Balancing Ultimate Regeneration

Anazasi

Since launch, ESO has spent an extremely large amount of time balancing Ultimate regeneration. We have seen several modifications to this important feature of the game; ranging from dynamic regeneration to specific periods when a player could regenerate. However, nothing has been done to balance the classes. In 2017 the current meta “destro balls” has become a plague on the PVP landscape. When we look at the efforts thus far in November of 2017 we see that ZOS has simply followed the same logic and continue to look at the ability “destro Ultimate” as the source of the issue. However no one seems to understand that the groups running the meta are only taking advantage of 1 particular class in order to achieve the successful meta. The Nightblade class, although a favorite of the ZOS upper management, has one distinct advantage over all other classes: Ultimate regeneration. What I am proposing is not a complete neutering of the class but rather a balanced process that makes the nightblade equal to all the other classes. When you look at the passive lines for the class you see they have one passive that needs to be removed: Catalyst at rank 2 allows a nightblade to gain 20 ultimate. Many would disagree with this but in a 3 minute fight thats 60 ultimate which if calculated along with the other passive Transfer activating a Siphoning ability grants 2 ultimate every 4 seconds bring the total class ultimate recover to 90 adding this recover to the Catalyst recovers 150 ultimate total in 3 minutes without even counting in kills from the ability soul harvest which grants 7 ultimate every time they kill a player. It is obvious that this class recovers ultimate faster than any other class in the game and this is where the balance focus should be. The counter argument is ever class has a method for recovering ultimate. Yes every class does and I do believe that Nightblades should have a slight advantage because of the nature of the class and its overall dynamic roll in ESO. However no class has a passive ability that allows them to recover 20 ultimate ever 47 seconds. If this passive ability were removed the effectiveness of the current “Destro Ball” meta would be broken. All the classes would be balanced as far as ultimate regeneration.

Breton 3% reduced magic cost
Light Armor 5 piece bonus 10% magic cost reduction

Destro Ultimate cost without other set bonus. 218

48 second recovery = 42 ultimate every 48 seconds just from class passives.

But we should also count the ultimate regeneration from light and heavy attacks. 3 per second with the light heavy combat buff which over 48 seconds is another 144 ultimate before the next potion is activated and the cycle begins again. This makes for a grand total of 186 out of 218 needed in 48 seconds. If all the players tag at least 2 players with AOE damage and the targets die they will gain up to another 34 ultimate for kills. Which allows them again to cast the destro ultimate once every minute. In the grand scheme of life perhaps the extra 20 ultimate from the Catalyst passive isn’t that huge of a deal, But the game is about balance and it is clearly a distinct advantage for the class especially in large group play. Running a group of 16 with 50% to 60% of the comp are nightblade destro spammers. The natural gravitation to this class and the current meta exists only because of the class ultimate regeneration advantage which means the mechanics should be addressed and balanced. Removing the ultimate bonus from Catalyst should be the first step taken by ZOS before attempting any other change to any ability. Please understand this is about balance not about nerfing. Would this make a difference perhaps only in seconds but overall the effect would be to allow 2 opposing groups of players the opportunity to recover ultimates in order to continue fighting.

Turelus

Anazasi wrote: »

The Nightblade class, although a favorite of the ZOS upper management

Wait, I thought we were all running with everyone at ZOS played Magicka Sorcs, when did we change and why didn't I get the memo.

On topic. I think AoE ultimates which following you around and out damage all other ultimates might be the issue, not how fast players can achieve them.

kkravaritieb17_ESO

Anazasi wrote: »

