Idea - Reworking the 2H class to be more viable in PvE, and more balanced in PvP

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

@dday3six

And if your next complaint will be that that vMA enchantment would be too similar to how the Dual Wield one functions, I would Agree, which is why I think that more ability altering sets should be included into the game.

DragonBound · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Here are my suggestions:

Remove: Critical Charge (since all Classes have their own gap closer, also remove shield charge), to be replaced with a different skill
Rework Berserker Strike Morph 1: Onslaught
Rename to Savage Strike
No longer refunds Ultimate cost when used to kill an enemy
Now stuns enemy and knocks them back.
Rework: Uppercut
Is now called: Riposte (Intended Spammable)
Deals a High Damage downward swing, followed by a quick Moderate damage upward swing, now a 0.6 second channel

Morph 1 : Telling Strike:
Grants Empower

Morph 2: Guarding Riposte
Grants Minor Protection for 2 seconds after use
Rework: Cleave
Remove the Bleed Effect
Increase the Base damage

Change its second morph
Morph 2: Brawler -> Harvest (Intended AoE Spammable)
Deals increased Damage to enemies above 50% health, a maximum of 75%
Add:
Piercing Strike
Jab at an enemy, dealing moderate damage, and moderate damage over time

Morph 1: Gore
Increase the Damage over Time

Morph 2: Piercing Thrust
Increase the Initial Damage

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

Not all classes have gap closers like you think, for example on a stamsorc we have surge but there is a delay in when we can move again.

STEVIL · April 2017

TheStealthDude wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

i think its a bad idea.

I dont think its based on a solid premise - that these weapons not have significant differences in what their strengths are.

right now as you point out due to burst and gap close 2H is good in PVP while for sustain dps group/trial play DW wins out in that narrow slice of PVE.

i think we can both agree that for much of the other content, each is viable.

So, we have DW being preferred for a small slice of PVE and 2h being preferred for PVP each often in tandem with bows.

nothing is best everywhere and each is best somewhere.

That sounds like balanced.

if you succeed in getting it so that the choice between 2H and DW is not going to affect performance results in either of those two slices of content then the choice will really not matter. Either choice, result the same.

So why in that case would someone choose to spend twice the tempers and more gold to run dw if they can use half the tempers and get as good results everywhere with 2H? Or wat would be the advantage in learning both skill lines - spending the extra 20ish skills to make your character able to perform well if either DW/bow and 2H/bow builds are needed?

IMO the more significant the difference between "choice a" and "choice b" and the more that choice impacts the play in certain niches or narrow slices of the content that is available - the better. It means you make meaningful choices instead of just getting cosmetics animation differences disguised as "choices".

heck, i would love it if there was more reworking to make "the right tool for this content" being far more the norm than it being a "just run this one or two meta builds" is.

if it were up to me, the build you would want for optimal play vs City of Ash would be vastly different from that you want for optimal play vs Fungal Grotto or Selene's Web.

Some people may see "but in this narrow slice of content, this choice is not as good as others" as a flaw needing to be corrected but i see it as a good design choice.

I don't see "one being good for PvP and one being good for PvE" as a good design choice at all. That simply just limits what is competitive in each of those areas and therefore limits choices to be competitive.

I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE, I simply want it to not be a as huge of a drop off as it is now, with some advantages over DW for certain situations (and vice versa).

First, the misdirection of "one being good for PvP and one being good for PvE" - cant let that go unchallenged. For tons and tons of the PVE content in this game 2h is a good choice. You can complete successfully just fine the vast majority of the PVE content. The narrow slice of content where DW has a significant edge i preference based on performance is group/trial endgame PVE for DPS - thats it. You are talking about a rather narrow slice of pve content and pvp content (which seems to be a narrow slice of the overall play in its own right.)

So what we are talking about is that there is some bit of content where DW is better for certain roles and some bit of content where 2H is better for some content - not the whole of PVE DW is king and 2h is absent.

then we get to what i always love - the two-step double shuffle dodge...

"I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE, I simply want it to not be a as huge of a drop off as it is now, with some advantages over DW for certain situations (and vice versa)."

What do you want to do then?

The choices for DW over 2H in the narrow slice that is group/trial endgame pve is based off performance, based off results, driven by the take what gives you the better outcomes decision-making. these are also typically leaderboard things with rewards based on performance.

if you look at discussions on these, you will find crunching down to fractions of percentage points in DPS and even a couple percentage points in DPS net will make a great deal of difference in the preferred outcomes.

So when pushed the knee jerk is always the "dont want them to be as good" followed by some vague and unspecified non-goalpost. often its "good enough" but as we see here it can also be something even more nebulous in "not as huge of a drop off."

Your goal is so vague it can literally be achieved by adding one single point of damage every 30s to 2h weapons.

But obviously thats not your intent. You want more than that.

of course, also equally nebulous is "I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE" cuz that could be reached by making 2H produce the same results as DW except for losing 1 point of damage done every 30s.

you have firmly set your escape clause between tyhe bounds of nebulous and ill-defined.

How close to DW in sustained DPS for PVE group/trial endgame content do you want to get 2H to be?
How close to 2H's burst DPS (and the other more relevant for pvp factors and solo pve content) do you want DW to be?

Is 99% good enough?
is 95% good enough?
is 90% good enough?

I think frankly that for those making performance based decisions for leaderboard style content at that end with rewards hinging on results - even a gap of 1% maybe 2% is enough that you wont see the "diversity" suddenly flying out the buttocks of rainbow unicorns.

i think a change which leaves 2H "not as good as" DW for that PVE slice and which raises DW up for PVP but still leaves it "not as good as 2H" is not gonna convince folks to start changing around their gear and golding up new stuff to be "not as good as i am."

more to the point, i think whatever place you decide to stake your "not as good as" to be it wont put DW far enough from 2H to outweigh the "i already know DW (or 2h) and do it well so why swap to something i know less." skill and experience based impacts.

But really, where in between nebulous and ill-defined do you set you goals?

What is the magical percentage or shortfall of "not as good" that you feel will change people\s kinds as to what they choose to or prefer to run but wont be so close as to make the differences pointless in results?

99%, 95%, 90%, 75%... pick a number thats the magic bullet for diversity where "not as good" meets "good enough"?

I apologize, I was vague in the name of brevity.

As for my previous comment, let me clarify. I don't believe it is good design Balance for one weapon type to be CLEARLY superior in the entirety of a type of content over another (content being defined by me as either PvE or PvP in this case).

What I want is for there to be different situations within a content type, pve for example, where one weapon may provide advantages that validate it being chosen over the other. Right now that doesn't seem to exist. It seems that, again in PvE for example, DW is superior to 2H in the entirety of the content. There are not enough situations that validate 2H being chosen. Now, this is as much a problem with the content as it is the weapon. But I think it's easier to fix the weapon, so I focus my efforts there.

That is what I consider a poor design, and what, I presumed from your post, you support, which is why I disagreed with you.

Putting a number in this is completely too simplified, which is why I haven't. I could say that I would be happy if 2h is 90% as effective, but what does that really mean and how would it be measured?

Should we measure it from trial leaderboard runs? That wouldn't make much sense since people are going to choose the best setup within fractions of a %. By population currently using 2h? I would venture to say that most of the population is not getting the most out of their weapons of choice, so that doesn't seem like a good choice.

So with this, of course I was being nebulous, as you said, since there really isn't a way with the information we have to be precise. All I can go off is my experience (which, btw is actually more with 2H than DW), which shows that I get significant and noticeable increases in performance with DW over 2H. This whole conversation is going to be subjective and vague because we simply don't have the information needed to be very precise.

Again the attempt to mislead...

for the vast majority of pve content played in this game by the vast majority of players, 2h and dw are both more than sufficient to achieve excellent results and be quite successful.

the narrow slice of pve content playtime performance being focused on is the trail/group dps at the top end of player performance - mostly involving maelstrom successful candidates but not exclusively.

this is a far cry from the entirety of pve being clearly inferior or superior one way or another.

To be blunt, a whole lot more players in this game are going to be affected by the removal of the 2H gap closer than are going to see any noticable change in their diversity cuz the gap closer removal affects everyone playing 2h while the % at that top end of group/trial rotations etc is much much smaller.

The road to Diversity City does not have to jump on the Sameness Expressway like the gap closer removal suggested in this thread and the disruption of the burst vs sustain dps difference plots the course along.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

@CosmicSoul

True, and the DK one has Terrain Issues. Why is it though, that the Bursty 2H class gets the best version of the gap closer? (NB Ambush)

STEVIL · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@STEVIL

I want 2H to be just as good as Dual wield when choosing the high dps combo rotations. I want Dual Wield to focus on fast lower damage attacks, light attack weaving, sets, enchantments, bleeds, and Large radial AoE, while dealing higher damage to weaker targets. A weapon class that utilizes more tools.

