Time To Talk About Flurry

Vapirko

Disclaimer: This is mostly in relation to PvP combat but still a general discussion.

So now that DW is no longer unique in terms of being allowed two set bonuses, it's time to look at what should be one of the main skills in this line, Flurry. Is it an execute? Is it a spammable? The idea of it is good, but in truth it is clumsy and fails a little in everything it tries to accomplish. I think it should be turned into a proper execute, thereby giving stamina classes who play DW and don't have a class execute (DK, Sorc, Warden, Templar), access to one. I think the blood thirst morph could remain the same, obviously an execute + heal would be op. But rapid strikes should actually be rapid. Maybe fewer but faster hits that have an actual execute function and not just an up to 300% more damage function. Why? Because this is kind of a terrible skill, its easily dodged and so using it as an execute really doesn't pan out too well in most cases. In a perfect world Im imagining some sort of single strike mechanism that creates a flurry of execute strikes on the target, but that the player doesnt have to keep making the striking motion. Perhaps the first hit can be dodged but once you're tagged with it, its blockable but not dodgeable or purgeable. Something along those lines. An actual rapid strike execute that would seem fitting to the DW line. It would be good for PvP and wouldn't really tip the balance back in favor of DW in PvE. Now that 2H weapons count as two pieces, this is a huge boost to mag builds who - for the most part - all have class skills and class executes available to them. Stamina is still going to be stuck mostly using weapon skills and for most of us that means still being relegated to 2H melee weapons because of the execute. DW is pretty great, I run it on stam sort and like it but only really because it stacks with stam sorcs class dot, hurricane. Primarily however, I use it because 2H is so damn clumsy, its really a nightmare against good players or people running speed pots. DW is good but it desperately lacks the ability to execute and fights that should end quickly become long and drawn out which doesnt seem right to me for a weapon that should be quick and clean. Ideally I think the DW execute function should work fairly precisely requiring timing and precision as also seems fitting to such a weapon setup. Thoughts?

Lynx7386

Dual wield has an amazing execute with steel tornado and gains bonus damage to all dual wield abilities on low health enemies and you want to give them another execute? What is wrong with you?

Vapirko

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Dual wield has an amazing execute with steel tornado and gains bonus damage to all dual wield abilities on low health enemies and you want to give them another execute? What is wrong with you?

Oh come on, that’s only good in group settings. It’s expensive and requires it to be spammed most of the time. Stam sorcs, DK dw users need a decent single target execute. Wardens and Templars less so since they’ve got access to goood class skills. Rapid strikes is clunky and needs a rework. Making it an actual single target ultimate gives us stam classes with no good class damage abilities a useful execute outside of then DB and tornado spam on noobs. I’m talking about a good single target execute that can be effectively used 1v1 against good players. Tbh I really don’t notice much of a difference on low health targets between dw and 2H. Reverse slice feels far more effective in terms of damage and cost than steel tornado. And now you have 2H benefiting from two set bonuses.

GeorgeBlack

Grabs pop....
Waiter. More wine plz

GeorgeBlack

DW should lose passive bleed from twin axes.
DW should have its active skills reworked.

Flurry should deal the big dmg with the first hit.
The way it is now it is blocked/dodge before the end of the animation (ye. Flurry cannot work with your stupid animation cancelling)
Flying dagger should be completely removed. This is a melee skill line.
Whirling blades should have 2k stam cost.
Should have soft aoe pushback like templar good ol jabs.

Zos it is a shame that you reduced DW, a very iconic fighting style in video games to a PASSIVE WEAPON
Axes and bleed dmg for stamina
Swords and bonus SD for mages.
2 piece bonus for proc set builds(oh well... summerset)

Outrage.
Never have I felt so let down by DW in a videogame. Still using it tho. Will never swap for anything else.

Ladislao

DW is pretty balanced in current state. I'd it is the most balanced weapon skill line in the game. The only things I could call controversial are Quick Cloak (although this may become an alternative after Deadly Cloak nerf) and Lacerate (just because of its specificity).

Concerning Flurry, it is just a solid spam ability.
It is much easier to use than Uppercut or Snipe or even Biting Jabs.
It is damage over time, which is a good option, because besides this there is Hidden Blade with direct damage.
It may seem that one of the morphs is better than the other, but this is an illusion. Everything depends strictly on the specific build.
What else? Well, concerning the minuses, it does not proc bleeding from Twin Blade and Blunt passive. Just because it is not melee damage.

So I really do not see any reason for such discussion.

P. S. At first I thought that the topic about Cruel Flurry again

Vapirko

Ladislao wrote: »

DW is pretty balanced in current state. I'd it is the most balanced weapon skill line in the game. The only things I could call controversial are Quick Cloak (although this may become an alternative after Deadly Cloak nerf) and Lacerate (just because of its specificity).

Concerning Flurry, it is just a solid spam ability.
It is much easier to use than Uppercut or Snipe or even Biting Jabs.
It is damage over time, which is a good option, because besides this there is Hidden Blade with direct damage.
It may seem that one of the morphs is better than the other, but this is an illusion. Everything depends strictly on the specific build.
What else? Well, concerning the minuses, it does not proc bleeding from Twin Blade and Blunt passive. Just because it is not melee damage.

So I really do not see any reason for such discussion.

P. S. At first I thought that the topic about Cruel Flurry again

But it’s not really a dot because it requires that you actively use the skill, unlike rending slashes. Of course it’s easier to use than dizzy swing since it does not cc or have as much burst potential and you can’t reaLt compared to snipe which is ranged, and can cause fracture and defile. If it were a true dot like rending slashes then that would be a different story altogether.

Ladislao

Vapirko wrote: »

Ladislao wrote: »

DW is pretty balanced in current state. I'd it is the most balanced weapon skill line in the game. The only things I could call controversial are Quick Cloak (although this may become an alternative after Deadly Cloak nerf) and Lacerate (just because of its specificity).

Concerning Flurry, it is just a solid spam ability.
It is much easier to use than Uppercut or Snipe or even Biting Jabs.
It is damage over time, which is a good option, because besides this there is Hidden Blade with direct damage.
It may seem that one of the morphs is better than the other, but this is an illusion. Everything depends strictly on the specific build.
What else? Well, concerning the minuses, it does not proc bleeding from Twin Blade and Blunt passive. Just because it is not melee damage.

