An Appeal to ZOS to rethink the nerfs to Vicious Ophidian, Quick Serpent and Dreugh King Slayer

susmitds

Reduced the duration of the Major Expedition buff granted from some item sets to 8 seconds from 20 seconds. The affected item sets include:

• Dreugh King Slayer
• Quick Serpent
• Vicious Serpent

While I believe the changes are well-intended and speed stacking is definitely an ongoing issue in the current state of PvP, this specific change does not do much to change to address the problem at hand and affects general PvE experience, while not doing much at all in PvP.

You will still be able to hit the 100% movement speed cap; however, it will now require more investment to hit and stay at it.

These sets are unique in the fact that they are neither strong damage sets, nor pure sustain sets. Instead they provide speed at the cost of pure damage/sustain and that too after the target is already dead. Users of these sets, are already investing heaving into speed, unlike the 3-swift all-damage builds, which was the primary concern.
These sets are mainly used in PvE, where speed stacking is not an issue in the first place. None of these sets are BiS or Meta in any content anymore. Vicious Serpent is the only widely used set among these and it's speedboost after kills was the only only thing making it better for PvE than Bone Pirate, which gives better damage and sustain. The other two sets are very niche sets and nerfs to them will just kill diversity.
I am aware of the fact that there are a few niche builds which use these sets in PvP. Let's consider the exact usage of the sets in PvP. These sets do not provide Major Expedition on demand, and they are not viable damage sets either. The primary use case of these sets in PvP is not to provide in-combat speed bonus, but to increase escape chances in outnumbered battles after successful kills. The 8 sec change would make it nonviable to use. This is double true, considering the big sacrifices being made to use these sets in PvP in the first place as 2nd and 4th set bonus of VO is weapon critical, which has significantly low value compared to weapon damage or maximum stamina bonuses due to the general existence of critical resistance in PvP and the 3rd bonus of Minor Slayer is downright useless. As for Dreugh King Slayer, it's 5th bonus gives Major Brutality, which is one of the most easily available buffs in the game, the most common source being Forward Momentum, which is partly responsible for the current speed meta.
The problem of the current meta is not conditional access to limited speed boost that sets have a niche for. It is easily accessible on-demand combat speed boost that Speed pots and Swift provide.

Considering that majority usage of these sets are in PvE and the rare niche builds in PvP that existed way before the speed meta and was never an issue, I sincerely hope that devs reconsider this particular nerf.

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_Finn , @ZOS_Wrobel , @ZOS_RobGarrett

susmitds

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/438849/did-pve-sets-like-vicious-ophidian-quick-serpent-and-dreugh-king-slayer-need-the-speed-nerf

susmitds

@Tasear , @Alcast What do you guys feel about these nerfs?

Left4Daud

I think it’s a lost cause but very well said. Agreed.

LiquidPony

susmitds wrote: »

Reduced the duration of the Major Expedition buff granted from some item sets to 8 seconds from 20 seconds. The affected item sets include:

• Dreugh King Slayer
• Quick Serpent
• Vicious Serpent

While I believe the changes are well-intended and speed stacking is definitely an ongoing issue in the current state of PvP, this specific change does not do much to change to address the problem at hand and affects general PvE experience, while not doing much at all in PvP.

You will still be able to hit the 100% movement speed cap; however, it will now require more investment to hit and stay at it.

These sets are unique in the fact that they are neither strong damage sets, nor pure sustain sets. Instead they provide speed at the cost of pure damage/sustain and that too after the target is already dead. Users of these sets, are already investing heaving into speed, unlike the 3-swift all-damage builds, which was the primary concern.
These sets are mainly used in PvE, where speed stacking is not an issue in the first place. None of these sets are BiS or Meta in any content anymore. Vicious Serpent is the only widely used set among these and it's speedboost after kills was the only only thing making it better for PvE than Bone Pirate, which gives better damage and sustain. The other two sets are very niche sets and nerfs to them will just kill diversity.
I am aware of the fact that there are a few niche builds which use these sets in PvP. Let's consider the exact usage of the sets in PvP. These sets do not provide Major Expedition on demand, and they are not viable damage sets either. The primary use case of these sets in PvP is not to provide in-combat speed bonus, but to increase escape chances in outnumbered battles after successful kills. The 8 sec change would make it nonviable to use. This is double true, considering the big sacrifices being made to use these sets in PvP in the first place as 2nd and 4th set bonus of VO is weapon critical, which has significantly low value compared to weapon damage or maximum stamina bonuses due to the general existence of critical resistance in PvP and the 3rd bonus of Minor Slayer is downright useless. As for Dreugh King Slayer, it's 5th bonus gives Major Brutality, which is one of the most easily available buffs in the game, the most common source being Forward Momentum, which is partly responsible for the current speed meta.
The problem of the current meta is not conditional access to limited speed boost that sets have a niche for. It is easily accessible on-demand combat speed boost that Speed pots and Swift provide.