I want 2H high DPS combo rotations to focus on slow, High Direct Damage attacks, Combo Chaining, and smaller AoEs, while dealing more damage to high health targets. A weapon class that utilizes raw power.

I want them to be equal in terms of dps output, but different in how they apply that dps.

Since 2H currently has a focus on Buff/Debuff management, it makes it too much of a beast in PvP to allow high damage rotations in PvE that focus on using the abilities in the weapon skill tree.

IF the net result is that 2h and DW are equal in both sustained DPS output and burst DPS output as well as the other functional aspects like healing, utilities etc then the flavor of which animations play after you click the buttons along the way to reaching the final DPS and whether or not that DPS occurs early on (vs the high health) or in the execute stages (vs low health) is just window dressing. You are still just finding the right click-click-clickery to produce the exact same results in the long run and actually if you equalize the burst as well, in the short run.

If your role is DPS and your sustain DPS and your burst DPS are the same and there are not other overwhelmeing or singificant lacks making one better than the other for different content types - then your decision about weapon is more like motif and style choice than skill or tactics.

Stripping away the difference that currently matter in the overall results between different narrow slices of content and replacing them with stylistic differences that wont affect the overall results between different narrow slices of content is bad design.

Why even have two skill trees if the outcomes for burst and sustain dps and anything that matters to results in different content slices is the same? Just settle on one skill line and allow you to skin the weapon to look like DW or two handed, whichever you want.

DragonBound · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@CosmicSoul

True, and the DK one has Terrain Issues. Why is it though, that the Bursty 2H class gets the best version of the gap closer? (NB Ambush)

Simple, so everyone who is stamina can use it therefor giving the best version to all classes.

TheStealthDude · April 2017

STEVIL wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

i think its a bad idea.

I dont think its based on a solid premise - that these weapons not have significant differences in what their strengths are.

right now as you point out due to burst and gap close 2H is good in PVP while for sustain dps group/trial play DW wins out in that narrow slice of PVE.

i think we can both agree that for much of the other content, each is viable.

So, we have DW being preferred for a small slice of PVE and 2h being preferred for PVP each often in tandem with bows.

nothing is best everywhere and each is best somewhere.

That sounds like balanced.

if you succeed in getting it so that the choice between 2H and DW is not going to affect performance results in either of those two slices of content then the choice will really not matter. Either choice, result the same.

So why in that case would someone choose to spend twice the tempers and more gold to run dw if they can use half the tempers and get as good results everywhere with 2H? Or wat would be the advantage in learning both skill lines - spending the extra 20ish skills to make your character able to perform well if either DW/bow and 2H/bow builds are needed?

IMO the more significant the difference between "choice a" and "choice b" and the more that choice impacts the play in certain niches or narrow slices of the content that is available - the better. It means you make meaningful choices instead of just getting cosmetics animation differences disguised as "choices".

heck, i would love it if there was more reworking to make "the right tool for this content" being far more the norm than it being a "just run this one or two meta builds" is.

if it were up to me, the build you would want for optimal play vs City of Ash would be vastly different from that you want for optimal play vs Fungal Grotto or Selene's Web.

Some people may see "but in this narrow slice of content, this choice is not as good as others" as a flaw needing to be corrected but i see it as a good design choice.

I don't see "one being good for PvP and one being good for PvE" as a good design choice at all. That simply just limits what is competitive in each of those areas and therefore limits choices to be competitive.

I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE, I simply want it to not be a as huge of a drop off as it is now, with some advantages over DW for certain situations (and vice versa).

First, the misdirection of "one being good for PvP and one being good for PvE" - cant let that go unchallenged. For tons and tons of the PVE content in this game 2h is a good choice. You can complete successfully just fine the vast majority of the PVE content. The narrow slice of content where DW has a significant edge i preference based on performance is group/trial endgame PVE for DPS - thats it. You are talking about a rather narrow slice of pve content and pvp content (which seems to be a narrow slice of the overall play in its own right.)

So what we are talking about is that there is some bit of content where DW is better for certain roles and some bit of content where 2H is better for some content - not the whole of PVE DW is king and 2h is absent.

then we get to what i always love - the two-step double shuffle dodge...

"I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE, I simply want it to not be a as huge of a drop off as it is now, with some advantages over DW for certain situations (and vice versa)."

What do you want to do then?

The choices for DW over 2H in the narrow slice that is group/trial endgame pve is based off performance, based off results, driven by the take what gives you the better outcomes decision-making. these are also typically leaderboard things with rewards based on performance.

if you look at discussions on these, you will find crunching down to fractions of percentage points in DPS and even a couple percentage points in DPS net will make a great deal of difference in the preferred outcomes.

So when pushed the knee jerk is always the "dont want them to be as good" followed by some vague and unspecified non-goalpost. often its "good enough" but as we see here it can also be something even more nebulous in "not as huge of a drop off."

Your goal is so vague it can literally be achieved by adding one single point of damage every 30s to 2h weapons.

But obviously thats not your intent. You want more than that.

of course, also equally nebulous is "I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE" cuz that could be reached by making 2H produce the same results as DW except for losing 1 point of damage done every 30s.

you have firmly set your escape clause between tyhe bounds of nebulous and ill-defined.

How close to DW in sustained DPS for PVE group/trial endgame content do you want to get 2H to be?
How close to 2H's burst DPS (and the other more relevant for pvp factors and solo pve content) do you want DW to be?

Is 99% good enough?
is 95% good enough?
is 90% good enough?

I think frankly that for those making performance based decisions for leaderboard style content at that end with rewards hinging on results - even a gap of 1% maybe 2% is enough that you wont see the "diversity" suddenly flying out the buttocks of rainbow unicorns.

i think a change which leaves 2H "not as good as" DW for that PVE slice and which raises DW up for PVP but still leaves it "not as good as 2H" is not gonna convince folks to start changing around their gear and golding up new stuff to be "not as good as i am."

more to the point, i think whatever place you decide to stake your "not as good as" to be it wont put DW far enough from 2H to outweigh the "i already know DW (or 2h) and do it well so why swap to something i know less." skill and experience based impacts.

But really, where in between nebulous and ill-defined do you set you goals?

What is the magical percentage or shortfall of "not as good" that you feel will change people\s kinds as to what they choose to or prefer to run but wont be so close as to make the differences pointless in results?

99%, 95%, 90%, 75%... pick a number thats the magic bullet for diversity where "not as good" meets "good enough"?

I apologize, I was vague in the name of brevity.

As for my previous comment, let me clarify. I don't believe it is good design Balance for one weapon type to be CLEARLY superior in the entirety of a type of content over another (content being defined by me as either PvE or PvP in this case).

What I want is for there to be different situations within a content type, pve for example, where one weapon may provide advantages that validate it being chosen over the other. Right now that doesn't seem to exist. It seems that, again in PvE for example, DW is superior to 2H in the entirety of the content. There are not enough situations that validate 2H being chosen. Now, this is as much a problem with the content as it is the weapon. But I think it's easier to fix the weapon, so I focus my efforts there.

That is what I consider a poor design, and what, I presumed from your post, you support, which is why I disagreed with you.

Putting a number in this is completely too simplified, which is why I haven't. I could say that I would be happy if 2h is 90% as effective, but what does that really mean and how would it be measured?

Should we measure it from trial leaderboard runs? That wouldn't make much sense since people are going to choose the best setup within fractions of a %. By population currently using 2h? I would venture to say that most of the population is not getting the most out of their weapons of choice, so that doesn't seem like a good choice.

So with this, of course I was being nebulous, as you said, since there really isn't a way with the information we have to be precise. All I can go off is my experience (which, btw is actually more with 2H than DW), which shows that I get significant and noticeable increases in performance with DW over 2H. This whole conversation is going to be subjective and vague because we simply don't have the information needed to be very precise.

Again the attempt to mislead...

for the vast majority of pve content played in this game by the vast majority of players, 2h and dw are both more than sufficient to achieve excellent results and be quite successful.

the narrow slice of pve content playtime performance being focused on is the trail/group dps at the top end of player performance - mostly involving maelstrom successful candidates but not exclusively.

this is a far cry from the entirety of pve being clearly inferior or superior one way or another.

To be blunt, a whole lot more players in this game are going to be affected by the removal of the 2H gap closer than are going to see any noticable change in their diversity cuz the gap closer removal affects everyone playing 2h while the % at that top end of group/trial rotations etc is much much smaller.

The road to Diversity City does not have to jump on the Sameness Expressway like the gap closer removal suggested in this thread and the disruption of the burst vs sustain dps difference plots the course along.

First, let me say that I suggest you read my first few posts on this thread. I disagreed with a significant portion of the OP and laid out my arguments in short. This means we are in agreement about some things, though you seem to be lumping me in with the OP, mistakenly, in your disagreement.