So I really do not see any reason for such discussion.

P. S. At first I thought that the topic about Cruel Flurry again

But it’s not really a dot because it requires that you actively use the skill, unlike rending slashes. Of course it’s easier to use than dizzy swing since it does not cc or have as much burst potential and you can’t reaLt compared to snipe which is ranged, and can cause fracture and defile. If it were a true dot like rending slashes then that would be a different story altogether.

I meant the type of damage. It's always good to have a choice, especially between the types of damage.
Drawing a parallel with other abilities, I compared the ease of use. It is much harder to deal damage against a good player with Uppercut or Snipe than Flurry.

Vapirko

Ladislao wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Ladislao wrote: »

DW is pretty balanced in current state. I'd it is the most balanced weapon skill line in the game. The only things I could call controversial are Quick Cloak (although this may become an alternative after Deadly Cloak nerf) and Lacerate (just because of its specificity).

Concerning Flurry, it is just a solid spam ability.
It is much easier to use than Uppercut or Snipe or even Biting Jabs.
It is damage over time, which is a good option, because besides this there is Hidden Blade with direct damage.
It may seem that one of the morphs is better than the other, but this is an illusion. Everything depends strictly on the specific build.
What else? Well, concerning the minuses, it does not proc bleeding from Twin Blade and Blunt passive. Just because it is not melee damage.

So I really do not see any reason for such discussion.

P. S. At first I thought that the topic about Cruel Flurry again

But it’s not really a dot because it requires that you actively use the skill, unlike rending slashes. Of course it’s easier to use than dizzy swing since it does not cc or have as much burst potential and you can’t reaLt compared to snipe which is ranged, and can cause fracture and defile. If it were a true dot like rending slashes then that would be a different story altogether.

I meant the type of damage. It's always good to have a choice, especially between the types of damage.
Drawing a parallel with other abilities, I compared the ease of use. It is much harder to deal damage against a good player with Uppercut or Snipe than Flurry.

If you’re looking at it that way I can see why it is what it is, half way between a dot and direct damage. Still, I think it could be reworked, to be a better spammable at least.

Ladislao

Vapirko wrote: »

Ladislao wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Ladislao wrote: »

DW is pretty balanced in current state. I'd it is the most balanced weapon skill line in the game. The only things I could call controversial are Quick Cloak (although this may become an alternative after Deadly Cloak nerf) and Lacerate (just because of its specificity).

Concerning Flurry, it is just a solid spam ability.
It is much easier to use than Uppercut or Snipe or even Biting Jabs.
It is damage over time, which is a good option, because besides this there is Hidden Blade with direct damage.
It may seem that one of the morphs is better than the other, but this is an illusion. Everything depends strictly on the specific build.
What else? Well, concerning the minuses, it does not proc bleeding from Twin Blade and Blunt passive. Just because it is not melee damage.

So I really do not see any reason for such discussion.

P. S. At first I thought that the topic about Cruel Flurry again

But it’s not really a dot because it requires that you actively use the skill, unlike rending slashes. Of course it’s easier to use than dizzy swing since it does not cc or have as much burst potential and you can’t reaLt compared to snipe which is ranged, and can cause fracture and defile. If it were a true dot like rending slashes then that would be a different story altogether.

I meant the type of damage. It's always good to have a choice, especially between the types of damage.
Drawing a parallel with other abilities, I compared the ease of use. It is much harder to deal damage against a good player with Uppercut or Snipe than Flurry.

If you’re looking at it that way I can see why it is what it is, half way between a dot and direct damage. Still, I think it could be reworked, to be a better spammable at least.

Everything could be reworked. But not everything should

fred4

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Dual wield has an amazing execute with steel tornado and gains bonus damage to all dual wield abilities on low health enemies and you want to give them another execute? What is wrong with you?

Steel Tornado, while a great skill, is not a single-target execute. Actual executes roughly scale from half the damage of a single-target skill at high health to double the damage of a single-target skill at low health. Steel Tornado only scales up to the damage of a single-target skill, which is amazing for an AOE, but not the same as the 2H execute. Can be useful in PvP to finish off cloaking NBs, but won't work as an execute against tankier players.

This is not to say I agree DW needs a single-target execute, but I just wanted to be accurate - perhaps nitpicky - about what Steel Tornado does. You get another 10% from DW passive, but that's still nowhere near Reverse Slash.

As an aside, I was very impressed with Reverse Slice during levelling in Spellscar. While Steel Tornado has more range, Reverse Slice does a ton of splash damage on tightly stacked mobs, at least in the hands of a stamblade with a tooltip sitting around 5K.

GeorgeBlack

Bump

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

This is not to say I agree DW needs a single-target execute, but I just wanted to be accurate - perhaps nitpicky - about what Steel Tornado does. You get another 10% from DW passive, but that's still nowhere near Reverse Slash.

Want to get nitpicky? It is an extra 20% damage for all dual wield attacks under 25% and that is a flat value, no ramping up linearly like with the 300% from reverse slice, which you only get at 1% health. So depending on how the math is calculated, you either get a ramping 100% and then a flat 20% more on top of that under 25%, at 25% health, the skill either looks like this, base damage*1.75*1.2 or base damage*1.95, with the extra 20% from the passive being additive and not multiplicative.

And then you got the AOE from steel tornado is 9 meters, the AOE from reverse slice is only 5 meters, that is 78 meter cover for reverse slice and and whopping 254 meter coverage with steel. So steel tornado will be able to hit players much easier.

On the topic of the ops post, I think flurry is fine and you will see more people using the skill in the future, as with Summerset the vMA cruel flurry set will be fixed and with jewelry crafting you will have more options for sustain.

Celestro

Where does it mention Cruel Flurry will be fixed?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Celestro wrote: »

Where does it mention Cruel Flurry will be fixed?

What do you mean "it"? There is no it, a group of people went and played the game.

