Current sets

Rjizzle09

Did thw current sets that are on live get any changes? or was evedything left alone

Uriel_Nocturne

So far, it looks like the base-game Crafted Sets have been left alone.

But with the changes coming via Morrowind (since what is on the PTS is usually what the Live patch will be...), that means Sets like Seducers and Night Mother's will become infinitely more important.

Basically; ZOS is pidgeon-holing everyone into the exact same build, down to the armor and everything.

TheStealthDude

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

Basically; ZOS is pidgeon-holing everyone into the exact same build, down to the armor and everything.

So, the same as things currently are?

At least with having to pay attention to sustain, you have more choices to make and a few more options to achieve it.

With the current "stack 100% damage" meta, there are only a couple ways to build.

Uriel_Nocturne

TheStealthDude wrote: »

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

Basically; ZOS is pidgeon-holing everyone into the exact same build, down to the armor and everything.

So, the same as things currently are?

At least with having to pay attention to sustain, you have more choices to make and a few more options to achieve it.

With the current "stack 100% damage" meta, there are only a couple ways to build.

While I understand your sentiment, I've been testing these changes on the PTS.

The sustain nerfs are so deep, the builds are switching entirely to sustain as a focus. If it's not a Set that focuses on sustain as it's primary function, then you are arbitrarily hamstringing your characters.

Last I checked, that's a severe detriment in MMO's, and it will be a huge detriment in ESO as well.

This goes far beyond just "paying attention to sustain". These nerfs are soul-crushing in their severity.

LiquidPony

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

So far, it looks like the base-game Crafted Sets have been left alone.

But with the changes coming via Morrowind (since what is on the PTS is usually what the Live patch will be...), that means Sets like Seducers and Night Mother's will become infinitely more important.

Basically; ZOS is pidgeon-holing everyone into the exact same build, down to the armor and everything.

I disagree completely.

From a PvE DPS perspective, there are 2 builds right now on live: BSW + IA/Moondancer and TFS + VO/Alkosh. That's PvE in a nutshell except for minor modifications where people may not have Maelstrom weapons. Prior to Homestead, it was TBS + Minor Slayer set for virtually every DPS builds.

I think, going forward, we'll see stam DKs focused on cleave/AoE heavy attack builds, perhaps using new sets like Defiler or older sets like Poisonous Serpent, and maybe Sunderflame makes a comeback. Maybe even using 2H weapons. Magblades running Master Architect and maybe War Maiden. Stamplars running War Machine. And with more stam builds running, we get NMG and (maybe) Sunderflame back, meaning TFS goes away. So maybe you see stamblades running 5 x VO to be able to use Rapid Strikes and Maelstrom Weapons, where other stam builds are stuck using heavy attacks. TBS might even make a comeback.

I've only tested stamblade and stamDK on the PTS so far, but for both builds I haven't used any sustain sets, just modified CP and rotation to sustain with heavy attacks, with a pure heavy attack rotation on the stamDK and a mixed Rapid Strikes/HA rotation on the stamblade.

Will be testing magsorc and magblade this week, too.

Uriel_Nocturne

LiquidPony wrote: »

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

So far, it looks like the base-game Crafted Sets have been left alone.

But with the changes coming via Morrowind (since what is on the PTS is usually what the Live patch will be...), that means Sets like Seducers and Night Mother's will become infinitely more important.

Basically; ZOS is pidgeon-holing everyone into the exact same build, down to the armor and everything.

I disagree completely.

From a PvE DPS perspective, there are 2 builds right now on live: BSW + IA/Moondancer and TFS + VO/Alkosh. That's PvE in a nutshell except for minor modifications where people may not have Maelstrom weapons.

I think, going forward, we'll see stam DKs focused on cleave/AoE heavy attack builds, perhaps using new sets like Defiler or older sets like Poisonous Serpent, and maybe Sunderflame makes a comeback. Maybe even using 2H weapons. Magblades running Master Architect and maybe War Maiden. Stamplars running War Machine. And with more stam builds running, we get NMG and (maybe) Sunderflame back, meaning TFS goes away. So maybe you see stamblades running 5 x VO to be able to use Rapid Strikes and Maelstrom Weapons, where other stam builds are stuck using heavy attacks. TBS might even make a comeback.

I've only tested stamblade and stamDK on the PTS so far, but for both builds I haven't used any sustain sets, just modified CP and rotation to sustain with heavy attacks.

Will be testing magsorc and magblade this week, too.

The only problem with your theory: 98% of the populace doesn't have access to those end-game Sets.

