VMA 2 handed weapons must be modified in light of the removal of master stat bonuses (Suggestion)

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Anyone who has used a vMA 2h weapon recently likely shares the opinion that as it stands, the merciless charge enchantment is completley worthless and does almost no damage. In light of this, most people (like myself) choose to use double dot poisons on the 2h instead, or another poison/enchantment. Next patch, all "master" class weapons are having their extra stat bonus removed (in the vMA 2h's case, -189 WD), while at the same time being modified to retain the master enchant while simultaneously using a standard enchantment glyph or a poison. With the merciless charge enchantment hitting for almost nothing due to the absurd amount of mitigation available against it through Cp, resistances, buffs, etc, there is almost no reason whatsoever to use a vMA 2h over an asylum 2h. As such, I'd like to propose this:

Change the merciless charge enchantment to bleed damage instead of physical damage, so that it is not mitigated by every possible resistance modifier in the game.

This will give people an actual reason to use the vMA 2h next patch on certain setups, without letting it become totally eclipsed by the new asylum 2hs. People have spent heinous amounts of time grinding for these weapons, and it is important that they remain somewhat relevant and don't become forgotten golden relics sitting in banks and on mules (looking at you, master 2h).

Avran_Sylt

Yeah, that would be a pretty good change.

IAVITNI

While I would much prefer the option to retain the extra stat this is a great option as well. It just sucks for night blades as they have Ambush, and they were probably the ones that benefited most from vMSA/Master bonus stats.

I'd still like a merchant who could "suppress" the set bonus and make it the extra stats instead but thats asking for a lot tbh xD

Vapirko

It’s possible ZOS just wants to push people into doing the new content and are thus making vma weapons obsolete to help accomplish this. So idk that any amount of reasoning or requests will get them buffed again.

Qbiken

You know that "Bleed-damage" is physical damage as well right??? If you read the tooltip on all skills that are considered "Bleed-damage" they will say something in line with:

"Bleed X amount of physical damage of Y seconds"

I would just like to see the enchant being buffed by a lot or make it tick once every 0,5 second.

And to all of you complaining about those 189 spell/weapon damage: Poisons are supposed to suppress all enchants, the thing with vMA weapons was obviously a bug. Not officially stated by ZOS but you don´t need to be a genius to figure that out.
A good comparison is the way Scathing Mage used to synergies with twisting path since a part of that skill was considered a direct damage attack, which was also a bug/unintended feature. But people build their meta around a broken mechanic. ZOS fixed it after many years and now they did the same thing to vMA weapons.

Stop building your metas/builds around un-intended features/bugs and then cry when ZOS finally fix it. If 189 spell/weapon damage breaks your build then there´s something very wrong with your build.....

lynog85

Qbiken wrote: »

You know that "Bleed-damage" is physical damage as well right??? If you read the tooltip on all skills that are considered "Bleed-damage" they will say something in line with:

"Bleed X amount of physical damage of Y seconds"

I would just like to see the enchant being buffed by a lot or make it tick once every 0,5 second.

And to all of you complaining about those 189 spell/weapon damage: Poisons are supposed to suppress all enchants, the thing with vMA weapons was obviously a bug. Not officially stated by ZOS but you don´t need to be a genius to figure that out.
A good comparison is the way Scathing Mage used to synergies with twisting path since a part of that skill was considered a direct damage attack, which was also a bug/unintended feature. But people build their meta around a broken mechanic. ZOS fixed it after many years and now they did the same thing to vMA weapons.

Stop building your metas/builds around un-intended features/bugs and then cry when ZOS finally fix it. If 189 spell/weapon damage breaks your build then there´s something very wrong with your build.....

Every single thing you just wrote is either nonesense or just plain wrong.

Qbiken

lynog85 wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

You know that "Bleed-damage" is physical damage as well right??? If you read the tooltip on all skills that are considered "Bleed-damage" they will say something in line with:

"Bleed X amount of physical damage of Y seconds"

I would just like to see the enchant being buffed by a lot or make it tick once every 0,5 second.

