible and ruin it on the long run, in my opinion (and its getting worse and worse for quite some time already).

jubs

just deal with the *** rng? everyone has *** rng, just work harder in getting the weapons. you dont need to have sharpened weapons to do a substantially high amount of dps. infact precise outperforms sharpened in a well organized raid group with all debuffs going out

Lord-Otto

The real enemy is flat number boni. The flat penetration overbuffed heavy armor and ruined light. Nirnhoned doesn't have enough flat damage boost. And shields with their flat value get increasingly worse against multiple opponents.
All traits should give a percentage-based bonus. This is easier to balance and will balance itself as the power creep continues.

Birdovic

qqpredator3 wrote: »

just deal with the *** rng? everyone has *** rng, just work harder in getting the weapons. you dont need to have sharpened weapons to do a substantially high amount of dps. infact precise outperforms sharpened in a well organized raid group with all debuffs going out

Only very very few groups will tell their people to make precise weapons, its simply more practical to bring a sharpend weapon along, which doesnt rely on having debuffs going. There may be groups, but thats surely the minority.

Dubhliam

Even IF someone regularly does trials in an optimal group where every debuff is applied, when they get a Sharpened weapon, will they deconstruct it?

Dubhliam

So much changes in this PTS patch notes, but the "balance" update fails to do any changes to Sharpened.

GG ZOS.

Jaronking

No don't Nerf sharpened I finally got my sharpened VMA 2h and am going I enjoy it

Dubhliam

Jaronking wrote: »

No don't Nerf sharpened I finally got my sharpened VMA 2h and am going I enjoy it

Great.

Let me ask you... when they finally raise the gear cap to CP180, will you farm for another?
Or will you simply ragequit just like everyone else?

This is what OP things do to games... they make grinding for that one particular OP thing take up 90% of your gametime.

Jaronking

Dubhliam wrote: »

Jaronking wrote: »

No don't Nerf sharpened I finally got my sharpened VMA 2h and am going I enjoy it

Great.

Let me ask you... when they finally raise the gear cap to CP180, will you farm for another?
Or will you simply ragequit just like everyone else?

This is what OP things do to games... they make grinding for that one particular OP thing take up 90% of your gametime.

Well am not doing another 375 runs so unless they add a token system to VMA or a auto upgrade on those weapons am leaving.Am sure many others will as well.

Dubhliam

Jaronking wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

Jaronking wrote: »

No don't Nerf sharpened I finally got my sharpened VMA 2h and am going I enjoy it

Great.

Let me ask you... when they finally raise the gear cap to CP180, will you farm for another?
Or will you simply ragequit just like everyone else?

This is what OP things do to games... they make grinding for that one particular OP thing take up 90% of your gametime.

Well am not doing another 375 runs so unless they add a token system to VMA or a auto upgrade on those weapons am leaving.Am sure many others will as well.

Exactly.

And the reason is: there is only one useful (overpowered) trait in the game.

Jaronking

Dubhliam wrote: »

Jaronking wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

Jaronking wrote: »

No don't Nerf sharpened I finally got my sharpened VMA 2h and am going I enjoy it

Great.

Let me ask you... when they finally raise the gear cap to CP180, will you farm for another?
Or will you simply ragequit just like everyone else?

This is what OP things do to games... they make grinding for that one particular OP thing take up 90% of your gametime.

Well am not doing another 375 runs so unless they add a token system to VMA or a auto upgrade on those weapons am leaving.Am sure many others will as well.

Exactly.

And the reason is: there is only one useful (overpowered) trait in the game.

While true knowing them its probably going to take them a year to make VMA drop CP180 gear anyway similar to VDSA.It won't matter.

Prof_Bawbag

Have ZoS ever stated they're gonna eventually up gear to CP180?

Dubhliam

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

Have ZoS ever stated they're gonna eventually up gear to CP180?

While they didn't specifically say they would, they DID say that we don't have to worry about gear cap being raised for some time.

Meaning CP 160 cap is not indefinite, and 180 will come sooner or later.

MakoFore

BUFF PROSPEROUS!

Birdovic

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

Have ZoS ever stated they're gonna eventually up gear to CP180?

Also, I believe there were VR18 things datamined once, I think runes. It was around the time when the IC DLC was introduced I think.


