"Arena" weapons desperately need a 1pc stat bonus — a detailed explanation

TheYKcid

"Arena" in this case refers to the special weapons acquired from the veteran instances of Maelstrom Arena & Dragonstar Arena, and both instances of Asylum Sanctorium.

If such weapons do not receive a 1pc stat bonus when Summerset launches (eg. 129 weapon damage, 1096 magicka), 2H weapons in this category will NOT BE VIABLE to run on the frontbar.

This is because, in Summerset, all 2Hs (inclusive of staves) will count as 2 set pieces—meaning that any 2H build will be able to run a 5/5/2 setup (a monster set + two full 5pc sets). Therefore, should someone instead choose to run an "Arena" 2H on the frontbar, they must forgo either:

• a full 5pc set... and replace it with 3pc Agility/Willpower + the Arena 2H
• or their monster set (and therefore run two 5pc sets + the Arena weapon)

In both cases, you are forgoing *TWO* bonuses:

1. a "regular" stat bonus (the 1pc of a monster set, or the 4pc of a full set)
2. a "special" bonus (the 2pc of a monster set, of the 5pc of a full set)

...but in return, all you get is a *SINGLE* bonus from the arena weapon. Furthermore, it's important to note that this bonus is highly conditional—because it only functions for a single skill, from a single weapon type. Beyond this, it doesn't boost any of the other skills on your bar, nor your stats, et cetera. It is therefore inferior to the usual "special" bonuses, and I shall subsequently refer to these as "conditional special" bonuses.

However, these losses can be mitigated when running 3pc Agility/Willpower as part of a build. This is because these sets have a 2pc stat bonus that is 32.4% higher than a "regular" one, and a 3pc damage bonus 49.6% higher than "regular". This is with gold quality jewelry, which will be obtainable in Summerset.

Therefore (in return for sacrificing one "regular" bonus, and one "special" bonus) we have now gained:

• a net 82% of a "regular" bonus
• an inferior "conditional special" bonus

From this comparison, you can see that—even in the most favourable scenario—running a setup with a 2H Arena weapon on the frontbar is objectively worse than a 5pc set in all regards. This is patently absurd, because these weapons are obtained from some of the toughest solo and 4-man PvE content in the game—and SHOULD perform better than run-of-the-mill 5pc sets that can be farmed from normal dungeons.

This will adversely affect many interesting, popular frontbar choices such as:

• vMA 2H
• Master Destro
• Asylum 2H
• Asylum Destro

The simple solution?
Give Arena weapons a 1pc stat bonus.

vMA weapons historically provided weapon/spell damage, while Master's weapons gave max resources (prior to the Clockwork City update). We could follow this template to preserve their historical "flavour", but adjust the values (129 damage, 1096 max resources), in order to remain consistent with the standardised values of 1-4pc bonuses, as well as for balance. Asylum weapons could, perhaps, be given critical (with a standard 1pc value of 833).

(on a sidenote, I would support NOT giving this buff to imperfect Asylum weapons, as they are far too easy to obtain to justify having such power)

These changes would not be imbalanced, and would not make any double 5pc setups obsolete. An Arena 2H setup will still have less raw stats—and less proc damage, furthermore conditional—than a 5/5/2 setup focused on either category. What it would offer, however, is a unique balance between the abovementioned categories, promoting build diversity by increasing the number of viable itemisation formats.

It would also be a nice gesture to anyone who has invested dozens to hundreds of hours of their personal time into grinding these gruelling veteran instances, for their hard-earned weapons to be at least on-par with the alternatives, instead of the prestigious junk that many of them currently are.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________


tl;dr
Arena weapons need to be given a 1pc stat bonus, or their 2Hs will not remain viable as frontbar weapons in Summerset.
(backbar Arena weapons will still be fine, though)

TheYKcid

P.S.

The Summerset pre-PTS details were released on April 3, upon which myself, and many other players, immediately gave feedback regarding this issue. Unsurprising, as this is a glaringly obvious balance ramification of the "2H = 2 bonuses" change.

5 weeks later, there has been zero acknowledgement of this problem, nor any indication that it is being addressed. And the PTS has already gone through four iterations.

