BALANCE BY XIN

Xinthisis

Been playing since launch, been through it all. Here are the changes needed and are also VIABLE for zos to actually implement. I know we all want a 1.5 or 1.6 return but that's just not happening folks.

1. Make armor abilities usable only while in 5 pieces of that armor type. (5 medium=shuffle. No shuffle for 5 heavy, or 5 light)
2. Remove the max stat increases from CP. Its like having soft caps again, makes the game easier for zos to balance.
3. Bring back bash/interrupt-able heavy attacks. Skilled play please.
4. Nonrefreshable shields. If a person wants to waste magic on a shield that has 2k left on it, let them recast that 2k shield. Not a full 11k shield. Skilled play please.
5. Nerf Unchained passive. cc break should= 80% reduced cost on ONE ability. Not 3 seconds of essentially free casts.

**Edit**

6. Remove the stun from stealth attacks!

Edit #2.

7. Make Blocking turn stam regen to 0 only after holding block for .5 or 1 second. This promotes people who reactively block while still punishing those who hold block. Also, for console players that have no choice but to tap block in order to bash enemies, it removes that crappy mechanic of missing a regen tic because they have to tap block in order to do so.

Now, I know the first thing people will talk about is "What about tava's dks? How are they going to dodge attacks if they cant use shuffle, or evasion?!" Well, DK's ash cloud (cinder storm) used to have miss chance on it. How about just give one of its morphs the Major Evasion buff for allies standing in its radius?

With the way zos balances this game it will be impossible to accomplish with ever increasing exponential resource pools. CP giving more max stats adds on to the problem. Especially with the new sets that get added in.

Anyone that knows what it was like to bash/interrupt a person doing a heavy resto attack on you while they were low on magicka agrees this needs to come back. (You get to bash those 2h heavy attacks too)

All the nerfs to shields and damage and healing is all linked to the lack of skill based gameplay. Shields used to be unrefreshable. This means that you cast your 10k(it was 1k back then.) hardened and say it gets hit for 6k(would be 600. I miss the old days. ) damage, if you were to recast the shield you would only have a 4k shield. You'd waste the magicka. Atm its a push this button for this uncrittable, ability non procable buffer. (RIP SIPHONING ATTACKS STILL NOT PROCCING ON SHIELDS)

3 seconds=3 abilities for anyone with good animation cancelling. 3 free casts for getting cc'd. CCing someone used to be a good thing, in some cases its better to not cc them at all. Especially if someone is in reactive.

Stunning people from stealth on ANY attack is problematic. It makes stealth gameplay too powerful. There is a reason that the main dps ability of the stealth class (nb) has a built in CC in it. It's because its a powerful mechanic to hit someone from the shadows with high extra critical damage and stun them all in one. It should be limited to surprise attack. No more stuns from Snipe, or silver bolts, or heavy attacks. Stealth and damage should be the advantage of ganking, not a buggy cc.

There are probably a bunch more but the most blatant and thought out fixes that come to mind are here.

@ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno

Blackfyre20

Couldn't agree more about interruptible heavy attacks, why was this taken out in the first place? If someone is using heavy resto attacks because they are low on magicka shouldn't I have some skillful way of countering that?

Xinthisis

@Blackfyre20 They removed it because it was one of those things that more "group oriented" players complained about when getting beaten in an "ideal" fight. They would get outsustained by a more "seasoned" player and would have to heavy attack with a staff which would lead to getting bashed. Then cc break now with no stam and no magicka. It was a viable way to make skillful choices and win fights. I agree that it should make a return. Not that people really need to heavy attack to sustain these days, but it would always be a good start.

Lexxypwns

Xinthisis wrote: »

@Blackfyre20 They removed it because it was one of those things that more "group oriented" players complained about when getting beaten in an "ideal" fight. They would get outsustained by a more "seasoned" player and would have to heavy attack with a staff which would lead to getting bashed. Then cc break now with no stam and no magicka. It was a viable way to make skillful choices and win fights. I agree that it should make a return. Not that people really need to heavy attack to sustain these days, but it would always be a good start.

Remember the outrage non-zergling had over this change? I was just breaking out of my zerging shell and becoming an open world pvp'er, I remember that bashing heavy attacks was one of the smartest things I had learned and felt so lame when they changed it.

