Update 22 Combat Direction

Jabbs_Giggity

Cinbri wrote: »

Here again how inconsistently zos treating Jabs and Eclipse:


Jabs - zos continuing to treat it as ordinary aoe skill affected by evasion. And now with 0.3 less channel time it should work like rest of abilities with 1sec global cooldown. Yet, Jabs were left outside of AoE standardization this update as its base aoe damage is much lower than ordinary aoe damage: 114x4= 456 while rest of AoEs are 615. difference is huuge.
As result: as single-target spammable skill underperform as it can be mitigated by Evasion buff; and also as AoE damage skill it also below of AoE standards.

Eclipse - not just after damage nerf it comparable to damage of self-buffs like Scales/Ice Shield that is rudiculous, but also damage of this single-target breakable cc skill is equal to ordinary AoE damage now. So why does our single target skill with longest Internal Cooldown suppose to deal as much damage as AoE (which suppose to deal lower damage coz area of damage apply in compare to single target pressure skills)?
If zos treat it as self-buffs which are 100% reliable but only against half of attacks (ranged) - make Eclipse unbreakable again and buff its duration from 6sec to 7sec:
1. It already act on same rules of Morrowind unbreakable version, so right now it has weaknesses of unbreakable Morrowind version but don't have strengths of breakable pre-Morrowind version.
2. Beside it wont work against CC-immune enemies, it will be reliable against all attacks (melee/ranged) but only with half efficiency because 7sec duration-7sec cc-immunity. Literally reverted self-buff: self-buffs are 100% efficiency against 50% attacks, Eclipse is 50% efficiency against 100% attacks. (still cooldown inconsistent too).
Or just like was suggested lot of times - make it into ordinary dot with same rules that Inhale has regarding damage-healing skill % of new standards.

@ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam @Checkmath

I mean seriously...can Templar be reviewed during 5.03 with an equivalency effort of at least a 6th grade reading/comprehension level?

Literally all that has to be done with Puncturing Strikes and Morphs is:
1. Change the cone/area targeting system of the skill to Target
2. Change the function of the Main damage "nearest target" strike to Single Target damage from AOE damage (Or make AOE damage an exception from Evasion)
3. Change the function of the AOE damage to standard "Splash Damage" within 3m of target.
4. On Biting Jabs move the Snare to the first strike.
5. Make the heal from Sweeps able to Crit again.

Problem solved. You're welcome. Thought I would leave this in as many places as possible.

grannas211

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

All Active abilities in skill lines other than Class lines will be addressed with the same standardization/audit in future updates.

what about classes other than NB in update 22?

_Ahala_

Magden feels like it’s being funneled into a support only role... Can’t say I like this new combat direction

Muskrap

Keep scorch unblockable

UppGRAYxDD

5.03 NB Incap change is not the "Direction" that most of your consumer base want's. Remember, all those NB created characters are due solely to the fact that the class has been over-tuned for years. Through each iteration of live play, either stam or mag NB have had some element in their tool kit that creates an imbalance in a PvP or PvE environment. I personally think that the current live patch has been about right for NBs, the only problem is still located with certain heavy armor sets that are over performing. Address the armor issues and then the classes, don't just drop bombs and see whats left afterwards.

Deathlord92

UppGRAYxDD wrote: »

5.03 NB Incap change is not the "Direction" that most of your consumer base want's. Remember, all those NB created characters are due solely to the fact that the class has been over-tuned for years. Through each iteration of live play, either stam or mag NB have had some element in their tool kit that creates an imbalance in a PvP or PvE environment. I personally think that the current live patch has been about right for NBs, the only problem is still located with certain heavy armor sets that are over performing. Address the armor issues and then the classes, don't just drop bombs and see whats left afterwards.

If you cared so much about balance you would have also mentioned how op pet mag sorcs are as long as mag sorcs have no competition I guess eso balance hey buddy 😂

The_Lex

If there was ever a demonstration ZOS' lack any unified direction and approach for combat balance, it's the nightblade in this patch.

And I'm not even a NB main.

Rob Garrett:
To that effect, the team is currently investing a portion of its time into codifying our vision and long-term strategy for combat.

See, kids, not everyone is to be believed.

Deathlord92

I just want stamblade to stay as it is live and for magblade to be buff magblade should be on equal footing as stamblade and mag sorc and tbh stam sorc deserves something to.

Uryel

I'm not too happy about Nightblade changes. Once again.

Somebody pointed elswhere that now, in pvp, unavoidable cc on 6 players instantly is "insane". Allright, fine.

Obviously, for those who don't play PvP, this change is of little significance. The removal of major buffs from the skills means you either must do without or find them elsewhere. As of today, Nightblades can no longer gain minor brutality, and the only way to apply fracture is through mark target.