Since launch, ESO has spent an extremely large amount of time balancing Ultimate regeneration. We have seen several modifications to this important feature of the game; ranging from dynamic regeneration to specific periods when a player could regenerate. However, nothing has been done to balance the classes. In 2017 the current meta “destro balls” has become a plague on the PVP landscape. When we look at the efforts thus far in November of 2017 we see that ZOS has simply followed the same logic and continue to look at the ability “destro Ultimate” as the source of the issue. However no one seems to understand that the groups running the meta are only taking advantage of 1 particular class in order to achieve the successful meta. The Nightblade class, although a favorite of the ZOS upper management, has one distinct advantage over all other classes: Ultimate regeneration. What I am proposing is not a complete neutering of the class but rather a balanced process that makes the nightblade equal to all the other classes. When you look at the passive lines for the class you see they have one passive that needs to be removed: Catalyst at rank 2 allows a nightblade to gain 20 ultimate. Many would disagree with this but in a 3 minute fight thats 60 ultimate which if calculated along with the other passive Transfer activating a Siphoning ability grants 2 ultimate every 4 seconds bring the total class ultimate recover to 90 adding this recover to the Catalyst recovers 150 ultimate total in 3 minutes without even counting in kills from the ability soul harvest which grants 7 ultimate every time they kill a player. It is obvious that this class recovers ultimate faster than any other class in the game and this is where the balance focus should be. The counter argument is ever class has a method for recovering ultimate. Yes every class does and I do believe that Nightblades should have a slight advantage because of the nature of the class and its overall dynamic roll in ESO. However no class has a passive ability that allows them to recover 20 ultimate ever 47 seconds. If this passive ability were removed the effectiveness of the current “Destro Ball” meta would be broken. All the classes would be balanced as far as ultimate regeneration.

Breton 3% reduced magic cost
Light Armor 5 piece bonus 10% magic cost reduction

Destro Ultimate cost without other set bonus. 218

48 second recovery = 42 ultimate every 48 seconds just from class passives.

But we should also count the ultimate regeneration from light and heavy attacks. 3 per second with the light heavy combat buff which over 48 seconds is another 144 ultimate before the next potion is activated and the cycle begins again. This makes for a grand total of 186 out of 218 needed in 48 seconds. If all the players tag at least 2 players with AOE damage and the targets die they will gain up to another 34 ultimate for kills. Which allows them again to cast the destro ultimate once every minute. In the grand scheme of life perhaps the extra 20 ultimate from the Catalyst passive isn’t that huge of a deal, But the game is about balance and it is clearly a distinct advantage for the class especially in large group play. Running a group of 16 with 50% to 60% of the comp are nightblade destro spammers. The natural gravitation to this class and the current meta exists only because of the class ultimate regeneration advantage which means the mechanics should be addressed and balanced. Removing the ultimate bonus from Catalyst should be the first step taken by ZOS before attempting any other change to any ability. Please understand this is about balance not about nerfing. Would this make a difference perhaps only in seconds but overall the effect would be to allow 2 opposing groups of players the opportunity to recover ultimates in order to continue fighting.

The problem except the nb ultimate regen is that other classes don't really have a spammable class aoe like sap which damages heals and gives major sorcery/brutality with a 8 meter radius. I think the first step would be to buff impulse so other classes have access to aoe abilities to be able to compete with nb's.

Anazasi

Turelus wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

The Nightblade class, although a favorite of the ZOS upper management

Wait, I thought we were all running with everyone at ZOS played Magicka Sorcs, when did we change and why didn't I get the memo.

On topic. I think AoE ultimates which following you around and out damage all other ultimates might be the issue, not how fast players can achieve them.

I don't think anyone wants to see more sweeping nerfs to abilities like what we saw with IMPULSE. The fact that CWC already saw a 12% nerf to the ultimate is not the correct direction ZOS should be going towards. Even after 2 weeks the meta has not changed and the groups are still performing as before the nerf to the ability. The problem isn't the ability it's the rate at which 1 class can repeatedly spam the ability.

Biro123

I think ulti gen is (can be) too fast for both offensive and defensive ulti's. and that there should be more reliance on class/weapon skills and less reliance on ulti's.

But yeah, Nerf Sorcs. Their cheap ulti is just unfair! nobody else gets cheap ulti's!