I seem to remember @sypher getting super upset when this change came

Xinthisis

Oh, and can't have a balance post without a biased comment. Please make siphoning attacks or leeching strikes proc on dots. I really want to play a dot oriented nb with high sustain. Thanks.

Xinthisis

@Lexxypwns That change started the downfall of skillful pvp in ESO. It all started with that change. Maybe we can go in reverse order now?

WillhelmBlack

Although your post makes absolute sense to us, I think Zenimax want the opposite of skilled play as they have to cater to the larger percentage of the player base.

Plus, Potatoes vs Proctato sells more boxes. I bet SRIBES' video got many people back into PvP.

boundsy88

agree on all points. though the bashable heavy attacks should only be brought back if the resto heavy duration is reduced. only for the sake of balance in duels and the fact that sustain is always worse on magicka builds. ALL melee weapons have a shorter charge on heavy attacks so its only fair that magicka get the same treatment.

Zinaroth

Xinthisis wrote: »

I know we all want a 1.5 or 1.6 return but that's just not happening folks.

My Stamplar rigorously disagrees, and I am sure the Stamsorcs do aswell, albeit they are overpowered at the moment, they were just as useless back then. Speak for yourself.

Other than that I agree with 1-3 and disagree with 4-5.

Would like to add:
- Make Soul Assault interruptable through bash or CC again.
- Make Meteor reflectable or cleansable again.
- Tone down destruction ultimate.
- Tone down Nightblade burst coming out of stealth.
- Increase the ultimate cost on Nightblade Assassination ultimate to the cost of Dawnbreaker.
- Tone down Dark Deal recovery and Hurricane damage.
- Overall improvements for Stamplars which I won't go into specifics on here; but basically better passives resulting in a bit more sustain and damage and proper magicka dump utility for stamina besides Cleanse, and make Focus a true armor self buff and give away with the entire Houseplar mentality.
- Oh, and for the love of the Divines... Revert animation cancelling back to its previous iteration and roll the dreaded 1.3 lighting patch back. I would prefer being able to land light and heavy weaved attacks and less fancy spell animation over running around in lag and being unable to weave while my character just stands there in all of the clunkyness Stamplars are right now.

Lexxypwns

Xinthisis wrote: »

@Lexxypwns That change started the downfall of skillful pvp in ESO. It all started with that change. Maybe we can go in reverse order now?

Yeah, I remember when "oh, just run crit rush plus heavy attack" was in no way a viable offense

Ashamray

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

Couldn't agree more about interruptible heavy attacks, why was this taken out in the first place? If someone is using heavy resto attacks because they are low on magicka shouldn't I have some skillful way of countering that?

So bash is that "skillful way"? kek

Let's buff snb stamina dd's even more cuz they already use bash in their attacks. Why not?

Draxys

Zinaroth wrote: »

Xinthisis wrote: »

I know we all want a 1.5 or 1.6 return but that's just not happening folks.

My Stamplar rigorously disagrees, and I am sure the Stamsorcs do aswell, albeit they are overpowered at the moment, they were just as useless back then. Speak for yourself.

Other than that I agree with 1-3 and disagree with 4-5.

Would like to add:
- Make Soul Assault interruptable through bash or CC again.
- Make Meteor reflectable or cleansable again.
- Tone down destruction ultimate.
- Tone down Nightblade burst coming out of stealth.
- Increase the ultimate cost on Nightblade Assassination ultimate to the cost of Dawnbreaker.
- Tone down Dark Deal recovery and Hurricane damage.
- Overall improvements for Stamplars which I won't go into specifics on here; but basically better passives resulting in a bit more sustain and damage and proper magicka dump utility for stamina besides Cleanse, and make Focus a true armor self buff and give away with the entire Houseplar mentality.
- Oh, and for the love of the Divines... Revert animation cancelling back to its previous iteration and roll the dreaded 1.3 lighting patch back. I would prefer being able to land light and heavy weaved attacks and less fancy spell animation over running around in lag and being unable to weave while my character just stands there in all of the clunkyness Stamplars are right now.

Why do so many naysayers come out of the woodwork when someone wants 1.5 or earlier back? No one is saying they want that game balance back, it was messed up too, although not as much as today.

