What is the right way to balance/fix Gap closers?

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Current PTS notes suggest damage reduction nerfs to almost all gap closers in the game. Is this the right way to "fix" gap closers? Is this something that even needs "fixing?"


More information on the history of the gap closer snare.
Note that this snare used to completely lock your character in place until the gap closer connected. It has been toned down since then but almost every gap closer still has some sort of uncounterable slowing effect on your character (even when CC immune or in mist form) which can be quite impactful to gameplay when multiple people are gap closing to you. Note also that this "fix" wasn't always in the game and it wasn't always possible to lock people down with gap close spam. At prime time in PvP, this mechanic sometimes still locks your character down, even if CC immune and makes your skillbar unresponsive.

Sixty5

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

I'd also add a minimum cast distance to the ones that currently do not have one.

Looking at you spambush

Navarr

Option 5: Depends on their future balance and skill update plans.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Sixty5 wrote: »

I'd also add a minimum cast distance to the ones that currently do not have one.

Looking at you spambush

Don't nerf nightblades plz

Thannazzar

Other Suggested Fix

Use a multiplier on cost for subsequent castings on all gap closers.

Tetrafy

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

Like I said in previous posts, am I playing a diferent game? Youll nerf gap closers damage which is like 8k at most but sorcs can go around and wipe a zerg. You're making this game so boring with nerfs all around. I dont think I ever seen anyone ever ask for this. You seem very off base with what your community think is balanced. Ive played a ton of games at the top 1% (halo3, reach, 5) Ffxiv pvp etc. And I just dont get it. Meanwhile the netcode is garbage and everyone gets infinite loading screens. Youre trying to switch up the meta but nerfing everything just makes the game dull and boring.

Solariken

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

Tetrafy wrote: »

Like I said in previous posts, am I playing a diferent game? Youll nerf gap closers damage which is like 8k at most but sorcs can go around and wipe a zerg. You're making this game so boring with nerfs all around. I dont think I ever seen anyone ever ask for this. You seem very off base with what your community think is balanced. Ive played a ton of games at the top 1% (halo3, reach, 5) Ffxiv pvp etc. And I just dont get it. Meanwhile the netcode is garbage and everyone gets infinite loading screens. Youre trying to switch up the meta but nerfing everything just makes the game dull and boring.

Well it's not really true that no one asked for gap closer adjustments... They're too strong IMO.

The damage was a bit high but I think the damage nerf might be a little heavy-handed. Also their power overall in addition to other combat elements makes ranged/kite playstyles irrelevant except for lobbing abilities off keep walls. I would love to see a rebalancing of range vs melee counterplay in PvP but I don't think a lame gap closer damage nerf was the best place to start.

RinaldoGandolphi

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

Gap closers were a bit OP, but i think they might have went too far on the damage nerf...the gap closer snare needs to go though....its one of the games worst mechanics.

Ranger209

I'm not sure how much of an issue spamming them is, but I get the feeling it is one of the reasons for this nerf. I wonder if they have considered changing the range on them from 3.5-22 to something like 12-28. By doing this there would be a window where someone could stay out of melee range and not so far out as to get into gap closing range. Most melee range skills are like 5-8 meter range. This would allow them to be used from a slightly farther distance as well. Just a thought. Not sure what negatives this might introduce.

Derra

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

Remove the default melee snare when hitting a target from behind right along with it.

Replace the gapcloser snare with a short period 2 or 3s of major expedition for the caster.

Lucky28

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Gap closers were a bit OP, but i think they might have went too far on the damage nerf...the gap closer snare needs to go though....its one of the games worst mechanics.

the snare is really what makes gap closers op in the first place tho. not really the damage.

Qbiken

I think the snare is the main issue people have with gap-closers. Damage can in most cases be mitigated, out-healed or dodged. I can understand the gap-close changes on the PTS, but to include werewolf pounce was totally unnecessary and not needed at all. Pounce already cost a fortune, does mediocre damage (even if you pick the morph that makes the leap do extra damage) and doesn´t have a snare........Would like to see pounce being left out of the gap-closer nerfs.

Sixty5

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Sixty5 wrote: »

I'd also add a minimum cast distance to the ones that currently do not have one.

Looking at you spambush

Don't nerf nightblades plz

Spambush is honestly the only method of death that avoids me.

Get instagibbed by a gank? No problem, I shouldn't have had my pants down. Get kited and chunked? I screwed up.

Spambush on the other hand, is dying to someone mashing a single button, and being unable to escape the gap closer snare, and just feels awful.
Nowadays, I just turn around and streak, even if it takes me back into the zerg, because I'd rather the kill credit go to someone else.

ecru

Other Suggested Fix

Gap closers should have the following:

-Short cooldown so they are not spammable. 7-10s.
-Damage low enough (but not absurdly low) that the ability does not become part of a rotation.
-A short root (1-1.5s) to ensure you can reach your target.