Anazasi

kkravaritieb17_ESO wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

Since launch, ESO has spent an extremely large amount of time balancing Ultimate regeneration. We have seen several modifications to this important feature of the game; ranging from dynamic regeneration to specific periods when a player could regenerate. However, nothing has been done to balance the classes. In 2017 the current meta “destro balls” has become a plague on the PVP landscape. When we look at the efforts thus far in November of 2017 we see that ZOS has simply followed the same logic and continue to look at the ability “destro Ultimate” as the source of the issue. However no one seems to understand that the groups running the meta are only taking advantage of 1 particular class in order to achieve the successful meta. The Nightblade class, although a favorite of the ZOS upper management, has one distinct advantage over all other classes: Ultimate regeneration. What I am proposing is not a complete neutering of the class but rather a balanced process that makes the nightblade equal to all the other classes. When you look at the passive lines for the class you see they have one passive that needs to be removed: Catalyst at rank 2 allows a nightblade to gain 20 ultimate. Many would disagree with this but in a 3 minute fight thats 60 ultimate which if calculated along with the other passive Transfer activating a Siphoning ability grants 2 ultimate every 4 seconds bring the total class ultimate recover to 90 adding this recover to the Catalyst recovers 150 ultimate total in 3 minutes without even counting in kills from the ability soul harvest which grants 7 ultimate every time they kill a player. It is obvious that this class recovers ultimate faster than any other class in the game and this is where the balance focus should be. The counter argument is ever class has a method for recovering ultimate. Yes every class does and I do believe that Nightblades should have a slight advantage because of the nature of the class and its overall dynamic roll in ESO. However no class has a passive ability that allows them to recover 20 ultimate ever 47 seconds. If this passive ability were removed the effectiveness of the current “Destro Ball” meta would be broken. All the classes would be balanced as far as ultimate regeneration.

Breton 3% reduced magic cost
Light Armor 5 piece bonus 10% magic cost reduction

Destro Ultimate cost without other set bonus. 218

48 second recovery = 42 ultimate every 48 seconds just from class passives.

But we should also count the ultimate regeneration from light and heavy attacks. 3 per second with the light heavy combat buff which over 48 seconds is another 144 ultimate before the next potion is activated and the cycle begins again. This makes for a grand total of 186 out of 218 needed in 48 seconds. If all the players tag at least 2 players with AOE damage and the targets die they will gain up to another 34 ultimate for kills. Which allows them again to cast the destro ultimate once every minute. In the grand scheme of life perhaps the extra 20 ultimate from the Catalyst passive isn’t that huge of a deal, But the game is about balance and it is clearly a distinct advantage for the class especially in large group play. Running a group of 16 with 50% to 60% of the comp are nightblade destro spammers. The natural gravitation to this class and the current meta exists only because of the class ultimate regeneration advantage which means the mechanics should be addressed and balanced. Removing the ultimate bonus from Catalyst should be the first step taken by ZOS before attempting any other change to any ability. Please understand this is about balance not about nerfing. Would this make a difference perhaps only in seconds but overall the effect would be to allow 2 opposing groups of players the opportunity to recover ultimates in order to continue fighting.

The problem except the nb ultimate regen is that other classes don't really have a spammable class aoe like sap which damages heals and gives major sorcery/brutality with a 8 meter radius. I think the first step would be to buff impulse so other classes have access to aoe abilities to be able to compete with nb's.

I don't disagree with you. But I doubt ZOS would change an ability that directly fed ball groups like impulse did. Remember there is nothing stopping the current meta balls from using the same ability on you. The fix to start should be focused on the NB ultimate passive. If ZOS made an effort to balance Ultimate recovery across all the classes or just bring NB's in line with the other classes then the destro balls would have to work harder and longer to achieve the desired effect. Which allows opposing groups the same opportunity to out play them.

Turelus

Anazasi wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

The Nightblade class, although a favorite of the ZOS upper management

Wait, I thought we were all running with everyone at ZOS played Magicka Sorcs, when did we change and why didn't I get the memo.

On topic. I think AoE ultimates which following you around and out damage all other ultimates might be the issue, not how fast players can achieve them.

I don't think anyone wants to see more sweeping nerfs to abilities like what we saw with IMPULSE. The fact that CWC already saw a 12% nerf to the ultimate is not the correct direction ZOS should be going towards. Even after 2 weeks the meta has not changed and the groups are still performing as before the nerf to the ability. The problem isn't the ability it's the rate at which 1 class can repeatedly spam the ability.

No it isn't. People are still going to keep using the skill because by its function it's the best ultimate in PvP for large scale fights.

Stationary or single target is much less beneficial than a high damage AoE that follows you. Anything placed people walk out of, anything single target won't get mass kills when zergs come running.
If this really is the issue and they nerf Nightblade ultimate generation then what, everyone changes to Sorcerer for the passive cost reduction and cast it a bit faster than everyone else?