Considering that majority usage of these sets are in PvE and the rare niche builds in PvP that existed way before the speed meta and was never an issue, I sincerely hope that devs reconsider this particular nerf.

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_Finn , @ZOS_Wrobel , @ZOS_RobGarrett

A minor quibble, but I think your diagnosis of Vicious Ophidian is off target. It is absolutely the meta for stamina builds in Maelstrom Arena and probably always will be. And it's not the speed boost that makes it better than Bone Pirate by any means. That's just icing on the cake. In solo content or anywhere mobs are killed frequently, it is far stronger for sustain than Bone Pirate and it also pretty much always does more damage.

Koolio

Cowards=Sprinting with 100% uptime
DKS= Killing an enemy gives 8 secs

Seems a little off to me

Silver_Strider

Koolio wrote: »

Cowards=Sprinting with 100% uptime
DKS= Killing an enemy gives 8 secs

Seems a little off to me

You're absolutely right. They should nerf Cowards.

susmitds

LiquidPony wrote: »

A minor quibble, but I think your diagnosis of Vicious Ophidian is off target. It is absolutely the meta for stamina builds in Maelstrom Arena and probably always will be. And it's not the speed boost that makes it better than Bone Pirate by any means. That's just icing on the cake. In solo content or anywhere mobs are killed frequently, it is far stronger for sustain than Bone Pirate and it also pretty much always does more damage.

I was talking about the sets from a PvP perspective, which is where the problem arised.

idk

susmitds wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/438849/did-pve-sets-like-vicious-ophidian-quick-serpent-and-dreugh-king-slayer-need-the-speed-nerf

How many threads on the same subject will you make?

LiquidPony

susmitds wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

A minor quibble, but I think your diagnosis of Vicious Ophidian is off target. It is absolutely the meta for stamina builds in Maelstrom Arena and probably always will be. And it's not the speed boost that makes it better than Bone Pirate by any means. That's just icing on the cake. In solo content or anywhere mobs are killed frequently, it is far stronger for sustain than Bone Pirate and it also pretty much always does more damage.

I was talking about the sets from a PvP perspective, which is where the problem arised.

I was talking about the part where you talked about none of these sets being BiS for any PvE content and comparing Bone Pirate to VO in PvE ...

These sets are mainly used in PvE, where speed stacking is not an issue in the first place. None of these sets are BiS or Meta in any content anymore. Vicious Serpent is the only widely used set among these and it's speedboost after kills was the only only thing making it better for PvE than Bone Pirate, which gives better damage and sustain.

I guess I just don't really see the big deal for VO in particular. The 8-second Major Expedition buff is still pretty long. I don't see any reason in particular that it needed to be nerfed but it doesn't seem like it's going to make much of a difference.

And maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect Quick Serpent and Dreugh King Slayer could both be removed from the game entirely and 99% of players wouldn't even notice let alone care.

Tasear

susmitds wrote: »

@Tasear , @Alcast What do you guys feel about these nerfs?

As a class rep my focus is understanding how the players feel and reporting it back.

susmitds

idk wrote: »

susmitds wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/438849/did-pve-sets-like-vicious-ophidian-quick-serpent-and-dreugh-king-slayer-need-the-speed-nerf

How many threads on the same subject will you make?

That was a poll.

Maryal

susmitds wrote: »

Reduced the duration of the Major Expedition buff granted from some item sets to 8 seconds from 20 seconds. The affected item sets include:

• Dreugh King Slayer
• Quick Serpent
• Vicious Serpent

While I believe the changes are well-intended and speed stacking is definitely an ongoing issue in the current state of PvP, this specific change does not do much to change to address the problem at hand and affects general PvE experience, while not doing much at all in PvP.

You will still be able to hit the 100% movement speed cap; however, it will now require more investment to hit and stay at it.

