On Weapon traits.

AEAltadoonPadhome

Today I saw just another casual talk in the guild chat:
- "Still farming the Mother''s sorrow weapons, so far I only got precise one"

Wait. So the crit trait is actually not wanted on a set that does nothing but provide crit bonuses?

??????

Oh wait, of course, whatever you take, the sharpened weapon trait is just twice as effective as precise ones in terms of dps (except for some optimal raid scenarios with all armor debuffs on bosses).
This fact causes the build diversity to be a bit monotonous as far as weapon traits are concerned.

So what can you do to change this?
Well, here's how it should be in my opinion. Suppose you had some major crit damage modifiers, for instance the Shadow stone, or lots of uptime on major or minor force. In those cases, precise should be better than sharpened. For builds that do not rely on crit that heavily, sharpened should be better (except with optimized debuffs).

And then I'm not even talking about the other traits:
Defending as it is now is quite OK, although only tanks and some healers and other defensive-style soloers use it, which is fine.
Nirnhoned is simply unoptimal in any endgame scenario. People have done the math for this already.
Decisive is only useful for ultigen offtanks, since the main tank better uses defending weapons.
Infused is only useful for some tanks to improve their crusher enchant (again since mitigation reduction is heavily favored). On normal damage enchants the dps gain is sub-par with the gain from sharpened weapons.
Powered is only useful for healers, but it is ok if you ask me, although it should not occur on most weapons except resto staves and maybe a few one-handers.
Charged: no one even knows what status effects are and are not meant by it. It seems to proc stuff like concussed and bleeding more, but does this also affect the burning from for instance BSW? Also some enchants seem to proc statuses but the game explains nowhere what the uptimes and damage output theoretically is. Conclusion: no one bothers. Perhaps at least clarifying what its uses are makes it better, especially for new players who haven't spend hours looking through forum topics of people who actually bothered to test it?

As it is now, Sharpened is just too strong compared to the other traits if you are a dps.

Armitas

The funny thing is all that is the result of their last attempt at trait rebalance.

Paneross

Most traits apart from Sharpened are considered garbage.

Masel

Sadly, this is probably the 99th thread since the last change that mage the traits as they are now. While I (and I believe everyone else) fully agrees, it's unlikely that anything will happen before update 14. All they said was that they plan to do some class and skill rebalancing, but I doubt that they will modify any of those traits and/or the current rng system in the next few months

STEVIL

actually i want a more significant change.
i dont want another math-this-way vs math-that-way crit vs pen vs dmg vs additive vs multiplicative on the head of a pin series of morphs to just turn into different ways to calculate DPS.

i want a real difference in play.

Let "sharpened" be the baseline at a simple +Xdamage (maybe a percentage)
let there be a heal version with +2X healing done
let there be a +2X vs undead/daedra
let there be +2X vs werewolves.
let there be a 2X vs khajiit and argonians.
let there be a +2X vs Elves
let there be a +2X vs giants/ogres
let there be a +2x vs spiders, dreugh, scrib
etc...

create a situation where there is a baseline vs everybody and a special double effect vs a more narrow group, so that there isn't a universal best but a lot of circumstantial "if fighting this then that" traits so that there really isn't one single BiS trait and having several swords with different traits to switch back and forth between makes sense.

Sure the groups can be defined however, based on different logic and they all dont have to be "equally rare" just sufficiently different that in some content the best is this and in other content the best is that.

No BIS traits, just best in circumstance traits.

For armor, use reinforced as base:
have +2X vs spell/elem
have +2x vs phys poison dis
have +2X vs DOT
have +2x vs aoe
have +2x vs crits
have +2x healing recieved
etc etc etc

Again, circumstantial BIS not just best math BiS.

Might want to wear different gear for city of ash than for spindleclutch.

Wont happen but in practice balance is more determined by the nature of the challenge than the math. So key the traits to handle different challenges very differently.

Wont happen, even though imo it would also be more transparent to newbies and be a good anti-universal-bis result.

Armitas

STEVIL wrote: »

Let "sharpened" be the baseline at a simple +Xdamage (maybe a percentage)
let there be a heal version with +2X healing done
let there be a +2X vs undead/daedra
let there be +2X vs werewolves.
let there be a 2X vs khajiit and argonians.
let there be a +2X vs Elves
let there be a +2X vs giants/ogres
let there be a +2x vs spiders, dreugh, scrib
etc...

Did you play lotro?

Qbiken

May I ask how "divirsity" ruins ppls gameplay??? Answer: It´s not. Some stuff will always be better than others, deal with it. All traits isn´t useless. And remember, not all players in eso doesn´t care about maxing out performance in form of dps (as an example)

Kutsuu

STEVIL wrote: »

Let "sharpened" be the baseline at a simple +Xdamage (maybe a percentage)
let there be a heal version with +2X healing done
let there be a +2X vs undead/daedra
let there be +2X vs werewolves.
let there be a 2X vs khajiit and argonians.
let there be a +2X vs Elves
let there be a +2X vs giants/ogres
let there be a +2x vs spiders, dreugh, scrib

And finally, let there be 40 freaking gold weapons in my inventory that I switch out on the fly depending on my target. I don't miss the assassin playstyle in DAOC too much. All that weapon swapping got old.