BrokenGameMechanics

DW is an overall disappointing melee line, not at all what one would expect it to be upon introduction. From what I can tell, once upon a time there were a number of CC effects associated with DW, sparks et al, a morph of Flurry offered an off-balance proc, all of which were all dropped over time. The lack of any CCs across DW really puts the line behind the 8-ball, especially for PVP. I suspect the plan post nerfs was to rebuild the DW anew or adjust it back with "standard" CC effect morphs, however, this never happened. As a result compared to the Bow and 2H lines, DW is a very distant third. Its one and only saving grace was the trade-off of using the poorer melee line to gain the ability to run a 5-5-2 or similar with Sets, ie. to gain an additional Set bonus. So now there has been two whole skill line nerfs of consequence, loss of Set bonus advantage and all CC effects, without any compensating buffing in any area.

I've used DW exclusively since Day 1 in full light of the above trade-offs and play a lot of PVP. Once the 2H/Bow change counting as 2 weapons happens I can't see any reason whatsoever to use DW over 2H/Bow and I'll be switching over. No real choice here. All PVP melee will concentrate down to 2H, but frankly this mostly the case now.

Personally I am not fond at all for this change. It is non-intuitive to have one thing count as two. More importantly it removes a major build decision point that everyone wrestled with of opting for 5-5-2 or for an effective melee capability. This made things interesting as to which way to go really mattered, with this loss build diversity will go down even further and a melee skill line no longer end game viable.

In PVP DW is fairly uncommon compared to Bow and 2H. So empirically even before the upcoming changes the consensus is somewhat against DW. Currently, tactically one will only see DW used within a bomber group or similar ball group that charge back and forth with Ulti AOEs with their DWers spamming Steel Tornado. Steel Tornado is not an executioner at all. It is an effective "finisher" in this situation, but that is more from it being a reasonable option as opposed to it's OP. As others have pointed out, it is not an effective finisher in single target combat either, even poor-ish; its just all we got.


One would think Flurry would be the effective choice in single target situations (1v1). In practice, it's pretty poor. Poor damage output. By design, you can't kite melee with Flurry. Because it is a channel you basically have to just stand there in full LOS waiting for that final strike to get the full modest damage out of it, leaving you wide open. Most of the time either you or the opponent, through simple normal combat movements, ensures that rarely will the final 300% Flurry strike ever hit. ie, the Flurry never completes, so you rarely get the big-ish damage from the last strike. Worse, if are foolish enough to try and stand there and spam off a Flurry or two, as you are stuck standing there in full LOS waiting for it to channel complete, with a single 2H swing your opponent will, close to 1-shot you, stun you, and knock you back all in one skill hit. Fight over, you dead.

Another problem is the "nobody really knows" how Flurry sits within the combat system. From a CP standpoint is it a DOT or Direct damage? Some hits one, some the other? How do the 5 hits affect procs? Despite the poor damage and the forced sitting duck nature of this skill, do I gain any advantage to Proc Armor or Monster Set effect(s)? Do all strikes possibly result in Proc? Can it Proc more than one thing? If only a single one of the strikes may Proc, which strike is it? If say it does proc an effect such as from an Armor Set which enhances Weapon Damage for X secs, if it Procs on strike N, will the enhanced damage be there for strike N+1, N+2, ... and ultimately the final 300% strike? Same issues for weapon enchantments. Does/can Flurry proc one or both weapon enchantments in a single flurry attack? Does each strike have an independent proc for crit hitting? Does the 3% damage compounding work? What damage number is adjusted 3%? Does that include the crit damage from the previous hit? Is the 3% applied to Pre damage, or Post damage after accounting for the various resist / armor mitigation has been accounted for? Seriously, why can't the Rapid Strikes Tooltip description just end with the statement "For a total of XXX damage." Is Flurry interruptable? Can the Flurry sequence be broken, exactly when and how?

Seriously if anyone knows how Flurry really, really works with regard to CP, enchantments, procing, situational interrupting (fails to complete last strike when ...???) et al., please post it. I've seen various posts, but the answers are all over the map or implied to be out dated.

The Maelstom DW Flurry issues are widely known.

DW Slashes is fairly OK. Decent DOT with 50% reduction in movement speed. Used it until I found out NBs just cloak and purge it.

Is Blade Cloak getting nerfed in the upcoming changes? If so curious to read the rational on that one. If it is/was that OP I've been an idiotand not slotted it for a look. But looks like I missed the boat as now it is queued for nerfage.

Daggers is pretty effective. Personally, I love it in PVP. After the harsh nerf to Warden Birds resulting in a large net effective in damage reduction compounded by the big slow down in spam rate, a lot fewer Wardens slot Birds now. And I don't even want to think about the oncoming nerf to Shalks. The whole Warden skill tree has only two (2!!) available damage skills for the Stamina Warden. Both now heavily nerfed. I fear the loss of the end game Warden once PVP viability is off the table as already all other end game situations are not viable. I will tell you the intersection of Stam Warden+DW+Med. Armor is a really, really, really tough place to be with all the nerfs and few if any buffs over the last 9-10 months. Back on topic, these days slotting DW Daggers over Birds my make a lot more sense. Aside: Is a Warden without Birds still a "Warden".

Another big issue with DW is that (modulo Flurry ambiguities) 1/2 the line is DOT and 1/2 the line is Direct forcing one to split their CP allocations. In 2H for example one can get much greater gains across the entire 2H line from focusing CP in direct and not splitting CPs.

Post Note:
FWIW, I have experimented with trying to min/max optimizing the DW melee in PVP and specifically the Flurry skill. Intuitively, one wants to think Flurry was meant by design to be the DW skill that would make a real damage dent in your opponent given it baggage of channel and nerf of CC.

The build philosophy was Sword Dancer Set (specifically designed for the DW line) plus various pairings with Automaton/Hundings/Spriggan/Drauger etc. (Clearly Maelstorm weapons for this experiment was off the table as badly broken.) Sword Dancer gives a healthy Weapon Damage boost, but only for DW skills. So it is a highly specialized build and one should expect it to have some sort of payoff for that sacrifice. Then after heavily biasing DW Weapon Damage and Stam heavily dumping CPs into Thauma with the specific intent of attempting to min/max Flurry into dealing some serious damage.