So no matter how stupid a decision it is and how many arguments we have against going for CP180, there at least were plans to do that.

Lord_Etrigan

Dubhliam wrote: »

Yes, I said the magic word.
NERF!

Ever since they buffed Sharpened, there is absolutely no choice for offensive traits. Sharpened outshines Precise and Nirnhoned in almost all situations.
It is the reason why we have so many vMA whine threads, because people deconstruct Nirnhoned and Precise weapons.

The traits should be put into balance again, and I don't think buffs are the way to go, not with such a fast power creep we have.
Sharpened is seriously overpowered and deserves to be toned down.
I mean, seriously?! A 12% damage increase?! What the hell is ZOS thinking?!

Now, I know some would argue that the HA meta dictates for high penetration values. And it is partially true. But good players can and will adapt. With a nerfed Sharpened trait, people will turn to Mauls and Maces to combat HA. Also, let's not forget: those HA users will hit like wet noodles if their Sharpened weapons no longer wreck people.

And before you all go into a rage mode, defending your hard earned Sharpened weapons, let me ask you a question:
When we get the gear increase to CP180 (and we will), would you like to farm for one particular trait, or have three useful traits to choose from?

In my opinion, Sharpened should be reworked to state:
"ignores 20% of the target's resistances (10% for one handed weapons)"


In PvE, those values would be 3700 resistance.
Against high armor targets in PvP, those values would go all the way up to 6400 ignored resistances for 32k armor targets.

Just for comparison, the trait would be just as useful as it is today against players with 25800 resistance, and would only gain more power against tanks.

Ooooh, sweet mother of Hades!!

Here we go again!! At least wait until Homestead has dropped before you ask for more Nerfs.

Now " OFF WITH HIS HEAD" LOL.

Agalloch

Better nerf everything and transform ESO in Call Of Duty with housing simulation!

React

I personally think you've hit the nail on the head with this one. This could not be more applicable to the current meta. With almost everyone running heavy armor, you'll only be losing a VERY small amount of penetration against your average 5/2 major resolve user. Against anyone with over 26k physical sharpened will be doing MORE damage than it was previously.

Edit: I'm a Stam user using the weakest class relying of physical penetration. This is my perspective from the PVP aspect, as I do not participate in trials currently.

Dubhliam

Liam12548 wrote: »

I personally think you've hit the nail on the head with this one. This could not be more applicable to the current meta. With almost everyone running heavy armor, you'll only be losing a VERY small amount of penetration against your average 5/2 major resolve user. Against anyone with over 26k physical sharpened will be doing MORE damage than it was previously.

Edit: I'm a Stam user using the weakest class relying of physical penetration. This is my perspective from the PVP aspect, as I do not participate in trials currently.

Exactly.
PvP would see a lot of Sharpened weapons, as that trait would still shine in PvP as a "focused" anti-tank build.

As for PvE, we might finally get people to mix and match between Nirn and Precise in group settings, while Sharpened might still be a viable option for soloing.

Rejoice vMA farmers! You no longer have only 1 viable trait on your weapons.

danno8

Lord_Etrigan wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

Yes, I said the magic word.
NERF!

Ever since they buffed Sharpened, there is absolutely no choice for offensive traits. Sharpened outshines Precise and Nirnhoned in almost all situations.
It is the reason why we have so many vMA whine threads, because people deconstruct Nirnhoned and Precise weapons.

The traits should be put into balance again, and I don't think buffs are the way to go, not with such a fast power creep we have.
Sharpened is seriously overpowered and deserves to be toned down.
I mean, seriously?! A 12% damage increase?! What the hell is ZOS thinking?!

Now, I know some would argue that the HA meta dictates for high penetration values. And it is partially true. But good players can and will adapt. With a nerfed Sharpened trait, people will turn to Mauls and Maces to combat HA. Also, let's not forget: those HA users will hit like wet noodles if their Sharpened weapons no longer wreck people.

And before you all go into a rage mode, defending your hard earned Sharpened weapons, let me ask you a question:
When we get the gear increase to CP180 (and we will), would you like to farm for one particular trait, or have three useful traits to choose from?