Jawasa

Stam warden can have minor+major heroism and ulti gen from a class passiv like nb. Nb ultigen in large group play is because the insane ulti gen from kills and that desto can be on back bar.

Anazasi

Jawasa wrote: »

Stam warden can have minor+major heroism and ulti gen from a class passiv like nb. Nb ultigen in large group play is because the insane ulti gen from kills and that desto can be on back bar.

nightblade do not have access within class passives for minor or major heroism. If they do please quote the source. Also looking at just the one passive and removing the 20 ultimate from drinking a potion is extremely minor and the only clear advantage over the other classes that i can see.
We all have access to ulti recovery based on kills. it comes from AW skill lines as well as fighters guild.

FYI I, like ZOS believe in small changes in order to balance instead of sweeping nerf bat swings the kills classes.

Anazasi

Jawasa wrote: »

Stam warden can have minor+major heroism and ulti gen from a class passiv like nb. Nb ultigen in large group play is because the insane ulti gen from kills and that desto can be on back bar.

Turelus wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

The Nightblade class, although a favorite of the ZOS upper management

Wait, I thought we were all running with everyone at ZOS played Magicka Sorcs, when did we change and why didn't I get the memo.

On topic. I think AoE ultimates which following you around and out damage all other ultimates might be the issue, not how fast players can achieve them.

I don't think anyone wants to see more sweeping nerfs to abilities like what we saw with IMPULSE. The fact that CWC already saw a 12% nerf to the ultimate is not the correct direction ZOS should be going towards. Even after 2 weeks the meta has not changed and the groups are still performing as before the nerf to the ability. The problem isn't the ability it's the rate at which 1 class can repeatedly spam the ability.

No it isn't. People are still going to keep using the skill because by its function it's the best ultimate in PvP for large scale fights.

Stationary or single target is much less beneficial than a high damage AoE that follows you. Anything placed people walk out of, anything single target won't get mass kills when zergs come running.
If this really is the issue and they nerf Nightblade ultimate generation then what, everyone changes to Sorcerer for the passive cost reduction and cast it a bit faster than everyone else?

I don't think that would be the case especially if all of the classes were balanced on ultimate recovery. Please remember I am only looking at class passives not at abilities or gear or builds. Its about balancing a base rate of recovery for each class to be equal to some extent for balance. Yeah light armor should be faster 10% is good. yeah Breton is a good bonus 3% faster but what happens when you combine all of those advantages on top of a class that is better at doing 1 thing than any other. You have a meta created based on what this game has always been about.

They do call it an Ultimate for a reason you know.

technohic

Nerfing nightblade would do nothing to ball groups. Half the bombers are sorcs

I’m against trying to nerf things to indirectly approach the problem. And the problem is EOTS mobility as well as monster sets that are stacking and doing insane healing for free to the entire ball group.

Izaki

Anazasi wrote: »

Jawasa wrote: »

Stam warden can have minor+major heroism and ulti gen from a class passiv like nb. Nb ultigen in large group play is because the insane ulti gen from kills and that desto can be on back bar.

nightblade do not have access within class passives for minor or major heroism. If they do please quote the source. Also looking at just the one passive and removing the 20 ultimate from drinking a potion is extremely minor and the only clear advantage over the other classes that i can see.
We all have access to ulti recovery based on kills. it comes from AW skill lines as well as fighters guild.

FYI I, like ZOS believe in small changes in order to balance instead of sweeping nerf bat swings the kills classes.

Major Heroism alone is stronger than 20 ultimate every 45 seconds.

Anazasi

technohic wrote: »

Nerfing nightblade would do nothing to ball groups. Half the bombers are sorcs

I’m against trying to nerf things to indirectly approach the problem. And the problem is EOTS mobility as well as monster sets that are stacking and doing insane healing for free to the entire ball group.

Every one has access to it and everyone has access to the monster helms. The problem is not in the abilities its in the balance of the regeneration.

Turelus

Anazasi wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

Nerfing nightblade would do nothing to ball groups. Half the bombers are sorcs

I’m against trying to nerf things to indirectly approach the problem. And the problem is EOTS mobility as well as monster sets that are stacking and doing insane healing for free to the entire ball group.