The root is necessary due to the way that gap closers work. You leap at your target's position at the time of the leap, allowing your target to move from that position in the second or so that you are traveling to said target. A very short root solves this issue.

There can be other perks added to gap closers though, such as perks that contribute to risk/reward. For example, a gap closer used to close the gap on an enemy surrounded by a larger group of enemies could reward a short duration damage or defensive bonus based on the amount of targets (in a short range) around your initial target. This gives more organized small scale groups both incentive and protection to dive larger, less organized groups, or one bold individual an advantage when singling out one person in the middle of a large group.

Sixty5

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

ecru wrote: »

Gap closers should have the following:

-Short cooldown so they are not spammable. 7-10s.
-Damage low enough (but not absurdly low) that the ability does not become part of a rotation.
-A short root (1-1.5s) to ensure you can reach your target.

The root is necessary due to the way that gap closers work. You leap at your target's position at the time of the leap, allowing your target to move from that position in the second or so that you are traveling to said target. A very short root solves this issue.

There can be other perks added to gap closers though, such as perks that contribute to risk/reward. For example, a gap closer used to close the gap on an enemy surrounded by a larger group of enemies could reward a short duration damage or defensive bonus based on the amount of targets (in a short range) around your initial target. This gives more organized small scale groups both incentive and protection to dive larger, less organized groups.

That just sounds overall worse.

You make the skill feel worse by gutting the damage and adding a cooldown, and you make it feel worse to play against, given that now people have access to an instant unavoidable ranged root.

ecru

Other Suggested Fix

Sixty5 wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

Gap closers should have the following:

-Short cooldown so they are not spammable. 7-10s.
-Damage low enough (but not absurdly low) that the ability does not become part of a rotation.
-A short root (1-1.5s) to ensure you can reach your target.

The root is necessary due to the way that gap closers work. You leap at your target's position at the time of the leap, allowing your target to move from that position in the second or so that you are traveling to said target. A very short root solves this issue.

There can be other perks added to gap closers though, such as perks that contribute to risk/reward. For example, a gap closer used to close the gap on an enemy surrounded by a larger group of enemies could reward a short duration damage or defensive bonus based on the amount of targets (in a short range) around your initial target. This gives more organized small scale groups both incentive and protection to dive larger, less organized groups.

That just sounds overall worse.

You make the skill feel worse by gutting the damage and adding a cooldown, and you make it feel worse to play against, given that now people have access to an instant unavoidable ranged root.

I don't see a good argument as to why a gap closer should not have a cooldown. What is the purpose of playing ranged if melee can just hit a button to instantly be in melee range every time ranged creates a gap?

The same goes for streak. The cost increase exists to prevent sorcs from simply using it over and over again due to the fact that it does not have a cooldown. It follows that a melee gap closer should also have either a cooldown or some sort of diminishing returns similar to streak.

As for the root, gap closers constantly failing to place you in melee range of a moving target (which most are) is an issue that should be solved, and a root is an easy solution. The more difficult solution is changing the way gap closers calculate where they land from a stationary position to a moving one, which is unlikely to happen.

Chilly-McFreeze

ecru wrote: »

Gap closers should have the following:

-Short cooldown so they are not spammable. 7-10s.
-Damage low enough (but not absurdly low) that the ability does not become part of a rotation.
-A short root (1-1.5s) to ensure you can reach your target.

The root is necessary due to the way that gap closers work. You leap at your target's position at the time of the leap, allowing your target to move from that position in the second or so that you are traveling to said target. A very short root solves this issue.

There can be other perks added to gap closers though, such as perks that contribute to risk/reward. For example, a gap closer used to close the gap on an enemy surrounded by a larger group of enemies could reward a short duration damage or defensive bonus based on the amount of targets (in a short range) around your initial target. This gives more organized small scale groups both incentive and protection to dive larger, less organized groups, or one bold individual an advantage when singling out one person in the middle of a large group.

Pls no. The game was designed and advertised as no cd on skills. Bad enough they added one on DKs. Minimum range and fatigue costs are better imo.
Also, people complain about being almost locked in place due to the snare. Adding a root is much worse than that. Get rid of it completely. The purpose of those skills is to close the gap. If they hit and deal damage on top, that's a bonus. For all i care they would be fine if they just let you catch up without garantueed dmg.

Derra

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Pls no. The game was designed and advertised as no cd on skills. Bad enough they added one on DKs. Minimum range and fatigue costs are better imo.

I honestly still don´t get why ppl act like it´s an actual CD on the ability.