While that is probably rather inconsequential in group content, especially, of course, PvP and raids, it is a major annoyance for those of us who play small group / duo / solo content. When you're in a 12 person group, you can have someone providing the buff for everyone else, your buff monkey of sort if you will, but when playing duo or solo ? You now have to chose between having the tools of the trade OR the damage bonus that this debuff incured. Deal more damage or have some variety in what you can do. With most mechanics geared toward dishing more punishgment faster, this is a hindrance for sure.

Once again, the class rework is tailored towards the minority that cares only about large group content. Well at least it's an improvement from the racial patch which was geared toward PvP only. Maybe next patch will do something for us non-raid players, eh ? We still are the vast majority of the players, you know.

Let's laugh a bit too at the "relentless focus" skill, shall we ? Last skill in assassination. Keep that in mind : assassination. What does this skill do now ? Buff defense. And heal. Yeah, sure, I can see the value of this skill, even though it has zero value for me, but... What the heck is it doing in assassination ? The shade, the 5th skill from the shadow line, which is something of the tank-ish line, is more of an assassin skill than this one. "Oh, look, I have this lone target to stab quickly and efficiently, let's buff my defense and prepare to heal", said no assassin ever.

And finally, let's talk about your proof-reading. Sap essence : "... If an enemy is hit, you gain and major sorcery". You removed "major brutality" but didn't even bother correct the rest of the description. You said something about "a pass on every Class ability looking for errant or missing data", @ZOS_BrianWheeler ?

Deathlord92

My stamblade will suck in Elsweyr obviously I’m not giving up as stamblade only class I enjoy I just hope and pray Elsweyr takes its time coming to console.

Mitaka211

What do you know , my stamplar is underperforming more than ever. Not like a thousand people told you it will happen.....
Fix our ults and fix our damn passives how is that for combat direction?

Katahdin

Deathlord92 wrote: »

My stamblade will suck in Elsweyr obviously I’m not giving up as stamblade only class I enjoy I just hope and pray Elsweyr takes its time coming to console.

Get ready, you will lose 5-7k solo damage with the changes. That is what I've found on PC so far. NB is now a wet noodle.

Deathlord92

Katahdin wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

My stamblade will suck in Elsweyr obviously I’m not giving up as stamblade only class I enjoy I just hope and pray Elsweyr takes its time coming to console.

Get ready, you will lose 5-7k solo damage with the changes. That is what I've found on PC so far. NB is now a wet noodle.

I know 😑 but I watched a payed attention to players like sniker and El lobo I think I will still do well on stamblade I just need change my build around but these changes still suck and I’m still ending my eso plus when Elsweyr comes to console.

evoniee

LMAO they already failed when decided to homogenize Nightblade into tank class.

Also we dont need a faster gapclose, there is no point into playing elusive class when every class can reach with 1 button click in your face.

literally hypocrite.

stpdmonkey

Can we just stop getting pve abilities messed with please. I am at the point where I see this game as a pvp only game. That's all zos seems to care about. I rarely pvp and almost everyone I play with rarely goes into any pvp unless it's to gain skills for pve. The nerf to earthgore and dragonknight claws was purely for pvp. Everytime anything is messed with it's for PVP. my main is a tank. I have run my tank for over 3 years now and this last update where there is a delay in dragonknight claws is the first time I have truly been pissed about a change. I was unhappy with many that have come up but that one is the worst they have done. There are no aoe taunts that are available no slow ability that actually works for an entire group. So when you go into areas with alot of trash having a tank is completely wasted and pointless. You cannot crowd control with any sort of effectiveness at all. Somehow zos needs to figure out how to adjust abilities for pvp and differently for pve. I have been playing almost since it came out on console and after all this time and always paying more and more money into the game I'm finally at a point I almost dont want to play anymore. There is a giant world for pve players and a big area for pvp. And with both areas the only one every helped is pvp where people cry the most. Elsweyr is amazing dragons are awesome, sunspire is a ton of fun. But if my abilities I have used for 3 years keep getting changed and screwed up I dont know how much longer I personally will keep playing. IF ITS A PROBLEM IN PVP THEN FIX IT FOR PVP ONLY!

psycoprophet

Hmmm too bad. Was thinking about coming back to my stamblade from gw2 but after reading the posts seems the balance team is gutting stamblade like anet ruined thief in gw2. Maybe time to take a break from mmo's for a bit, lately the devs have been making them more frustrating than they are fun.

norrisnick

It'd be super helpful if there were any healers/group PVE people on the combat design team.

Koronach

norrisnick wrote: »

It'd be super helpful if there were any healers/group PVE people on the combat design team.

It would help if the team wasn't led by a PVP streamer.

FangOfTheTwoMoons

Your combat direction is straight down.

It's obvious now ZoS is completely out of touch with it's player base and these coming PTS cycles will prove how much you will ignore community feedback. To quote another users post:

"The main problem I have with this patch is it perfectly shows how Zenimax just doesn't learn to not change literally everything in a single patch. This patch has some good, some bad, some horrendous, but it's mostly just meh for me, personally. But it has way too much going on.

