The biggest problem is not directly RNG....

Bigevilpeter

It is the fact the only one weapon trait is useful and the rest is trash.

I think the solution that would make things much better is to improve the other traits drastically to be on par with sharpened.

Here's my idea for 2h weapons(half for one handed):

Precise: 12% crit chance
Weighted: Double the ultimate gain (100% chance to gain 1 more ulti)
Nirnhoned: 300 weapon/spell damage
Infused: increases enchantment effect by 50% and still decreases cooldown by 40%
Powered: 12% more healing done
Charged: Should be reworked to increase DoT damage or something

I think if the weapons traits became close to each other then getting a nirnhoned or precise etc. woulnt make it trash. It can be used until you get the best trait or in some situations they would even be the best traits.

It is a very simple solution but ZOS take a very long time to react to anything

mtwiggz

Weapon traits need to be changed. Gear traits need to be as well. At this point both have an end all be all trait. In some situations precise may be better than Sharpened, or infused may be better than divines, but that's usually only for niche builds or particular play styles.

It's too late for me to get into math, but your ideas here are decent. The changes ZoS made were terrible, I'm open to hearing many suggestions on the matter.

mertusta

I think charged trait is pretty useful, as a healer I use charged trait and shock enchanted lightning staff to proc minor vulnerability. A new trait that increases dot might be much better. I agree for the rest what you wrote btw.

Unsent.Soul

Simple solution? Lol. If it was simple then there would be no need for discussion...

Chilly-McFreeze

I can allready see some cancerous infused + torug's pact + unresistable dmg enchant builds in pvp with this ^^

Indeed, the traits need rework. But there will always be a BiS. If nirnhorned does more dmg than sharpened, every dmg will run this. If precise outperforms sharpened and nirnhorned, everyone will run this. If some builds with infused outperform sharpened, nirnhorned, precise, everyone will run this.
See what I did there? There will always be a meta, one thing better than the rest. But that shouldn't be an excuse to don't even try a balancing act.

Cryptical

Yeah there will always be a best in slot, on paper using math. But if the differences are small enough such that they can disappear into the gray area of player skill and character build then the BiS becomes immaterial.

Meld777

About trait rebalancing, for those arguing that there will always be a meta, yes, you're right.

At the moment the situation is the following: If you need an Inferno staff, a Sharpened crafted, set-less staff will always outperform any vMA Inferno except a Sharpened one. In a hardcore raid setting, where all debuffs are applied perfectly, which doesn't happen too often, a Precise weapon can be viable for certain builds; and you will find enough end-game players saying I'm wrong and that, according to their tests, there is no situation where even Precise is viable.

Yes, there will always be a meta. But if set and Master/Maelstrom weapons only outperform non-set Sharpened weapons when they are Sharpened themselves, traits are definitely not balanced.

Chilly-McFreeze

Meld777 wrote: »

About trait rebalancing, for those arguing that there will always be a meta, yes, you're right.

At the moment the situation is the following: If you need an Inferno staff, a Sharpened crafted, set-less staff will always outperform any vMA Inferno except a Sharpened one. In a hardcore raid setting, where all debuffs are applied perfectly, which doesn't happen too often, a Precise weapon can be viable for certain builds; and you will find enough end-game players saying I'm wrong and that, according to their tests, there is no situation where even Precise is viable.

Yes, there will always be a meta. But if set and Master/Maelstrom weapons only outperform non-set Sharpened weapons when they are Sharpened themselves, traits are definitely not balanced.

#buffmaelstromweapons

Yes, you are right. But you have to be really carefully when you change these traits. E.g. buffing precise to grant double the crit chance could make mage light/ evil hunter unnecessary, leaving a spot for some nasty builds. Which btw doesn't have to be a bad thing. But stuff that procs on crits would may become too strong, leading to a nerf of that, making it even more unviable for all low-crit builds. Or people will no longer run the thief mundus but the shadow, but the extra damage can be a problem in pvp. Hope you understand what I mean.
Also, like I said before, buffing infused too much would be a pain in pvp. also nightblades already have a low cost ulti spam + ult regen on pots. Add a even more ult regen to that from weighted trait and you see even more Incap Spam from them. Or remember the times of devouring swarm spammers?