Don't have the exact numbers from these experiments but only subjective opinion in PVP, but even after min/max build optimizing and buffing Flurry is still a <10K-ish skill tooltip (when you add it all up). In PVP and for Dungeon runs Flurry's damage was so poor, that one was better off just throwing a DW Dagger and forgo the channel suffering getting a 40m vs 7m range. I do remember looking into why Flurry was so poor-ish and do recall noting that the ToolTip scaling formula for Flurry suffered badly was one possible reason. In other words, for high Weapon Damage / Stamina builds Flurry's tooltip scaled poorly with other skills out scaling with regard to damage at higher levels. I remember even thinking that maybe long ago, the original intent was for Flurry to be the DW's introduction skill of choice for low level characters and by design to be replaced by better options in the Bar at higher levels. This would explain Flurry having poor Tooltip scaling constants as well as poor end game utility even for a DW optimizing min/max build. In other words, even with dedicated nich Sets the DW line is still poor-ish and then you've really sacrificed in other areas on your bar outside of DW. Conclusion, not even close to worth it.

Celestro

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Celestro wrote: »

Where does it mention Cruel Flurry will be fixed?

What do you mean "it"? There is no it, a group of people went and played the game.

I'm aware of that. I didn't see any mention of that in anyones videos or post or anything along those lines, so I was wondering where 'it', being that piece of information, was mentioned.

fred4

I use Bloodthirst in my very old DK duelling build. It is buffed by Thaumaturge, not Master At Arms, so it works best in conjunction with other DOT skills, such as Twin Slashes and the Viper set. It synergises with DK Fossilize, especially now Fossilize does not break on damage anymore, but I agree it is best against opponents that have a similar in your face playstyle, such as templars. In a straightup fight against those I am just as likely to outdamage them as they are to outdamage me. This is with Troll King. Nightblades are a problem, as you can't CC them long enough and Flurry is not bursty. On the other hand the constant pressure from Viper / Spriggan / Troll King tends to work well against some tank builds. I also like it for the quickly-woven heavy attacks, which give me infinite sustain, if people (or NPCs in IC) allow me to hammer them.

I used to run Red Mountain many patches back. Flurry was one of the best ways of procing that set, so, yes, the fact that it is multiple hits helped with the proc chance. However the exact algorithm changed between patches. The proc rate in One Tamriel was higher and went down a bit with Homestead. Don't ask me why. It's just something I found empirically via a lot of play testing. I used to obsess about that at the time.

In general I find it quite a good skill 1v1, but in larger fights I kind of hate it. It doesn't have the templar's utility of hitting multiple people, but it is a channel so you can't block-cast or dodge-cancel it, so that's a big issue. The heals on these skills (e.g. Sweeps as well) are meant to make up for that. They do so in the context of, for example, the IC Memorial Ice boss fight. When he spews out his ice AOE, I can typically Vigor and attack into him with Bloodthirst, and that is in fact the best move you can make. Not so great in PvP, perhaps, compared to a more bursty and dodge-rolling playstyle.

JinMori

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Dual wield has an amazing execute with steel tornado and gains bonus damage to all dual wield abilities on low health enemies and you want to give them another execute? What is wrong with you?

Yea exactly wtf.

dw already have an execute passive, so why would they even need one??

JinMori

Vapirko wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Dual wield has an amazing execute with steel tornado and gains bonus damage to all dual wield abilities on low health enemies and you want to give them another execute? What is wrong with you?

Oh come on, that’s only good in group settings. It’s expensive and requires it to be spammed most of the time. Stam sorcs, DK dw users need a decent single target execute. Wardens and Templars less so since they’ve got access to goood class skills. Rapid strikes is clunky and needs a rework. Making it an actual single target ultimate gives us stam classes with no good class damage abilities a useful execute outside of then DB and tornado spam on noobs. I’m talking about a good single target execute that can be effectively used 1v1 against good players. Tbh I really don’t notice much of a difference on low health targets between dw and 2H. Reverse slice feels far more effective in terms of damage and cost than steel tornado. And now you have 2H benefiting from two set bonuses.

Ever heard about implosion?

Stam dk don't need an execute because otherwise the already king of st will become the overlord of pretty much everything, dk's never had an execute because they have an awesome spammable (mag dk), extremely powerful dots and the strongest ultimate in the game for pve, which is standard, please don't talk about things you have no clue about, it spreads misinformation between less informed players, and makes you look silly between more experienced players.

Reverse slice is a st ability with an aoe component, steel tornado is a purely aoe ability, so comparing the 2 doesn't make a lot of sense, because they are not really the same thing, you don't use steel tornado in st.

Maryal

Celestro wrote: »

Where does it mention Cruel Flurry will be fixed?

The extra damage from maelstrom daggers will once again work with cruel flurry when summerset comes out. This was on a video by @Gilliamtherogue

JinMori

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

DW is an overall disappointing melee line, not at all what one would expect it to be upon introduction. From what I can tell, once upon a time there were a number of CC effects associated with DW, sparks et al, a morph of Flurry offered an off-balance proc, all of which were all dropped over time. The lack of any CCs across DW really puts the line behind the 8-ball, especially for PVP. I suspect the plan post nerfs was to rebuild the DW anew or adjust it back with "standard" CC effect morphs, however, this never happened. As a result compared to the Bow and 2H lines, DW is a very distant third. Its one and only saving grace was the trade-off of using the poorer melee line to gain the ability to run a 5-5-2 or similar with Sets, ie. to gain an additional Set bonus. So now there has been two whole skill line nerfs of consequence, loss of Set bonus advantage and all CC effects, without any compensating buffing in any area.

I've used DW exclusively since Day 1 in full light of the above trade-offs and play a lot of PVP. Once the 2H/Bow change counting as 2 weapons happens I can't see any reason whatsoever to use DW over 2H/Bow and I'll be switching over. No real choice here. All PVP melee will concentrate down to 2H, but frankly this mostly the case now.

Personally I am not fond at all for this change. It is non-intuitive to have one thing count as two. More importantly it removes a major build decision point that everyone wrestled with of opting for 5-5-2 or for an effective melee capability. This made things interesting as to which way to go really mattered, with this loss build diversity will go down even further and a melee skill line no longer end game viable.