They've significantly adjusted weapon, guild and assault/support skills, they've adjusted class and armour skills, and they've completely reworked multiple meta sets, in the one patch. How the *** are they meant to bring all these changes in line, in 3, maybe 4 weeks?

They can't. That's just it, they can't. The key problems will be addressed, a fair few minor problems too, but a lot of this will receive minimal to no adjustments, and will go live more or less how it looks now. It always happens, the community always tells Zenimax to slow down and do less, and they never listen.

If they had focused almost entirely on weapon skills, touched on guild skills this first week of PTS while they gather initial feedback, then touched on everything else later on alongside weapon skills, it'd be a different story. But they didn't. They chose to take the nerf bat to literally everything in the first week, and now have to clean up that mess.

They never listen, they never learn, and they'll be their own downfall. Mark my words."

How do you expect to balance all of this?

Raise the floor lower the ceiling my ass. Good players will adapt and newer/struggling players will be in a even worse spot than they are now.

Congrats guys! You're killing it!

Rungar

So when is the light attack audit coming.

No worries ill do it for you.

-most damaging attack on most parses ...check
- zero cost ...check
- high probability of automation ...check
- general ease of automation with standard peripherals ...check
- not well embraced by the general playerbase ...check
- possible contributor to poor performance ...check
- inability to balance game due to extreme disparity ...check
- harmful to content accessibility for large #s of players ...check
-ugly ...check

notes:
the lack of cost and massive potential of the light attack puts the skill at odds with all other abilities. Heavy attack is balanced by its long cast time.

recommendations

1) remove attribute scaling from all light attacks since they dont uses resources or have a cast time. The focus of the light attack should be to have a quick attack to fall back on when your out of resources and for the most efficient application of enchants.

2) move light attack to the global timer. (improve performance, make macros useless)

3) increase the potency of enchantments applied with light attacks by 30% or some other combination of potency and duration. ( improve primary purpose)

4) remove the possibility to apply enchants through weapon skill abilities. (improve performance)

5) light attacks will additionally restore your weakest attribute pool ( mag or stam) at the rate of 25% of what a similar heavy attack would provide for your strongest pool. ( add minor buff to skill in line with its counterpart heavy attacks)

long term

5) overhaul the light attack system to allow for player select-able light attacks which have scaled down utility effects in line with the zero cost aspect of the skill.


these changes will result in many improvements including performance, reduce player disparity, and will render automation useless.

Sergykid

Rungar wrote: »

So when is the light attack audit coming.

No worries ill do it for you.

-most damaging attack on most parses ...check
- zero cost ...check
- high probability of automation ...check
- general ease of automation with standard peripherals ...check
- not well embraced by the general playerbase ...check
- possible contributor to poor performance ...check
- inability to balance game due to extreme disparity ...check
- harmful to content accessibility for large #s of players ...check
-ugly ...check
[...etc]

i won't bother to explain why are wrong and awful all the atrocities u wrote in that wall of text. Just horrible adjustments for someone who probably doesn't like weaving.

using light attcaks accordingly makes the difference between a good and a bad player. And on all my characters where i weave accordingy, none have light attack in the first two highest dps sources in /cmx

Rungar

Sergykid wrote: »

Rungar wrote: »

So when is the light attack audit coming.

No worries ill do it for you.

-most damaging attack on most parses ...check
- zero cost ...check
- high probability of automation ...check
- general ease of automation with standard peripherals ...check
- not well embraced by the general playerbase ...check
- possible contributor to poor performance ...check
- inability to balance game due to extreme disparity ...check
- harmful to content accessibility for large #s of players ...check
-ugly ...check
[...etc]

i won't bother to explain why are wrong and awful all the atrocities u wrote in that wall of text. Just horrible adjustments for someone who probably doesn't like weaving.

using light attcaks accordingly makes the difference between a good and a bad player. And on all my characters where i weave accordingy, none have light attack in the first two highest dps sources in /cmx

thanks for proving my point. Light attacks have way to much influence given they are zero cost.

Sergykid

Rungar wrote: »

Sergykid wrote: »

Rungar wrote: »

So when is the light attack audit coming.

No worries ill do it for you.

-most damaging attack on most parses ...check
- zero cost ...check
- high probability of automation ...check
- general ease of automation with standard peripherals ...check
- not well embraced by the general playerbase ...check
- possible contributor to poor performance ...check
- inability to balance game due to extreme disparity ...check
- harmful to content accessibility for large #s of players ...check
-ugly ...check
[...etc]

i won't bother to explain why are wrong and awful all the atrocities u wrote in that wall of text. Just horrible adjustments for someone who probably doesn't like weaving.

using light attcaks accordingly makes the difference between a good and a bad player. And on all my characters where i weave accordingy, none have light attack in the first two highest dps sources in /cmx

thanks for proving my point. Light attacks have way to much influence given they are zero cost.

inner ego much? did not prove any of ur points. Cost of light attack is skillful play and the reward higher dps.

Rungar

and you conveniently gloss over all its flaws, and it has many, with the skill card