You will notice that I very much am trying to keep the identities of the weapons unique in my suggestions and that I am also trying to pay close attention to balance of certain abilities. So please read what I wrote before you mistakenly assume I am in agreement 100% with the op and 100% disagreement with you, because that is certainly not the case. We probably agree on far more than we disagree on this topic.

To adress your latest point: I wasn't trying to mislead.

I agree that they can both COMPLETE the content. I just don't see why that means one has to have a significantly lower ceiling, which 2H does in my opinion.

This isn't about whether or not the weapons are viable (defined as being able to complete all content in the game). They all are. It's instead about the differences in the ceiling of peformance.

So do you dispute that DW has a significantly higher performance output ceiling than 2H in PvE?

The ceiling is what makes it superior, not the viability.

dday3six · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Combos to chain? You're right, there are none currently.
Changing the 2H spammable to one that grants empower (with shorter channel time to compare with other spammables) would emphasis reduction of light attack weaving immediately after using the spammable, to be replaced with an empowered other skill (followed by a light attack).

Hell, if you want to be more technical on the interactions of end game sets such as the vMA enchants, I can go into that as well. I know that the Cruel Flurry enchant is a major reason that stam can become viable in the endgame (but why it's trapped behind a grind like vMA whereas many mag classes can gain access to BiS gear with little effort (BSW,Skoria (magDK), Willpower from Daily Dungeons). I also know that vMA enchantments don't work with Torug's Pact 5th set bonus.

If you want vMA enchants to make a difference in this suggestion, what I'd do is just change it so that vMA enchant makes the spammable also increases the damage of your next attack by 10% or something. (would obviously need testing to find a good balanced value).

Removing the stam gapcloser? yeah. each class selected at the start of the game gives you a gapcloser in some form or another, hell, even the fighters guild leash morph does as well. I think that the cost of upfront burst form melee should be a lack of mobility. and that magic skills should supplement this lacking a gapcloser, but not stamina skills that also deal damage.

Again ESO is a game of global cooldowns. All abilities have a GCD of 0.9s. The reason attack weaving is going to be better is because it can happen in between that GCD while at the same time building ult. Your hypothetical Empower granting spammable would not be efficient from a DPS perspective. It miss damage opportunities and doesn't build ult. The 20% Empowered damage boost will not offset the damage loss from not weaving and trying to focus weapon line not do it is counterproductive to the other parts of the rotation that don't involve back to back use of the spammable. Normally a rotation applies dots and buffs, uses Spammable 3-4 times then repeats. During the application of Dots and buffs not attack weaving would be a loss of dps, as well as a missed chance to generate ult.

I was honorably mentioning MSA DW weapons more than anything, but it's the passive interaction which increase flat damage output that makes DW the most appealing.

2H gap closer is used heavily in PVP, and mostly un-needed in PVE. You can't just cut that out of PVP leaving builds high and dry. There is no need given that a proper build will mix both class and weapon skills rather than just filling up the bars with weapon skills. You cannot stick single-mindedly to a PVE scope, and none of the suggestions that your calling gapcloser are actually consistently functional in PVP.

You want 2H to be on the level with DW for endgame content. It doesn't need this over-reaching rework. It needs an instant spammable that syncs with weaving, and a rework of the passives to give better damage boosts. That's it really. You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be.

TheStealthDude · April 2017

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Combos to chain? You're right, there are none currently.
Changing the 2H spammable to one that grants empower (with shorter channel time to compare with other spammables) would emphasis reduction of light attack weaving immediately after using the spammable, to be replaced with an empowered other skill (followed by a light attack).

Hell, if you want to be more technical on the interactions of end game sets such as the vMA enchants, I can go into that as well. I know that the Cruel Flurry enchant is a major reason that stam can become viable in the endgame (but why it's trapped behind a grind like vMA whereas many mag classes can gain access to BiS gear with little effort (BSW,Skoria (magDK), Willpower from Daily Dungeons). I also know that vMA enchantments don't work with Torug's Pact 5th set bonus.

If you want vMA enchants to make a difference in this suggestion, what I'd do is just change it so that vMA enchant makes the spammable also increases the damage of your next attack by 10% or something. (would obviously need testing to find a good balanced value).

Removing the stam gapcloser? yeah. each class selected at the start of the game gives you a gapcloser in some form or another, hell, even the fighters guild leash morph does as well. I think that the cost of upfront burst form melee should be a lack of mobility. and that magic skills should supplement this lacking a gapcloser, but not stamina skills that also deal damage.

You want 2H to be on the level with DW for endgame content. It doesn't need this over-reaching rework. It needs an instant spammable that syncs with weaving, and a rework of the passives to give better damage boosts. That's it really. You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be.

Agreed.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

TheStealthDude wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Combos to chain? You're right, there are none currently.
Changing the 2H spammable to one that grants empower (with shorter channel time to compare with other spammables) would emphasis reduction of light attack weaving immediately after using the spammable, to be replaced with an empowered other skill (followed by a light attack).

Hell, if you want to be more technical on the interactions of end game sets such as the vMA enchants, I can go into that as well. I know that the Cruel Flurry enchant is a major reason that stam can become viable in the endgame (but why it's trapped behind a grind like vMA whereas many mag classes can gain access to BiS gear with little effort (BSW,Skoria (magDK), Willpower from Daily Dungeons). I also know that vMA enchantments don't work with Torug's Pact 5th set bonus.

If you want vMA enchants to make a difference in this suggestion, what I'd do is just change it so that vMA enchant makes the spammable also increases the damage of your next attack by 10% or something. (would obviously need testing to find a good balanced value).

Removing the stam gapcloser? yeah. each class selected at the start of the game gives you a gapcloser in some form or another, hell, even the fighters guild leash morph does as well. I think that the cost of upfront burst form melee should be a lack of mobility. and that magic skills should supplement this lacking a gapcloser, but not stamina skills that also deal damage.

You want 2H to be on the level with DW for endgame content. It doesn't need this over-reaching rework. It needs an instant spammable that syncs with weaving, and a rework of the passives to give better damage boosts. That's it really. You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be.

Agreed.

I also agree. However, if you just give it a spammable, and keep it the way it is, then it becomes even more unbalanced in PvP. It'd be easy to fix it just for PvE, cause all it needs is a spammable.

hmsdragonfly · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Here are my suggestions:

Remove: Critical Charge (since all Classes have their own gap closer, also remove shield charge), to be replaced with a different skill

Sorcs don't.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

@hmsdragonfly

Bolt Escape, it's untargeted.

hmsdragonfly · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@hmsdragonfly

Bolt Escape, it's untargeted.

Yes, that's the thing, it's untargeted.

STEVIL · April 2017

TheStealthDude wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

i think its a bad idea.

I dont think its based on a solid premise - that these weapons not have significant differences in what their strengths are.

right now as you point out due to burst and gap close 2H is good in PVP while for sustain dps group/trial play DW wins out in that narrow slice of PVE.

i think we can both agree that for much of the other content, each is viable.

So, we have DW being preferred for a small slice of PVE and 2h being preferred for PVP each often in tandem with bows.

nothing is best everywhere and each is best somewhere.

That sounds like balanced.

if you succeed in getting it so that the choice between 2H and DW is not going to affect performance results in either of those two slices of content then the choice will really not matter. Either choice, result the same.

So why in that case would someone choose to spend twice the tempers and more gold to run dw if they can use half the tempers and get as good results everywhere with 2H? Or wat would be the advantage in learning both skill lines - spending the extra 20ish skills to make your character able to perform well if either DW/bow and 2H/bow builds are needed?

IMO the more significant the difference between "choice a" and "choice b" and the more that choice impacts the play in certain niches or narrow slices of the content that is available - the better. It means you make meaningful choices instead of just getting cosmetics animation differences disguised as "choices".

heck, i would love it if there was more reworking to make "the right tool for this content" being far more the norm than it being a "just run this one or two meta builds" is.

if it were up to me, the build you would want for optimal play vs City of Ash would be vastly different from that you want for optimal play vs Fungal Grotto or Selene's Web.

Some people may see "but in this narrow slice of content, this choice is not as good as others" as a flaw needing to be corrected but i see it as a good design choice.

I don't see "one being good for PvP and one being good for PvE" as a good design choice at all. That simply just limits what is competitive in each of those areas and therefore limits choices to be competitive.

I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE, I simply want it to not be a as huge of a drop off as it is now, with some advantages over DW for certain situations (and vice versa).

First, the misdirection of "one being good for PvP and one being good for PvE" - cant let that go unchallenged. For tons and tons of the PVE content in this game 2h is a good choice. You can complete successfully just fine the vast majority of the PVE content. The narrow slice of content where DW has a significant edge i preference based on performance is group/trial endgame PVE for DPS - thats it. You are talking about a rather narrow slice of pve content and pvp content (which seems to be a narrow slice of the overall play in its own right.)