The game was indisputably better because they hadn't abandoned vision and design- we want 1.5 back with the good balance changes they've done since, not for vamps to have perma bats, half of NB skills to be broken, or to pidgeonhole templars into BoL bots.

ManDraKE

Xinthisis wrote: »

1. Make armor abilities usable only while in 5 pieces of that armor type. (5 medium=shuffle. No shuffle for 5 heavy, or 5 light)

100 times yes. This should be like that since day 1. About Tava's, just change the set to generate ultimate based on something else like blocking. Is just one set, as long as it generates the same amount of ulti, no PvE Tank will complain.

Xinthisis wrote: »

2. Remove the max stat increases from CP. Its like having soft caps again, makes the game easier for zos to balance.

I don't know about this, but if it works on the non-cp campaign, i see no reason why it shouldn't work on the regular campaign. Another option is just add a fixed amount of stats when you reach X CP, in that way people don't lose too much stats and they put a cap to the stats increases on every patch.

Xinthisis wrote: »

3. Bring back bash/interrupt-able heavy attacks. Skilled play please.

Didn't play ESO when HA where bash-able, but i'm not sure what problem this change aims to solve. I think this is more personal preference than an actual fix to something. If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

Xinthisis wrote: »

4. Nonrefreshable shields. If a person wants to waste magic on a shield that has 2k left on it, let them recast that 2k shield. Not a full 11k shield. Skilled play please.

Right know people will rage at you for this, mostly because the heavy burst of proc sets make shields less effective, but without procs (they are getting changed to DoT damage, according to rumors), shield stacking will be worst than ever. Fighting a magsorc (without you using procs) is the most stupid fight in the game, no matter how much damage you put at him, you won't kill him unless he makes a mistake. In the past the way to deal with shieldstackers was making them burn their stam, but that is not really an option on this days, any decent magsorc won't run of stam.

Xinthisis wrote: »

10. Nerf Unchained passive. cc break= 80% reduced cost on ONE ability. Not 3 seconds of essentially free casts.

Yep, 1 skill reduced cost is more than enough. Also that 3 second window is hard to hit when you are trying to bar swap in a laggy fight lol

Xinthisis

People complaining about bashable heavy attacks never had the chance to bash heavy attacks.. Guys, crushing shock used to actually be viable. So was the other morph of poison injection. Stop fearing skillful mechanics that force you to make a choice when to use heavy attacks and when not to.

idk

@Xinthisis

Per usual PvP players don't see the entire game.

1. Would mean Tava's could be used by only one class as tank, NB. Essentially making it trash. (Also would require reducing size if magika shields to compensate. Balance after all.

B your suggestion for ash cloud would still leave Sorcs and Templars out of being able to use Ash.

3. Would not essentially be bringing back soft caps by any means so the rest of this point is mute.

3. Meh

4. Would make other skills OP. NB cloak would be so solid and stam dodge roll and shield builds would be stellar.

5. Whatever.

The problems with many of these threads where players think they solved the balance issue is they don't by any means.

Xinthisis

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

@Xinthisis

Per usual PvP players don't see the entire game.

1. Would mean Tava's could be used by only one class as tank, NB. Essentially making it trash. (Also would require reducing size if magika shields to compensate. Balance after all.

B your suggestion for ash cloud would still leave Sorcs and Templars out of being able to use Ash.

3. Would not essentially be bringing back soft caps by any means so the rest of this point is mute.

3. Meh

4. Would make other skills OP. NB cloak would be so solid and stam dodge roll and shield builds would be stellar.

5. Whatever.

The problems with many of these threads where players think they solved the balance issue is they don't by any means.

Lmfao, you really dont see it do you. Not every set should be viable for every class, and if Ash cloud gives allies Major evasion you have a way to get that. Also, people can tank in different ways. Tava's isn't a requirement for tanking on templar or Sorc. So dont run it. Also, someone made a suggestion to make it to where tavas gives ult when blocking an attack instead of dodging. Many ways to help balance things

It would bring a way for stat pools to be more static. Sure it wont reduce the amount that people can stack into one resource pool like getting a 80k health build but will help so that those builds dont have as much stam and mag.

