How Morrowind Broke Impale (and likely other % skills) - Numbers Included

LZH

With the recent Morrowind update myself and many others have noticed that Impale has been hitting much weaker than it used to in previous patches. This likely has something to do with ZOS making most raid buffs additive with CP instead of multiplicative. Impale's tooltip reads: "Throw a magic blade with lethal precision to strike an enemy, dealing X Magic Damage. Deals 300% more damage to targets at or below 25% Health."

With Morrowind, ZOS made skills or buffs with the wording "damage done" additive with CP instead of multiplicative. This change lowered the DPS ceiling which is what ZOS was trying to do, but it seems to be affecting some skills like Impale (which also have "damage done" wording) and indirectly nerfed them by pretty large amounts. Even last patch and before that, Impale and other % damage done skills like Puncturing Sweeps have been additive with minor slayer and minor berserk (again I'm assuming this is unintended), but now with CP also being additive these skills are hitting like wet noodles.

I decided to test Impale in a few different ways (10 to be exact):

CP used: 66 Master at Arms, 56 Elfborn, 56 Elemental Expert, 13 Thaumaturge, 10 Spell Erosion, 9 Staff Expert
Gear used: 5 Julianos (light), 1 Grothdarr (heavy), 1 Ilambris (medium), 1 vMA Inferno Staff (Sharpened), for minor slayer testing 3 Moondancer jewelry with 2 spell damage enchants, for non minor slayer testing 3 Willpower jewelry with 3 spell damage enchants. All gear was Legendary with magicka enchants and divines traits.

1) gear + CP + minor berserk + minor slayer
2) gear + CP + minor slayer
3) gear + CP + minor berserk
4) gear + CP
5) gear + minor slayer + minor berserk (no CP)
6) gear + minor slayer (no CP)
7) gear + minor berserk (no CP)
8) gear (no CP)
9) no gear + minor berserk (no CP)
10) no gear (no CP)

The increased damage done NEVER equaled to 300% except for when no gear, cp, or other buffs were applied to my character. Here are the damage results:

Damage before execute, Damage during execute, % increase, damage during execute if Impale worked as stated

1) 4844, 14280, 194.8%, 19376
2) 4592, 14029, 205.5%, 18368
3) 4728, 14250, 201.4%, 18912
4) 4475, 13996, 212.8%, 17900
5) 3361, 11693, 247.9%, 13444
6) 3138, 11471, 265.6%, 12552
7) 3250, 11655, 258.6%, 13000
8) 3026, 11431, 277.8%, 12104
9) 882, 3332, 277.8%, 3528
10) 817, 3267, 299.8%, 3268

The most important scenario is mainly the 1st one, because this is what most players who raid or do dungeons will be wearing. In this scenario Impale is only giving 194.8% extra damage during execute instead of 300% and 14280/19376 or 73.7% of the advertised value.

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_RichLambert , @Wrobel

I haven't tested this with other skills yet, but I'm assuming this would also affect Executioner, Sweeps, Beam, passive executes, etc. as long as they have (deals x% more damage).


EDIT: A good point was brought up by @Juhasow. The missing 22.2% on 8) is likely the result of the destro staff passives giving an additional 8% damage done on single target abilities.

kyle.wilson

Is it possible that the %boost is being applied to the calculation stack before passives, set, jewelry, and enchant bonuses?
This would drastically affect the total %.

ShedsHisTail

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Is it possible that the %boost is being applied to the calculation stack before passives, set, jewelry, and enchant bonuses?
This would drastically affect the total %.

This was my first thought as well, a change to the order in which it's calculated.

LZH

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Is it possible that the %boost is being applied to the calculation stack before passives, set, jewelry, and enchant bonuses?
This would drastically affect the total %.

Yeah, it seems that way. It seems like literally everything is causing Impale to not perform as stated.

kyle.wilson

There seem to be a bunch of stealth nerfs lately that ZOS won't admit till massive amounts of players notice it.
Such as the pet regen nerf.

flizomica

nice post friendo

LZH

LZH wrote: »

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Is it possible that the %boost is being applied to the calculation stack before passives, set, jewelry, and enchant bonuses?
This would drastically affect the total %.