So what we are talking about is that there is some bit of content where DW is better for certain roles and some bit of content where 2H is better for some content - not the whole of PVE DW is king and 2h is absent.

then we get to what i always love - the two-step double shuffle dodge...

"I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE, I simply want it to not be a as huge of a drop off as it is now, with some advantages over DW for certain situations (and vice versa)."

What do you want to do then?

The choices for DW over 2H in the narrow slice that is group/trial endgame pve is based off performance, based off results, driven by the take what gives you the better outcomes decision-making. these are also typically leaderboard things with rewards based on performance.

if you look at discussions on these, you will find crunching down to fractions of percentage points in DPS and even a couple percentage points in DPS net will make a great deal of difference in the preferred outcomes.

So when pushed the knee jerk is always the "dont want them to be as good" followed by some vague and unspecified non-goalpost. often its "good enough" but as we see here it can also be something even more nebulous in "not as huge of a drop off."

Your goal is so vague it can literally be achieved by adding one single point of damage every 30s to 2h weapons.

But obviously thats not your intent. You want more than that.

of course, also equally nebulous is "I don't want 2H to be just as good as DW for PvE" cuz that could be reached by making 2H produce the same results as DW except for losing 1 point of damage done every 30s.

you have firmly set your escape clause between tyhe bounds of nebulous and ill-defined.

How close to DW in sustained DPS for PVE group/trial endgame content do you want to get 2H to be?
How close to 2H's burst DPS (and the other more relevant for pvp factors and solo pve content) do you want DW to be?

Is 99% good enough?
is 95% good enough?
is 90% good enough?

I think frankly that for those making performance based decisions for leaderboard style content at that end with rewards hinging on results - even a gap of 1% maybe 2% is enough that you wont see the "diversity" suddenly flying out the buttocks of rainbow unicorns.

i think a change which leaves 2H "not as good as" DW for that PVE slice and which raises DW up for PVP but still leaves it "not as good as 2H" is not gonna convince folks to start changing around their gear and golding up new stuff to be "not as good as i am."

more to the point, i think whatever place you decide to stake your "not as good as" to be it wont put DW far enough from 2H to outweigh the "i already know DW (or 2h) and do it well so why swap to something i know less." skill and experience based impacts.

But really, where in between nebulous and ill-defined do you set you goals?

What is the magical percentage or shortfall of "not as good" that you feel will change people\s kinds as to what they choose to or prefer to run but wont be so close as to make the differences pointless in results?

99%, 95%, 90%, 75%... pick a number thats the magic bullet for diversity where "not as good" meets "good enough"?

I apologize, I was vague in the name of brevity.

As for my previous comment, let me clarify. I don't believe it is good design Balance for one weapon type to be CLEARLY superior in the entirety of a type of content over another (content being defined by me as either PvE or PvP in this case).

What I want is for there to be different situations within a content type, pve for example, where one weapon may provide advantages that validate it being chosen over the other. Right now that doesn't seem to exist. It seems that, again in PvE for example, DW is superior to 2H in the entirety of the content. There are not enough situations that validate 2H being chosen. Now, this is as much a problem with the content as it is the weapon. But I think it's easier to fix the weapon, so I focus my efforts there.

That is what I consider a poor design, and what, I presumed from your post, you support, which is why I disagreed with you.

Putting a number in this is completely too simplified, which is why I haven't. I could say that I would be happy if 2h is 90% as effective, but what does that really mean and how would it be measured?

Should we measure it from trial leaderboard runs? That wouldn't make much sense since people are going to choose the best setup within fractions of a %. By population currently using 2h? I would venture to say that most of the population is not getting the most out of their weapons of choice, so that doesn't seem like a good choice.

So with this, of course I was being nebulous, as you said, since there really isn't a way with the information we have to be precise. All I can go off is my experience (which, btw is actually more with 2H than DW), which shows that I get significant and noticeable increases in performance with DW over 2H. This whole conversation is going to be subjective and vague because we simply don't have the information needed to be very precise.

Again the attempt to mislead...

for the vast majority of pve content played in this game by the vast majority of players, 2h and dw are both more than sufficient to achieve excellent results and be quite successful.

the narrow slice of pve content playtime performance being focused on is the trail/group dps at the top end of player performance - mostly involving maelstrom successful candidates but not exclusively.

this is a far cry from the entirety of pve being clearly inferior or superior one way or another.

To be blunt, a whole lot more players in this game are going to be affected by the removal of the 2H gap closer than are going to see any noticable change in their diversity cuz the gap closer removal affects everyone playing 2h while the % at that top end of group/trial rotations etc is much much smaller.

The road to Diversity City does not have to jump on the Sameness Expressway like the gap closer removal suggested in this thread and the disruption of the burst vs sustain dps difference plots the course along.

First, let me say that I suggest you read my first few posts on this thread. I disagreed with a significant portion of the OP and laid out my arguments in short. This means we are in agreement about some things, though you seem to be lumping me in with the OP, mistakenly, in your disagreement.

You will notice that I very much am trying to keep the identities of the weapons unique in my suggestions and that I am also trying to pay close attention to balance of certain abilities. So please read what I wrote before you mistakenly assume I am in agreement 100% with the op and 100% disagreement with you, because that is certainly not the case. We probably agree on far more than we disagree on this topic.

To adress your latest point: I wasn't trying to mislead.

I agree that they can both COMPLETE the content. I just don't see why that means one has to have a significantly lower ceiling, which 2H does in my opinion.

This isn't about whether or not the weapons are viable (defined as being able to complete all content in the game). They all are. It's instead about the differences in the ceiling of peformance.

So do you dispute that DW has a significantly higher performance output ceiling than 2H in PvE?

The ceiling is what makes it superior, not the viability.

As i have stated - currently in terms of sustained DPS in group/trials where healer and tank support are available and functional, DW outperforms 2h in the DPS role in the hands of top players. there is no dispute over that.

In other situations where burst is more pivotal or even where utility functions and self-survival are more critical or where mobility of enemies is high - the 2h tends to outperform DW in the hands of top players (many times this is PVp but also some other situations like say soloing difficulty content.)

NOTE: Maelstrom weapons exacerbate these differences and the diffs are simply not as great without those weapons in play.

While you may see the ceiling as some ubiquitous omnipresent thing across all of PVE the real key is that the difference becomes a difference that makes no difference in the vast amount of the content and in the vast number of players' hands.

For most (vast majority) of the PVE content, a typical player or even an above average player wont see the sustain DPS edge you are so frantic about... because the fights are so short the sustain dps edge doesn't drastically overshadow the initial burst damage edge for 2H. the quickest fights are just over. The 20-30s fights end close enough to be indistinguishable - esp once class damage skills are put into the mix to cover things like say good AOE for 2h attackers.

the difference matters when you are talking leaderboard level runs etc... top groups - a narrow slice of PVE. It also matters in PVP - its not quite as key in VMA where its more mechanics knowledge and skill than just straight DPS sustain stands at point blank against tanked foes.

So, right now the two weapons each have their strengths and weaknesses and have different slices of content where each is the better choice.

Moving them a lot closer together in performance, close enough that performance oriented players can justify choosing either for either... removes those differences and makes the choice mostly cosmetic.

Moving them a little closer together in performance, still far enough apart that performance oriented players wont be able to justify choosing either one but have their choices made by performance... doesn't help and can actually hurt if it winds up making 2h the best choice in PVP and "good enough" in PVE for a lot more folks.

this is the basic catch-22 of the wanna-change-but-not logic... if its enough that it can go either way the choice doesn't matter but if its far enough apart that the choice matters it wont change the current division of optimal choices in these narrow slices of content.

Lynx7386 · April 2017

Got into a pug with a 2h dps last night. He was doing less damage than my 1h/sh tank.

tplink3r1 · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Here are my suggestions:

Remove: Critical Charge (since all Classes have their own gap closer, also remove shield charge), to be replaced with a different skill
Rework Berserker Strike Morph 1: Onslaught
Rename to Savage Strike
No longer refunds Ultimate cost when used to kill an enemy
Now stuns enemy and knocks them back.
Rework: Uppercut
Is now called: Riposte (Intended Spammable)
Deals a High Damage downward swing, followed by a quick Moderate damage upward swing, now a 0.6 second channel

Morph 1 : Telling Strike:
Grants Empower

Morph 2: Guarding Riposte
Grants Minor Protection for 2 seconds after use
Rework: Cleave
Remove the Bleed Effect
Increase the Base damage

Change its second morph
Morph 2: Brawler -> Harvest (Intended AoE Spammable)
Deals increased Damage to enemies above 50% health, a maximum of 75%
Add:
Piercing Strike
Jab at an enemy, dealing moderate damage, and moderate damage over time

Morph 1: Gore
Increase the Damage over Time

Morph 2: Piercing Thrust
Increase the Initial Damage

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

"Remove: Critical Charge (since all Classes have their own gap closer, also remove shield charge), to be replaced with a different skill"
All "except" DKs, Templars, and Sorcs.