In PVP DW is fairly uncommon compared to Bow and 2H. So empirically even before the upcoming changes the consensus is somewhat against DW. Currently, tactically one will only see DW used within a bomber group or similar ball group that charge back and forth with Ulti AOEs with their DWers spamming Steel Tornado. Steel Tornado is not an executioner at all. It is an effective "finisher" in this situation, but that is more from it being a reasonable option as opposed to it's OP. As others have pointed out, it is not an effective finisher in single target combat either, even poor-ish; its just all we got.


One would think Flurry would be the effective choice in single target situations (1v1). In practice, it's pretty poor. Poor damage output. By design, you can't kite melee with Flurry. Because it is a channel you basically have to just stand there in full LOS waiting for that final strike to get the full modest damage out of it, leaving you wide open. Most of the time either you or the opponent, through simple normal combat movements, ensures that rarely will the final 300% Flurry strike ever hit. ie, the Flurry never completes, so you rarely get the big-ish damage from the last strike. Worse, if are foolish enough to try and stand there and spam off a Flurry or two, as you are stuck standing there in full LOS waiting for it to channel complete, with a single 2H swing your opponent will, close to 1-shot you, stun you, and knock you back all in one skill hit. Fight over, you dead.

Another problem is the "nobody really knows" how Flurry sits within the combat system. From a CP standpoint is it a DOT or Direct damage? Some hits one, some the other? How do the 5 hits affect procs? Despite the poor damage and the forced sitting duck nature of this skill, do I gain any advantage to Proc Armor or Monster Set effect(s)? Do all strikes possibly result in Proc? Can it Proc more than one thing? If only a single one of the strikes may Proc, which strike is it? If say it does proc an effect such as from an Armor Set which enhances Weapon Damage for X secs, if it Procs on strike N, will the enhanced damage be there for strike N+1, N+2, ... and ultimately the final 300% strike? Same issues for weapon enchantments. Does/can Flurry proc one or both weapon enchantments in a single flurry attack? Does each strike have an independent proc for crit hitting? Does the 3% damage compounding work? What damage number is adjusted 3%? Does that include the crit damage from the previous hit? Is the 3% applied to Pre damage, or Post damage after accounting for the various resist / armor mitigation has been accounted for? Seriously, why can't the Rapid Strikes Tooltip description just end with the statement "For a total of XXX damage." Is Flurry interruptable? Can the Flurry sequence be broken, exactly when and how?

Seriously if anyone knows how Flurry really, really works with regard to CP, enchantments, procing, situational interrupting (fails to complete last strike when ...???) et al., please post it. I've seen various posts, but the answers are all over the map or implied to be out dated.

The Maelstom DW Flurry issues are widely known.

DW Slashes is fairly OK. Decent DOT with 50% reduction in movement speed. Used it until I found out NBs just cloak and purge it.

Is Blade Cloak getting nerfed in the upcoming changes? If so curious to read the rational on that one. If it is/was that OP I've been an idiotand not slotted it for a look. But looks like I missed the boat as now it is queued for nerfage.

Daggers is pretty effective. Personally, I love it in PVP. After the harsh nerf to Warden Birds resulting in a large net effective in damage reduction compounded by the big slow down in spam rate, a lot fewer Wardens slot Birds now. And I don't even want to think about the oncoming nerf to Shalks. The whole Warden skill tree has only two (2!!) available damage skills for the Stamina Warden. Both now heavily nerfed. I fear the loss of the end game Warden once PVP viability is off the table as already all other end game situations are not viable. I will tell you the intersection of Stam Warden+DW+Med. Armor is a really, really, really tough place to be with all the nerfs and few if any buffs over the last 9-10 months. Back on topic, these days slotting DW Daggers over Birds my make a lot more sense. Aside: Is a Warden without Birds still a "Warden".

Another big issue with DW is that (modulo Flurry ambiguities) 1/2 the line is DOT and 1/2 the line is Direct forcing one to split their CP allocations. In 2H for example one can get much greater gains across the entire 2H line from focusing CP in direct and not splitting CPs.

Post Note:
FWIW, I have experimented with trying to min/max optimizing the DW melee in PVP and specifically the Flurry skill. Intuitively, one wants to think Flurry was meant by design to be the DW skill that would make a real damage dent in your opponent given it baggage of channel and nerf of CC.

The build philosophy was Sword Dancer Set (specifically designed for the DW line) plus various pairings with Automaton/Hundings/Spriggan/Drauger etc. (Clearly Maelstorm weapons for this experiment was off the table as badly broken.) Sword Dancer gives a healthy Weapon Damage boost, but only for DW skills. So it is a highly specialized build and one should expect it to have some sort of payoff for that sacrifice. Then after heavily biasing DW Weapon Damage and Stam heavily dumping CPs into Thauma with the specific intent of attempting to min/max Flurry into dealing some serious damage.

Don't have the exact numbers from these experiments but only subjective opinion in PVP, but even after min/max build optimizing and buffing Flurry is still a <10K-ish skill tooltip (when you add it all up). In PVP and for Dungeon runs Flurry's damage was so poor, that one was better off just throwing a DW Dagger and forgo the channel suffering getting a 40m vs 7m range. I do remember looking into why Flurry was so poor-ish and do recall noting that the ToolTip scaling formula for Flurry suffered badly was one possible reason. In other words, for high Weapon Damage / Stamina builds Flurry's tooltip scaled poorly with other skills out scaling with regard to damage at higher levels. I remember even thinking that maybe long ago, the original intent was for Flurry to be the DW's introduction skill of choice for low level characters and by design to be replaced by better options in the Bar at higher levels. This would explain Flurry having poor Tooltip scaling constants as well as poor end game utility even for a DW optimizing min/max build. In other words, even with dedicated nich Sets the DW line is still poor-ish and then you've really sacrificed in other areas on your bar outside of DW. Conclusion, not even close to worth it.

You seem to be talking from a pvp standpoint, but i can tell you this, dw is definitely not disappointing in pve, it gives about 10 to 15 k more dps in trials compared to two handed, even with 2h counting as 2 items it will still be massively above, dw is not burst damage it's sustained damage, which is why it's not as good in pvp.

