Monthly Combat Update – November

Qbiken

Goal: Improving Off Balance + Heavy Attacks •Test the following changes, with the end goal to have Off Balance be more useful for everyone: •Effect is only consumed if the target is knocked down from a Heavy Attack
•Attacking an Off Balance enemy with a Heavy Attack restores 2x resources
•After Off Balance ends, the target is immune for a period of time

•Test making the following changes to make Heavy Attacks feel better: •Shorten the Heavy Attack cooldown to approximately 300ms from 700ms
•Shorten the global cast speed penalty of Heavy Attacks to 50% from 75%

I´m not sure if this is good or bad for magDK?? Some people says this is good some says it´s bad......

Rickter

idk why everyone keeps saying to buff magDKs. who do you think is doing the perma blocking? MagDKs are sooooo strong right now. they can cast every single one of their skills from block. Sets like shacklebreaker give them ample stam sustain.

I suggested this before, and I'll go ahead and suggest it again because all the PvE'ers are freaking out about their tank builds - Shattering Blows - its an existing CP point allocation - right now all it does is more dmg to shielded opponents: make it so it ALSO does more dmg to blocking opponents.

BOOM problem solved. no need to look at block costs, just make it something that people have to spec into.

Qbiken

Rickter wrote: »

idk why everyone keeps saying to buff magDKs. who do you think is doing the perma blocking? MagDKs are sooooo strong right now. they can cast every single one of their skills from block. Sets like shacklebreaker give them ample stam sustain.

I suggested this before, and I'll go ahead and suggest it again because all the PvE'ers are freaking out about their tank builds - Shattering Blows - its an existing CP point allocation - right now all it does is more dmg to shielded opponents: make it so it ALSO does more dmg to blocking opponents.

BOOM problem solved. no need to look at block costs, just make it something that people have to spec into.

I think most "Buff magDK" - posts are made with a PvE perspective in mind. I´m no expert at PvP, but from what I can get from people on the forums magDK are more or less forced into the permablocking playstyle (with a few exceptions ofc)atm.

spikesaurus

Thankyou for the communication. I would like to see this continue.

Something to keep in mind, particularly with the synergies (or anything that requires very effective timing): "Players should always know where a synergy is"
This is always going to be very hard to do for a number of players. ( anyone who plays PC-NA that isn't in NA. Such as Asia & Australia. ) We are often playing with 360-490 ping and anything that requires being in the right place at the right time with only a second or two to work with on a moving synergy is going to be really hard.

It would be lovely if when i press "x" for synergy i actually get it though... (or not die to something that hasn't spawned on my screen yet, lols).

Solariken

Rickter wrote: »

idk why everyone keeps saying to buff magDKs. who do you think is doing the perma blocking? MagDKs are sooooo strong right now. they can cast every single one of their skills from block. Sets like shacklebreaker give them ample stam sustain.

I suggested this before, and I'll go ahead and suggest it again because all the PvE'ers are freaking out about their tank builds - Shattering Blows - its an existing CP point allocation - right now all it does is more dmg to shielded opponents: make it so it ALSO does more dmg to blocking opponents.

BOOM problem solved. no need to look at block costs, just make it something that people have to spec into.

Sadly this would hurt normal builds way more than block builds. Normal builds need a buff to blocking, not a nerf.

Rickter

Solariken wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

idk why everyone keeps saying to buff magDKs. who do you think is doing the perma blocking? MagDKs are sooooo strong right now. they can cast every single one of their skills from block. Sets like shacklebreaker give them ample stam sustain.

I suggested this before, and I'll go ahead and suggest it again because all the PvE'ers are freaking out about their tank builds - Shattering Blows - its an existing CP point allocation - right now all it does is more dmg to shielded opponents: make it so it ALSO does more dmg to blocking opponents.

BOOM problem solved. no need to look at block costs, just make it something that people have to spec into.

Sadly this would hurt normal builds way more than block builds. Normal builds need a buff to blocking, not a nerf.

I dont think it would. Its somthing you have to spec into. Idk many people going HAM with shattering blows as is. Its valuable blue cp points that one would need to allocate into a niche specialization.

And what do you mean by “normal” builds? The perma block build is readily available to all via youtube and alcast build guides. I hardly ever run into a “normal” blocker, its 1vX unkillable or not.

Solariken

Rickter wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

idk why everyone keeps saying to buff magDKs. who do you think is doing the perma blocking? MagDKs are sooooo strong right now. they can cast every single one of their skills from block. Sets like shacklebreaker give them ample stam sustain.