*** The fact that most people in favor of the changes keeps bringing up end-game Monster Drop Sets as the de facto "fix" for the changes, only serves to show that those "elite" players cannot see what these changes are going to do (negatively) to the vast majority of players in this game. But, that's an argument already being had in many other threads. ***

Thus; the changes are funneling every character and every class into the same three variations of Heavy-attack focused builds.

These changes are taking the uniqueness out of the individual classes, and they are indeed pidgeon-holing players into even less variation than we have now on the Live servers.

And to answer your ad hominem with another ad hominem: MOST players don't have access to Maelstrom weapons considering that less than 2% of players across all three platform have not completed the Maelstrom Arena (on either difficulty setting). My DPS build on Live uses non of what you've listed, I have no chance at completing the Maelstrom now on Live to GET those weapons, and I will have even less chance to get them after out sustain and cost reduction takes a steaming dump once these changes go Live.

The Elite players who HAVE completed those challenges, great; YOU -2% of players will have no problem mitigating these changes. The rest of the players are flat out ***.

Joker99

LiquidPony wrote: »

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

So far, it looks like the base-game Crafted Sets have been left alone.

But with the changes coming via Morrowind (since what is on the PTS is usually what the Live patch will be...), that means Sets like Seducers and Night Mother's will become infinitely more important.

Basically; ZOS is pidgeon-holing everyone into the exact same build, down to the armor and everything.

I disagree completely.

From a PvE DPS perspective, there are 2 builds right now on live: BSW + IA/Moondancer and TFS + VO/Alkosh. That's PvE in a nutshell except for minor modifications where people may not have Maelstrom weapons. Prior to Homestead, it was TBS + Minor Slayer set for virtually every DPS builds.

I think, going forward, we'll see stam DKs focused on cleave/AoE heavy attack builds, perhaps using new sets like Defiler or older sets like Poisonous Serpent, and maybe Sunderflame makes a comeback. Maybe even using 2H weapons. Magblades running Master Architect and maybe War Maiden. Stamplars running War Machine. And with more stam builds running, we get NMG and (maybe) Sunderflame back, meaning TFS goes away. So maybe you see stamblades running 5 x VO to be able to use Rapid Strikes and Maelstrom Weapons, where other stam builds are stuck using heavy attacks. TBS might even make a comeback.

I've only tested stamblade and stamDK on the PTS so far, but for both builds I haven't used any sustain sets, just modified CP and rotation to sustain with heavy attacks, with a pure heavy attack rotation on the stamDK and a mixed Rapid Strikes/HA rotation on the stamblade.

Will be testing magsorc and magblade this week, too.

What parses do you get with stamblade? How does sustain look and what are your stats?

LiquidPony

Joker99 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

So far, it looks like the base-game Crafted Sets have been left alone.

But with the changes coming via Morrowind (since what is on the PTS is usually what the Live patch will be...), that means Sets like Seducers and Night Mother's will become infinitely more important.

Basically; ZOS is pidgeon-holing everyone into the exact same build, down to the armor and everything.

I disagree completely.

From a PvE DPS perspective, there are 2 builds right now on live: BSW + IA/Moondancer and TFS + VO/Alkosh. That's PvE in a nutshell except for minor modifications where people may not have Maelstrom weapons. Prior to Homestead, it was TBS + Minor Slayer set for virtually every DPS builds.

I think, going forward, we'll see stam DKs focused on cleave/AoE heavy attack builds, perhaps using new sets like Defiler or older sets like Poisonous Serpent, and maybe Sunderflame makes a comeback. Maybe even using 2H weapons. Magblades running Master Architect and maybe War Maiden. Stamplars running War Machine. And with more stam builds running, we get NMG and (maybe) Sunderflame back, meaning TFS goes away. So maybe you see stamblades running 5 x VO to be able to use Rapid Strikes and Maelstrom Weapons, where other stam builds are stuck using heavy attacks. TBS might even make a comeback.

I've only tested stamblade and stamDK on the PTS so far, but for both builds I haven't used any sustain sets, just modified CP and rotation to sustain with heavy attacks, with a pure heavy attack rotation on the stamDK and a mixed Rapid Strikes/HA rotation on the stamblade.

Will be testing magsorc and magblade this week, too.

What parses do you get with stamblade? How does sustain look and what are your stats?

@Joker99 garbage on the stamblade because prior to 3.0.1 we didn't have any of the Minor Slayer sets (still no VO but I'll try 3 x War Machine tonight) and no racial passives. I think the stamblade will see a DPS loss and right now looks like the worst spec for Morrowind, but I was able to make the Rapid Strikes rotation work (it's complicated to write out but essentially I Rapid Strikes/Trap/Rending Slashes, Heavy Attack, Heavy Attack, Rapid Strikes/Poison Injection). So essentially every other Rapid Strikes from my old rotation gets replaced with a Heavy Attack.