And also, flurry is considered a dot.

Ladislao

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

DW is an overall disappointing melee line, not at all what one would expect it to be upon introduction. From what I can tell, once upon a time there were a number of CC effects associated with DW, sparks et al, a morph of Flurry offered an off-balance proc, all of which were all dropped over time. The lack of any CCs across DW really puts the line behind the 8-ball, especially for PVP. I suspect the plan post nerfs was to rebuild the DW anew or adjust it back with "standard" CC effect morphs, however, this never happened. As a result compared to the Bow and 2H lines, DW is a very distant third. Its one and only saving grace was the trade-off of using the poorer melee line to gain the ability to run a 5-5-2 or similar with Sets, ie. to gain an additional Set bonus. So now there has been two whole skill line nerfs of consequence, loss of Set bonus advantage and all CC effects, without any compensating buffing in any area.

I've used DW exclusively since Day 1 in full light of the above trade-offs and play a lot of PVP. Once the 2H/Bow change counting as 2 weapons happens I can't see any reason whatsoever to use DW over 2H/Bow and I'll be switching over. No real choice here. All PVP melee will concentrate down to 2H, but frankly this mostly the case now.

Personally I am not fond at all for this change. It is non-intuitive to have one thing count as two. More importantly it removes a major build decision point that everyone wrestled with of opting for 5-5-2 or for an effective melee capability. This made things interesting as to which way to go really mattered, with this loss build diversity will go down even further and a melee skill line no longer end game viable.

In PVP DW is fairly uncommon compared to Bow and 2H. So empirically even before the upcoming changes the consensus is somewhat against DW. Currently, tactically one will only see DW used within a bomber group or similar ball group that charge back and forth with Ulti AOEs with their DWers spamming Steel Tornado. Steel Tornado is not an executioner at all. It is an effective "finisher" in this situation, but that is more from it being a reasonable option as opposed to it's OP. As others have pointed out, it is not an effective finisher in single target combat either, even poor-ish; its just all we got.


One would think Flurry would be the effective choice in single target situations (1v1). In practice, it's pretty poor. Poor damage output. By design, you can't kite melee with Flurry. Because it is a channel you basically have to just stand there in full LOS waiting for that final strike to get the full modest damage out of it, leaving you wide open. Most of the time either you or the opponent, through simple normal combat movements, ensures that rarely will the final 300% Flurry strike ever hit. ie, the Flurry never completes, so you rarely get the big-ish damage from the last strike. Worse, if are foolish enough to try and stand there and spam off a Flurry or two, as you are stuck standing there in full LOS waiting for it to channel complete, with a single 2H swing your opponent will, close to 1-shot you, stun you, and knock you back all in one skill hit. Fight over, you dead.

Another problem is the "nobody really knows" how Flurry sits within the combat system. From a CP standpoint is it a DOT or Direct damage? Some hits one, some the other? How do the 5 hits affect procs? Despite the poor damage and the forced sitting duck nature of this skill, do I gain any advantage to Proc Armor or Monster Set effect(s)? Do all strikes possibly result in Proc? Can it Proc more than one thing? If only a single one of the strikes may Proc, which strike is it? If say it does proc an effect such as from an Armor Set which enhances Weapon Damage for X secs, if it Procs on strike N, will the enhanced damage be there for strike N+1, N+2, ... and ultimately the final 300% strike? Same issues for weapon enchantments. Does/can Flurry proc one or both weapon enchantments in a single flurry attack? Does each strike have an independent proc for crit hitting? Does the 3% damage compounding work? What damage number is adjusted 3%? Does that include the crit damage from the previous hit? Is the 3% applied to Pre damage, or Post damage after accounting for the various resist / armor mitigation has been accounted for? Seriously, why can't the Rapid Strikes Tooltip description just end with the statement "For a total of XXX damage." Is Flurry interruptable? Can the Flurry sequence be broken, exactly when and how?

Seriously if anyone knows how Flurry really, really works with regard to CP, enchantments, procing, situational interrupting (fails to complete last strike when ...???) et al., please post it. I've seen various posts, but the answers are all over the map or implied to be out dated.

The Maelstom DW Flurry issues are widely known.

DW Slashes is fairly OK. Decent DOT with 50% reduction in movement speed. Used it until I found out NBs just cloak and purge it.

Is Blade Cloak getting nerfed in the upcoming changes? If so curious to read the rational on that one. If it is/was that OP I've been an idiotand not slotted it for a look. But looks like I missed the boat as now it is queued for nerfage.

Daggers is pretty effective. Personally, I love it in PVP. After the harsh nerf to Warden Birds resulting in a large net effective in damage reduction compounded by the big slow down in spam rate, a lot fewer Wardens slot Birds now. And I don't even want to think about the oncoming nerf to Shalks. The whole Warden skill tree has only two (2!!) available damage skills for the Stamina Warden. Both now heavily nerfed. I fear the loss of the end game Warden once PVP viability is off the table as already all other end game situations are not viable. I will tell you the intersection of Stam Warden+DW+Med. Armor is a really, really, really tough place to be with all the nerfs and few if any buffs over the last 9-10 months. Back on topic, these days slotting DW Daggers over Birds my make a lot more sense. Aside: Is a Warden without Birds still a "Warden".

Another big issue with DW is that (modulo Flurry ambiguities) 1/2 the line is DOT and 1/2 the line is Direct forcing one to split their CP allocations. In 2H for example one can get much greater gains across the entire 2H line from focusing CP in direct and not splitting CPs.

Post Note:
FWIW, I have experimented with trying to min/max optimizing the DW melee in PVP and specifically the Flurry skill. Intuitively, one wants to think Flurry was meant by design to be the DW skill that would make a real damage dent in your opponent given it baggage of channel and nerf of CC.

The build philosophy was Sword Dancer Set (specifically designed for the DW line) plus various pairings with Automaton/Hundings/Spriggan/Drauger etc. (Clearly Maelstorm weapons for this experiment was off the table as badly broken.) Sword Dancer gives a healthy Weapon Damage boost, but only for DW skills. So it is a highly specialized build and one should expect it to have some sort of payoff for that sacrifice. Then after heavily biasing DW Weapon Damage and Stam heavily dumping CPs into Thauma with the specific intent of attempting to min/max Flurry into dealing some serious damage.