And to all of you complaining about those 189 spell/weapon damage: Poisons are supposed to suppress all enchants, the thing with vMA weapons was obviously a bug. Not officially stated by ZOS but you don´t need to be a genius to figure that out.
A good comparison is the way Scathing Mage used to synergies with twisting path since a part of that skill was considered a direct damage attack, which was also a bug/unintended feature. But people build their meta around a broken mechanic. ZOS fixed it after many years and now they did the same thing to vMA weapons.

Stop building your metas/builds around un-intended features/bugs and then cry when ZOS finally fix it. If 189 spell/weapon damage breaks your build then there´s something very wrong with your build.....

Every single thing you just wrote is either nonesense or just plain wrong.

Some examples of sources of "Bleed-damage":

* Carve (2hander Skilline): Swat enemies in front of you with a mighty swing, dealing [x] Physical Damage and causing them to bleed for an additional [y] Physical Damage over 10 seconds.

* Twin Slashes (Dual wield skilline): Slice enemy with both weapons to cause deep lacerations, dealing [x] Physical Damage and causing them to bleed for an additional [y] Physical Damage over 9 seconds.

* Werewolf light attack bleed (Werewolf ultimate): Transform into a beast, fearing up to 3 nearby enemies for 4 seconds. While transformed, your Light Attacks cause enemies to bleed for [x] Physical Damage over 8 seconds and your Physical and Spell Resistance are increased by 9966.

Regarding Scating Mage: A popular set for magicka Nightblades a few patches ago. The reason for it was that a part ofTwisting Path (Morph of Path of Darkness) was considered a direct damage attack instead of a damage over time effect (which it actually is). That was not indented since the skill is a ground aoe dot.

Do I need to explain myself more clear???

SodanTok

Qbiken wrote: »

You know that "Bleed-damage" is physical damage as well right??? If you read the tooltip on all skills that are considered "Bleed-damage" they will say something in line with:

"Bleed X amount of physical damage of Y seconds"

I would just like to see the enchant being buffed by a lot or make it tick once every 0,5 second.

And to all of you complaining about those 189 spell/weapon damage: Poisons are supposed to suppress all enchants, the thing with vMA weapons was obviously a bug. Not officially stated by ZOS but you don´t need to be a genius to figure that out.
A good comparison is the way Scathing Mage used to synergies with twisting path since a part of that skill was considered a direct damage attack, which was also a bug/unintended feature. But people build their meta around a broken mechanic. ZOS fixed it after many years and now they did the same thing to vMA weapons.

Stop building your metas/builds around un-intended features/bugs and then cry when ZOS finally fix it. If 189 spell/weapon damage breaks your build then there´s something very wrong with your build.....

ZoS did not fix anything. Fix is disabling the interaction, which would result in fair (but lesser) share of anger, because they kept it in the game 1.5 year. They removed the damage. Learn to spot difference.

If you dont think 189 breaks build, then you understand nothing about making build.

inf.toniceb17_ESO

Aren't "bleed damage" and physical dot are the same thing and are subject to physical dmg reduction? Cuz blooddrinker buffs both and as Qbiken said, tooltip on every single bleed ability says "bleed for X physical damage"

Asardes

That wouldn't be ideal, since it would interfere with the Heavy Weapons passive bleed in case the 2H is an axe. A better solution is to simply buff the damage, by increasing the DoT value and/or adding upfront, direct damage to it. Or add some sort of utility to the effect, for example disorient. A 3rd option would be to do away with the DoT and simply add bonus damage to your Critical Charge/Stampede, in the same way Master's Greatsword adds damage to Carve/Brawler.

idk

The changes made affect all of the special weapons. Why should the 2H get special treatment.

Also, and really more important, have you tested the weapon with various enchants to see what the performance is? It's why it's on the pts first.

Asardes

idk wrote: »

The changes made affect all of the special weapons. Why should the 2H get special treatment.

Also, and really more important, have you tested the weapon with various enchants to see what the performance is? It's why it's on the pts first.

Because some of the other weapons did receive some sort of bonus to their damage after the stat bonus was removed. Namely Master weapons. Despite that, most of them are quite weak and not worth slotting over a 5/5/1 or 5/5/2 setup. They should have buffed or outright redesigned most of the effects to make them viable again. At this point the only arena weapons that are viable are Maelstrom Destro & Bow (backbar) and Master Resto & Bow. And that's only for PvE. 2H is overwhelmingly used in PvP, and there's no PvE content where you need Critical Rush.