Every one has access to it and everyone has access to the monster helms. The problem is not in the abilities its in the balance of the regeneration.

So if everyone can activate it as fast as the Nightblade problem is solved?

Anazasi

Izaki wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

Jawasa wrote: »

Stam warden can have minor+major heroism and ulti gen from a class passiv like nb. Nb ultigen in large group play is because the insane ulti gen from kills and that desto can be on back bar.

nightblade do not have access within class passives for minor or major heroism. If they do please quote the source. Also looking at just the one passive and removing the 20 ultimate from drinking a potion is extremely minor and the only clear advantage over the other classes that i can see.
We all have access to ulti recovery based on kills. it comes from AW skill lines as well as fighters guild.

FYI I, like ZOS believe in small changes in order to balance instead of sweeping nerf bat swings the kills classes.

Major Heroism alone is stronger than 20 ultimate every 45 seconds.

Heroism Minor Generates 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds. Abilities Carve, Heroic Slash
Sets Shalk Exoskeleton
Major Generates 3 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds. Abilities Shimmering Shield
Sets Daedric Trickery
Champion Last Stand

Jawasa

I'm more focusing on that nb ulti regen is not anything special outside of running with destro on backbar in a ball group. So catalyst nerf will just nerf nb builds that dont need a nerf. For example We wont see stam dd's as long as vd is in the game. But i'd say most groups atm run all classes but dk. But almost only magicka builds and yes almost only mageblade dd's.

Anazasi

Turelus wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

Nerfing nightblade would do nothing to ball groups. Half the bombers are sorcs

I’m against trying to nerf things to indirectly approach the problem. And the problem is EOTS mobility as well as monster sets that are stacking and doing insane healing for free to the entire ball group.

Every one has access to it and everyone has access to the monster helms. The problem is not in the abilities its in the balance of the regeneration.

So if everyone can activate it as fast as the Nightblade problem is solved?

I think you understand the concept of balance. If everyone can do the same thing equally then balance has been achieved.

technohic

Anazasi wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

Nerfing nightblade would do nothing to ball groups. Half the bombers are sorcs

I’m against trying to nerf things to indirectly approach the problem. And the problem is EOTS mobility as well as monster sets that are stacking and doing insane healing for free to the entire ball group.

Every one has access to it and everyone has access to the monster helms. The problem is not in the abilities its in the balance of the regeneration.

Yes and by themselves, not as big of a problem. Just like nightblade ultimate generation not that big of a problem.

It’s the stacking of these ultimate with high mobility that gives people very little chance to escape; while stacking of free group healing bypassing any cool down allowing these groups to have little risk.

IxSTALKERxI

I'm sorry Taran but you have no idea what you are talking about lol. It has nothing to do with Catalyst. Also light armor and breton reduces magicka cost of abilities... doesn't have anything to do with ultimate cost reduction.

CatchMeTrolling

Warden?

Anazasi

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

I'm sorry Taran but you have no idea what you are talking about lol. It has nothing to do with Catalyst. Also light armor and breton reduces magicka cost of abilities... doesn't have anything to do with ultimate cost reduction.

Yes i posted before testing the armor and racial bonuses. But come on no other class in the game generates ultimate as fast as a nightblade. If there were other classes that generated ultimate equivalent to the nightblade class than the destro ball groups would not be comprised of so many of them and you know the ball groups i'm talking about because you see at least 6 of the mag blades in them. If this is the main reason (Ulti Gen) to have mag blades in group then that is the first, strongest indicator that something is out of balance.

It won't take too long for ZOS to actually address this and in fact they already have tried, nerf fear nerf EOTS in the last patch. What's next? Will they nerf sap essence? will they nerf some other ability that is uniquely necessary to the class or can they actually look at the balance needed at the ulti level and address the real problem created by the current meta?