It had a CD of 5s (the off balance timer for whip) before. It´s not like you can´t Flamelash at all anymore during that time. You just don´t get the powerlash procc.
They could have made every 4th whip a powerlash - but that would have been a CD aswell yet mirroring other classes "procc" mechanics that are factually nothing different.

Sixty5

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

ecru wrote: »

Sixty5 wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

Gap closers should have the following:

-Short cooldown so they are not spammable. 7-10s.
-Damage low enough (but not absurdly low) that the ability does not become part of a rotation.
-A short root (1-1.5s) to ensure you can reach your target.

The root is necessary due to the way that gap closers work. You leap at your target's position at the time of the leap, allowing your target to move from that position in the second or so that you are traveling to said target. A very short root solves this issue.

There can be other perks added to gap closers though, such as perks that contribute to risk/reward. For example, a gap closer used to close the gap on an enemy surrounded by a larger group of enemies could reward a short duration damage or defensive bonus based on the amount of targets (in a short range) around your initial target. This gives more organized small scale groups both incentive and protection to dive larger, less organized groups.

That just sounds overall worse.

You make the skill feel worse by gutting the damage and adding a cooldown, and you make it feel worse to play against, given that now people have access to an instant unavoidable ranged root.

I don't see a good argument as to why a gap closer should not have a cooldown. What is the purpose of playing ranged if melee can just hit a button to instantly be in melee range every time ranged creates a gap?

The same goes for streak. The cost increase exists to prevent sorcs from simply using it over and over again due to the fact that it does not have a cooldown. It follows that a melee gap closer should also have either a cooldown or some sort of diminishing returns similar to streak.

As for the root, gap closers constantly failing to place you in melee range of a moving target (which most are) is an issue that should be solved, and a root is an easy solution. The more difficult solution is changing the way gap closers calculate where they land from a stationary position to a moving one, which is unlikely to happen.

Try looking at it from this perspective

Why do gap closers exist?
To allow a melee build to quickly get in to combat range so they don't just get kited to infinity

What makes gap closers feel bad to play against?
There ability to completely shut down kiting through spam, and the snare that is associated with them

Now, if we want to rebalance stuff here, we need to keep the statement in the first question true, while resolving the issues in the second.

You want a 7-10 second cooldown for the abilities, how does that stack up? Well it deals with the shut down kiting part, but, given that the cooldown you propose is longer than CC immunity, you would pretty easily be able to stun someone every time they crit rushed at you, and completely shut down their ability to resist kiting.

Secondly, the damage nerf you propose would also help to combat the spammability, as now you realistically are never going to kill anyone with the skill, however, you have also imposed a pretty hefty cooldown on the ability, meaning that it isn't going to be spammed anyway.

Third, you want to add a root to ensure that the skill lands. If it works anything like the snare currently works, then it will be completely unavoidable and unmitigatable, meaning that it will feel overall worse to be on the receiving end of than the current snare. If the root can be dodge rolled out of, then you hit another issue of forcing people to roll as you close the gap at them, meaning that in a lot of cases the ability is not going to deal any damage anyway, making the damage nerf moot.

So under those changes, all gap closers feel worse to use, as they no longer deal any damage and now have harshly reduced mobility, but they also feel worse to play against, as you get hit by unavoidable roots from 28m away.

I'd much rather see an increase to the minimum cast range, along with adding that component to Ambush, as this reduces the spamability of these skills, along with acting as a psuedo cooldown (given that you'd need a couple of seconds to exit the min area before being able to recast)

cazlonb16_ESO

+1 to adding/bringing back a reasonable minimum range on gap closers.

Nobody in their right mind would spam a gap closer other than Spambush for damage ( or at all, most of them are as awkward for the user as they are on the receiving end ), so a damage nerf is unnessecary and completely misses the actual issues, as ZOS' "fixes" so often do.

cyclonus11

Other Suggested Fix

Nerf damage in PVP ONLY or don't nerf at all. Leave PVE as is.

RIP Stamblades

Drakkdjinn

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

Any balancing of gap closers that omits the snare from the equation is not balancing at all - it's just the standard ZoS dumbassery

Yolokin_Swagonborn

It seem from the replies that most people seem to see the movement control aspect of gap closers to be their most powerful feature. We have already seen a nerf to the snare of stampede so its clear that the power of gap closers come from their utility and negative effects on the target and not necessarily their damage.

A skill can only be OP in three ways really.

• It can have damage that is out of balance with competitive skills.
• it can have a positive utility to the caster that is vastly more powerful than other skills.
• or it can have negative effects on the target that are really debilitating.

Lets look at gap closers in these three aspects.

Pure damage. As @JackDaniell points out in his thread "Gap closers are OP," spamming a gap closer for damage is not the optimal choice. Other abilities like surprise attack, jabs, whip, dizzying swing, etc would provide better damage if spammed than a gap closer. So its not like gap closer spam is the optimal choice for damage. We don't see any PvE Spambush builds getting 40k DPS on a target skeleton. I don't remember the last time I died to spambush in PvP. It's annoying but its simply not a problem.