That wouldn't explain why the % increase went from 247.9% to 194.8% when the only change made was removal of CP.

You're probably right because even gear se.

kyle.wilson wrote: »

There seem to be a bunch of stealth nerfs lately that ZOS won't admit till massive amounts of players notice it.
Such as the pet regen nerf.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a stealth nerf, or just something that they passed over when they made the Morrowind damage changes.

I don't think anyone felt like Impale or other % skills were overperforming. Especially when you consider that the Sorcerer active and passive executes aren't affected by this at all.

LiquidPony

kyle.wilson wrote: »

There seem to be a bunch of stealth nerfs lately that ZOS won't admit till massive amounts of players notice it.
Such as the pet regen nerf.

Stealth nerfs or new bugs introduced and totally missed in the legendary ZOS "QA" process?

LZH

LiquidPony wrote: »

kyle.wilson wrote: »

There seem to be a bunch of stealth nerfs lately that ZOS won't admit till massive amounts of players notice it.
Such as the pet regen nerf.

Stealth nerfs or new bugs introduced and totally missed in the legendary ZOS "QA" process?

I'm not hoping for much more than an acknowledgement. But yeah, probably even that is asking too much :P.

Sneaky-Snurr

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Is it possible that the %boost is being applied to the calculation stack before passives, set, jewelry, and enchant bonuses?
This would drastically affect the total %.

@kyle.wilson
If that's the case, there's no point in boosting damage if that's the actual calculation and is just plain idiotic and nonsensical. But the new ZoS do potray those qualities over the past years.
And if not, they should fix this damn bug because there is always game-bending bug that gets introduced every single patch.

Not cussing you by the way, just an indirect mock to ZoS.

Shadzilla

LZH wrote: »

With the recent Morrowind update myself and many others have noticed that Impale has been hitting much weaker than it used to in previous patches. This likely has something to do with ZOS making most raid buffs additive with CP instead of multiplicative. Impale's tooltip reads: "Throw a magic blade with lethal precision to strike an enemy, dealing X Magic Damage. Deals 300% more damage to targets at or below 25% Health."

With Morrowind, ZOS made skills or buffs with the wording "damage done" additive with CP instead of multiplicative. This change lowered the DPS ceiling which is what ZOS was trying to do, but it seems to be affecting some skills like Impale (which also have "damage done" wording) and indirectly nerfed them by pretty large amounts. Even last patch and before that, Impale and other % damage done skills like Puncturing Sweeps have been additive with minor slayer and minor berserk (again I'm assuming this is unintended), but now with CP also being additive these skills are hitting like wet noodles.

I decided to test Impale in a few different ways (10 to be exact):

CP used: 66 Master at Arms, 56 Elfborn, 56 Elemental Expert, 13 Thaumaturge, 10 Spell Erosion, 9 Staff Expert
Gear used: 5 Julianos (light), 1 Grothdarr (heavy), 1 Ilambris (medium), 1 vMA Inferno Staff (Sharpened), for minor slayer testing 3 Moondancer jewelry with 2 spell damage enchants, for non minor slayer testing 3 Willpower jewelry with 3 spell damage enchants. All gear was Legendary with magicka enchants and divines traits.

1) gear + CP + minor berserk + minor slayer
2) gear + CP + minor slayer
3) gear + CP + minor berserk
4) gear + CP
5) gear + minor slayer + minor berserk (no CP)
6) gear + minor slayer (no CP)
7) gear + minor berserk (no CP)
8) gear (no CP)
9) no gear + minor berserk (no CP)
10) no gear (no CP)

The increased damage done NEVER equaled to 300% except for when no gear, cp, or other buffs were applied to my character. Here are the damage results:

Damage before execute, Damage during execute, % increase, damage during execute if Impale worked as stated