I'm just glad the devs are going to ignore this *** thread. Thank you ZOS!

flguy147ub17_ESO · April 2017

I do think Crit Charge should be like Streak and have an increase cost for constantly spamming it.

Fodore · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Here are my suggestions:

Remove: Critical Charge (since all Classes have their own gap closer, also remove shield charge), to be replaced with a different skill
Rework Berserker Strike Morph 1: Onslaught
Rename to Savage Strike
No longer refunds Ultimate cost when used to kill an enemy
Now stuns enemy and knocks them back.
Rework: Uppercut
Is now called: Riposte (Intended Spammable)
Deals a High Damage downward swing, followed by a quick Moderate damage upward swing, now a 0.6 second channel

Morph 1 : Telling Strike:
Grants Empower

Morph 2: Guarding Riposte
Grants Minor Protection for 2 seconds after use
Rework: Cleave
Remove the Bleed Effect
Increase the Base damage

Change its second morph
Morph 2: Brawler -> Harvest (Intended AoE Spammable)
Deals increased Damage to enemies above 50% health, a maximum of 75%
Add:
Piercing Strike
Jab at an enemy, dealing moderate damage, and moderate damage over time

Morph 1: Gore
Increase the Damage over Time

Morph 2: Piercing Thrust
Increase the Initial Damage

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

No no no no. No. Don't remove crit charge, you say every class has its own gap close? Sure, but what about stamina gap closers? The only class with a Stam gap closer is nb and I don't wanna be limited to playing a nb if I want good damage from my gap close. The only change 2h needs is to make it worth 2 peices instead of one. Including staffs aswell. Just my opinion.

MaxwellC · April 2017

Increasing brawlers base damage is fine but everything else oh hell no. That is a complete nerf imo and I hope it never happens.

TheStealthDude · April 2017

@STEVIL

In response to your bolded points:

It seems like you are worried about weapon choices becoming symmetrical in their balance, which I understand. I don't want weapon choice to be cosmetic either. What I want is a better asymmetrical Balance, which may or may not be possible, due, in part, to the reasons you mentioned but also due to other factors.

I see your point about 2H becoming "good enough" in PvE and staying the best in PvP, as the problem that it would be. I will admit that I have been focusing almost solely on the PVE side, as I feel that is the easier place to balance first. Obviously, we cannot look at these changes in the vacuum of "only pve" or "only pvp", but I feel we have to start somewhere.

Either way, we are starting to go in circles here, so in an effort to steer our the conversation between us back towards the intent of the OP, let's just agree to disagree on our views of how overall balance should work and instead let me ask you this question:

Are you currently opposed to any changes to the 2H line, and if not, how would you feel about the changes below?

Uppercut:
Remove the cast time and heavily reduce damage. This would be an instant cast damage ability, with no other power pre-morph. In fact, it might even need to be worse off than other spammable stamina attacks in terms of damage.

Morph #1
Added power: Increase damage on next attack (of this ability) by X% against opponent who last hit you for Y seconds. This ability can only trigger every Z seconds. (My goal with this is to make it similar to how Power Lash works, but without the healing and proccing off of taking damage instead of CCing. The original idea of this skill to make it 100% increase might be too severe and the time too long, hence the variables which can be debated. While this is beneficial in PvP, it is also a good tool for solo play and perhaps in use as a hybrid tank in casual group play.)

Morph #2
Added power: Stun your target for X seconds and Knockback target Y meters. (Essentially, this will be Dizzying Swing. This means that your morph is either a choice of straight, but contingent, heavier damage or lighter damage but with one of the few CC abilities in the tree. I think it makes for an interesting choice, where both are beneficial in PvP, as it is now, but neither are really over powered for PvE.)

Heavy Weapons passive:

(I admit that I am not creative enough to come up with the ideas for this one, but I think this skill should change the different weapon abilities to something completely different from what DW offers. This can be used to help balance the skill tree out if it becomes OP for PvP with the previous skill change.)

If those changes are made, 2H would likely be fine for PvE, but still probably second fiddle to DW in Leaderboards due to maelstrom arena weapons, IMO (I would be fine with this). I can't say I have much of an idea about how it will affect PvP, but I think a lot of the balance can be achieved through adjusting the spammable damage/morph variables and through adjusting the Heavy Weapons passive with new functions for different weapons.

golfer.dub17_ESO · April 2017

"Dual Wield should be sustain while 2Hand should be burst."

I just find this to be a bizarre mentality.

Burst damage is pretty much pointless in PvE. Boss fights are inherently prolonged fights, while you're usually better off attacking a group of mobs with AoE than trying to burst them all one at a time. Unless you actually wanted to give 2Hand the AoE execute and replace steel tornado with something else.

dday3six · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Combos to chain? You're right, there are none currently.
Changing the 2H spammable to one that grants empower (with shorter channel time to compare with other spammables) would emphasis reduction of light attack weaving immediately after using the spammable, to be replaced with an empowered other skill (followed by a light attack).

Hell, if you want to be more technical on the interactions of end game sets such as the vMA enchants, I can go into that as well. I know that the Cruel Flurry enchant is a major reason that stam can become viable in the endgame (but why it's trapped behind a grind like vMA whereas many mag classes can gain access to BiS gear with little effort (BSW,Skoria (magDK), Willpower from Daily Dungeons). I also know that vMA enchantments don't work with Torug's Pact 5th set bonus.

If you want vMA enchants to make a difference in this suggestion, what I'd do is just change it so that vMA enchant makes the spammable also increases the damage of your next attack by 10% or something. (would obviously need testing to find a good balanced value).

Removing the stam gapcloser? yeah. each class selected at the start of the game gives you a gapcloser in some form or another, hell, even the fighters guild leash morph does as well. I think that the cost of upfront burst form melee should be a lack of mobility. and that magic skills should supplement this lacking a gapcloser, but not stamina skills that also deal damage.

You want 2H to be on the level with DW for endgame content. It doesn't need this over-reaching rework. It needs an instant spammable that syncs with weaving, and a rework of the passives to give better damage boosts. That's it really. You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be.

Agreed.

I also agree. However, if you just give it a spammable, and keep it the way it is, then it becomes even more unbalanced in PvP. It'd be easy to fix it just for PvE, cause all it needs is a spammable.

An instant spammable on 2H gives Stamina Sorc and DK a parity to NB Surprise Attack, and Templar Jabs for PVP and PVE.

First you want to remove the 2H gap closer, and next you miss that. Let's not even talk about that completely unneeded BS you want to do for Sword and Board, your abysmal understanding of DPS theorem and the basics of ESO combat. At this point I wonder if you're not just one of smug wannabe game devs who so arrogantly believes in your ability to make everything 'better', that you can't see past your own nose.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Combos to chain? You're right, there are none currently.
Changing the 2H spammable to one that grants empower (with shorter channel time to compare with other spammables) would emphasis reduction of light attack weaving immediately after using the spammable, to be replaced with an empowered other skill (followed by a light attack).

Hell, if you want to be more technical on the interactions of end game sets such as the vMA enchants, I can go into that as well. I know that the Cruel Flurry enchant is a major reason that stam can become viable in the endgame (but why it's trapped behind a grind like vMA whereas many mag classes can gain access to BiS gear with little effort (BSW,Skoria (magDK), Willpower from Daily Dungeons). I also know that vMA enchantments don't work with Torug's Pact 5th set bonus.

If you want vMA enchants to make a difference in this suggestion, what I'd do is just change it so that vMA enchant makes the spammable also increases the damage of your next attack by 10% or something. (would obviously need testing to find a good balanced value).

Removing the stam gapcloser? yeah. each class selected at the start of the game gives you a gapcloser in some form or another, hell, even the fighters guild leash morph does as well. I think that the cost of upfront burst form melee should be a lack of mobility. and that magic skills should supplement this lacking a gapcloser, but not stamina skills that also deal damage.

You want 2H to be on the level with DW for endgame content. It doesn't need this over-reaching rework. It needs an instant spammable that syncs with weaving, and a rework of the passives to give better damage boosts. That's it really. You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be.

Agreed.

I also agree. However, if you just give it a spammable, and keep it the way it is, then it becomes even more unbalanced in PvP. It'd be easy to fix it just for PvE, cause all it needs is a spammable.

An instant spammable on 2H gives Stamina Sorc and DK a parity to NB Surprise Attack, and Templar Jabs for PVP and PVE.

First you want to remove the 2H gap closer, and next you miss that. Let's not even talk about that completely unneeded BS you want to do for Sword and Board, your abysmal understanding of DPS theorem and the basics of ESO combat. At this point I wonder if you're not just one of smug wannabe game devs who so arrogantly believes in your ability to make everything 'better', that you can't see past your own nose.