Clearly we need to do more to get this on the developer radar! So please leave a comment of support if you would like to help get this issue resolved.

jwellsub17_ESO2

Greetings,

You do realize that 2H do not get double bonus, they simply count as two slots for the purpose of set counts. With 2 daggers, you will get the same bonus as a single 2H weapon.

Additionally, prior to this change you could not get 5/5/2 without using dual wield or sword & board. But now with this change you can get 5/5/2 with bows, staves, and 2H... That is all this change is doing.

TheYKcid

@jwellsub17_ESO2

That is precisely the point!

Arena 2Hs are not getting any changes, while all other 2Hs are receiving a buff. Therefore, Arena 2Hs have regressed in terms of power, in comparison to the alternatives.

Balance is a relative concept.

WickidMexican

I think with this change it made the difference between having arena weapons and not smaller. That way you dont feel a big gap in terms of dps.

RoyJade

With Summerset change, 2H arena will be in the exact same state as 1H arena. Maybe you should less speaks about 2H ; your point take both 2H and 1H in consideration, but we may understand it as "2H arena are nerfed, buff them" without a 1H arena buff asked.

I agree that arena weapons should get a generic bonus, but not as a 1cp stat one : as a 2cp stat. If not, 1H would be able to stack agi/will and two generic bonus, which may be unfair ; with a second 2cp bonus, two advantages : 1h and 2h would have the same, and perfected weapons would be far easier to create (no generic second bonus for non-perfect, as you suggested). Non perfect (actual and future) would have the special effect, and perfect gain an additional stat bonus. And it would open the door for maelstrom and master non-perfect/perfect version, and follow the way ZOS created with the perfected version of Summerset's trial set.

Solariken

And/or all of these special weapons should reduce the cost of the ability they modify just like the Master's Destro.

TheYKcid

@WickidMexican

The gap isn't smaller, it has flipped on it's head!

2H frontbar arena weapons are now performing WORSE than builds which do not have them. Plenty of justification if you read the thread.

Conversely, the backbar arena weapons (vMA bow & destro) are the ones that truly overperform in PvE DPS parses. This will not change in Summerset, and my suggestions won't change that either.

TheYKcid

Solariken wrote: »

And/or all of these special weapons should reduce the cost of the ability they modify just like the Master's Destro.

That would make most of them useless. Master destro works because an enhanced Flame Reach is a viable spammable. You can't spam Volley or Ele Blockade.

Making Arena weapons obsolete is the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here...

Derra

Good topic - lets hope something will be done. But i´m not too sure given the past experiences with ZOS balancing/patching policy.

TheYKcid

@RoyJade

I had actually considered that point, as well as a counterargument, but decided it wasn't worth including in an opening post that was already a wall of text, lol.

In any case, I get what you mean about the possible issue of stacking two 1pc Arena items (eg. DW or S&B) to get a ton of raw stats. But... people can already do this with two 1pcs from monster sets (and also use Agi/Willpower at the same time), and it's hardly considered overpowered or meta—so I don't reckon it will be an issue in future, either.

RoyJade

TheYKcid wrote: »

In any case, I get what you mean about the possible issue of stacking two 1pc Arena items (eg. DW or S&B) to get a ton of raw stats. But... people can already do this with two 1pcs from monster sets (and also use Agi/Willpower at the same time), and it's hardly considered overpowered or meta—so I don't reckon it will be an issue in future, either.

Yeah, but monster set are often far stronger than arena front bar bonus. And still, it would allow 1H to get a raw increase if wanted, while 2H would once again get the short end on itemization bonus. That's why giving them as a second 2cp bonus is more fair.

TheYKcid

Very good points.

Frankly, with the amount of inertia every PTS cycle seems to possess, right now I'd be happy for the weapons to get a stat bonus in any way, shape or form.

But I do hope your suggestion gets considered, they really do make sense now that I think about it.

jypcy

TheYKcid wrote: »

@RoyJade

I had actually considered that point, as well as a counterargument, but decided it wasn't worth including in an opening post that was already a wall of text, lol.

In any case, I get what you mean about the possible issue of stacking two 1pc Arena items (eg. DW or S&B) to get a ton of raw stats. But... people can already do this with two 1pcs from monster sets (and also use Agi/Willpower at the same time), and it's hardly considered overpowered or meta—so I don't reckon it will be an issue in future, either.