Scared of getting bashed?

Overall balance changes that are easy for zos to implement is how they fix the game. Shields since being refreshable have been an easy button. Take away the easy buttons.

3 abilities for free every 6 seconds and you say whatever? lol

The problem with these threads is people with a whole lot of complaints and not a whole lot of solutions.

idk

Xinthisis wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

@Xinthisis

Per usual PvP players don't see the entire game.

1. Would mean Tava's could be used by only one class as tank, NB. Essentially making it trash. (Also would require reducing size if magika shields to compensate. Balance after all.

B your suggestion for ash cloud would still leave Sorcs and Templars out of being able to use Ash.

3. Would not essentially be bringing back soft caps by any means so the rest of this point is mute.

3. Meh

4. Would make other skills OP. NB cloak would be so solid and stam dodge roll and shield builds would be stellar.

5. Whatever.

The problems with many of these threads where players think they solved the balance issue is they don't by any means.

Lmfao, you really dont see it do you. Not every set should be viable for every class

That's says it all that this conversation isn't worth my time.

Of course I expect a reply about something silly like BSW wouldn't be used on a stamplar as an example of how the above comment.

Minalan

No on the shield nerf. They last six seconds. Count to five and stun them. Burst.

I know counting is hard for some people, but if you try real hard I know you can make it to five...

lucky_Sage

the only stats that get buffed by cp is cost reduction and regen. cp just needs a rework completely

cellobuddy

Shields are by no means an easy button. They require immense discipline to keep up all the time, have plenty of counterplay, are already cut in half, have a good bit of cost, and the best I've seen (17k hardened ward stacked w/ 14k dampen) can still be outdone by proccs and high damage builds. Keep in mind that you can only cast one at a time so doing 17k DPS tooltip is all a couple people need to do to keep a sorc from doing anything else. That even gets paused if you use stuns, and, as has already been brought up, if you time your stun and burst around shield expiration, you'll kill the sorc; especially if there's a fear in there since it's the CC that's the hardest to notice and thus instantly break free from.

Solariken

Please add that Magelight should break stealth/invisibility upon cast. You know this is necessary.

Blackfyre20

Ashamray wrote: »

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

Couldn't agree more about interruptible heavy attacks, why was this taken out in the first place? If someone is using heavy resto attacks because they are low on magicka shouldn't I have some skillful way of countering that?

So bash is that "skillful way"? kek

Let's buff snb stamina dd's even more cuz they already use bash in their attacks. Why not?

Yea I'd say bashing a heavy attack is a skillful counter. Maybe someone gets lucky while LA-skill-bash weaving but more often than not interrupting heavy attacks would be a skillful, reactive way to prevent a player from returning a ton of resources. You'd also be buffing crushing shock/deep breath/toppling charge/venom arrow users. Most importantly it would punish players for poorly managing resources/not investing enough into resource management.

idk

lucky_Sage wrote: »

the only stats that get buffed by cp is cost reduction and regen. cp just needs a rework completely

@lucky_Sage

All three max stats are buffed by CP. Mag/stam/health

This doesn't make OP correct by any means.

lucky_Sage

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

lucky_Sage wrote: »

the only stats that get buffed by cp is cost reduction and regen. cp just needs a rework completely

@lucky_Sage

All three max stats are buffed by CP. Mag/stam/health

This doesn't make OP correct by any means.

@Giles.floydub17_ESO
that's actually true I say that people said that but I thought it was just misread

ManDraKE

cellobuddy wrote: »

Shields are by no means an easy button. They require immense discipline to keep up all the time, have plenty of counterplay, are already cut in half, have a good bit of cost, and the best I've seen (17k hardened ward stacked w/ 14k dampen) can still be outdone by proccs and high damage builds.

it doesn't require as much a discipline as you said, if you think that a shieldstacking build is hard to play, you really need to try other things lol. The only reason they are hard to play nowadays is because proc sets, stam builds can burst all your shields in 1 second. Anyway, how hard or easy to do is irrelevant, if you have to fight a good sorcerer without you using proc sets to burst him, you will never kill him. As long as he dosn't do anything stupid like dodge rolling with low stam, it won't die.