Yes, it does. The non-class counterpart of the Templar Spammable is the Dual Wield Flurry. The non class spammable for sorcs is snipe, the non class spammable for DK is poison injection (kinda, if you use searing strike)
As it stands currently, the 2H class seems like they wanted to take everything good about the NB class and shove it into a single skill line rather than redistributing it across multiple weapon classes.

You have a single target Gap closer that Deals damage - NB Teleport Strike
You have a single target/hit Execute that deals more damage the lower the target health - NB Assassin's Blade
You have a Spammable Empower - NB Ambush morph of Teleport Strike
You have a Spammable Stun - All classes have this
You have a Spammable CC Evasion (Forward Momentum) - NB Shadow Cloak (though other classes have something similar)
You have a high damage Ult that ignores resistances and gives you armor - NB Incap Strike/DK Molten armor (kinda)
You have an AoE DoT that can give you a shield as well - DK Spiked Armor
You gain situational stamina regen (kill an enemy) - NB Relentless Focus (but intermittent)

This skill takes quite a bit from the NB Class, a great gap closer, a great execute, that not only does it make 2H powerful, but it also makes the NB class relatively useless in PvP, as you can cherry pick some of the NB's best abilities in one weapon class. (though NB's still are renowned for their stealth).

Let's look at the Dual Wield weapon class, and where it shares skills:
You have a spammable flurry of attacks: Templar Jabs - even has a healing morph
you have a low initial damage, high bleed damage attack that can heal you - DK Burning Embers
You have an AoE that grants either increased range, or Increased stamina regen - NB Relentless focus for the stam regen
You've got AoE damage that reduces (AoE) damage taken or grants Expedition- Sorcs Lightning Form
You've got a Single Target long range attack that grants a damage buff (but doesn't stun) - Templar's Aurora Javelin
Your Ulti is a AoE DoT that can grant a bonus based on the enemies you hit, and heals you - A Mix of Templar Radial Sweep and Sorc Crit Surge

The 2H class is too similar to a single class. It has a plethora of Buff/Debuff skills that no other weapon class has that make it invaluable in PvP, and subsequently nerfed for balance, hurting it in PvE play.

Yes, I've got a *** large Ego, which is why I want to post this on the forums, to get the idea out there. But I also know that I have a large Ego, so I also hope that people like YOU come along to take that ego and grind it into the dirt, bring opposing viewpoints to help me refine what it is I propose to change BECAUSE I don't have all the sides of the story (can't see past my own nose)

@dday3six

dday3six · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Combos to chain? You're right, there are none currently.
Changing the 2H spammable to one that grants empower (with shorter channel time to compare with other spammables) would emphasis reduction of light attack weaving immediately after using the spammable, to be replaced with an empowered other skill (followed by a light attack).

Hell, if you want to be more technical on the interactions of end game sets such as the vMA enchants, I can go into that as well. I know that the Cruel Flurry enchant is a major reason that stam can become viable in the endgame (but why it's trapped behind a grind like vMA whereas many mag classes can gain access to BiS gear with little effort (BSW,Skoria (magDK), Willpower from Daily Dungeons). I also know that vMA enchantments don't work with Torug's Pact 5th set bonus.

If you want vMA enchants to make a difference in this suggestion, what I'd do is just change it so that vMA enchant makes the spammable also increases the damage of your next attack by 10% or something. (would obviously need testing to find a good balanced value).

Removing the stam gapcloser? yeah. each class selected at the start of the game gives you a gapcloser in some form or another, hell, even the fighters guild leash morph does as well. I think that the cost of upfront burst form melee should be a lack of mobility. and that magic skills should supplement this lacking a gapcloser, but not stamina skills that also deal damage.

You want 2H to be on the level with DW for endgame content. It doesn't need this over-reaching rework. It needs an instant spammable that syncs with weaving, and a rework of the passives to give better damage boosts. That's it really. You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be.

Agreed.

I also agree. However, if you just give it a spammable, and keep it the way it is, then it becomes even more unbalanced in PvP. It'd be easy to fix it just for PvE, cause all it needs is a spammable.

An instant spammable on 2H gives Stamina Sorc and DK a parity to NB Surprise Attack, and Templar Jabs for PVP and PVE.

First you want to remove the 2H gap closer, and next you miss that. Let's not even talk about that completely unneeded BS you want to do for Sword and Board, your abysmal understanding of DPS theorem and the basics of ESO combat. At this point I wonder if you're not just one of smug wannabe game devs who so arrogantly believes in your ability to make everything 'better', that you can't see past your own nose.

Yes, it does. The non-class counterpart of the Templar Spammable is the Dual Wield Flurry. The non class spammable for sorcs is snipe, the non class spammable for DK is poison injection (kinda, if you use searing strike)
As it stands currently, the 2H class seems like they wanted to take everything good about the NB class and shove it into a single skill line rather than redistributing it across multiple weapon classes.

You have a single target Gap closer that Deals damage - NB Teleport Strike
You have a single target/hit Execute that deals more damage the lower the target health - NB Assassin's Blade
You have a Spammable Empower - NB Ambush morph of Teleport Strike
You have a Spammable Stun - All classes have this
You have a Spammable CC Evasion (Forward Momentum) - NB Shadow Cloak (though other classes have something similar)
You have a high damage Ult that ignores resistances and gives you armor - NB Incap Strike/DK Molten armor (kinda)
You have an AoE DoT that can give you a shield as well - DK Spiked Armor
You gain situational stamina regen (kill an enemy) - NB Relentless Focus (but intermittent)

This skill takes quite a bit from the NB Class, a great gap closer, a great execute, that not only does it make 2H powerful, but it also makes the NB class relatively useless in PvP, as you can cherry pick some of the NB's best abilities in one weapon class. (though NB's still are renowned for their stealth).

Let's look at the Dual Wield weapon class, and where it shares skills:
You have a spammable flurry of attacks: Templar Jabs - even has a healing morph
you have a low initial damage, high bleed damage attack that can heal you - DK Burning Embers
You have an AoE that grants either increased range, or Increased stamina regen - NB Relentless focus for the stam regen
You've got AoE damage that reduces (AoE) damage taken or grants Expedition- Sorcs Lightning Form
You've got a Single Target long range attack that grants a damage buff (but doesn't stun) - Templar's Aurora Javelin
Your Ulti is a AoE DoT that can grant a bonus based on the enemies you hit, and heals you - A Mix of Templar Radial Sweep and Sorc Crit Surge

The 2H class is too similar to a single class. It has a plethora of Buff/Debuff skills that no other weapon class has that make it invaluable in PvP, and subsequently nerfed for balance, hurting it in PvE play.

Yes, I've got a *** large Ego, which is why I want to post this on the forums, to get the idea out there. But I also know that I have a large Ego, so I also hope that people like YOU come along to take that ego and grind it into the dirt, bring opposing viewpoints to help me refine what it is I propose to change BECAUSE I don't have all the sides of the story (can't see past my own nose)

Class skills have passive which contribute, that are often much stronger then weapon line passives, as well as additional effects. For example Flurry and Biting Jabs function similarly, but Jabs has built in CC, can't be dodged, and boosts weapon crit. They aren't apples to apples comparable, and few class vs weapon skill comparison are that simple.

The whole picture is important. For instance Stamina Sorc and DK lack a class spammable, but they do have class dots/utility. Conversely, Stamina Temp and NB have spammables but lack dots. Having a full bar of class skills tends to make a class too powerful, while a whole bar of weapon skills makes them too weak. The right balance is to have class skills cover part and weapon skills the rest.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Combos to chain? You're right, there are none currently.
Changing the 2H spammable to one that grants empower (with shorter channel time to compare with other spammables) would emphasis reduction of light attack weaving immediately after using the spammable, to be replaced with an empowered other skill (followed by a light attack).

Hell, if you want to be more technical on the interactions of end game sets such as the vMA enchants, I can go into that as well. I know that the Cruel Flurry enchant is a major reason that stam can become viable in the endgame (but why it's trapped behind a grind like vMA whereas many mag classes can gain access to BiS gear with little effort (BSW,Skoria (magDK), Willpower from Daily Dungeons). I also know that vMA enchantments don't work with Torug's Pact 5th set bonus.

If you want vMA enchants to make a difference in this suggestion, what I'd do is just change it so that vMA enchant makes the spammable also increases the damage of your next attack by 10% or something. (would obviously need testing to find a good balanced value).

Removing the stam gapcloser? yeah. each class selected at the start of the game gives you a gapcloser in some form or another, hell, even the fighters guild leash morph does as well. I think that the cost of upfront burst form melee should be a lack of mobility. and that magic skills should supplement this lacking a gapcloser, but not stamina skills that also deal damage.