Ranger209

The problem is ball groups period. Take EotS out of the game, and balls start using Meteor. Take Meteor out of the game and balls start using the next AOE big hitter, take that out of the game and on to the next. You can do this until you take every AOE out of the game because they will adapt to the next biggest thing until there are none left. Nerfing anything won't solve the problem, they will just adapt. Getting people to not ball up and AOE steamroll is the only way to fix it. Find the answer to that question and you will have something. Maybe some kind of kinetic feedback if too much AOE damage is coming from too congested an area it starts to hit the casters. I don't know but something to break up the balls.

asneakybanana

The real problem with organized groups is the organized part. It's not how fast you can generate ultimate or how much damage you do, sure those things can help but the fact that people organize their ultimates and movement is going to internet make the magnitudes stronger than pug groups. This has been evident throughout the games history. From the 1.6 barrier and steel tornado days to the thieves guild prox tether/meteor bomb groups and now with destro ult. It's the fact that people are willing to run specialized builds in order to be the most efficient while pugs usually do not specialize in anything. If you nerf one thing we will still have those players running specialized builds and just shift from maybe destro ultimates and sap to meteors and endless fury or dawnbreaker and shalks.

The real way to nerf groups would be to take away the support but then the pug groups would struggle more as well but the change wouldn't affect them as much because they likely don't have those specialists. If you nerf the damage we will always find other ways to push our damage to similar levels. However if you gut a skill like rapid maneuvers then that greatly limits the ability for our raid to function because it will make movement nearly impossible. If you remove purge it will make fighting against siege much much harder due to healing reduction and the damage. Sure we could probably come up with some way to counter a total nerf to maneuvers or purge but it will make things much more difficult but also for other less organized groups it will make things much more difficult. If anyone remembers back when the purge bug was around, it made siege extremely potent because it essentially forced you to either try to outheal it, use the synergy or purge but purge would basically wipe your group due to blockade nearly instantly ticking. But back then you could at least rapid out of the damage and still heal, now if the purge bug were around it would make pushing into a keep nearly impossible if they were to nerf rapids even more as well as removing purge.

Destruent

Anazasi wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

Nerfing nightblade would do nothing to ball groups. Half the bombers are sorcs

I’m against trying to nerf things to indirectly approach the problem. And the problem is EOTS mobility as well as monster sets that are stacking and doing insane healing for free to the entire ball group.

Every one has access to it and everyone has access to the monster helms. The problem is not in the abilities its in the balance of the regeneration.

So if everyone can activate it as fast as the Nightblade problem is solved?

I think you understand the concept of balance. If everyone can do the same thing equally then balance has been achieved.

no, that's the definition of useless classes. If everyone can get to the same goal with the same effort, then we have balance. If NBs rely more on Ult-Spam, and sorcs use their pets etc to get to the same goal, it's balanced.

If you look closely at the classes it's like:

DK: no cost reduction, but slightly increased ult-gain + ressources from ults
NB/warden: no cost reduction and highly increased ult gain
Templar: small costreduction, slightly increased ult-gain
Sorc: big cost reduction, no increase in ult-gain

Looks ok for me on paper...The class with lowest lt-cost has the lowest regen, the classes with highest cost have highest regen (or get ressources as DK).

Valencer

Back when soul tether was the go-to bombing ultimate for raid play people werent slotting soul harvest on the front bar at all and magicka nightblades were still BiS. The class has +8% max magicka, +10% crit damage, minor berserk and a spammable 8m PBAoE. It does the most AoE damage, period, and that's why it's been considered BiS for aeons.

Vitaely

Anazasi wrote: »

But come on no other class in the game generates ultimate as fast as a nightblade.

Nightblade: Base ult costs.
2 ult every 4 seconds (casting a siphoning ability)
Gets 20 ult every 45 second, (if they drink a potion).

Sorcerer: Gets 20% ult cost reduction.
(Doesn't really need extra ultgen passive due to huge ult cost reduction.)

Templar: Gets 4% ult cost reduction (as well as magicka + stamina cost reduction, but that's not relevant to the topic.)
3 ult every 6 seconds (casting a Dawn's Wrath ability)
Additionally; Ritual grants ALLIES 2 Ultimate every time they're healed under 60% health. (Cooldown time unclear, hopefully not every Ritual tick.)

Dragonknight: Base ult costs.
3 ult every 6 seconds (casting an Earthen Heart ability)
Additionally; Gets *** of resources from ults.

As you can see all the classes that have skill-based ult regen passives get 0.5 ult/second while spamming given class abilities. Nightblades get an additional 0.44 ults/sec if they choose to waste their potion cooldown.