Still, I don’t think there’d be any harm done if the extra stat bonus for arena weapons is an additional 2 pc bonus instead of a 1 pc.

TheYKcid wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

And/or all of these special weapons should reduce the cost of the ability they modify just like the Master's Destro.

That would make most of them useless. Master destro works because an enhanced Flame Reach is a viable spammable. You can't spam Volley or Ele Blockade.

Making Arena weapons obsolete is the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here...

I don’t think that was the point, just that cost reduction would be another added bonus on top of the current ability modification set bonus we know. So making them even better than what they are now, even if it’s not necessarily needed (like for the blockade and volley examples you cite).

Overall though I’m in favor of restoring the stat bonuses or increasing the power of (most of) the arena weapons. A fair amount already aren’t that great compared to the setups you could run instead, and the 2h set change only further decreases their viability. For example, the perfect destro is currently bis for a lot of magicka builds, both pve and pvp. Next patch it’s looking a lot more like a buff set in comparison to what you could run instead.

mr_wazzabi

WickidMexican wrote: »

I think with this change it made the difference between having arena weapons and not smaller. That way you dont feel a big gap in terms of dps.

No it won't. As op said,n 5/5/2 frontbar will still be the best setup. I think we can all agree that the 5pc bonus of spriggans, tfs, leviathan, lich etc are better than the unique effect of VMA, Master and Assylum 2H

IAVITNI

TheYKcid wrote: »

@RoyJade

I had actually considered that point, as well as a counterargument, but decided it wasn't worth including in an opening post that was already a wall of text, lol.

In any case, I get what you mean about the possible issue of stacking two 1pc Arena items (eg. DW or S&B) to get a ton of raw stats. But... people can already do this with two 1pcs from monster sets (and also use Agi/Willpower at the same time), and it's hardly considered overpowered or meta—so I don't reckon it will be an issue in future, either.

Prior to the last nerf, 1-hand arena weapons had half the stat bonus as 2h. For example, a maelstrom dagger gave around 94 weapon damage while a 2h gave 189. In fact, my memory is that 1h weapons gave less damage than a 2h but I never ran 1h arena weapons so I could be wrong.

An alternative idea is to buff all jewellery set 2pcs up to will power/agility levels and than buff all 3 pc bonuses up. Jewellery sets are what were most common ran with arena weapons. This would create a greater diversity and wouldn't make arena weapons as mandatory as they once were.

Vapirko

Agreed, it’s terrible that ZOS has fully and completely shut the lid on an untold number of hours farming and completing vMA for thousands of people. Even the Asylum 2H is gonna be hard to justify. As is some people have begun moving it to the back bar to use only as an execute ult generator. The only weapons that might remain truly viable are vMA bow, Master bow, possibly Master duel wield, and maybe vMA staff as backbar but somehow I doubt it. That’s a pretty small collection of weapons for three separate arenas.

Aliyavana

And while they are at it, fix vma dw

ccfeeling

For AS 2H weapons , I recommand that ZOS just need to buff the perfect sets , normal version are too easy , there are no effort at all .

Drakkdjinn

+1

They make many changes in a vacuum of previous adjustments; this shouldn't be one. - Bring them up to par.

commdt

TheYKcid wrote: »

(on a sidenote, I would support NOT giving this buff to imperfect Asylum weapons, as they are far too easy to obtain to justify having such power)

Redesign AS weapons so they give only "special" bonus as imperfect weapon and exactly the same "special" bonus + stat as perfected. The same as the new trial sets.
It would make it easier to balance as now the difference between perfect and imperfect versions varies from non-existant to tremendous.

Btw AS weapons "special" bonuses are mostly a complete trash, in Summerset only a 2H will see any use

TheYKcid

@IAVITNI I reckon it would be a bad idea to buff Agi/Will. Doing so would encourage the usage of extremely potent 5/3/1/5 backbar setups, to provide an absurd amount of raw stats.

An example build would be:

• 3pc Spriggan's on the body
• 1pc Domihaus on the head/shoulder
• 3pc Agi on the jewels
• 3pc Alchemist on the body

...with Spriggan's weapon(s) frontbar, and Alch weapon(s) backbar—each completing their respective sets.