Also keep in mind that the HA meta may is a reaction on the enourmous damage (and penetration) + the fact that light/ med armor doesn't grant such boni that it offsets the bonis from not wearing them but heavy. You can't counter crit with anything else than impen. Raising the crit chance but give no option to run more than 7 impen will have effects on balance.

This aren't some examples to really put the finger on it but rather to show that it's extremly difficult to chance weapon traits and don't ruin balance it some other part of the game. Like unsent.soul said, if it would be easy, they would have already done it.

Bigevilpeter

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

I can allready see some cancerous infused + torug's pact + unresistable dmg enchant builds in pvp with this ^^

Indeed, the traits need rework. But there will always be a BiS. If nirnhorned does more dmg than sharpened, every dmg will run this. If precise outperforms sharpened and nirnhorned, everyone will run this. If some builds with infused outperform sharpened, nirnhorned, precise, everyone will run this.
See what I did there? There will always be a meta, one thing better than the rest. But that shouldn't be an excuse to don't even try a balancing act.

yes but its not about just the bis, first of all with the changes i mentioned each will be bis for a specific build or situation, however even if one outperforms the others the rest will not be as useless as they are now.

If nirn gave 300 wd theni would actually use my nirn malestrom daggers till i got sharpened, same with precise.

however the way things are now every thing else adds very small damage buffs compared to sharpened

darthsithis

Wouldn't be interesting if other weapon traits were viable? That sounds fun. Like one that makes your class abilities stronger or one that increase both crit chance and damage.

Bigevilpeter

mertusta wrote: »

I think charged trait is pretty useful, as a healer I use charged trait and shock enchanted lightning staff to proc minor vulnerability. A new trait that increases dot might be much better. I agree for the rest what you wrote btw.

can bosses be concussed?

psychotic13

You're right, if sharpened wasn't so superior over everything else it wouldn't be as big of an issue

MrBrandon

ZOS will get to it in a couple of years....

Sausage

I think they need to start from the very beginning, Gear Upgrade System thats, I would overhaul it totally. Its way too easy to jump from green to legendary etc. Yeah, like almost the game is one big mess, it needs streamlining too.

STEVIL

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

I can allready see some cancerous infused + torug's pact + unresistable dmg enchant builds in pvp with this ^^

Indeed, the traits need rework. But there will always be a BiS. If nirnhorned does more dmg than sharpened, every dmg will run this. If precise outperforms sharpened and nirnhorned, everyone will run this. If some builds with infused outperform sharpened, nirnhorned, precise, everyone will run this.
See what I did there? There will always be a meta, one thing better than the rest. But that shouldn't be an excuse to don't even try a balancing act.

@Bigevilpeter - yes the fact that so few traits matter is the underlying problem.

@Chilly-McFreeze - re the bold part - not so.

the reason it will be son given the current design method is that all the traits are basically inward. The DPS ones - precise, nirn, sharp - just try and boost your damage by altering one of the numbers in the single big calculation and then it applies to all enemies. (yes there may be an edge case where overpen occurs but for the majority of the PVE content - it can be mathed out in no time.

Recently someone started posting that charged for lightning staves can break into second place due to the uptime on its vulnerability.

But there could be a different approach where the goal is not to make "three dps boosts that just tweak different numbers".

Make the traits not "inward", not about "your build" but about "the target".

Nirnhoned +X% weapon/spell damage against all
precise +2X% wpn/spl damage vs light armor and ogres and giants
sharpened +2X% w/sdam vs medium armor and animals/beasts
crushing +2X% s/wdam vs heavy armor and constructs/gargoyles
powered +2X% s/wdam vs undead/daedra
etc

For armor
nirn +X% reinforced against all.
Sturdy +2X% reinforced against DOT damage
Well-fitted +2X% reinforced against AOE
divines +2X% reinforced vs undead/daedra
charged +2X% reinforced vs magic/elemental
etc etc

the goal for this design would be simple...