1) 4844, 14280, 194.8%, 19376
2) 4592, 14029, 205.5%, 18368
3) 4728, 14250, 201.4%, 18912
4) 4475, 13996, 212.8%, 17900
5) 3361, 11693, 247.9%, 13444
6) 3138, 11471, 265.6%, 12552
7) 3250, 11655, 258.6%, 13000
8) 3026, 11431, 277.8%, 12104
9) 882, 3332, 277.8%, 3528
10) 817, 3267, 299.8%, 3268

The most important scenario is mainly the 1st one, because this is what most players who raid or do dungeons will be wearing. In this scenario Impale is only giving 194.8% extra damage during execute instead of 300% and 14280/19376 or 73.7% of the advertised value.

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_RichLambert , @Wrobel

I haven't tested this with other skills yet, but I'm assuming this would also affect Executioner, Sweeps, Beam, passive executes, etc. as long as they have (deals x% more damage).

Killer's blade is faaaacked as well. Seems like yet another L2Program issue at ZOS.

Juhasow

@LZH Working as intended. As You can see without any buffs it is 300% increase but more percentage buffs You add it becomes lesser value. Formula to get final dmg isnt just simply adding 300% to any value You have before execute range. More percentage bonuses You add the less effective each of them is , but when You added just this one buff You had almost 300%. The value before execute range is already affected by numerous percentage bonuses (minor slayer, minor berserk , CP, flame staff passive etc) and You're not increasing them but just raw value without them by 300%.

I've heared that they changed CP to be additive instead of multiplicative and this may cause lower dmg then before. I havnt tested yet is this true or not so I dont want to give not 100% correct calculations as example.

I'll give You advice. In scenario number 8 (gear , no CP) where You had ~278% change flame staff to lightning staff so You wont have 8% more single target abilities dmg boost and You'll see You'll get almost 300%

LZH

Juhasow wrote: »

@LZH Working as intended. As You can see without any buffs it is 300% increase but more percentage buffs You add it becomes lesser value. Formula to get final dmg isnt just simply adding 300% to any value You have before execute range. More percentage bonuses You add the less effective each of them is , but when You added just this one buff You had almost 300%. The value before execute range is already affected by numerous percentage bonuses (minor slayer, minor berserk , CP, flame staff passive etc) and You're not increasing them but just raw value without them by 300%.

I've heared that they changed CP to be additive instead of multiplicative and this may cause lower dmg then before. I havnt tested yet is this true or not so I dont want to give not 100% correct calculations as example.

I'll give You advice. In scenario number 8 (gear , no CP) where You had ~278% change flame staff to lightning staff so You wont have 8% more single target abilities dmg boost and You'll see You'll get almost 300%

I understand why Impale is the way it is. My issue is that the skill is basically false advertising. It's literally only true if you have no damage done bonuses or any CP assigned. A situation that is pretty hard to come across. There's only 2 possible scenarios here: It's intended and ZOS sucks at both balancing executes and wording of execute tooltips OR it's not intended and ZOS is having troubles making it work correctly with damage done bonuses. My bet is on the second one.

Also, regarding it being additive with CP. When all I changed was CP I went from 247.9% without CP to 194.9% with CP.

Berenhir

Maybe they should change all the skill tooltips then?
Gives you 300% more damage when your enemy is about to die and you fight him in your birthday suit.

LZH

Berenhir wrote: »

Maybe they should change all the skill tooltips then?
Gives you 300% more damage when your enemy is about to die and you fight him in your birthday suit.

Works for me!

Juhasow

LZH wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

@LZH Working as intended. As You can see without any buffs it is 300% increase but more percentage buffs You add it becomes lesser value. Formula to get final dmg isnt just simply adding 300% to any value You have before execute range. More percentage bonuses You add the less effective each of them is , but when You added just this one buff You had almost 300%. The value before execute range is already affected by numerous percentage bonuses (minor slayer, minor berserk , CP, flame staff passive etc) and You're not increasing them but just raw value without them by 300%.