But at least I'd be wearing my redguard and altmer weapons more than anything else.

Sheuib

I think making blanket statements like sharpened is the BiS for all dps is bad advise. People need to look at their overall character build before deciding what is best for their build. For instance my dps character I decided to go with the defending on my swords simply because I had the 5 light piece armor bonus, 5th bonus from spinners set, and additional penetration from champion points. I did not need the additional penetration from sharpeded therefore it was open for me to pick another trait. Since I play mostly PVP I really needed the additional defense. If I was mostly PVE I probably would have went with precise. When people make decisions on what to gear their character with they really need to look at what their character has and needs before just blindly copying what the general public says is BiS.

Masel

Sheuib wrote: »

I think making blanket statements like sharpened is the BiS for all dps is bad advise. People need to look at their overall character build before deciding what is best for their build. For instance my dps character I decided to go with the defending on my swords simply because I had the 5 light piece armor bonus, 5th bonus from spinners set, and additional penetration from champion points. I did not need the additional penetration from sharpeded therefore it was open for me to pick another trait. Since I play mostly PVP I really needed the additional defense. If I was mostly PVE I probably would have went with precise. When people make decisions on what to gear their character with they really need to look at what their character has and needs before just blindly copying what the general public says is BiS.

Pvp is a different thing, really, but against heavy armor builds (that are prevalent in pvp), sharpened is still the best you can get. Against Shields, nirnhoned is best, as you can't crit against them and they have 0 resistance. The traits can stay as they are, the only thing needed is a tweak in numbers to get the others at least close to sharpened, while keeping their respective advantages . The 3-5% damage increase against certain builds is just not worth it compared to sharpened with 11%.

STEVIL

Armitas wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Let "sharpened" be the baseline at a simple +Xdamage (maybe a percentage)
let there be a heal version with +2X healing done
let there be a +2X vs undead/daedra
let there be +2X vs werewolves.
let there be a 2X vs khajiit and argonians.
let there be a +2X vs Elves
let there be a +2X vs giants/ogres
let there be a +2x vs spiders, dreugh, scrib
etc...

Did you play lotro?

nope cuz i dont know that acronym. lord of the rings online maybe? was that a thing?

but as long as it stays in a math-v-math model instead of a circumstance-v-circumstance all the math tnagos d9o is create new top-of-heaps with each rebalancing.

seen it in this game itself for 2+ years.

Armitas

STEVIL wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Let "sharpened" be the baseline at a simple +Xdamage (maybe a percentage)
let there be a heal version with +2X healing done
let there be a +2X vs undead/daedra
let there be +2X vs werewolves.
let there be a 2X vs khajiit and argonians.
let there be a +2X vs Elves
let there be a +2X vs giants/ogres
let there be a +2x vs spiders, dreugh, scrib
etc...

Did you play lotro?

nope cuz i dont know that acronym. lord of the rings online maybe? was that a thing?

Yeah, just so happened that was exactly what their weapon traits looked like.

STEVIL

Armitas wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Let "sharpened" be the baseline at a simple +Xdamage (maybe a percentage)
let there be a heal version with +2X healing done
let there be a +2X vs undead/daedra
let there be +2X vs werewolves.
let there be a 2X vs khajiit and argonians.
let there be a +2X vs Elves
let there be a +2X vs giants/ogres
let there be a +2x vs spiders, dreugh, scrib
etc...

Did you play lotro?

nope cuz i dont know that acronym. lord of the rings online maybe? was that a thing?

Yeah, just so happened that was exactly what their weapon traits looked like.

Not surprised, its drawn out of lotsa experience in many different games, not just online - designing, running playing etc. lotsa fantasy rpgs including various flavors of DnD, Black Company and tons of other genres to.

its basically a fairly ubiquitous mechanic - circumstantial bests - and really it is even seen in play right now. (the reason impen is so prevalent in pvp is it works there cuz every opponent has crits and plenty of them but its rarely used in pve cuz the exact opposite is true.)

the current ESO methodology of giving weapons and armor (to a lesser degree) different math tress to achieve the same goal basically will fail more often than not to create a situation where most traits are used in play.

The whole one boosts damage, one boosts pen, one boosts crit chance etc is destined to be mathed out within 24 hours, to be mostly opaque to the typical user for "where which matters more" and lets face it - is trying to make all three "best" in some cases and less than in others but makes the "circumstances" so opaque as to be a failed effort.

On the other hand, very distinct easy-to-see "circumstantial best" that is related to the challenge in a more obvious way makes for a lot better chance at getting all traits playtime and moreover making folks want to keep different versions of their weapons and gear - to be "best" for each given content challenge. people can see "city of ash = lotsa fire aoe" and plan accordingly mixing and matching set pieces and its a lot easier than figuring "arer we facing enough high end resistance to make the pen worthwhile over the crit" even if they were "balanced."

Like i said, might be great in such a system to swap into the more elemental defense and elemental offense gear for city of ash than wear your spindleclutch suit in there.

might be worth changing armor between levels in maelstrom.

More to the point, that simple design ends the BiS trait monopoly shuffle in one move:
nothing in best everywhere and everything is best somewhere.

Wear the "vs stam sorc" armor to a storm sorc fight, pay the price.