Don't have the exact numbers from these experiments but only subjective opinion in PVP, but even after min/max build optimizing and buffing Flurry is still a <10K-ish skill tooltip (when you add it all up). In PVP and for Dungeon runs Flurry's damage was so poor, that one was better off just throwing a DW Dagger and forgo the channel suffering getting a 40m vs 7m range. I do remember looking into why Flurry was so poor-ish and do recall noting that the ToolTip scaling formula for Flurry suffered badly was one possible reason. In other words, for high Weapon Damage / Stamina builds Flurry's tooltip scaled poorly with other skills out scaling with regard to damage at higher levels. I remember even thinking that maybe long ago, the original intent was for Flurry to be the DW's introduction skill of choice for low level characters and by design to be replaced by better options in the Bar at higher levels. This would explain Flurry having poor Tooltip scaling constants as well as poor end game utility even for a DW optimizing min/max build. In other words, even with dedicated nich Sets the DW line is still poor-ish and then you've really sacrificed in other areas on your bar outside of DW. Conclusion, not even close to worth it.

Excellent post in terms of details. I love these.

The answer to your message is very simple. There is no alternative. In the whole game, I can recall only one example of spam ability, which is DoT - templar's Puncturing Strikes.

So, if I want to take direct spam ability I can choose from Whirlwind, Hidden Blade, class abilities (if available), Silver Bolts, maybe Inner Fire, even heavy attacks or just switch to any another weapon (because they are more specialized in this). But if I want to take damage over time spam ability I have to use Flurry (or be templar).

And all these proposals to rework Flurry to the classic DoT or direct spam ability for the sake of diversity are actually harmful to diversity.

GeorgeBlack

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

DW is an overall disappointing melee line, not at all what one would expect it to be upon introduction. From what I can tell, once upon a time there were a number of CC effects associated with DW, sparks et al, a morph of Flurry offered an off-balance proc, all of which were all dropped over time. The lack of any CCs across DW really puts the line behind the 8-ball, especially for PVP. I suspect the plan post nerfs was to rebuild the DW anew or adjust it back with "standard" CC effect morphs, however, this never happened. As a result compared to the Bow and 2H lines, DW is a very distant third. Its one and only saving grace was the trade-off of using the poorer melee line to gain the ability to run a 5-5-2 or similar with Sets, ie. to gain an additional Set bonus. So now there has been two whole skill line nerfs of consequence, loss of Set bonus advantage and all CC effects, without any compensating buffing in any area.

I've used DW exclusively since Day 1 in full light of the above trade-offs and play a lot of PVP. Once the 2H/Bow change counting as 2 weapons happens I can't see any reason whatsoever to use DW over 2H/Bow and I'll be switching over. No real choice here. All PVP melee will concentrate down to 2H, but frankly this mostly the case now.

Personally I am not fond at all for this change. It is non-intuitive to have one thing count as two. More importantly it removes a major build decision point that everyone wrestled with of opting for 5-5-2 or for an effective melee capability. This made things interesting as to which way to go really mattered, with this loss build diversity will go down even further and a melee skill line no longer end game viable.

In PVP DW is fairly uncommon compared to Bow and 2H. So empirically even before the upcoming changes the consensus is somewhat against DW. Currently, tactically one will only see DW used within a bomber group or similar ball group that charge back and forth with Ulti AOEs with their DWers spamming Steel Tornado. Steel Tornado is not an executioner at all. It is an effective "finisher" in this situation, but that is more from it being a reasonable option as opposed to it's OP. As others have pointed out, it is not an effective finisher in single target combat either, even poor-ish; its just all we got.


One would think Flurry would be the effective choice in single target situations (1v1). In practice, it's pretty poor. Poor damage output. By design, you can't kite melee with Flurry. Because it is a channel you basically have to just stand there in full LOS waiting for that final strike to get the full modest damage out of it, leaving you wide open. Most of the time either you or the opponent, through simple normal combat movements, ensures that rarely will the final 300% Flurry strike ever hit. ie, the Flurry never completes, so you rarely get the big-ish damage from the last strike. Worse, if are foolish enough to try and stand there and spam off a Flurry or two, as you are stuck standing there in full LOS waiting for it to channel complete, with a single 2H swing your opponent will, close to 1-shot you, stun you, and knock you back all in one skill hit. Fight over, you dead.

Another problem is the "nobody really knows" how Flurry sits within the combat system. From a CP standpoint is it a DOT or Direct damage? Some hits one, some the other? How do the 5 hits affect procs? Despite the poor damage and the forced sitting duck nature of this skill, do I gain any advantage to Proc Armor or Monster Set effect(s)? Do all strikes possibly result in Proc? Can it Proc more than one thing? If only a single one of the strikes may Proc, which strike is it? If say it does proc an effect such as from an Armor Set which enhances Weapon Damage for X secs, if it Procs on strike N, will the enhanced damage be there for strike N+1, N+2, ... and ultimately the final 300% strike? Same issues for weapon enchantments. Does/can Flurry proc one or both weapon enchantments in a single flurry attack? Does each strike have an independent proc for crit hitting? Does the 3% damage compounding work? What damage number is adjusted 3%? Does that include the crit damage from the previous hit? Is the 3% applied to Pre damage, or Post damage after accounting for the various resist / armor mitigation has been accounted for? Seriously, why can't the Rapid Strikes Tooltip description just end with the statement "For a total of XXX damage." Is Flurry interruptable? Can the Flurry sequence be broken, exactly when and how?

Seriously if anyone knows how Flurry really, really works with regard to CP, enchantments, procing, situational interrupting (fails to complete last strike when ...???) et al., please post it. I've seen various posts, but the answers are all over the map or implied to be out dated.

The Maelstom DW Flurry issues are widely known.

DW Slashes is fairly OK. Decent DOT with 50% reduction in movement speed. Used it until I found out NBs just cloak and purge it.

Is Blade Cloak getting nerfed in the upcoming changes? If so curious to read the rational on that one. If it is/was that OP I've been an idiotand not slotted it for a look. But looks like I missed the boat as now it is queued for nerfage.