I've heared that they changed CP to be additive instead of multiplicative and this may cause lower dmg then before. I havnt tested yet is this true or not so I dont want to give not 100% correct calculations as example.

I'll give You advice. In scenario number 8 (gear , no CP) where You had ~278% change flame staff to lightning staff so You wont have 8% more single target abilities dmg boost and You'll see You'll get almost 300%

I understand why Impale is the way it is. My issue is that the skill is basically false advertising. It's literally only true if you have no damage done bonuses or any CP assigned. A situation that is pretty hard to come across. There's only 2 possible scenarios here: It's intended and ZOS sucks at both balancing executes and wording of execute tooltips OR it's not intended and ZOS is having troubles making it work correctly with damage done bonuses. My bet is on the second one.

Also, regarding it being additive with CP. When all I changed was CP I went from 247.9% without CP to 194.9% with CP.

1st You say You understand then You prove You dont...
Skill isnt bad advertised it just underlie the same formula as every other skill in the game which You dont understand. Every skill dmg is counted based on base dmg value.

itscompton

Juhasow wrote: »

LZH wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

@LZH Working as intended. As You can see without any buffs it is 300% increase but more percentage buffs You add it becomes lesser value. Formula to get final dmg isnt just simply adding 300% to any value You have before execute range. More percentage bonuses You add the less effective each of them is , but when You added just this one buff You had almost 300%. The value before execute range is already affected by numerous percentage bonuses (minor slayer, minor berserk , CP, flame staff passive etc) and You're not increasing them but just raw value without them by 300%.

I've heared that they changed CP to be additive instead of multiplicative and this may cause lower dmg then before. I havnt tested yet is this true or not so I dont want to give not 100% correct calculations as example.

I'll give You advice. In scenario number 8 (gear , no CP) where You had ~278% change flame staff to lightning staff so You wont have 8% more single target abilities dmg boost and You'll see You'll get almost 300%

I understand why Impale is the way it is. My issue is that the skill is basically false advertising. It's literally only true if you have no damage done bonuses or any CP assigned. A situation that is pretty hard to come across. There's only 2 possible scenarios here: It's intended and ZOS sucks at both balancing executes and wording of execute tooltips OR it's not intended and ZOS is having troubles making it work correctly with damage done bonuses. My bet is on the second one.

Also, regarding it being additive with CP. When all I changed was CP I went from 247.9% without CP to 194.9% with CP.

1st You say You understand then You prove You dont...
Skill isnt bad advertised it just underlie the same formula as every other skill in the game which You dont understand. Every skill dmg is counted based on base dmg value.

There is no reasoning with White Knights.

LZH

Juhasow wrote: »

LZH wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

@LZH Working as intended. As You can see without any buffs it is 300% increase but more percentage buffs You add it becomes lesser value. Formula to get final dmg isnt just simply adding 300% to any value You have before execute range. More percentage bonuses You add the less effective each of them is , but when You added just this one buff You had almost 300%. The value before execute range is already affected by numerous percentage bonuses (minor slayer, minor berserk , CP, flame staff passive etc) and You're not increasing them but just raw value without them by 300%.

I've heared that they changed CP to be additive instead of multiplicative and this may cause lower dmg then before. I havnt tested yet is this true or not so I dont want to give not 100% correct calculations as example.

I'll give You advice. In scenario number 8 (gear , no CP) where You had ~278% change flame staff to lightning staff so You wont have 8% more single target abilities dmg boost and You'll see You'll get almost 300%

I understand why Impale is the way it is. My issue is that the skill is basically false advertising. It's literally only true if you have no damage done bonuses or any CP assigned. A situation that is pretty hard to come across. There's only 2 possible scenarios here: It's intended and ZOS sucks at both balancing executes and wording of execute tooltips OR it's not intended and ZOS is having troubles making it work correctly with damage done bonuses. My bet is on the second one.

Also, regarding it being additive with CP. When all I changed was CP I went from 247.9% without CP to 194.9% with CP.

1st You say You understand then You prove You dont...
Skill isnt bad advertised it just underlie the same formula as every other skill in the game which You dont understand. Every skill dmg is counted based on base dmg value.