Proc alch on the backbar, swap to frontbar, and you now have the stats of two 5pc sets, a 1pc monster, and the 3pc agi.

Making Agi/Will any stronger would send such builds over the top. And they would be very prolific because all the components are easy to acquire.

I'd rather change the Arena weapons themselves. Buffing what needs to be buffed, with minimal impact on extrernal balance.

Masel

Aliyavana wrote: »

And while they are at it, fix vma dw

That already happened. You can use them on the pts just fine.

ascan7

So when someone make a nerf thread, everyone is like "ask for buffs, not for nerfs!"
But when things get buffed everyone is like "yeah you have to but EVERYTHING otherwise it's a nerf for things not buffed".
Nope. They did this to reduce the gap between BIS and not BIS. Dual wield is still superior to 2h, Maelstrom bow is still the best backbar, Master resto staff is still strong on healers and so on.

TheYKcid

At no point have the developers stated that the 2h=2pc change was to bridge the gap between BiS and otherwise. In fact, I recall them explicity saying on ESO live that the motivation behind the change was to facilitate build diversity by allowing everyone to use two 5pc sets regardless of weapon choice.

Any imbalances resulting from the change are ostensibly unintended consequences.

In any case, this thread is about the two-handed Arena weapons, which are not only not BiS, but are actually underperforming compared to basic gear.

This thread has nothing to do with dual wield, not vMA bow, nor Master's resto, etc. If you have an issue with those, it might be a better idea to start your own thread discussing them specifically.

DPShiro

Something needs to happen.

Crafting a set shouldn’t be better than sweating out vAS HM for a Perfected Staff.

Merlin13KAGL

All you're doing here is making a choice between set bonuses, same as everyone does with every build, every patch.

If the MA bonus is worth slotting, then slot it.

If a 5th pc bonus is worth more, slot that instead.

They'll still give proc effects that you cannot get via any other set in the game. You decide if it's worth keeping or not.

Here's another analogy, if another 2H came along that was arguably better, what would you do? Would you try to get a set that's been available for years buffed, or would you go with the new, better set and be done with it?

Making other combos more viable doesn't somehow make the current ones useless.

TheHsN

TheYKcid wrote: »

"Arena" in this case refers to the special weapons acquired from the veteran instances of Maelstrom Arena & Dragonstar Arena, and both instances of Asylum Sanctorium.

If such weapons do not receive a 1pc stat bonus when Summerset launches (eg. 129 weapon damage, 1096 magicka), 2H weapons in this category will NOT BE VIABLE to run on the frontbar.

This is because, in Summerset, all 2Hs (inclusive of staves) will count as 2 set pieces—meaning that any 2H build will be able to run a 5/5/2 setup (a monster set + two full 5pc sets). Therefore, should someone instead choose to run an "Arena" 2H on the frontbar, they must forgo either:

• a full 5pc set... and replace it with 3pc Agility/Willpower + the Arena 2H
• or their monster set (and therefore run two 5pc sets + the Arena weapon)

In both cases, you are forgoing *TWO* bonuses:

1. a "regular" stat bonus (the 1pc of a monster set, or the 4pc of a full set)
2. a "special" bonus (the 2pc of a monster set, of the 5pc of a full set)

...but in return, all you get is a *SINGLE* bonus from the arena weapon. Furthermore, it's important to note that this bonus is highly conditional—because it only functions for a single skill, from a single weapon type. Beyond this, it doesn't boost any of the other skills on your bar, nor your stats, et cetera. It is therefore inferior to the usual "special" bonuses, and I shall subsequently refer to these as "conditional special" bonuses.

However, these losses can be mitigated when running 3pc Agility/Willpower as part of a build. This is because these sets have a 2pc stat bonus that is 32.4% higher than a "regular" one, and a 3pc damage bonus 49.6% higher than "regular". This is with gold quality jewelry, which will be obtainable in Summerset.

Therefore (in return for sacrificing one "regular" bonus, and one "special" bonus) we have now gained:

• a net 82% of a "regular" bonus
• an inferior "conditional special" bonus

From this comparison, you can see that—even in the most favourable scenario—running a setup with a 2H Arena weapon on the frontbar is objectively worse than a 5pc set in all regards. This is patently absurd, because these weapons are obtained from some of the toughest PvE content in the game—and SHOULD perform better than run-of-the-mill 5pc sets that can be farmed from normal dungeons.