I suggested this before, and I'll go ahead and suggest it again because all the PvE'ers are freaking out about their tank builds - Shattering Blows - its an existing CP point allocation - right now all it does is more dmg to shielded opponents: make it so it ALSO does more dmg to blocking opponents.

BOOM problem solved. no need to look at block costs, just make it something that people have to spec into.

Sadly this would hurt normal builds way more than block builds. Normal builds need a buff to blocking, not a nerf.

I dont think it would. Its somthing you have to spec into. Idk many people going HAM with shattering blows as is. Its valuable blue cp points that one would need to allocate into a niche specialization.

And what do you mean by “normal” builds? The perma block build is readily available to all via youtube and alcast build guides. I hardly ever run into a “normal” blocker, its 1vX unkillable or not.

Any non-1h/s build would feel this as a huge nerf when trying to survive things like Meteor, Soul Assault, CFrag, etc. Perma-block builds would barely see a dent in survivability.

Rickter

Solariken wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

idk why everyone keeps saying to buff magDKs. who do you think is doing the perma blocking? MagDKs are sooooo strong right now. they can cast every single one of their skills from block. Sets like shacklebreaker give them ample stam sustain.

I suggested this before, and I'll go ahead and suggest it again because all the PvE'ers are freaking out about their tank builds - Shattering Blows - its an existing CP point allocation - right now all it does is more dmg to shielded opponents: make it so it ALSO does more dmg to blocking opponents.

BOOM problem solved. no need to look at block costs, just make it something that people have to spec into.

Sadly this would hurt normal builds way more than block builds. Normal builds need a buff to blocking, not a nerf.

I dont think it would. Its somthing you have to spec into. Idk many people going HAM with shattering blows as is. Its valuable blue cp points that one would need to allocate into a niche specialization.

And what do you mean by “normal” builds? The perma block build is readily available to all via youtube and alcast build guides. I hardly ever run into a “normal” blocker, its 1vX unkillable or not.

Any non-1h/s build would feel this as a huge nerf when trying to survive things like Meteor, Soul Assault, CFrag, etc. Perma-block builds would barely see a dent in survivability.

Ah yeah i wasnt looking at it from the ultimate pov. Good points. Poor devs. Having to figure this all out. I guess thats why they get paid the big bucks

VelociousLegend

This is awesome! I love the deeper communication and engagement with the player base. It'll allow us to get better insight into why certain changes are coming in future patches while also providing players additional time to give our feedback.

Please continue to do this!

Bladerunner1

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*] Test making the following changes to make Heavy Attacks feel better:

• Shorten the Heavy Attack cooldown to approximately 300ms from 700ms
• Shorten the global cast speed penalty of Heavy Attacks to 50% from 75%

[/list]

Those changes sound pretty awesome, I'd like to point out that all the two hand weapons lag behind when it comes to DPS with heavy attack weaving. Bows in particular are way behind with heavy attack weaving as far as DPS goes.

DPS with dual wield seems already geared for heavy attacking as BIS. 2H weapons like greatswords seem somewhat balanced between pure light attack builds and heavy attack weaving builds.

Extinct_Solo_Player

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*] Synergies are the way to help groups be stronger than solo players, damage and resource sustain should always be better while in a group

Just lol

because outnumbering a solo player isn't strong enough is it?
Lets just carry mindless players who already abuse broken abilities coupled with siphoner and befouled cp to a point where player skill is even more irrelevant...

_Salty_

Not sure why everyone has a problem with Perma blocking. Just walk away.

I've never been killed by a Perma blocker. If someone wants to trade damage or sustain for blocking reduction they should be able to.

Rickter

_Salty_ wrote: »

Not sure why everyone has a problem with Perma blocking. Just walk away.

I've never been killed by a Perma blocker. If someone wants to trade damage or sustain for blocking reduction they should be able to.

have you ever fought a perma blocking magDK that can do 5.5k whips and dragon leap you for 12k? double those numbers with Emperor buffs.

Lemme tell ya, its pretty hard to just "walk away". . .

Aedaryl

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Hello, thanks to share with the community all that work.

Since you are buffing off balance and interrupt, is the two longest interruptable cast time ablities that make the target off balanced, meaning sorcerer pets (1.5s) will have something to compensate ?


You are killing PvP pet sorc if you don't reduce the cast time of "summon Unstable Familiar" and "Summon Winged Twilight".

The build is already weak and considered non viable by most player. Can you please tell us if there will be a change to theze 2 cast time abilities ?

Please, I know pets in PvP aren't popular at all, but we need to know if you are thinking about pets in cyrodill and the huge impact of theze future changes.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno @Wrobel

goldenarcher1

Thread.