Positive Utility Gap closers are extremely powerful as movement tool but they are needed counters to ranged skills which are powerful in their own way. Why is it that standing 40meters away and hitting someone with 9k snipes is fine but someone running toward me for almost half of that distance then gap closing and doing 7k damage is OP? Range is powerful because their weapon has a build in gap closer. There needs to be some fear that if you just stand there doing range damage, you are going to get hit with something. Crit rush is a good counter to kiting range.

Negative Utility (on target) This is where the true power of gap closers lie. Gap closers can restrict movement, where kiting and positioning is essential to not dying in PvP. I can't count how many times I have been in mist form, running away or trying to move even when i have CC immunity and a gap closer stuttered my character or stopped it completely. Two or three people can effectively shut someone down until the rest of the Zerg arrives. Some people see this and want a stacking cost on gap closers but if gap closers were fixed to not impede the movement of their targets, this super powerful and super frustrating effect would be over and gap closers would be fairly balanced.

I just wanted to post Jack's video here as well because the first part of the video outlines this in a very clear way .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt5_QDtJ-VY

Minalan

Other Suggested Fix

How about an increasing cost penalty timer like streak and dodge roll? See how stam characters enjoy the great ‘mobility’ Sorc supposedly have for one patch, if any are left playing.

felipenepub17_ESO

Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing.

"Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing."

and

set a minimum distance for ambush like there is on every gap closer

Yolokin_Swagonborn

felipenepub17_ESO wrote: »

"Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing."

and

set a minimum distance for ambush like there is on every gap closer

I haven't been bothered by a spambusher in years. Someone spamming one ability on you is going to die pretty quickly. They can lock you down but if you got rid of gap closer snare that wouldn't be a problem.

MopeyHat

Other Suggested Fix

I'd be interested to see what happened if all gap closers had the fatigue that Bolt Escape does.

FlamingBeard

MopeyHat wrote: »

I'd be interested to see what happened if all gap closers had the fatigue that Bolt Escape does.

That would be highly unfair seeing as Bolt Escape isn't limited to having to be targeted like gap closers are.

The very reason Bolt Escape has that magicka cost increase for repetitive uses in the first place is because it can be used to perpetually stay mobile if it didn't have that handicap, while gap closers must be targeted and have a minimum and maximum range.

Irylia

Remove them or give scaling cost like streak for each additional cast within 4 seconds.

The unique snare on gap closers is aids and the range is so long that it nullifies medium speed and sorc streak effectiveness tremendously.

Twohothardware

Other Suggested Fix

Remove all snares and add an off balance proc to gap closers.

Killset

Gap closers are fine. Leave them as is (on live currently)

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

felipenepub17_ESO wrote: »

"Remove the unpurgable gap closer snare Entirely - even if it results in gap closers not always landing."

and

set a minimum distance for ambush like there is on every gap closer

I haven't been bothered by a spambusher in years. Someone spamming one ability on you is going to die pretty quickly. They can lock you down but if you got rid of gap closer snare that wouldn't be a problem.

Dude... Nobody gave two *** about gap closers until it got nerfed. Then in typical fashion everybody jumped on the nerf train because it doesnt effect or even helps them. This forum is so agenda driven it’s pathetic.

There are so many broken aspects to PvP it makes me cringe that this could even be a discussion. I’ve said it in previous posts. ZOS has seen fit to give range comparable damage coupled with the advantage and safety of leveraging that damage from afar. Bird Spam, Dark Flare, Focus Aim, Destro heavies, Curse, Frag, Endless Fury, Sub Assault, Soul Assault, Oppression, Meteor, etc. All this from the safety of your group, keep wall, Zerg, whatever.

Melee is inherently more risky. Oftentimes its flat out suicide to gap close into a group, all the while you are being crucified from range. And yet suddenly everyone runs to the forums to praise ZOS for finally identifying the problem with PvP, gap closers just do too much damage.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I doubt one person here has ever looked at their death recap and skimmed right over the Soul Assult, Destro Ulti, Focus Aim, Bird spam, etc, and said the 3-4K gap closer is just too strong! Instead I think it much more likely that people see a nerf to something that will ultimately help them, however small that help might be, and jumped on the nerf gap closer campaign trail.

Finally, if you are being spambushed or gap closed to death, count yourself lucky! You are probably going to live 10-15 seconds longer than you should. Snares as a whole are an issue. But the one attached to gap closers is not in my opinion. If a melee character risks closing the distance into melee, there should be a mechanism in place for keeping the target somewhat close. This is the balance for the low risk / high reward play style of ranged attacks.