I completely understand. You are the one that isn't comprehending. Please explain to me how something that says "this will do X" but then does Y isn't false advertising. A game that doesn't properly convey skill effects is a poorly designed game.

acw37162

without double checking everything the math looks right.

300% base wouldn't it guarantee 300% modified. The base you found was 299%. Then as you modified your damage the gap closed.

Not saying it is intended but it looks right.

And I don't know if it got patched but I was under the impression minor slayer was broken at the moment.

Darlgon

Sigh.. once again..

@LZH

Morrowind = new landmass and quests.

Update 14 = skill changes to the base game, including Morrowind.

Please fix your title.

Juhasow

LZH wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

LZH wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

@LZH Working as intended. As You can see without any buffs it is 300% increase but more percentage buffs You add it becomes lesser value. Formula to get final dmg isnt just simply adding 300% to any value You have before execute range. More percentage bonuses You add the less effective each of them is , but when You added just this one buff You had almost 300%. The value before execute range is already affected by numerous percentage bonuses (minor slayer, minor berserk , CP, flame staff passive etc) and You're not increasing them but just raw value without them by 300%.

I've heared that they changed CP to be additive instead of multiplicative and this may cause lower dmg then before. I havnt tested yet is this true or not so I dont want to give not 100% correct calculations as example.

I'll give You advice. In scenario number 8 (gear , no CP) where You had ~278% change flame staff to lightning staff so You wont have 8% more single target abilities dmg boost and You'll see You'll get almost 300%

I understand why Impale is the way it is. My issue is that the skill is basically false advertising. It's literally only true if you have no damage done bonuses or any CP assigned. A situation that is pretty hard to come across. There's only 2 possible scenarios here: It's intended and ZOS sucks at both balancing executes and wording of execute tooltips OR it's not intended and ZOS is having troubles making it work correctly with damage done bonuses. My bet is on the second one.

Also, regarding it being additive with CP. When all I changed was CP I went from 247.9% without CP to 194.9% with CP.

1st You say You understand then You prove You dont...
Skill isnt bad advertised it just underlie the same formula as every other skill in the game which You dont understand. Every skill dmg is counted based on base dmg value.

I completely understand. You are the one that isn't comprehending. Please explain to me how something that says "this will do X" but then does Y isn't false advertising. A game that doesn't properly convey skill effects is a poorly designed game.

That's because "X" (raw value based on stats) You see on tooltip is already affected by numerous percentage bonuses like CP's , minor berserk , flame staff etc so tooltip value You see is not in fact "X" but already an Y=X+(A%+B%+C%+...)*X and in execute range Y=X+(A%+B%+C%+...+300%)*X . That's why without CP's , minor berserk and flame staff You have 300% because it's Y=X+300%*X .

You would want to see raw value always without seeing how percentage buffs affected tooltip ? Then I assume we would see many threads that CP's , minor berserk etc are bugged because You dont see tooltip changes and people would be confussed because adding some buffs would not affect tooltips. Or maybe You would want to see descritpion under tooltip saying "more percentage buffs You already applied then lower that 300% tolltip value will be because it's underlie the formula" ? Or just tell what would You want to see ? Because as I mentioned earlier everything with caclucating this skill dmg is correct and matches formula.

And I tell You this right now formula like Y=[X+(A%+B%+C%+...)*X]+300%*[X+(A%+B%+C%+...)*X] wont happen.

Kammakazi

Is this being fixed or nah

laksikus

Kammakazi wrote: »

Is this being fixed or nah

Probably nah, its zos, they probably cant figure out whats causing it. Like the poison Bug with weapon ground dots

Aisle9

First of all, yes, I was noticing the same thing with Reverse Slice and, thank you for that, I was actually trying to find info about it.

The reason why I was looking for this is not really because it's hitting lower than before, but because it's hitting lower than my spammable, while in execute range.