This will adversely affect many interesting, popular frontbar choices such as:

• vMA 2H
• Master Destro
• Asylum 2H
• Asylum Destro

The simple solution?
Give Arena weapons a 1pc stat bonus.

vMA weapons historically provided weapon/spell damage, while Master's weapons gave max resources (prior to the Clockwork City update). We could follow this template to preserve their historical "flavour", but adjust the values (129 damage, 1096 max resources), in order to remain consistent with the standardised values of 1-4pc bonuses, as well as for balance. Asylum weapons could, perhaps, be given critical (with a standard 1pc value of 833).

(on a sidenote, I would support NOT giving this buff to imperfect Asylum weapons, as they are far too easy to obtain to justify having such power)

These changes would not be imbalanced in any way. An Arena 2H setup will now have a moderate raw-stat advantage over 5/5/2 (due to the unique bonuses of Agility/Willpower), but this is compensated-for by the inferior nature of their "conditional special" bonus. Will they now outperform a generic 5pc set? By a small margin, perhaps. And they should— because they are the most prestigious weapons in the game. Large amounts of time, effort, and skill are invested to obtain them. Progression is a keystone of MMOs—work should be rewarded.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________


tl;dr
Arena weapons need to be given a 1pc stat bonus, or their 2Hs will not remain viable as frontbar weapons in Summerset.
(backbar Arena weapons will still be fine, though)

%100 im agree with these...
even i was thinking same ideas all...
give them;
-Spell or weapon damage
-Max Mag or stam
-Spell or weapon crit
I spend hours to drop those items and i dont want them loose in one DLC or Chapter.

@ZOS_GinaBruno - u are our hope

SpiderCultist

On PvP an inferno staff of willpower will have more impact than a vMA inferno staff. Makes sense? Not at all.

TheYKcid

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

All you're doing here is making a choice between set bonuses, same as everyone does with every build, every patch.

If the MA bonus is worth slotting, then slot it.

If a 5th pc bonus is worth more, slot that instead.

They'll still give proc effects that you cannot get via any other set in the game. You decide if it's worth keeping or not.

Here's another analogy, if another 2H came along that was arguably better, what would you do? Would you try to get a set that's been available for years buffed, or would you go with the new, better set and be done with it?

Making other combos more viable doesn't somehow make the current ones useless.

@Merlin13KAGL

The problem is that the choice you describe simply doesn't exist in the current state of Arena weapons.

Frontbar Arena 2Hs are inarguably worse than a 5pc set. Someone wouldn't consciously slot them unless they poorly thought-out their build, or wanted to intentionally gimp themselves for personal reasons.

What you're proposing essentially boils down to saying "a state of imbalance is fine as long as people have the option to run whatever is BiS".

But I don't agree that a singular BiS with zero diversity should be a design goal.

Merlin13KAGL

TheYKcid wrote: »

But I don't agree that a singular BiS with zero diversity should be a design goal.

Ironically, that's exactly that the 2H change was intended to alleviate. Same, to an extent, with introduction of JC.

Numerous builds can be comparable now, especially vs how it once was. Of course there is always going to be essentially one BiS - that's what BiS is. The trick is, it's not automatically the same thing for every person's build and playstyle.

The way I'm understanding your request is that you are currently running (your version of) BiS (which happens to include vMA weapons). You're wanting an adjustment made so that after the patch, it remains BiS.

How does that not contradict your last statement, or am I somehow misinterpreting it?

I'm potentially going to eat my fair share of vMA and/or Master Weapons in the process, but the option will still be there to be able to use them and pull at least as high of numbers as you can currently on live.

You'll weight the benefits of each and choose. Again, it would be no different than if they introduced a new 2H set that outperformed, or provided a different, more useful effect than vMA does now.

The bonus WD/SD was removed before because they were overperforming. I don't see that being reverted.

Sets should be chosen for the unique bonuses, imo, not just the overall outcome, but that's not how they like to design.

If I had $1 for every set I've had to shelve, decon, or vendor because ZoS opted to do some rearranging, I'd be eating well for long, long time.

The content clear should be for the content clear and to better as a player. The weapons should be a bonus, not the requirement they've been for far too long.