Pinja

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We’d like to begin giving you a bit more insight as to what the combat team is currently working on, save for any new features or systems that we simply aren’t ready to discuss yet. The plan is to make a new post similar to this each month. In order for this to work, though, everyone must understand that this is all work in development and has a high probability to change. As long as discussions stay civil, we’ll continue posting these updates.

With that said, below are a few things (not everything!) the combat team is currently working on for Update 17.

Goal: Improve Synergies

• Ensure that when players are prompted to use a synergy, they can always use it
• Players should always know where a synergy is; working to improve visual effects to support this
• Group mates shouldn’t have to fight each other to use a synergy
• When players use a synergy, it should fire immediately with no delay
• Synergies are the way to help groups be stronger than solo players, damage and resource sustain should always be better while in a group
• Review and standardize balance for synergy abilities; Ultimate synergies should be stronger than regular abilities

Goal: Improve Interrupt

• Add a stun to interrupts – if a player gets interrupted, they get stunned (and therefore get CC immunity when they break it)
• Add a short cooldown to an interrupted ability to add interesting gameplay to interrupts
• Add interrupt telegraphs to cast time abilities when players are not CC immune

Goal: Investigating Perma-blocking

• Adjust the block calculations so that cost reduction happens first (might have to reduce the block cost slightly as a result)
• Investigate adding something to Champion passives, or an item set to increase the block cost

Qbiken wrote: »

Goal: Improving Off Balance + Heavy Attacks •Test the following changes, with the end goal to have Off Balance be more useful for everyone: •Effect is only consumed if the target is knocked down from a Heavy Attack
•Attacking an Off Balance enemy with a Heavy Attack restores 2x resources
•After Off Balance ends, the target is immune for a period of time

•Test making the following changes to make Heavy Attacks feel better: •Shorten the Heavy Attack cooldown to approximately 300ms from 700ms
•Shorten the global cast speed penalty of Heavy Attacks to 50% from 75%

I´m not sure if this is good or bad for magDK?? Some people says this is good some says it´s bad......

It's good.

Pinja

Aedaryl wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Hello, thanks to share with the community all that work.

Since you are buffing off balance and interrupt, is the two longest interruptable cast time ablities that make the target off balanced, meaning sorcerer pets (1.5s) will have something to compensate ?


You are killing PvP pet sorc if you don't reduce the cast time of "summon Unstable Familiar" and "Summon Winged Twilight".

The build is already weak and considered non viable by most player. Can you please tell us if there will be a change to theze 2 cast time abilities ?

Please, I know pets in PvP aren't popular at all, but we need to know if you are thinking about pets in cyrodill and the huge impact of theze future changes.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno @Wrobel

It wouldn't have been 'killing', it would've already been dead. Don't exaggerate the work of a Necromancer. -Pinja

Joy_Division

Nice surpise. Have to say I like this new communication and welcome it.

Since we are on the subject of communication, these are my thought s take them for what you will:

Improved Synergies: I would say out of all the things you list here, this is what I would attach the most priority too, and yes, I PvP in Vivek every night with "perma-blockers". Synergies are *that* frustrating. I am afraid of missing global cooldowns when DPSing, in PvP I am afraid of doing nothing for a global cooldown that can get me killed.

Improved Interrupt: Perhaps I am not understanding, but what is listed here does not sound improved. You say, "Add a stun to interrupts – if a player gets interrupted, they get stunned (and therefore get CC immunity when they break it)." I don't like that because it is removing a punishment for a player who takes a poor risk and chooses to use an interruptible ability. They get interrupted, too bad, that don't get CC immunity. Make smarter choices next time.

What has me most concerned is this: "Add interrupt telegraphs to cast time abilities when players are not CC immune" Wait, why this? Are you planning on making CC immune targets immune to interruption as well? Currently, someone can have CC immunity and still be subject to interruption, which is I would argue how it needs to work. Otherwise people who are CC immune get off like 3 rezzes without fear of interruption or a templar in Kags with an immovable pot can get off like a dozen. And there should be a counter to that Templar spamming Jesus Beam aside fro "never CC him so you can interrupt." Please tell me I am interrupting this incorrectly @ZOS_GinaBruno

Investigating Perma-blocking: I understand a lot of PvP complain about this, but ZoS has tried multiple times to address this issue and game balance has suffered for it. What is in place now is that blocking is prohibitively expensive for the very people that are not abusing block. DKs and Templars main defense is block, and every time there is a nerf to blocking, you are nerfing these classes and just making Nightblades and Sorcerers the more attractive choices because while those classes can't block, at least they can escape.

