Major Force

LiquidPony

We wanted Major and Minor Force to work the same way, without changing the damage bonus these buffs provide. Before, Major Force would multiply your 50% critical modifier by 30% (50 * 1.3 = 1.65). Now, you just add the critical damage bonuses together (50 + 1.15=1.65). The total damage is the same, but now Major and Minor Force use the same formula.

Can anyone who has tested on PTS confirm that the change to Major Force was, in fact, a nerf?

Every patch note/develop comment they've published includes this nonsensical "total damage is the same" note (which makes no sense at all), and for some reason, seeing this nonsense note just annoys the hell out of me.

As far as I'm aware, the note should read "The total damage is the same if you don't have any critical damage modifiers. If you do, it is a significant reduction in total damage."

As in, if I'm a Nightblade with Minor Force (at the new nerfed value) up with a 10% bonus from Precise Strikes, the formula would change from (.50 + .10 + .10 + .10) * 1.3 = 1.04, to (.50 + .10 + .10 + .10 + .15) = .95.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Can we please clarify this?

Sneaky-Snurr

Would love to know this as well.

GilGalad

Yeah it was pretty much a 50% nerf for major force and an indirect nerf to the TBS set, that's why no one is running TBS anymore.
Major force is still an important buff but not as important as before...

SirMewser

The "value" change was to become additive, rather than multiplicative , thus, they reduced the percent value to adjust.

Those with really high critical damage bonus benefited from it more prior to the change while those with low percent bonus were not benefiting as much, however, this is just another "raise the floor, lower the ceiling" method on ZoS' part.

A lot of other major/minor buffs were changed to behave just like this.