We already had that in this game, we all saw what a shieldstacking build was able to survive in older metas, and in that time harness was only absorbing magic damage. I'm guilty of re-rolling a magsorc during the shieldstacking+proxy death meta, i wasn't even good a magsorc and yet i was semi-inmortal, i was shieldstacking damage of 5 guys hitting me at the same time with no trouble at all, and good luck trying to kill a build like that in a 1v1.

idk

ManDraKE wrote: »

cellobuddy wrote: »

Shields are by no means an easy button. They require immense discipline to keep up all the time, have plenty of counterplay, are already cut in half, have a good bit of cost, and the best I've seen (17k hardened ward stacked w/ 14k dampen) can still be outdone by proccs and high damage builds.

it doesn't require as much a discipline as you said, if you think that a shieldstacking build is hard to play, you really need to try other things lol. The only reason they are hard to play nowadays is because proc sets, stam builds can burst all your shields in 1 second. Anyway, how hard or easy to do is irrelevant, if you have to fight a good sorcerer without you using proc sets to burst him, you will never kill him. As long as he dosn't do anything stupid like dodge rolling with low stam, it won't die.

We already had that in this game, we all saw what a shieldstacking build was able to survive in older metas, and in that time harness was only absorbing magic damage. I'm guilty of re-rolling a magsorc during the shieldstacking+proxy death meta, i wasn't even good a magsorc and yet i was semi-inmortal, i was shieldstacking damage of 5 guys hitting me at the same time with no trouble at all, and good luck trying to kill a build like that in a 1v1.

@ManDraKE

Did you even read his post or just the first sentence?

Kutsuu

Hmm I'm not totally sure about the bashing heavy attacks thing. This is part of what made my old 1h/shield builds so powerful. I'm already weaving light>attack>bash - you dare to start winding up a medium weave or a heavy attack and you're getting slammed by a 4-8k bash, no skill required. I just weave like I always weave. Not sure how to solve that concern, really.

As far as the item to only allow armor abilities to work with 5-piece of that type, I strongly agree. This alone brings Heavy Armor vs Medium Armor/Light Armor balance back into a great spot. No harness magicka for HA mag builds and no shuffle for HA stam builds. NBs still having access to major evasion would probably cause an uproar... but IMO that's their recompense for not having major mending or crit surge, which all the other builds have at least one of.

Xinthisis

Proc sets are getting reworked. This is confirmed, and therefore I didn't mention them. Stam is strong because they have access to so much utility. Being able to get great sustain+damage+dodge chance+tankiness. Not to mention the way cp helps Stam builds more then magicka builds. Easiest fix is to nerf unchained, and to make it to where if a stam build wants to have dodge chance+root snare removal all in one skill they have to run 5 medium armor.

@Giles.floydub17_ESO state your solutions, not just your criticism. People with complaints and no solutions pollute these forums. Be refreshing.

Xinthisis

Kutsuu wrote: »

Hmm I'm not totally sure about the bashing heavy attacks thing. This is part of what made my old 1h/shield builds so powerful. I'm already weaving light>attack>bash - you dare to start winding up a medium weave or a heavy attack and you're getting slammed by a 4-8k bash, no skill required. I just weave like I always weave. Not sure how to solve that concern, really.

As far as the item to only allow armor abilities to work with 5-piece of that type, I strongly agree. This alone brings Heavy Armor vs Medium Armor/Light Armor balance back into a great spot. No harness magicka for HA mag builds and no shuffle for HA stam builds. NBs still having access to major evasion would probably cause an uproar... but IMO that's their recompense for not having major mending or crit surge, which all the other builds have at least one of.

Sword and shield has always been far too powerful, that is just an issue with the way it is designed. However, unbashable heavy attacks is an issue in it of itself. Bring back bashable heavy attacks, and nerf bash damage. That would be the solution.

Xinthisis

lucky_Sage wrote: »

the only stats that get buffed by cp is cost reduction and regen. cp just needs a rework completely

This is why before I start a conversation with someone about balance, I ask what platform they play on.

Take all your cp out and check your resource pools. Put all your cp back in and check them again. Thanks. Now let the people who know what they're talking about continue the conversation.

Ishammael

Agree with all of these.

Good post, OP.

(PS. Fix dragon Blood!)