While there's an argument that Wrecking Blow is considerably slower (and, no, I'm not doing 2 in a row, so it's not getting empowered), while Reverse Slice is faster and easier to cancel, what about a magblade, hitting harder with Swallow Soul or Force Pulse than with Impale ?

BTW, here's what I mean:



While it's understandable if the damage ceiling was lowered, it is not OK for an execute to do less damage than the spammable, while in execute range.

To give a little context, I'm weaving heavies between both WB and RS, so both are buffed by Follow Up, and the 86% uptime for pots was due to lag at the beginning of the fight. It was 100% after reaching half HP.

Also, great care was taken in casting trap every rotation, so, both were buffed.

The results were consistent over 10+ parses. 25k wrecking blow, 23k reverse slice.

I haven't tried with raid buffs, but I plan to at some point. Fairly sure the results will be the same.

Elvenpath

Sucha stealth nerf... Waiting to see explanations about it. @ZOS_GinaBruno

Alcast

Aisle9 wrote: »

First of all, yes, I was noticing the same thing with Reverse Slice and, thank you for that, I was actually trying to find info about this.

The reason why I was looking for this is not really because it's hitting lower than before, but because it's hitting lower than my spammable, while in execute range.

While there's an argument that Wrecking Blow is considerably slower (and, no, I'm not doing 2 in a row, so it's not getting empowered), while Reverse Slice is faster and easier to cancel, what about a magblade, hitting harder with Swallow Soul or Force Pulse than with Impale ?

BTW, here's what I mean:



While it's understandable if the damage ceiling was lowered, it is not OK for an execute to do less damage than the spammable, while in execute range.

To give a little context, I'm weaving heavies between both WB and RS, so both are buffed by Follow Up, and the 86% uptime for pots was due to lag at the beginning of the fight. It was 100% after reaching half HP.

Also, great care was taken in casting trap every rotation, so, both were buffed.

The results were consistent over 10+ parses. 25k wrecking blow, 23k reverse slice.

I haven't tried with raid buffs, but I plan to at some point. Fairly sure the results will be the same.

I noticed this too, I start executing and my DPS goes down or stays the same lol. You could argue that Wblow is 1s cast time whereas Reverse is Instant cast, but the animation is quite long so it takes about as long as Wblow combined with a Heavy attack >.>

Aisle9

Yes, but here's the thing: 2H is slow as it is, then you consider faster casts, like Impale and Swallow/Force Pulse that have roughly the same cast time, but Swallow hits harder, and Force Pulse even harder.

For some builds begs the question: is it even worth to use the execute ?

IwakuraLain42

Aisle9 wrote: »

Yes, but here's the thing: 2H is slow as it is, then you consider faster casts, like Impale and Swallow/Force Pulse that have roughly the same cast time, but Swallow hits harder, and Force Pulse even harder.

For some builds begs the question: is it even worth to use the execute ?

If you're using Force Pulse/Impale then Impale at least is cheaper, same for Surprise Attack/Killers Blade.
Still completely invalidates the reason to use an Executor ability. I would love to hear from ZOS if this was done on purpose and if so why.

Aisle9

Exactly, it's cheaper, but, at this point, nobody cares, because it's not doing what it's supposed to do: executing.

GilGalad

I reported it twice on the PTS, since the bonus dmg by impaled was already additive with other dmg boni in Homestead. With the changes of CP dmg boni being additive after Morrowind instead of multiplicative this issue became even larger.
Basically only 1/4th of the executes damage is affected by CP and other dmg boni.

@Wrobel :
Can you change the execute bonus dmg to be multiplicative with other dmg boni to solve the issue?

DjMuscleboy02

I noticed something similar in the Homestead patch with certain buffs. For example Engulfing flames barely gave me~7% (I'm a console pleb so I can't give exact percentages) buff to fire damage in my raid gear and cp spread. But when I removed CP and took off my gear, it was giving me 9.9%. Which makes me curious, is this intended with anything that is of a percentage value or are these bugged and calculating incorrectly? -- I have not tested EG in this patch, so it very well could have been fixed.