My templar no longer has major mending, blinding flashes, Blazing spear stun, purify nerfed, class shield useless on anything but a 50K health build, my main DPS skills still suffer from a scaling bug for months now, and we all know in the next patch will be more undocumented nerfs, and now you want to make a universal nerf to the main way I defend myself? No way. Give me back my class before block gets nerfed. Look at the DK players nodding their heads.

Improving Off Balance + Heavy Attacks : The first thing I would suggest is to make the visual cue for an off balance target more obvious and conspicuous if this mechanic is going to be so important. It's hard to see those swirly waves around a target's head.

I like the idea of a larger resource return to add some tactics.

It sounds like you want to make heavy attacks feel more like standard skills and less boring. Improving their speed is a start, but I think actually executing a heavy attack to do something interesting and exciting is what's needed to make these actually fun to use as opposed to tedious things we must do because of Morrowind nerfs. And, as a bonus, here is a possibility to do something unprecedented since 1.6: ADD something interesting and distinctive to the classes. Maybe DK heavy attacks have a chance for an explosion, NBs a lingering bleed damage, etc.

In any event, glad to finally see something like this.

strebor2095

I would also like to add that the option to "select" synergy would be amazing. Maybe it could be Ctrl-X will cycle through? Then release to cast the synergy you are displaying.

Insanepirate01

This is awesome. Love the communication. Even if I don't agree with some of the changes its great to be given a heads up and to see what direction the games heading in.

Idinuse

In regards to Synergies and being locked up in Channeled or Cast Time skills, would it be possible to allow us to press i.e. "E" while in the channel or casting and pick it up while channeling/casting (multi tasking)? Or my favourite, remove all cast time skills from Templars.

Savos_Saren

Rickter wrote: »

_Salty_ wrote: »

Not sure why everyone has a problem with Perma blocking. Just walk away.

I've never been killed by a Perma blocker. If someone wants to trade damage or sustain for blocking reduction they should be able to.

have you ever fought a perma blocking magDK that can do 5.5k whips and dragon leap you for 12k? double those numbers with Emperor buffs.

Lemme tell ya, its pretty hard to just "walk away". . .

I can tell you that, as an mDK, I've been killed by more executes than whips. I've also wasted countless amounts of ultimate only to have a Dragon Leap fail because of the Y Axis bug. I've been wrecked by abilities like Subterranean Assault for 8k, spammable Surprise Attack, and blasted by unreflectable birds that eat all my stamina. I've watched all my DoTs get purged by the simple flick of a Templar's wrist. I've seen Nightblades, Sorcs, and Wardens zoom out of my reach with their expedition skills. I've anguished as every single one of my abilities has been dodged by perma-dodgers.

...all that said: I do hate permablockers, too. But mDKs are effectively pigeon-holed into whatever can make them survive. You named the only two abilities that are effective on an mDK. And the only way they can survive long enough to use those... is to block. If they nerf blocking and off balance- then what does an mDK have to work with? Stunningly good looks?

Rickter

jaburns wrote: »

You named the only two abilities that are effective on an mDK. And the only way they can survive long enough to use those... is to block. If they nerf blocking and off balance- then what does an mDK have to work with? Stunningly good looks?

besides your obvious good looks, are you trying to say that Burning Embers epic burst heal, fossilize (still one of the better CC's in the game), and talons arent Mag DK strengths? inhale needs notable mention as well.

Ive played magdk, quite a bit actually and they are power houses in a lot of ways

Ranger209

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Goal: Investigating Perma-blocking

• Adjust the block calculations so that cost reduction happens first (might have to reduce the block cost slightly as a result)
• Investigate adding something to Champion passives, or an item set to increase the block cost

As far as a Champion passive I think this makes sense

Shattering Blows

Increases your damage against targets with a damage shield by [x]% or reduce the block cost reduction of a blocking target by [x]%.

It is possible to reduce block by some 2100 points of stamina from 2160 to under 50. If you reduce that number by 25%
your 2100 saved stamina points for blocking now become 1575 points of saved stamina leaving the cost at roughly 600 stamina rather than 49 or whatever you can get it down to. My first thought was to increase the cost of block by up to 100% which works on perma blockers but penalizes people who don't spec into block cost reduction to the point that it could cost 4320 stamina if they have no reduction whatsoever. By reducing the flat value of the reduction it impacts those specing into block reduction and not really harming those who don't as much. Maybe 25% would be too much I'm not sure, but this could be tweaked to x/2 or x/4% so that it is more of a 300 or 150 stam cost. Could look at reducing the charge to twice a second rather than 4 times a second as well to balance. Lots of ways to get to the desired value some that would improve the PVE aspect of trial blocking. If my numbers are off adjust as needed, but pretty sure its been shown you can achieve less than 50 points of stam per block tick.