I was able to self-sustain the 3m target skeleton down without using any sustain gear or regen enchants at up to 28k DPS (self-buffed, no ult). With racial passives, Minor Slayer, and tweaked CP I'm confident I can get well over 30k DPS, maybe even 35k. Certainly a DPS loss from live and the rotation is much more involved.

I'll put together a stamblade-specific post here on the PTS forums in the next couple of days, just haven't had time to do it right because I raid Monday-Thursday.

LiquidPony

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

So far, it looks like the base-game Crafted Sets have been left alone.

But with the changes coming via Morrowind (since what is on the PTS is usually what the Live patch will be...), that means Sets like Seducers and Night Mother's will become infinitely more important.

Basically; ZOS is pidgeon-holing everyone into the exact same build, down to the armor and everything.

I disagree completely.

From a PvE DPS perspective, there are 2 builds right now on live: BSW + IA/Moondancer and TFS + VO/Alkosh. That's PvE in a nutshell except for minor modifications where people may not have Maelstrom weapons.

I think, going forward, we'll see stam DKs focused on cleave/AoE heavy attack builds, perhaps using new sets like Defiler or older sets like Poisonous Serpent, and maybe Sunderflame makes a comeback. Maybe even using 2H weapons. Magblades running Master Architect and maybe War Maiden. Stamplars running War Machine. And with more stam builds running, we get NMG and (maybe) Sunderflame back, meaning TFS goes away. So maybe you see stamblades running 5 x VO to be able to use Rapid Strikes and Maelstrom Weapons, where other stam builds are stuck using heavy attacks. TBS might even make a comeback.

I've only tested stamblade and stamDK on the PTS so far, but for both builds I haven't used any sustain sets, just modified CP and rotation to sustain with heavy attacks.

Will be testing magsorc and magblade this week, too.

The only problem with your theory: 98% of the populace doesn't have access to those end-game Sets.

*** The fact that most people in favor of the changes keeps bringing up end-game Monster Drop Sets as the de facto "fix" for the changes, only serves to show that those "elite" players cannot see what these changes are going to do (negatively) to the vast majority of players in this game. But, that's an argument already being had in many other threads. ***

Thus; the changes are funneling every character and every class into the same three variations of Heavy-attack focused builds.

These changes are taking the uniqueness out of the individual classes, and they are indeed pidgeon-holing players into even less variation than we have now on the Live servers.

And to answer your ad hominem with another ad hominem: MOST players don't have access to Maelstrom weapons considering that less than 2% of players across all three platform have not completed the Maelstrom Arena (on either difficulty setting). My DPS build on Live uses non of what you've listed, I have no chance at completing the Maelstrom now on Live to GET those weapons, and I will have even less chance to get them after out sustain and cost reduction takes a steaming dump once these changes go Live.

The Elite players who HAVE completed those challenges, great; YOU -2% of players will have no problem mitigating these changes. The rest of the players are flat out ***.

@Uriel_Nocturne I suggest you go look up the definition of ad hominem. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I think you completely misinterpreted my entire post. I am not "in favor" of the changes, at all. I main a stamblade. My build is garbage now. Nonetheless, the testing I've done so far leads me to a different conclusion than you've reached.

Furthermore, I wasn't listing any sets as a "solution" to the problem of sustain. Quite the opposite, actually. My point was that because no one can sustain the balls-to-the-wall setups we've been running anymore (which were, at the "meta" level, virtually identical across all builds), we might actually see more build diversity going forward. My "solution" to the sustain problem is: heavy attack. Some people might solve it by swapping gear or glyphs and continuing with old rotations. Which, IMO, is already more diversity than we have right now.

That's why I mentioned the stam DK specifically, as I've been toying with a 2H build using Defiler (which is an overland set, BTW) that focuses on AoE/cleave and poison damage. That aligns far better with the DK archetype than what's been on live for the past year, where a stam DK is like any other stam spec in that it's basically a Dual-Wield user with a few different DoTs and buffs. And Maelstrom DW weapons lose their utility completely in a heavy attack meta.

Many of the sets I mentioned (Defiler, War Maiden, Sunderflame, BSW, TBS) are overland/dungeon/crafted sets. Certainly not "end-game sets." And most of the end-game sets I did mention (VO, Alkosh, IA, TFS, Poisonous Serpent) all have fine replacements that are not end-game sets (Agility, Sunderflame, Willpower, Spriggan's Thorns/NMG, Morag Tong, respectively).