These sets are unique in the fact that they are neither strong damage sets, nor pure sustain sets. Instead they provide speed at the cost of pure damage/sustain and that too after the target is already dead. Users of these sets, are already investing heaving into speed, unlike the 3-swift all-damage builds, which was the primary concern.
These sets are mainly used in PvE, where speed stacking is not an issue in the first place. None of these sets are BiS or Meta in any content anymore. Vicious Serpent is the only widely used set among these and it's speedboost after kills was the only only thing making it better for PvE than Bone Pirate, which gives better damage and sustain. The other two sets are very niche sets and nerfs to them will just kill diversity.
I am aware of the fact that there are a few niche builds which use these sets in PvP. Let's consider the exact usage of the sets in PvP. These sets do not provide Major Expedition on demand, and they are not viable damage sets either. The primary use case of these sets in PvP is not to provide in-combat speed bonus, but to increase escape chances in outnumbered battles after successful kills. The 8 sec change would make it nonviable to use. This is double true, considering the big sacrifices being made to use these sets in PvP in the first place as 2nd and 4th set bonus of VO is weapon critical, which has significantly low value compared to weapon damage or maximum stamina bonuses due to the general existence of critical resistance in PvP and the 3rd bonus of Minor Slayer is downright useless. As for Dreugh King Slayer, it's 5th bonus gives Major Brutality, which is one of the most easily available buffs in the game, the most common source being Forward Momentum, which is partly responsible for the current speed meta.
The problem of the current meta is not conditional access to limited speed boost that sets have a niche for. It is easily accessible on-demand combat speed boost that Speed pots and Swift provide.

Considering that majority usage of these sets are in PvE and the rare niche builds in PvP that existed way before the speed meta and was never an issue, I sincerely hope that devs reconsider this particular nerf.

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_Finn , @ZOS_Wrobel , @ZOS_RobGarrett

I agree as to the armor sets. I don't agree that the problem is due to speed pots and swift. Speed pots provide major expedition and major expedition can only be stacked with minor expedition ... except when the buff is a percentage.

Problematic speed stacking exists when a major buff is stacked with a minor buff and the two combined are then stacked with a percentage buff.

It would have been better if they limited percentage based speed buffs to only stack with other percentage based speed buffs and/or minor expedition. In other words, percentage based speed buffs could not stack with major expedition.

Zelos

I'm going to be real here and say that VO has a very strong set, its 5 piece alone is worth that of 4 different item set 5 pieces. The fact it only gets this is insane I dont want it nerfed but it is already incredibly strong. Both in pvp and pve

idk

Maryal wrote: »

susmitds wrote: »

Reduced the duration of the Major Expedition buff granted from some item sets to 8 seconds from 20 seconds. The affected item sets include:

• Dreugh King Slayer
• Quick Serpent
• Vicious Serpent

While I believe the changes are well-intended and speed stacking is definitely an ongoing issue in the current state of PvP, this specific change does not do much to change to address the problem at hand and affects general PvE experience, while not doing much at all in PvP.

You will still be able to hit the 100% movement speed cap; however, it will now require more investment to hit and stay at it.

These sets are unique in the fact that they are neither strong damage sets, nor pure sustain sets. Instead they provide speed at the cost of pure damage/sustain and that too after the target is already dead. Users of these sets, are already investing heaving into speed, unlike the 3-swift all-damage builds, which was the primary concern.
These sets are mainly used in PvE, where speed stacking is not an issue in the first place. None of these sets are BiS or Meta in any content anymore. Vicious Serpent is the only widely used set among these and it's speedboost after kills was the only only thing making it better for PvE than Bone Pirate, which gives better damage and sustain. The other two sets are very niche sets and nerfs to them will just kill diversity.
I am aware of the fact that there are a few niche builds which use these sets in PvP. Let's consider the exact usage of the sets in PvP. These sets do not provide Major Expedition on demand, and they are not viable damage sets either. The primary use case of these sets in PvP is not to provide in-combat speed bonus, but to increase escape chances in outnumbered battles after successful kills. The 8 sec change would make it nonviable to use. This is double true, considering the big sacrifices being made to use these sets in PvP in the first place as 2nd and 4th set bonus of VO is weapon critical, which has significantly low value compared to weapon damage or maximum stamina bonuses due to the general existence of critical resistance in PvP and the 3rd bonus of Minor Slayer is downright useless. As for Dreugh King Slayer, it's 5th bonus gives Major Brutality, which is one of the most easily available buffs in the game, the most common source being Forward Momentum, which is partly responsible for the current speed meta.
The problem of the current meta is not conditional access to limited speed boost that sets have a niche for. It is easily accessible on-demand combat speed boost that Speed pots and Swift provide.