_Salty_

All of these tears shed regarding Perma block builds yet Sorc shields remain untouched. No class couples damage mitigation and burst potential with zero drawbacks like a Sorc.

But hey, let's adjust block cost again and not touch Sorcs. A block build has to be Taylor made to be effective with drawbacks while a Sorc just stacks magicka and Presto!! Huge shields and high burst and escape ability.

Savos_Saren

Rickter wrote: »

jaburns wrote: »

You named the only two abilities that are effective on an mDK. And the only way they can survive long enough to use those... is to block. If they nerf blocking and off balance- then what does an mDK have to work with? Stunningly good looks?

besides your obvious good looks, are you trying to say that Burning Embers epic burst heal, fossilize (still one of the better CC's in the game), and talons arent Mag DK strengths? inhale needs notable mention as well.

Ive played magdk, quite a bit actually and they are power houses in a lot of ways

Burning Embers is good if it's not purged, dodged, or lessed by CP (let's not forget that unlike magPlars- it actually requires a target for the heal). Fossilize is now a joke (I'm sure most people even laughed at the comment "cut off your hands to make you appreciate your feet"- in regards to the fossilize nerf to make stone fist more appealing). And Talons is only a CC- the damage output from the ability is laughable and the off-balance attack that mDKs get from Talons to assist with Flame Lash (that only makes it worth a damn for the DK) is now being reconsidered.

SirCritical

Rickter wrote: »

SirCritical wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

I think i speak for the entire enthusiastic pvp community when i say: thank you zos from the bottom of our hearts

I like you guys, really. I like your enthusiasm in fighting other real players, not just AI bots, with pre-programmed actions. Really. I like when you have 5-10 fun fight per evening, your desire to rule over another person, your duels are interesting to see from outside also.

BUT!

I hate when the changes (nerfs) by ZOS, made because of your enjoyed activity (PvP), makes our bossfights a nightmare.

Out of all the thank yous on the last 5 pages, you singled mine out? Im damn flattered!!

In any case, when you do tire of AI bots, and trust me you will, then i pray you provide me with the opportunity of leading you into glorious battle, in the name of the High King, and bring peace to the land. I will teach you everything i know and mold you like clay into steel. You will be the tip of the spear, stand at my side as the bulwark against the terror, and know no fear.

Well, you were the last who commented, when I checked the discussion, that's why I reacted to yours

And you got an awesome from me because of enthusiasm

zyk

Also investigate: faction stacks and pvdooring for oticks.

Pinja

To everyone commenting on 'only changes to battle spirit' needs to understand Pvp content is harder then Pve, if you make changes to battlespirit that makes survival less comfortable then Pve you'll make the adaptation from one zone to another harder, perhaps less fun. That whole indicator thing is a scream stating that is not the direction you want to go in.
& EP's army screams tanking is a noobs base learn, so both environments ought to be susceptible 2 changes.

Before a further look at it though I need clarification on that whole calculate general reduction thing.
Is it:
A. (DefaultBlockCost - DBC*ReduceCostPersentage - FlatCostReduction)
B. (DBC -FCR -(FCR+DBC)*RCP)
C. (DBC -FCR -FCR*RCP)
With the change lowing the DBC so the RCP dosen't range as high
Or is it a more direct change to the calculator, were reduction only applies on the first few frames.

D. 2*(InitialBlockCost= DBC -FCR -(FCR+DBC)*RCP)+ (X-2)*(DBC) (X=Block frames)

Were if you run cost reduction it'll only apply on the first hit. So you'd have to unblock & reblock, or loose stam.
Providing a window to be attacked in Pvp, Being 2 little or as dangerous as a heavy attack or taunt frame in Pve. Forcing block builds to multitask & be more skillful with out too aggressive a punishment if they cant.
Imagine it like a more merciful roll dodge penalty for perema blockers Instead of having successive increases, you just return them to default that way you don't mess up regular on inbetween builds dependency on blocking & fix the full cost reduce Perma block issue.
Especially being I don't know of too many FCRs to make a large effect in the calculator anyway.

MyrddinEmrys

Honestly, I feel as if this would make off balance useless to the point of obsolescence, so I am not in favor of those changes.

HOWEVER: Making synergies actually work reliably would be my #1 suggestion for improving combat. So good on you for that one ZOS.