Dizzy Swing - The Past, the Present and the Future

Syhae

Dizzy Swing has a long history in ESO's pvp scene. I was disappointed to read about its change with Elsweyr's PTS, but even more disappointed to see how little reaction this skill is getting now.
To understand what position this skill is in now, we must examine its purpose, how it was used in the past and where it's still applied now to further understand why the proposed changes to Dizzy Swing will further kill the skills usefulness and solidify stamina to exclusively relying on Sword and Board Reverberating Stun as their main reliable CC.

Dizzy Swing is designed around hitting once, and hitting HARD. The skill leaves the caster highly vulnerable, as they have to be in melee range and enter a cast time that can be easily dodged and easily blocked. It has existing counterplay. The skill was a very high risk, very high reward play style that allowed players to maximize that play style of raw damage. This skill was widely viable for a long time during this ESO's lifetime, between Stamina Dragonknight Wrecking Blow into Leap combo, Stamina Sorcerer's high damage amping the damage of Dizzy Swing, Stamina Templar Roundhouse, to Stamina Wardens Dizzy, Shalks, Dawnbreaker combo. This skill rewarded leaving yourself open with a high burst window if the skill was successful. This is vastly different from the meta that exists now among stamina.

Between the rise of player HP, player resistances in general and the rise in the effectiveness of debuffs and DoT effects, Dizzy Swing has been left in the dust compared to what it once was and what other play styles exist for Stamina. The reasons to run dizzy swing over sword and board or duel wield already leave you to wonder why even slot the skill. It may average 4-6k damage against most armored PvPers that know how to properly build, but the risk for that little damage does not justify using it now for anything but killing players that do not know anything about the game or how to build their characters for PvP.

The changes announced in Elsweyr will devastate the Dizzy Swing play style and remove any reason to slot this skill over reverb and heroic slash for Stamina. With a damage nerf and an attempt to reconcile this by making the animation slightly faster, a skill that already does lack luster damage now does atrocious damage compared to what it once was.
The greatest travesty however is the fact that it will kill this style of play that revolves around pure, raw burst damage. A skill once designed to promote a high risk, high reward play style suddenly has no reward, but all the risk as before. A play style different from most of what Stamina is, and is slowly being forced into becoming a play style that revolves around bleeds and defile to whittle down opponents resources as the only viable option.

To Zenimax- Please re think your intentions with this skill, look at its past uses, what it was: A skill that promoted both timing burst, landing combos, leaving yourself vulnerable while also promoting enemies to counter the skill either by blocking or dodging it.
Don't make Dizzy Swing into the next Rapid Strikes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, any opinions or insights would be appreciated.

usmcjdking

As someone who dswings on everything.

I support this post.

sneakymitchell

You can weave it better but I think during Summerset I think they reduce two h light and heavy attacks which is bad balance and now after this? What are we going cleave everything? Or we just uppercut light attack weave and cleave?

usmcjdking

TBH 2H was hit hardest by the LA/HA rework. 2h LAs got barely buffed compared to the other lights, and 2h heavy got nerfed into the ground despite having a passive that demands you heavy attack.

kookster

@sneakymitchell This skill isn't about weaving, its about bursting. Make the other morph more weave friendly. Make dizzy about burst.

sneakymitchell

kookster wrote: »

@sneakymitchell This skill isn't about weaving, its about bursting. Make the other morph more weave friendly. Make dizzy about burst.

Why? If they increase the light attacks you will see more “skill” rather than a typical oh dizzy swing, dawnbreaker, and execute. Or dizzy swing spamming.....from zergs.
I rather have more light attack and heavy for 2h.

Syhae

sneakymitchell wrote: »

kookster wrote: »

@sneakymitchell This skill isn't about weaving, its about bursting. Make the other morph more weave friendly. Make dizzy about burst.

Why? If they increase the light attacks you will see more “skill” rather than a typical oh dizzy swing, dawnbreaker, and execute. Or dizzy swing spamming.....from zergs.
I rather have more light attack and heavy for 2h.

Like Kookster pointed out, the skill isn't about DPS which is what it is becoming, its about bursting. For it to become a "dps" spammable it'd need its wind up practically removed, which at that point is just a melee flame clench that hits slightly harder. Not exactly any flavor there. Wind up says it all. Dark Flare and Snipe hit as hard, arguably harder and do not involve near the same risk for rarely the same reward.

The skill isn't properly balanced right now and is getting changed further away from what it needs to be and will become more irrelevant in PvP.