Izaki

Either that OR simply increase the DoT damage value by A LOT.

GaunterODim

Qbiken wrote: »

"Bleed X amount of physical damage of Y seconds"

Regarding Scating Mage: A popular set for magicka Nightblades a few patches ago. The reason for it was that a part ofTwisting Path (Morph of Path of Darkness) was considered a direct damage attack instead of a damage over time effect (which it actually is). That was not indented since the skill is a ground aoe dot.

Bleeding is different from normal physical damage because it ignores armor resistances.

And your comparison to scathing is really not a good example because scathing was indeed performing that well on nightblades because of a bug, but the vma 2h having weapon damage/its enchantment was never a bug and fully intended. They simply changed it.

And I actually miss the bug with path of darkness, as it gave nightblades some uniqueness in pve builds. Now it just plain Julianos again

Izaki

Qbiken wrote: »

You know that "Bleed-damage" is physical damage as well right??? If you read the tooltip on all skills that are considered "Bleed-damage" they will say something in line with:

"Bleed X amount of physical damage of Y seconds"

I would just like to see the enchant being buffed by a lot or make it tick once every 0,5 second.

And to all of you complaining about those 189 spell/weapon damage: Poisons are supposed to suppress all enchants, the thing with vMA weapons was obviously a bug. Not officially stated by ZOS but you don´t need to be a genius to figure that out.
A good comparison is the way Scathing Mage used to synergies with twisting path since a part of that skill was considered a direct damage attack, which was also a bug/unintended feature. But people build their meta around a broken mechanic. ZOS fixed it after many years and now they did the same thing to vMA weapons.

Stop building your metas/builds around un-intended features/bugs and then cry when ZOS finally fix it. If 189 spell/weapon damage breaks your build then there´s something very wrong with your build.....

@Qbiken

It specifically said in the Dark Brotherhood patch notes that Poisons will not suppress the stat bonuses provided by Maelstrom and Master weapons. So it was not a bug it was intended and written in the patch notes. Proof:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

NEW FEATURES / UPDATES / BIG CHANGES

Base Game Patch

Poison-Making
You can now use the Alchemy system to create a wide array of dangerous poisons! Using new and existing reagents mixed together in a new type of solvent (oils), these poisons can be equipped alongside wielded weapon sets and have a chance to be applied to your enemy during each heavy or light attack of the associated weapon(s).

• Poisons, unlike other equipped items, are consumed as they are applied.
• Poisons are also subject to dilution, with each effect becoming less potent as more effects are added.
• Oils are sourced from various deadly monsters throughout Tamriel.
• The new reagents have been added to many critters and monsters throughout Tamriel, and create multiple new effects for both potions and poisons.
• While a weapon set has a poison equipped, any weapon enchantments on that weapon set are temporarily suppressed.
  • Master’s Weapons and Maelstrom Weapons have their unique-ability modifying effect suppressed, while their stat bonus is not suppressed.
• Weapon tooltips have been updated to support poisons.
  • When a poison is equipped, the weapon enchant and charge will be suppressed and replaced by the poison description and count.
• Added indicators for Armor Durability, and Weapon Charge/Poison.
  • On a side note: When any piece of equipped armor is broken, an indicator will appear near the ability bar.
  • When a weapon for your current weapon set has no poisons equipped and runs out of weapon charge, an indicator will appear near the ability bar.

From https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/261799/pts-patch-notes-v2-4-0/p1
Post #3, Poison-Making Section (the one after Veteran Rank removal).

So it was officially stated by ZOS that vMA and vDSA weapons will keep their stat bonuses but not their ability altering enchantments when a Poison is equipped.