"Everything is best somewhere and nothing is best everywhere."

you might end up with completely different sets for city of ash than for fungal grotta.

maybe mix and match going into dungeons where there is mixed content.

the more you know about your adversaries the more well you can gear to meet the needs and get more of the 2X applying.

key is if the "benefit" is significant enough to make it worth the effort to coordinate to the content but not crippling enough to make the "second best everywhere" nirn the better option - you wind up with every trait can be "the trait" if you take it against the right adversary.

right tool for the right job instead of one tool to rule them all or three tools that do the same thing just slightly differently.

t3hdubzy

If all traits were equal, then all rng would need to be equal. Its obvious the BiS drops are at a lower drop rate. If everything were equal then no one would farm them in which case rng would still need to be changed.

Sausage

t3hdubzy wrote: »

If all traits were equal, then all rng would need to be equal. Its obvious the BiS drops are at a lower drop rate. If everything were equal then no one would farm them in which case rng would still need to be changed.

Equality leads to whining. I personally love trait system for that reason, when nerf occurs, good players can adapt to that by tweaking their gears. Yeah, traits shouldnt be that important, just kind of "vent-system" to bad developer balance. "OMG, this was nerfed too much.. but hey I can tweak it little bit of it myself!"

Well, Im not going into there, until they fix the damn gear upgrade system first. They just need to start from the scratches so to speak. Remove it all and get it done.

Chilly-McFreeze

@STEVIL that's an reasonable approach but I don't know if I would be thrilled about every trait being "grants x damage against y, z, ä, ö, etc." I like the different options like better healing, stronger enchants etc.

But I'd also like to see your idea incorporated in the weapon passives. Like they started with maces - grants x% armor penetration, making it most usefull against heavy armored opponents. Maybe giving other weapons a bonus against different armor classes as well.

Bigevilpeter

STEVIL wrote: »

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

I can allready see some cancerous infused + torug's pact + unresistable dmg enchant builds in pvp with this ^^

Indeed, the traits need rework. But there will always be a BiS. If nirnhorned does more dmg than sharpened, every dmg will run this. If precise outperforms sharpened and nirnhorned, everyone will run this. If some builds with infused outperform sharpened, nirnhorned, precise, everyone will run this.
See what I did there? There will always be a meta, one thing better than the rest. But that shouldn't be an excuse to don't even try a balancing act.

@Bigevilpeter - yes the fact that so few traits matter is the underlying problem.

@Chilly-McFreeze - re the bold part - not so.

the reason it will be son given the current design method is that all the traits are basically inward. The DPS ones - precise, nirn, sharp - just try and boost your damage by altering one of the numbers in the single big calculation and then it applies to all enemies. (yes there may be an edge case where overpen occurs but for the majority of the PVE content - it can be mathed out in no time.

Recently someone started posting that charged for lightning staves can break into second place due to the uptime on its vulnerability.

But there could be a different approach where the goal is not to make "three dps boosts that just tweak different numbers".

Make the traits not "inward", not about "your build" but about "the target".

Nirnhoned +X% weapon/spell damage against all
precise +2X% wpn/spl damage vs light armor and ogres and giants
sharpened +2X% w/sdam vs medium armor and animals/beasts
crushing +2X% s/wdam vs heavy armor and constructs/gargoyles
powered +2X% s/wdam vs undead/daedra
etc

For armor
nirn +X% reinforced against all.
Sturdy +2X% reinforced against DOT damage
Well-fitted +2X% reinforced against AOE
divines +2X% reinforced vs undead/daedra
charged +2X% reinforced vs magic/elemental
etc etc

the goal for this design would be simple...