Given these facts, we may say these passives are somewhat(?) balanced if every class used their ultimates as soon as it hit 100%. (And nightblades should drink potions off-cooldown too.) We all know in combat we do not choose to use our ults until it is absolutely necessary. So it's common to have stored 500 Ult, before it's time to skirmish.

The same can be said about spamming potions while expecting combat. Getting caught with your immovable pot on cooldown because you wanted to get some sweet 20 ults on a nightblade is actually pretty common (and pretty BAD). Many new nightblades learn not to use their pots too hastily; as you wouldn't throw out your ult to maximize efficiency, just because you have cost reduction on it.

I didn't include Warden in this for very good reasons. Draw your own conclusions.

Lastly: In PVE raid situations nightblades regen ult very slightly faster, due to the fact that they have to spam pots every 47 seconds for certain self-buffs. It's interesting but negligible, since it doesn't overpower their overall damage output. But in PVP this effect is even more negligible due to the reasons I talked about.




Appendix: If you want Ult, build for ult. None of these passives can beat building for ult (especially building for ult on a Warden). There exist great ult regen and ult cost reduction sets in the game, the most honorable mention is Bloodspawn (IMO). Under constant pressure the 2 piece set can outperform the 5 piece Shalk set (F*ck shalk).

I'm bored, servers are down for me.

Vitaely

You might argue Catalyst is OP. It might even get nerfed. But that won't change anything about the game right now.

Joy_Division

The last thing this game needs is more nerfs.

People who think that "ultiamtes should be ultimate not regular skills blah blah blah, nerf ult regen!" got their wish with 1.6 and look we what have now. Zerg or die.

IxSTALKERxI

Anazasi wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

I'm sorry Taran but you have no idea what you are talking about lol. It has nothing to do with Catalyst. Also light armor and breton reduces magicka cost of abilities... doesn't have anything to do with ultimate cost reduction.

Yes i posted before testing the armor and racial bonuses. But come on no other class in the game generates ultimate as fast as a nightblade. If there were other classes that generated ultimate equivalent to the nightblade class than the destro ball groups would not be comprised of so many of them and you know the ball groups i'm talking about because you see at least 6 of the mag blades in them. If this is the main reason (Ulti Gen) to have mag blades in group then that is the first, strongest indicator that something is out of balance.

It won't take too long for ZOS to actually address this and in fact they already have tried, nerf fear nerf EOTS in the last patch. What's next? Will they nerf sap essence? will they nerf some other ability that is uniquely necessary to the class or can they actually look at the balance needed at the ulti level and address the real problem created by the current meta?

Nightblades are best in slot dps in raids but It's not solely due to ultimate regen. They do the most damage due to minor beserk, crit damage passives and have a class based 8m spammable AoE and a reliable gapcloser. Soul harvest is very good for generating ultimate (people don't care about catalyst) as it's basically another rank of combat frenzy but these should remain untouched as they are the only remaining form of dynamic ultimate in the game - they benifit the side which has less players.

I bombed on nb since before vicious death or destro ult even existed, heck I even did it on stamina before that. They've been best in slot for a long time. And it's never been because of catalyst passive lol. They've always synergized best with a back bar pbaoe damage over time ult such as bats or eots.


October 2015 - Imperial city patch, battlespirit increased TTK, before vicious death: (setup is basically the same today with soul harvest front bar and ult back bar)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A_1jft5x0Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH-ZJtM13fg

March 2015 - ESO 2.0. Removal of soft caps, introduction of champion point system. TTK was at an all time low benefiting stamina dps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOA1ulp0ncE

Anyways, I don't think you should be messing with classes, they each have their own unique thing they bring to the table. I think there should be changes done to the over all raid meta. This would mix things up a bit.

Edit: Oh and excluding killing blows, wardens pretty much generate ultimate two times faster than any other class.

Lord_Hev

The real solution is to just bring dynamic ult gen back so DKs can break up zergs again. EZPEEZEE

IxSTALKERxI

Lord_Hev wrote: »

The real solution is to just bring dynamic ult gen back so DKs can break up zergs again. EZPEEZEE

Haha yeah. Before 2.0 DK's were best in slot DPS for group pvp. Game completely changed that update.