You want 2H to be on the level with DW for endgame content. It doesn't need this over-reaching rework. It needs an instant spammable that syncs with weaving, and a rework of the passives to give better damage boosts. That's it really. You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be.

Agreed.

I also agree. However, if you just give it a spammable, and keep it the way it is, then it becomes even more unbalanced in PvP. It'd be easy to fix it just for PvE, cause all it needs is a spammable.

An instant spammable on 2H gives Stamina Sorc and DK a parity to NB Surprise Attack, and Templar Jabs for PVP and PVE.

First you want to remove the 2H gap closer, and next you miss that. Let's not even talk about that completely unneeded BS you want to do for Sword and Board, your abysmal understanding of DPS theorem and the basics of ESO combat. At this point I wonder if you're not just one of smug wannabe game devs who so arrogantly believes in your ability to make everything 'better', that you can't see past your own nose.

Yes, it does. The non-class counterpart of the Templar Spammable is the Dual Wield Flurry. The non class spammable for sorcs is snipe, the non class spammable for DK is poison injection (kinda, if you use searing strike)
As it stands currently, the 2H class seems like they wanted to take everything good about the NB class and shove it into a single skill line rather than redistributing it across multiple weapon classes.

You have a single target Gap closer that Deals damage - NB Teleport Strike
You have a single target/hit Execute that deals more damage the lower the target health - NB Assassin's Blade
You have a Spammable Empower - NB Ambush morph of Teleport Strike
You have a Spammable Stun - All classes have this
You have a Spammable CC Evasion (Forward Momentum) - NB Shadow Cloak (though other classes have something similar)
You have a high damage Ult that ignores resistances and gives you armor - NB Incap Strike/DK Molten armor (kinda)
You have an AoE DoT that can give you a shield as well - DK Spiked Armor
You gain situational stamina regen (kill an enemy) - NB Relentless Focus (but intermittent)

This skill takes quite a bit from the NB Class, a great gap closer, a great execute, that not only does it make 2H powerful, but it also makes the NB class relatively useless in PvP, as you can cherry pick some of the NB's best abilities in one weapon class. (though NB's still are renowned for their stealth).

Let's look at the Dual Wield weapon class, and where it shares skills:
You have a spammable flurry of attacks: Templar Jabs - even has a healing morph
you have a low initial damage, high bleed damage attack that can heal you - DK Burning Embers
You have an AoE that grants either increased range, or Increased stamina regen - NB Relentless focus for the stam regen
You've got AoE damage that reduces (AoE) damage taken or grants Expedition- Sorcs Lightning Form
You've got a Single Target long range attack that grants a damage buff (but doesn't stun) - Templar's Aurora Javelin
Your Ulti is a AoE DoT that can grant a bonus based on the enemies you hit, and heals you - A Mix of Templar Radial Sweep and Sorc Crit Surge

The 2H class is too similar to a single class. It has a plethora of Buff/Debuff skills that no other weapon class has that make it invaluable in PvP, and subsequently nerfed for balance, hurting it in PvE play.

Yes, I've got a *** large Ego, which is why I want to post this on the forums, to get the idea out there. But I also know that I have a large Ego, so I also hope that people like YOU come along to take that ego and grind it into the dirt, bring opposing viewpoints to help me refine what it is I propose to change BECAUSE I don't have all the sides of the story (can't see past my own nose)

Class skills have passive which contribute, that are often much stronger then weapon line passives, as well as additional effects. For example Flurry and Biting Jabs function similarly, but Jabs has built in CC, can't be dodged, and boosts weapon crit. They aren't apples to apples comparable, and few class vs weapon skill comparison are that simple.

The whole picture is important. For instance Stamina Sorc and DK lack a class spammable, but they do have class dots/utility. Conversely, Stamina Temp and NB have spammables but lack dots. Having a full bar of class skills tends to make a class too powerful, while a whole bar of weapon skills makes them too weak. The right balance is to have class skills cover part and weapon skills the rest.

@dday3six

Very true, Class passives are a large differentiater, and to add on the Bitting jabs portion, Templars also have the burning light passive for extra damage. and to further pursue this topic, if we were to give the 2H a good spammable that was comparable to the NB and Temp spammables, how would these classes passives overpower the 2H spammable so that these classes retain some identity? You've already mentioned all the various passives and bonuses to the Templar Spam attack. The Nightblade also has some bonuses unique to its stam variant, Most importantly Major Fracture and Major Breech are applied when attacking with this spammable, it also grants Major Ward and Major Resolve when used as well as 3% max health while slotted. And if the reworked 2H spammable is made so it will not at any point in time have one Direct Damage hit that is higher than the Surprise attack, it would also allow nightblade to have the highest single damage from stealth spammable (excluding the 2H ulti of course).

This way both Sorcs DK's and Templars will have access to a lesser powered spammable like the NB' much like NB Sorc and DK have access to a Templar like spammable from flurry.

Understandably though, giving 2H a spammable that also grants empower might promote just using that spammable over and over without much thought to any rotation. This is part of the reason why I also suggest splitting the damage into 2 separate Direct Damage attacks. Since Empower will only increase the damage of the first tick of that attack (if Twin slashes is any indicator).

Duiwel · April 2017

Correct OP only x2 of my 6 stam chars have Dizzying swing, I prefer to use WB ( out of principle ), the MOST annoying thing for me in this game is getting knocked back by NPC's ( when I am out of stam on a magicka toon for example ) in a delve or whatever (doesn't really happen anymore, but when I was starting to play it happend all the time) and I despised it.

I would not wish it on anyone, not even my enemies, I do not need it to kill my foe.

In my honest opinion I think we could do without ANY knockdowns/ knockbacks.

Fight with honour, I would be glad to see all knockdowns/knock backs removed just so that the fights are more interesting.

When I play my templar and I use my charges ( be it stam or mag plar ) if I took the knockdown morph on that char, the guy is usually dead before he can stand up unless he is running a very tanky build (most DK's lately).

While it's fun to get free AP, it's also not fun to just steamroll another player ( I mean what if? What if he was actually a good fighter and we could have had a nice battle if I didn't knock him down ) I don't know that's just how I am.

Regardless I see many people are for and against your thread ( those against suggest improvements to the ideas so they are not completely against it ) overall an interesting read thank you for raising the topic OP.

KerinKor · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Here are my suggestions

Here's mine: leave it alone.

2H is fine in PVE .. not being top of the DPS meter is NOT a sign of unviability!

STEVIL · April 2017

TheStealthDude wrote: »

@STEVIL
In response to your bolded points:

It seems like you are worried about weapon choices becoming symmetrical in their balance, which I understand. I don't want weapon choice to be cosmetic either. What I want is a better asymmetrical Balance, which may or may not be possible, due, in part, to the reasons you mentioned but also due to other factors.

I see your point about 2H becoming "good enough" in PvE and staying the best in PvP, as the problem that it would be. I will admit that I have been focusing almost solely on the PVE side, as I feel that is the easier place to balance first. Obviously, we cannot look at these changes in the vacuum of "only pve" or "only pvp", but I feel we have to start somewhere.

Either way, we are starting to go in circles here, so in an effort to steer our the conversation between us back towards the intent of the OP, let's just agree to disagree on our views of how overall balance should work and instead let me ask you this question:

Are you currently opposed to any changes to the 2H line, and if not, how would you feel about the changes below?

Uppercut:
Remove the cast time and heavily reduce damage. This would be an instant cast damage ability, with no other power pre-morph. In fact, it might even need to be worse off than other spammable stamina attacks in terms of damage.

Morph #1
Added power: Increase damage on next attack (of this ability) by X% against opponent who last hit you for Y seconds. This ability can only trigger every Z seconds. (My goal with this is to make it similar to how Power Lash works, but without the healing and proccing off of taking damage instead of CCing. The original idea of this skill to make it 100% increase might be too severe and the time too long, hence the variables which can be debated. While this is beneficial in PvP, it is also a good tool for solo play and perhaps in use as a hybrid tank in casual group play.)

Morph #2
Added power: Stun your target for X seconds and Knockback target Y meters. (Essentially, this will be Dizzying Swing. This means that your morph is either a choice of straight, but contingent, heavier damage or lighter damage but with one of the few CC abilities in the tree. I think it makes for an interesting choice, where both are beneficial in PvP, as it is now, but neither are really over powered for PvE.)

Heavy Weapons passive:

(I admit that I am not creative enough to come up with the ideas for this one, but I think this skill should change the different weapon abilities to something completely different from what DW offers. This can be used to help balance the skill tree out if it becomes OP for PvP with the previous skill change.)

If those changes are made, 2H would likely be fine for PvE, but still probably second fiddle to DW in Leaderboards due to maelstrom arena weapons, IMO (I would be fine with this). I can't say I have much of an idea about how it will affect PvP, but I think a lot of the balance can be achieved through adjusting the spammable damage/morph variables and through adjusting the Heavy Weapons passive with new functions for different weapons.