Bleed Damage is physical damage indeed. However, it is a specific type of physical damage that ignores enemy physical resistances. So I don't know what you were trying to prove with all your other posts in this thread, but if your aim was to prove that Bleeds don't ignore resistances just because they are physical damage, then you are wrong. Its actually fairly easy to test. Apply Rending Slashes on a target and then put Major Fracture on the target and you'll see that the DoT ticks are at the exact same values. Or if you're on a class that doesn't have easy access to Major Fracture, then apply Rending Slashes with a 4 piece Spinner and then with the 5 piece Spinner, and you'll see that the DoT ticks stay unchanged. If you don't have Spinner, then put 50 points into Piercing and apply Rending Slashes, then take out all the points from Piercing and put them into Staff Expert and you'll see that the DoT tick damage stay the same.

React

Qbiken wrote: »

You know that "Bleed-damage" is physical damage as well right??? If you read the tooltip on all skills that are considered "Bleed-damage" they will say something in line with:

"Bleed X amount of physical damage of Y seconds"

I would just like to see the enchant being buffed by a lot or make it tick once every 0,5 second.

And to all of you complaining about those 189 spell/weapon damage: Poisons are supposed to suppress all enchants, the thing with vMA weapons was obviously a bug. Not officially stated by ZOS but you don´t need to be a genius to figure that out.
A good comparison is the way Scathing Mage used to synergies with twisting path since a part of that skill was considered a direct damage attack, which was also a bug/unintended feature. But people build their meta around a broken mechanic. ZOS fixed it after many years and now they did the same thing to vMA weapons.

Stop building your metas/builds around un-intended features/bugs and then cry when ZOS finally fix it. If 189 spell/weapon damage breaks your build then there´s something very wrong with your build.....

Welp, as other people have said: bleed damage is a different type of physical damage not affected by resistances. The vma enchant is simply a physical dot, thus it is affected by resistances.

Also, the poison/stat bonus was intended, not a bug.

Care to retract your false and non-constructive comments?

Qbiken

Liam12548 wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

You know that "Bleed-damage" is physical damage as well right??? If you read the tooltip on all skills that are considered "Bleed-damage" they will say something in line with:

"Bleed X amount of physical damage of Y seconds"

I would just like to see the enchant being buffed by a lot or make it tick once every 0,5 second.

And to all of you complaining about those 189 spell/weapon damage: Poisons are supposed to suppress all enchants, the thing with vMA weapons was obviously a bug. Not officially stated by ZOS but you don´t need to be a genius to figure that out.
A good comparison is the way Scathing Mage used to synergies with twisting path since a part of that skill was considered a direct damage attack, which was also a bug/unintended feature. But people build their meta around a broken mechanic. ZOS fixed it after many years and now they did the same thing to vMA weapons.

Stop building your metas/builds around un-intended features/bugs and then cry when ZOS finally fix it. If 189 spell/weapon damage breaks your build then there´s something very wrong with your build.....

Welp, as other people have said: bleed damage is a different type of physical damage not affected by resistances. The vma enchant is simply a physical dot, thus it is affected by resistances.

Also, the poison/stat bonus was intended, not a bug.

Care to retract your false and non-constructive comments?

I´ve no problem to admit when I´m wrong about things, and this time I was wrong

TheYKcid

This is a great suggestion. Would improve the viability of the vMA 2H without altering its gameplay "flavour" at all!

You have my support.

Also, SMH at the people who don't understand the difference between bleed and physical damage despite it being stated in the opening post.

Yiko

The VMA 2H effect can crit on live, but since it's being changed to an item set effect, would that mean it can no longer crit?

I saw that they're buffing the damage from 4300 to 6000 or so, but if it can't crit, I don't see this as much of a buff

IAVITNI

Asardes wrote: »

idk wrote: »

The changes made affect all of the special weapons. Why should the 2H get special treatment.

Also, and really more important, have you tested the weapon with various enchants to see what the performance is? It's why it's on the pts first.

Because some of the other weapons did receive some sort of bonus to their damage after the stat bonus was removed. Namely Master weapons. Despite that, most of them are quite weak and not worth slotting over a 5/5/1 or 5/5/2 setup. They should have buffed or outright redesigned most of the effects to make them viable again. At this point the only arena weapons that are viable are Maelstrom Destro & Bow (backbar) and Master Resto & Bow. And that's only for PvE. 2H is overwhelmingly used in PvP, and there's no PvE content where you need Critical Rush.