In my opinion, Sharpened should be reworked to state:
"ignores 20% of the target's resistances (10% for one handed weapons)"


In PvE, those values would be 3700 resistance.
Against high armor targets in PvP, those values would go all the way up to 6400 ignored resistances for 32k armor targets.

Just for comparison, the trait would be just as useful as it is today against players with 25800 resistance, and would only gain more power against tanks.

Ooooh, sweet mother of Hades!!

Here we go again!! At least wait until Homestead has dropped before you ask for more Nerfs.

Now " OFF WITH HIS HEAD" LOL.

With Homestead on the PTS, we know that crit magnitude is getting nerfed which indirectly makes Sharpened even more desirable. If they do nothing until it is live, it will be another 6 months until Sharpened is looked at again.

ConeOfSilence

With the PTS patch I say haven't you nerfers done enough damage.

olsborg

Birdovic wrote: »

What about changing precise a little?

Currently its looking like this:

For 2h: (crit chance)
3% (normal)
4%
5%
6%
7% (Legendary)


Ideas:

For 2h: (crit chance + crit damage)
3% + 1% (normal)
4% + 2%
5% + 3%
6% + 4%
7% + 5% (Legendary)

N.

I do like this idea.

Jimbullbee85

Do you not mean "buff nirnhoned" perhaps?

Birdovic

As for PvE, we might finally get people to mix and match between Nirn and Precise in group settings, while Sharpened might still be a viable option for soloing.

@Dubhliam

Did I miss something on the PTS, about traits?

J2JMC

nordsavage wrote: »

...increasing CP caps...

nordsavage wrote: »

...Balance...

@nordsavage

You can only pick one.

AzuraKin

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

RazorCaltrops wrote: »

People mentioned before, but here's another repeat:

There will always be one trait to rule them all, and it will be the one that gives the most penetration which is currently sharpened.

Speaking for PVE, the only irreplaceable weapons with a crafted one are the VMA dual wield which got nerfed anyway and VMA bow. You can use just 1 sharpened of them if your team provides enough armor shredding. For magicka that's very easy because you can just craft a non-set sharpened inferno (that's what i'm doing currently) if you aren't lucky to get a VMA/Moondancer/Infallible Aether and still be competitive, lack of these 3 staves is not the end of the world. Dps increase ? Yes but not a game changer.

Therefore changing the topic to "increase the drop rate of sharpened trait in vma" would be better.

This was not always the case. A year ago, precise was better in a raid, and sharp was better solo or in PVP. Nirn was actually better on things like DW swords for casters. There were options. It wasnt until they changed sharp to a ridiculously high penetration value that this all change.

Something to thing about, the trait on your weapon gives twice the penetration value of the main 5 piece armor pen set, Nightmothers. It is a ridiculously huge amount of penetration for one trait. This idea that one thing will always be the best is just nonsense. Balance works best when certain things are better in different situations. It used to be that way, but that is no longer the case.

Precise is still better when bosses are debuffed to the point where sharpened no longer does anything, i.e. full raids. I've always had an addon that displayed my spell pen on my char sheet. Back when nirnhoned was BiS for a staff I had 16k spell pen. Now I have a sharpened staff, 60+ cp in spell erosion and 5x spinners and I have exactly 17.8k spell pen. Just a bit of perspective; penetration levels are slightly higher (at least for a mag sorc) than they were, they just altered how you get there and made you invest more to get there. I'm a pvper and see the prevalence of heavy armour in pvp and a nerf to sharpened would be an indirect buff to heavy armour. If you're lamenting the demise of precise then why not campaign for a buff to that trait?

This is one of those situations where theorycrafting and reall life butt heads. Yes you can get to a point on paper where precise>sharp with enough raid debuffs, but it's not real life. The best DPS in the best raids still go sharp because you just can't keep that scenario up enough of the time for precise to over take sharp throughout a 6 minute fight. Sharp>precise even in a really good raid.

I'll take your word on that cos I'm not a huge pve'r. What you say makes sense. The fact still stands though; unless penetration numbers mean something different than they did a year ago, I only have 1.8k more penetration than I did then, and I sure as hell invest more into it now than just a nirnhoned staff and 7/7 light.

actually nirnhoned only buffed your pene stat by 18%. it did not effect penetration from skills. even before the changes to traits nirnhoned was dying out from use as people realized sharpened was still better then nirnhoned back then.