Re the main question in bold: No i am not opposed to "any changes" for anything, anywhere, anytime in a living breathing MMO. i may be opposed to or in favor of any specific change based on its own individual mertis taking into account the whole game, not just one skill or one facet of the game.

But the first thing that has to be done is to establish the reason for a change and how it will improve the game for many players and the overall play/balance/enjoyment.

The second thing is to establish the scope of the change, if its to raise the damage level of X we need to set an upper limit on it based on other stuff in the game. As in "are we trying to make this the most damaging non-ulti in the game or less than so-and-so."

That is why when folks start throwing around raising this and lowering that and so on i usualy ask "how much is enough" cuz most folks seem to not want to put a limit on their gains and just change some numbers and hope magic occurs. its like they know grandmas house is north but dont want to learn the actual address before leaving.

Change for the sake of change is not good. It always impacts somebody negatively and so there need to be a reason.

For your uppercut change: i would oppose it. uppercut and morphs have their own current uniquer niche which plays into a harder-to-work high burst hit meme for 2H and making it into a vanilla spammable is reducing difference and increasing sameness. Those are not just pointless changes but bad changes IMO.

On the Heavy weapons passive: While i am for uniqueness in skill lines, I am also for consistency in weapons so the idea that an axe special effects dont suddenly change when it becomes two-handed makes sense to me. Not sure what is gained by reworking this other than to make a change for change's sake.

If I were going to suggest a change, it would be to all of them across the lines and it would be to make them more target specific - but thats my own itch I admit*. i would love to see say Mauls get bonus against heavy armor, axes get n=bonus against light armor and so on with creature types divided between them as well. You can argue that the pen bonus for maces kind of works that way but its really just a damage bonus vs all unless a lot of pen is stacked up.

* What i think really needs to be examined is the interaction (mostly pve) or lack thereof between choices and combat.

I describe ESO currently as narcissistic in its structure - most or all of the focus is inward on your stats on your numbers on your rotations with a few nods here and there to gimmick mechanics for set-piece foes. Easily the vast vast vast majority of PVE you take your role-build and use it. There is little to no gain from say having one build you prefer for DPS in city-of -ash then for fungal grotto than for selene web than for vaults of madness. Enemies may be radically different but your DPS goal is the same and barring the gimmicks you have to play around... no difference.

Now this can be addressed at many levels.

traits could be reworked to be very target focused for weapons and very attack/attacker focused for defenses. best armor trait vs fire might be not as good vs poison but there is one better for poison and worse for fire.

But a similar sort of division could be applied to skill lines or their passives. maybe DW gets a passive damage boost vs enemies with lower than XXX resistance and 2h gets a bonus damage vs enemies with higher than YYY resistance. maybe instead of bleed/damage/crit/pen the weapon types gains bonuses vs different subsets of enemies.

these could end up providing what the PVE folks claim to be seeking - more 2h in certain niche slices of PVE - by making content+weapon+best+fit more diversified in PVE rather than just playing the numbers game for more sameness and hoping it works out.

The reason DW is best for group/trial stamina dps end-game leaderboard PVE slices is that for almost all that content there is little to no impact within the system to taking that everywhere against everything. If in PVE 2h were better overall against undead and DW was better against bugs and giants (whatever) then you could have better parity of play counts for both across the spectrum of that slice of content - and if the same thing hit PVP as well keep/enhance diversity there.

Accentuating the differences and expanding them is IMO the key ti promoting diversity of use - but that means it has to focus in no small part on content - on the targets - not just what you see in the mirror.

Nothing better everywhere, everything better somewhere.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

STEVIL wrote: »

For your uppercut change: i would oppose it. uppercut and morphs have their own current uniquer niche which plays into a harder-to-work high burst hit meme for 2H and making it into a vanilla spammable is reducing difference and increasing sameness. Those are not just pointless changes but bad changes IMO.

On the Heavy weapons passive: While i am for uniqueness in skill lines, I am also for consistency in weapons so the idea that an axe special effects dont suddenly change when it becomes two-handed makes sense to me. Not sure what is gained by reworking this other than to make a change for change's sake.

@STEVIL

Though couldn't keeping passives between skill similar lines be much the same as doing the same to abilities? I do understand your desire to make each skill unique though. However, I think that a spammable that is heavily DoT focused (flurry, hits x5 times) and a spammable that is High Direct Damage, few strikes focused (x2 hits with current proposal). Makes them unique between each other.

This is why I think that:
Having a DW spammable be several small attacks is great for proc sets, I.E Skoria, Shadow of the red Mountain, and several more of the monster sets that have only a 10% chance on dealing damage. having DW also be the only one of the two that allows for 2 5-sets further allows for this identity.

Having a 2H spammable that is focused on a few Direct Damage attacks allows it to make use of the empower ability more easily, proc sets lie Selene, Nerineth, but not too many other sets as the 2H spammable will be inherently strong in itself.

DW will be a weapon set that focuses on utilizing other tools to make itself powerful
2H will be inherently powerful, but lack tool utilization.

Edit: I do also want to mention that in my proposal the 2H still has a stun, but it is moved into the ultimate.

STEVIL wrote: »

* What i think really needs to be examined is the interaction (mostly pve) or lack thereof between choices and combat.

I describe ESO currently as narcissistic in its structure - most or all of the focus is inward on your stats on your numbers on your rotations with a few nods here and there to gimmick mechanics for set-piece foes. Easily the vast vast vast majority of PVE you take your role-build and use it. There is little to no gain from say having one build you prefer for DPS in city-of -ash then for fungal grotto than for selene web than for vaults of madness. Enemies may be radically different but your DPS goal is the same and barring the gimmicks you have to play around... no difference.

Now this can be addressed at many levels.

traits could be reworked to be very target focused for weapons and very attack/attacker focused for defenses. best armor trait vs fire might be not as good vs poison but there is one better for poison and worse for fire.

But a similar sort of division could be applied to skill lines or their passives. maybe DW gets a passive damage boost vs enemies with lower than XXX resistance and 2h gets a bonus damage vs enemies with higher than YYY resistance. maybe instead of bleed/damage/crit/pen the weapon types gains bonuses vs different subsets of enemies.

these could end up providing what the PVE folks claim to be seeking - more 2h in certain niche slices of PVE - by making content+weapon+best+fit more diversified in PVE rather than just playing the numbers game for more sameness and hoping it works out.

The reason DW is best for group/trial stamina dps end-game leaderboard PVE slices is that for almost all that content there is little to no impact within the system to taking that everywhere against everything. If in PVE 2h were better overall against undead and DW was better against bugs and giants (whatever) then you could have better parity of play counts for both across the spectrum of that slice of content - and if the same thing hit PVP as well keep/enhance diversity there.

Accentuating the differences and expanding them is IMO the key ti promoting diversity of use - but that means it has to focus in no small part on content - on the targets - not just what you see in the mirror.

Nothing better everywhere, everything better somewhere.

You have no idea how much i agree with this sentiment. DW - small quick attacks/DoTs. 2H - Large slow attacks/Direct Damage

I would love to see ZOS make enemies more interesting, as an example:

Heavy Armored targets take less physical damage (high armor), promoting the use of a mace (but also a significant number of them in areas to actually promote weapon swapping out prior to a fight)
Light Armored targets take more Physical damage, less Spell (low armor) promoting dagger/sword/axe use (same as above)
Some targets take reduced DoT damage, and vice versa
Some targets take increased Direct Damage, and vice versa
Some bosses are multiple bosses that have high health, promoting the use of AoE
Some bosses take reduced AoE damage, promoting single target attacks
Elemental weaknesses actually mean something, a trial has monsters that are weak to a given element, you deal 10% more damage with that element, and 10% reduced damage with another while dealing normal damage with a third.

I would love to see base game AI worked on so that enemies are not pitifully weak and thus become trash mobs.

Increase the attack rate of assassin type enemies, promoting the use of a disorient on them, or an immobilize.
Defender type enemies shield more often, so it's less of just wait for them to use their 3 sec channel ability to cut them down, and more of an opportunity to deal some damage (maybe have them cancel the channel if dealt damage and reblock, which would also promote using the shield bash interrupt)
Mages use the clench ability that players use, actively knocking players back or stunning them, rather than only allowing the cryo mages to immobilize (dear god vMA is gonna be more interesting).
eh, normal brawler type enemies could still be trash mobs, or give them a channeled stun.

Nemesis7884 · June 2017

i would focus dw more on sustained damage and 2h more on burst damage - this is already the case but could be improved upon - for example cleave hits like 1/3 direct and 2/3 dot; i'd rater change it into hitting 2/3 direct with no dot... and to make carve more interesting i would have it generate ultimate based on the number of enemies it hits