Daggers is pretty effective. Personally, I love it in PVP. After the harsh nerf to Warden Birds resulting in a large net effective in damage reduction compounded by the big slow down in spam rate, a lot fewer Wardens slot Birds now. And I don't even want to think about the oncoming nerf to Shalks. The whole Warden skill tree has only two (2!!) available damage skills for the Stamina Warden. Both now heavily nerfed. I fear the loss of the end game Warden once PVP viability is off the table as already all other end game situations are not viable. I will tell you the intersection of Stam Warden+DW+Med. Armor is a really, really, really tough place to be with all the nerfs and few if any buffs over the last 9-10 months. Back on topic, these days slotting DW Daggers over Birds my make a lot more sense. Aside: Is a Warden without Birds still a "Warden".

Another big issue with DW is that (modulo Flurry ambiguities) 1/2 the line is DOT and 1/2 the line is Direct forcing one to split their CP allocations. In 2H for example one can get much greater gains across the entire 2H line from focusing CP in direct and not splitting CPs.

Post Note:
FWIW, I have experimented with trying to min/max optimizing the DW melee in PVP and specifically the Flurry skill. Intuitively, one wants to think Flurry was meant by design to be the DW skill that would make a real damage dent in your opponent given it baggage of channel and nerf of CC.

The build philosophy was Sword Dancer Set (specifically designed for the DW line) plus various pairings with Automaton/Hundings/Spriggan/Drauger etc. (Clearly Maelstorm weapons for this experiment was off the table as badly broken.) Sword Dancer gives a healthy Weapon Damage boost, but only for DW skills. So it is a highly specialized build and one should expect it to have some sort of payoff for that sacrifice. Then after heavily biasing DW Weapon Damage and Stam heavily dumping CPs into Thauma with the specific intent of attempting to min/max Flurry into dealing some serious damage.

Don't have the exact numbers from these experiments but only subjective opinion in PVP, but even after min/max build optimizing and buffing Flurry is still a <10K-ish skill tooltip (when you add it all up). In PVP and for Dungeon runs Flurry's damage was so poor, that one was better off just throwing a DW Dagger and forgo the channel suffering getting a 40m vs 7m range. I do remember looking into why Flurry was so poor-ish and do recall noting that the ToolTip scaling formula for Flurry suffered badly was one possible reason. In other words, for high Weapon Damage / Stamina builds Flurry's tooltip scaled poorly with other skills out scaling with regard to damage at higher levels. I remember even thinking that maybe long ago, the original intent was for Flurry to be the DW's introduction skill of choice for low level characters and by design to be replaced by better options in the Bar at higher levels. This would explain Flurry having poor Tooltip scaling constants as well as poor end game utility even for a DW optimizing min/max build. In other words, even with dedicated nich Sets the DW line is still poor-ish and then you've really sacrificed in other areas on your bar outside of DW. Conclusion, not even close to worth it.

and then they tell me that 2h getting 2piece treatment is a meaningful buff.

MalakithAlamahdi

Duel wield will probably be Hella deadly with the new traits that buff execute damage. You hate bleeding? Wait untill you feel these stabs.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

MalakithAlamahdi wrote: »

Duel wield will probably be Hella deadly with the new traits that buff execute damage. You hate bleeding? Wait untill you feel these stabs.

The trait does not just buff execute damage. It buffs ALL damage under 25% by 20%, so.

Vapirko

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

MalakithAlamahdi wrote: »

Duel wield will probably be Hella deadly with the new traits that buff execute damage. You hate bleeding? Wait untill you feel these stabs.

The trait does not just buff execute damage. It buffs ALL damage under 25% by 20%, so.

That’s gonna be op as *** all around, but will stack especially well with the dw passives. Idk why zos is upping the damage in eso, the amount you can output now is already over the top.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Vapirko wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

MalakithAlamahdi wrote: »

Duel wield will probably be Hella deadly with the new traits that buff execute damage. You hate bleeding? Wait untill you feel these stabs.

The trait does not just buff execute damage. It buffs ALL damage under 25% by 20%, so.

That’s gonna be op as *** all around, but will stack especially well with the dw passives. Idk why zos is upping the damage in eso, the amount you can output now is already over the top.

You lose out on a ton of damage 100-25% by using that trait, either by using max stat or infused. That is how it is balanced.

Vapirko

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

MalakithAlamahdi wrote: »

Duel wield will probably be Hella deadly with the new traits that buff execute damage. You hate bleeding? Wait untill you feel these stabs.

The trait does not just buff execute damage. It buffs ALL damage under 25% by 20%, so.

That’s gonna be op as *** all around, but will stack especially well with the dw passives. Idk why zos is upping the damage in eso, the amount you can output now is already over the top.

You lose out on a ton of damage 100-25% by using that trait, either by using max stat or infused. That is how it is balanced.

Over all damage sure, but think about how most stam builds work in PvP, by delivering a huge burst and then execute. Even if I lose 2.4k stam I’m still gonna have over 35k and my DBoS is still going hit really hard and once you’re in that execute range and DW passives and Jewlery passives kick in, it’s goig to be messy.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Vapirko wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

MalakithAlamahdi wrote: »

Duel wield will probably be Hella deadly with the new traits that buff execute damage. You hate bleeding? Wait untill you feel these stabs.

The trait does not just buff execute damage. It buffs ALL damage under 25% by 20%, so.

That’s gonna be op as *** all around, but will stack especially well with the dw passives. Idk why zos is upping the damage in eso, the amount you can output now is already over the top.

You lose out on a ton of damage 100-25% by using that trait, either by using max stat or infused. That is how it is balanced.

Over all damage sure, but think about how most stam builds work in PvP, by delivering a huge burst and then execute. Even if I lose 2.4k stam I’m still gonna have over 35k and my DBoS is still going hit really hard and once you’re in that execute range and DW passives and Jewlery passives kick in, it’s goig to be messy.

I don't PvP. So I have to geuss the average player had around what? 25k health? So you are going to need to get them to ~6k health for the jewelry trait to matter, by then wouldn't anything"be messy"?