Most people run poisons on their VMA 2h. I'd argue the majority run poisons. So basically, no vMA or weapon is used in PvP.

TheYKcid

Yiko wrote: »

The VMA 2H effect can crit on live, but since it's being changed to an item set effect, would that mean it can no longer crit?

I saw that they're buffing the damage from 4300 to 6000 or so, but if it can't crit, I don't see this as much of a buff

I've also been wondering about this issue.

Can someone check this on the PTS and let us know?

6000 over 5s is already a very meh effect. If it can't crit, ala proc sets, then it makes it even more underwhelming...

Asardes

TheYKcid wrote: »

Yiko wrote: »

The VMA 2H effect can crit on live, but since it's being changed to an item set effect, would that mean it can no longer crit?

I saw that they're buffing the damage from 4300 to 6000 or so, but if it can't crit, I don't see this as much of a buff

I've also been wondering about this issue.

Can someone check this on the PTS and let us know?

6000 over 5s is already a very meh effect. If it can't crit, ala proc sets, then it makes it even more underwhelming...

It can't for sure. And it's halved by battle spirit, and halved again by player's resistances, especially in CP. So you are looking ad 250-300 DPS doT that can't crit. That's so weak is barely debuffs ... your health recovery

GrigorijMalahevich

The whole point of vMA two hand melee weapons is PvP. Nobody is going to use a gap closer in PvE

After reading all comments - my personal opinion that WD/SD bonus should stay with poisons

sluice

The bonus has to be good enough to make it worth considering slotting Crit Rush/Stampede instead of Ambush. As it stands absolutely no reason to slot a vMA on a nightblade, except for the look and to brag about how you wasted weeks running vMA (dying a little on the inside, each run).

Not even sure if hanging this to bleed would be enough...

Smmokkee

Vapirko wrote: »

It’s possible ZOS just wants to push people into doing the new content and are thus making vma weapons obsolete to help accomplish this. So idk that any amount of reasoning or requests will get them buffed again.

Its not gonna make me grind ***.

Smmokkee

Even with the buff its still crap. Rip maelstrom 2h. All that work for nothing.

Urza1234

TheYKcid wrote: »

This is a great suggestion. Would improve the viability of the vMA 2H without altering its gameplay "flavour" at all!

You have my support.

Also, SMH at the people who don't understand the difference between bleed and physical damage despite it being stated in the opening post.

Its not as if the ESO development team makes this kind of information clear, and there are so many misinformed people on the forums that community information on things like this is at best contradictory. Literally the only way to be sure of these kinds of mechanics is to either test every forum rumor yourself, which with some mechanics requires an addon, or to trust one of the occasional beneficent autism posts that test and source.

Trashs1

Smmokkee wrote: »

Even with the buff its still crap. Rip maelstrom 2h. All that work for nothing.

im with u bro.. i completed vma first time 3 montths ago and got my perfect weapons 2 months ago... was fun the time it lasted...

preedb16_ESO2

When you people come with your suggestions, could you PLEASE also consider PVE and not only think about how things work in PVP? Some of us don't want PVE to be nerfed every time there are balance issues with PVP..

React

preedb16_ESO2 wrote: »

When you people come with your suggestions, could you PLEASE also consider PVE and not only think about how things work in PVP? Some of us don't want PVE to be nerfed every time there are balance issues with PVP..

Tell me, how does this suggestion negatively impact pve? And after that tell me, who would use a vMA 2h over an asylum 2h in PVE? (Not that most stam use 2h to begin with, dw/bow is still the meta).

CyrusArya

sluice wrote: »

The bonus has to be good enough to make it worth considering slotting Crit Rush/Stampede instead of Ambush. As it stands absolutely no reason to slot a vMA on a nightblade, except for the look and to brag about how you wasted weeks running vMA (dying a little on the inside, each run).

Not even sure if hanging this to bleed would be enough...

Stampede is better than ambush with or without the vma 2h in my opinion. It's quite a lot cheaper and the snare is also brutal. Nightblades are all about control, so I can't see myself passing up the free CC for an empower that'll be wasted on light attack anyways. Ambush does look and feel cooler though. In practice, stampede will secure more kill however.