Ayastigi

I agree with this post...what if they added major or minor fracture to dswing to make it comparable with shalks burst? Maybe that would help bring it back up to par

Hyzock

Really good post, it seems like they completely forgot about PvP when reducing dizzying swing damage. Dizzying swing was never used repeatedly after each other in PvP, it's a burst skill. A 6% dps increase is pointless if your burst gets decreased by 14%. Hopefully they rethink these changes because this will kill an entire playstyle, a playstyle that used to be really popular but the devs apparently forgot that it exists.

Typical_T_ReX

This was well thought out and written, I agree. Dizzying swing it its current state is putrid and the fact it was actually nerfed is eye-brow raising.

Raammzzaa

Great post. Between this and the similar nerf to snipe (another hard hitting skill that likewise saw its damage and cast time reduced) I’m sadly led to believe that the devs are going to continue to move ESO’s combat to be an online pillow fight...

Scarpion

Stopped enjoying the playstyle long ago but it's quite evident the changes were a fat nerf to PvP. Needs a look at.

Toc de Malsvi

Syhae wrote: »

sneakymitchell wrote: »

kookster wrote: »

@sneakymitchell This skill isn't about weaving, its about bursting. Make the other morph more weave friendly. Make dizzy about burst.

Why? If they increase the light attacks you will see more “skill” rather than a typical oh dizzy swing, dawnbreaker, and execute. Or dizzy swing spamming.....from zergs.
I rather have more light attack and heavy for 2h.

Like Kookster pointed out, the skill isn't about DPS which is what it is becoming, its about bursting. For it to become a "dps" spammable it'd need its wind up practically removed, which at that point is just a melee flame clench that hits slightly harder. Not exactly any flavor there. Wind up says it all. Dark Flare and Snipe hit as hard, arguably harder and do not involve near the same risk for rarely the same reward.

The skill isn't properly balanced right now and is getting changed further away from what it needs to be and will become more irrelevant in PvP.

Not exactly, Dizzying doesn't snare and cannot be interrupted or reflected. But generally it is more risky as it doesn't have the range.

However this issue is true of all cast time skills, they leave you vulnerable which had the trade off of higher burst and kill potential if landed. The changes to cast time skills has tried to balance them purely around a PVE spammable rotation and ignored the vulnerabilities of cast time skills in PVP. Which is almost entirely where these skills were used in the first place. And the balance was poorly done as it doesn't account for rotations.

The only really good thing about the recent changes is it appears the cast function is slightly more reliable than before and less likely to bug out and leave you holding your weapon in the air. These changes leave me flabbergasted, I do not think ZOS understands truly how poorly cast time skills behave in their combat system.

Olupajmibanan

They should have reworked Wrecking Blow morph only.

Syhae

Raammzzaa wrote: »

Great post. Between this and the similar nerf to snipe (another hard hitting skill that likewise saw its damage and cast time reduced) I’m sadly led to believe that the devs are going to continue to move ESO’s combat to be an online pillow fight...

Don't get me wrong, damage is actually high this patch and will probably be even higher next patch, but Dizzy Swing is deliberately being left in the dirt. The skill has potential to become relevant again and add more variety than purely seeing reverb builds, however if these changes go through there will cease to exist any reason to swing the D.

usmcjdking

Honestly, you could make this skill straight up unblockable and it might be balanced.

Lord_Sando

RIP dizzy swing next patch. Good thing we have class stamina skills............................oh wait................... I play stam sorc.............

Irylia

My snipe had 25% nerf and complain swing when 14% only!?!
Nonsense. You sweat v x’rs never happy!!

Ace_SiN

Sadly, ZOS thinks increasing the dps of this skill makes up for the loss of burst. For pvp, DPS means almost nothing. We'd all be running dual wield, bow, caltrops, etc if DPS mattered, but pvpers do not sit in one spot and eat all your damage. Dizzy Swing remains a high-risk skill with now a laughable reward. 2H feels dead for any raw burst build.

Mitaka211

Stamina classes are already inferior in a lot of ways when it comes to options. Like i am at a point where i am getting extremely annoyed with the devs. From what i have read i feel like pvp will be a complete disaster. Necromancer seems way over the top and he will trump any stamina class out there. What about stamsorcs , what about stamplars. Like don't they realize that dizzy was the only choice for burst . They said something like "if used in succession" meaning cleave and dizzy "there is an increase in dps". Dude no one slots these two together like what the hell. WE HAVE CLASS SKILLS TO USE TOO (not that we have any choices ).
What i'm expecting to see in pvp is a bunch of necromancers and magika users only. Hey if we can get to them ths to the dmg increase sorcs , for example, CLEARLY needed. Not like they can spam all their skills and one shot anyone who is not a full tank .
Look at what a wreck stamplar is for god sakes . "Praise the sun am i right guys hehe. How about that 0.1sec cast reduce for jabs so sweet hehe Praise the sun!". Honestly dude they can test the most devoted players patience.