Considering that majority usage of these sets are in PvE and the rare niche builds in PvP that existed way before the speed meta and was never an issue, I sincerely hope that devs reconsider this particular nerf.

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_Finn , @ZOS_Wrobel , @ZOS_RobGarrett

I agree as to the armor sets. I don't agree that the problem is due to speed pots and swift.

It does appear they are looking at speed boost holistically. I am not suggesting this is the best way, the overall changes on the PTS ATM.

Reducing the speed cap would have been a solid move IMO if max speed was making it hard to target players.

Alcast

susmitds wrote: »

@Tasear , @Alcast What do you guys feel about these nerfs?

the change was unnecessary in my opinion. I think ZOS wants to reduce all the expedition buffs to a shorter time. I think will not rly affect Vicious that much because if you keep killing stuff anyway you will keep the buff.

Joy_Division

LiquidPony wrote: »

I guess I just don't really see the big deal for VO in particular. The 8-second Major Expedition buff is still pretty long. I don't see any reason in particular that it needed to be nerfed but it doesn't seem like it's going to make much of a difference.

I wore this set for PvP and the nerf is decisive in my estimation that I will no longer be wearing it. Change is just pushing another player into a meta cookie-cutter setup.

Wuuffyy

I love people that post old forum posts that are relevant but 100 days old. Like I’m going to dig that up when I can just make my own point.

Jaraal

I've been wearing DKS when playing my werewolf, because it helps me get around faster in PVE while hunting, since I no longer have access to Rapids when transformed. It's really helpful to have 20 seconds of Major Expedition after a kill, because several of those seconds are usually wasted devouring corpses. If it's nerfed to 8 seconds on live, it will be useless and I'll probably just deconn it.

rfennell_ESO

susmitds wrote: »

An Appeal to ZOS to rethink the nerfs to Vicious Ophidian, Quick Serpent and Dreugh King Slayer

Those sets should never have had 20 seconds, 8 seconds is much more reasonable.

usmcjdking

I think QS/DKS should maintain a fairly high uptime since those sets do little else and have a pretty sizeable proc condition.

Footfalls

No one was going to use those sets in PvP anyway even if they weren't nerfed.

Xvorg

Well, it is the trap of consistency. Sometimes, to keep certain consistency, you have to take stupid decisions. This decision mirrors the treatment they are giving to assa will, frags and powerlash, without taking into consideration that each of those skills behaves differently because they belong to different classes (with different needs and different tools).

Same here. Sets that are a reward for joining the grindfest, should have, in turn, desirable effects. Those sets cannot be sold in the guild system, and at last, they will become just a trophy to deconstruct. If you consider that those sets were not the source of the problems related to mobility (they never were prior to Summerset), the meassures taken regarding them seem to be done by a 6th grade kid.

Instead of working the other way around, it seems they cannot understand that a happy customer is a customer that buys their products. In fact they're trying to force us to buy their (bad) products, which will lead to angry customers, and ex-customers in the long run.

Red_Feather

I am hoping it gets changed.
Dreugh King is a heavy armour set and it isn't used to stack speed.
I am thinking just all sets with Expedition got nerfed to see how it would go.

Avran_Sylt

Why not ask ZoS to add Minor Expedition in addition to Major Expedition for the 8 seconds.
I mean the name of the set is Quick Serpent, but adds the same amount of speed as the Vicious Serpent set.
@ZOS_Wrobel

Gnortranermara

I just think any PvE-oriented set should be left out of the speed nerfs being done for PvP purposes.

ccfeeling

Two of them are TRIAL sets, idiots!!!

WTH are they doing!

Finedaible

Once again, PvE sets getting nerfed because of unwarranted umbrella nerfs for sake of making everything "consistent." Is there nothing unique in this game anymore? oh right, crown crate cosmetics...

IAVITNI

Koolio wrote: »

Cowards=Sprinting with 100% uptime
DKS= Killing an enemy gives 8 secs

Seems a little off to me

Cowards requires players to be sprinting, which is slightly different as you technically cannot be on the offensive while you are sprinting.

kind_hero

One of the good part about these sets was that they gave you better mobility in PvE which sometimes was great to have. Also it was great for overland content, you could do some quests faster. The nerf to 8 seconds makes the speed bonus irrelevant.
Not everyone plays PvP all the time! Why nerf TRIAL sets anyway?

Feanor

The new goal for ZOS seems to be to reduce the ability to be self-reliant. The nerfs achieve that in a way because where you could be content with the return of these sets before, a group member can now provide better alternatives. ZOS really hates solo players, or at least that’s my observation.