"Everything is best somewhere and nothing is best everywhere."

you might end up with completely different sets for city of ash than for fungal grotta.

maybe mix and match going into dungeons where there is mixed content.

the more you know about your adversaries the more well you can gear to meet the needs and get more of the 2X applying.

key is if the "benefit" is significant enough to make it worth the effort to coordinate to the content but not crippling enough to make the "second best everywhere" nirn the better option - you wind up with every trait can be "the trait" if you take it against the right adversary.

right tool for the right job instead of one tool to rule them all or three tools that do the same thing just slightly differently.

while your idea is a good way to make everything good for each situation, it might be very complaicated to apply and might take a lot of time, however my approach is much simpler and can be a very good temporary solution until they redesign the traits

STEVIL

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

@STEVIL that's an reasonable approach but I don't know if I would be thrilled about every trait being "grants x damage against y, z, ä, ö, etc." I like the different options like better healing, stronger enchants etc.

But I'd also like to see your idea incorporated in the weapon passives. Like they started with maces - grants x% armor penetration, making it most usefull against heavy armored opponents. Maybe giving other weapons a bonus against different armor classes as well.

Yes i should have been more clear.

I was speaking primarily about the damage based traits. keeping a healing one is a no brainer, just like a defensive weapon trait. Same thing for armor - a healing one and so on.

infused - likely but also scaled to not be the better "all around" option.

healing could get diversity - one for healing done boosts. One for healing received, one for healing under 30% health.

Just apply the same balance concept "nothing best all the time and everything best sometime" and start dividing the pools.

STEVIL

Bigevilpeter wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

I can allready see some cancerous infused + torug's pact + unresistable dmg enchant builds in pvp with this ^^

Indeed, the traits need rework. But there will always be a BiS. If nirnhorned does more dmg than sharpened, every dmg will run this. If precise outperforms sharpened and nirnhorned, everyone will run this. If some builds with infused outperform sharpened, nirnhorned, precise, everyone will run this.
See what I did there? There will always be a meta, one thing better than the rest. But that shouldn't be an excuse to don't even try a balancing act.

@Bigevilpeter - yes the fact that so few traits matter is the underlying problem.

@Chilly-McFreeze - re the bold part - not so.

the reason it will be son given the current design method is that all the traits are basically inward. The DPS ones - precise, nirn, sharp - just try and boost your damage by altering one of the numbers in the single big calculation and then it applies to all enemies. (yes there may be an edge case where overpen occurs but for the majority of the PVE content - it can be mathed out in no time.

Recently someone started posting that charged for lightning staves can break into second place due to the uptime on its vulnerability.

But there could be a different approach where the goal is not to make "three dps boosts that just tweak different numbers".

Make the traits not "inward", not about "your build" but about "the target".

Nirnhoned +X% weapon/spell damage against all
precise +2X% wpn/spl damage vs light armor and ogres and giants
sharpened +2X% w/sdam vs medium armor and animals/beasts
crushing +2X% s/wdam vs heavy armor and constructs/gargoyles
powered +2X% s/wdam vs undead/daedra
etc

For armor
nirn +X% reinforced against all.
Sturdy +2X% reinforced against DOT damage
Well-fitted +2X% reinforced against AOE
divines +2X% reinforced vs undead/daedra
charged +2X% reinforced vs magic/elemental
etc etc

the goal for this design would be simple...

"Everything is best somewhere and nothing is best everywhere."

you might end up with completely different sets for city of ash than for fungal grotta.

maybe mix and match going into dungeons where there is mixed content.

the more you know about your adversaries the more well you can gear to meet the needs and get more of the 2X applying.

key is if the "benefit" is significant enough to make it worth the effort to coordinate to the content but not crippling enough to make the "second best everywhere" nirn the better option - you wind up with every trait can be "the trait" if you take it against the right adversary.

right tool for the right job instead of one tool to rule them all or three tools that do the same thing just slightly differently.

while your idea is a good way to make everything good for each situation, it might be very complaicated to apply and might take a lot of time, however my approach is much simpler and can be a very good temporary solution until they r

possibly but my guess is the math-warriors would have it sussed down to a new BiS within 24 hours.

Honestly if you are looking for a "quick fix" temporary solution, dialing down sharpened is easier and quicker than raising three or four others to catch it.