Dizzy swing way too much dmg for them but other stupid magika skills "need a small increase in dmg to be on par with other skills of the same type" , yea ok........

MentalxHammer

Carve seems good now just use that.

Syhae

MentalxHammer wrote: »

Carve seems good now just use that.

It has no single target application. It also isn't a stun. So it can't really replace dizzy swing.

HackTheMinotaur

I’ve been asking them to change wrecking blow into instant cast but with lower damage. Something similar to crushing weapon. This could be the PVE dps Spammable. Also since Carve is losing heroism they could stick it on this morph too.

Leave dizzy swing alone as the PVP morph. Comon ZOS! Leave some build diversity intact in your game!

@ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Vapirko

I tested dizzy swing on PTS. I cannot even say how bad it is. If it’s someone usable on live at this time, it’s just pure garbage on PTS. The cast time doesn’t feel better, the targeting feels terrible and when it hit it’s like nothing happened. We asked for wrecking blow to be instant cast with lower damage, this is not a comprimise.

Bitmun

The OP is absolutely right, dizzy should stay as a high damaging bursty skill with a high risk element. Dps increase makes no sense! All we love the skill for, is a mighty 1 hit with a cc. 14% will be too much of a loss and most likely will destroy the entire playstyle.

TumlinTheJolly

OP is 100% on point here.

SippingPotions

As someone who only plays magsorc and magblade in PVP I support this post fully. D swing is the cornerstone to some OP builds/combos, but it's not what makes them OP. Sure the damage is high, but so is the wind up time, so it's pretty easy to block/roll/gtfo. When I die to a D swing these day's it's because I messed up, and I don't even feel cheesed because the D swing is usually followed by a high burst combo that takes skill and planning to set up. I just don't want to see this nerfed because I hate seeing entire builds and play styles get destroyed in a single update. 2h already feels clunky and kind of meh with the LA damage changes, and It's about to be an even more questionable choice with the change to RAT. I think ZOS just needs to leave bad enough alone on this one.

-Yours truly, someone who doesn't D swing.

Liww

losing nearly 3k on my tooltip for what? a 0.1 reduction on cast time?

a 6% damage increase when used in quick succession, GL getting more then three off in a row in pvp. Obviously, again, this is made with pve, and only pve, in mind.

I have a feeling this will kill the skill entirely. taking into account the average delay in Cyrodiil it wont change a thing bar being weaker then instant cast spammables.

Davadin

Syhae wrote: »

MentalxHammer wrote: »

Carve seems good now just use that.

It has no single target application. It also isn't a stun. So it can't really replace dizzy swing.

it hits a single target just the same, and it bleeds...

...like.. .BLEEDS....

and also hits actually pretty hard.

What i can swipe with Carve in 1 sec gives me a lot more damage than DS can ever hope, and it hits more than one, and it bleeds you for 10 sec.......

i'm serious. leave DS rest in peace and try Carve.

Syhae

Davadin wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

MentalxHammer wrote: »

Carve seems good now just use that.

It has no single target application. It also isn't a stun. So it can't really replace dizzy swing.

it hits a single target just the same, and it bleeds...

...like.. .BLEEDS....

and also hits actually pretty hard.

What i can swipe with Carve in 1 sec gives me a lot more damage than DS can ever hope, and it hits more than one, and it bleeds you for 10 sec.......

i'm serious. leave DS rest in peace and try Carve.

It has lost its bleed. So its relevancy for single target is even less than it was.
It does however excel at AoE cleaving, especially with Master 2h.
The skill was designed to be an AoE, as a result it does less damage than single target skills.

...I've "tried" carve before...

OtarTheMad

Davadin wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

MentalxHammer wrote: »

Carve seems good now just use that.

It has no single target application. It also isn't a stun. So it can't really replace dizzy swing.

it hits a single target just the same, and it bleeds...

...like.. .BLEEDS....

and also hits actually pretty hard.

What i can swipe with Carve in 1 sec gives me a lot more damage than DS can ever hope, and it hits more than one, and it bleeds you for 10 sec.......

i'm serious. leave DS rest in peace and try Carve.

Or combo the two together. Dizzy still hits hard and is faster so you should get off a combo of carve and dizzy easy, especially if a target is stunned. Dizzy is still a good ability to use.