Grim Focus should give major sorcery/brutality instead of useless mitigation

mr_wazzabi

My suggestion is to remove major sorcery and brutality from drain power and put it into grim focus.

Attaching the sp/wd buff to an aoe that you must hit an enemy with to activate has always been clunky and awkward. Putting it into grim focus allows it to be channeled naturally and smothly before entering battle, just like sorcs with surge , dk with molten weapons and wardens with netch.

This also keeps grim focus as a useful dps tool after losing minor bersker.

From a dps standpoint, we're almost never going to have 5 full stacks saved up as we'll be firing off the bow asap. It's also awkward and time consuming to build up 5 stacks. On average a nb dps wil probably only have 3 to 6% mitigation saved up, making this quite useless.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @zos_gilliam please hear me out with this.

Deathlord92

Major brutality is useless on relentless every stamina build out there will be using rally or forward momentum. I completely agree with major sorcery on merciless tho I have been asking for this since first lot changes.

mr_wazzabi

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Major brutality is useless on relentless every stamina build out there will be using rally or forward momentum. I completely agree with major sorcery on merciless tho I have been asking for this since first lot changes.

Not for pve. Everybody uses dw/bow. They're forced to use wd potions when raiding.

What about bow/bow builds or dw/bow in pvp? Or snb/bow if that's a thing?

Narvuntien

Its not a dps skill anymore put something else on your bar.

Also everyone in PVE uses potions for most buffs

HEBREWHAMMERRR

“Useless” is a pretty loose term here? This is a great buff for brawler builds in PvP.

JinMori

LOL, mitigation that you can;t get anywhere else and doesn't stack with anything useless, while major sorcery and brut you can get in so many ways.

Jesus Christ.

Emma_Overload

I'll trade you Surge for Grim Focus any day.

susmitds

Nope. If anything it should give Sorcery/Brutality with the mitigation to solve the issue of an empty cast and Sorcery won't add make it OP anyways as it was widely prevalent and used in every build. Would just help with Skill slot issues.

twing1_

While I agree that grim focus should get major brutality/sorcery, it is for different reasons.

15% mitigation is crazy strong in PvP.

It more than makes up for the resistance difference in wearing 7 pieces of light armor vs 7 pieces of heavy armor.

Assuming no other sources of mitigation, it is the rough equivalent of 9915 resistance. That's almost double what major ward/resolve offer.

It is stronger than Mark of the Pariah's 5th piece bonus for the majority of your health bar.

And, most importantly, it directly contradicts NB class identity.

NB are described by the character creation screen as "relying variously on stealth, blades, and speed" and "trusting to their cunning and luck to survive".

Meanwhile, NB are granted by far the most and strongest sources of mitigation, accross all classes:
-major ward/resolve (for free from shadow barrier passive)
-minor ward/resolve (mirage)
-minor protection (dark cloak)
-major protection (consuming darkness)
-major evasion (blur)
-minor maim (summon shade)
-unnamed 15% mitigation (grim focus)

This is thematically wrong.

Replacing the mitigation with brutality/sorcery would be extremely useful for magblades, and open the door to dw stamblades in PvP. It wouldn't affect the overall power of the class, because brutality/sorcery is a buff that NB already have access to. It's a perfect way to tone down the skill a bit while at the same time maintaining its usefulness.

If ZOS truly is hell bent on tying a defensive benefit to grim focus, another alternative would be to replace the stacks of 3% mitigation with stacks of 2% movement speed (for a total of 10% at five stacks). This would still allow the skill to keep its defensive benefit, but would at least do so in a way that is more true to the NB class identity.

burglar

It is weird that a class that normally relies on delivering quick initial damage is one of the only classes missing an initial buff to brutality/sorcery. Well, two handed users can get brutality pretty easily.

What about changing the morph of reapers mark? Remove the major berserk, and instead of debuffing the target, increase the casters spell/weapon penetration by 1320, and buff them with major brutality/major sorcery?

Even then, it's easy enough to get major sorcery with a potion before attacking, then switch to tri-pots if you like, later.

You know, they could add major sorcery to the vampire skill line... make the drain ability instead function like lightning form does for sorc, so it drains 500hp per second from nearby targets, and add major sorcery to it. No one uses that skill even though it provides a major heal, and stuns for 5 seconds because you get locked into an animation.

fred4

twing1_ wrote: »

15% mitigation is crazy strong in PvP.

It more than makes up for the resistance difference in wearing 7 pieces of light armor vs 7 pieces of heavy armor.

It is the rough equivalent of 9915 resistance. That's almost double what major ward/resolve offer.

It is stronger than Mark of the Pariah's 5th piece bonus until about ~40% health.

This is incorrect. Mitigation buffs are multiplicative. If you got +9915 resistances, had no other mitigation and weren't blocking, that would be +15%. On the other hand, if you got, for example, Minor Maim on top of:

10K effective resistances: Minor Maim = 12.75%
20K effective resistances: Minor Maim = 10.5%
Naked and blocking: Minor Maim = 6.75%
Resistances + other mitigation: Minor Main = you get the picture

While resistances as a whole also suffer from multiplication effects, they tend to be the largest factor while you are not blocking or in Mist Form. Resistance boosting sets are additive with your other resistances. That makes those sets (Brass, Armor Master, Pariah) more effective than the 15% buffs (Riposte, Grim Focus) in the current patch.

Other than that, I totally agree with you, not just for thematic reasons, but also due to how I play nightblade. I would love the speed buff too.

Rehdaun

twing1_ wrote: »

And, most importantly, it directly contradicts NB class identity.

Zos doesn't give two licks about class identity, racial identity or anything else like that. It seems that they like throw a bunch of crap against the wall and see what sticks.

It was a sad day when they lost their loremaster. One has to wonder though, was it really family reasons like he said, or did he get fed of up all the contradictions and chaos forced down everyone's throats?

HackTheMinotaur

I would love this buff and don’t understand why it wasn’t considered. For stam set ups it would help PvP users run Dw/SnB or DW/Bow. For Mag NB obviously it is an even greater boon to free us from entropy and potion use.

The mitigation buff still doesn’t make sense to me. It feels like they are slowing going to remove cloak from the game and trying to give us little pieces of compensation or redesign the class in the meantime.

WrathOfInnos

twing1_ wrote: »

While I agree that grim focus should get major brutality/sorcery, it is for different reasons.

15% mitigation is crazy strong in PvP.

It more than makes up for the resistance difference in wearing 7 pieces of light armor vs 7 pieces of heavy armor.

It is the rough equivalent of 9915 resistance. That's almost double what major ward/resolve offer.

It is stronger than Mark of the Pariah's 5th piece bonus until about ~40% health.

And, most importantly, it directly contradicts NB class identity.

NB are described by the character creation screen as "relying variously on stealth, blades, and speed" and "trusting to their cunning and luck to survive".

Meanwhile, NB are granted by far the most and strongest sources of mitigation, accross all classes:
-major ward/resolve (for free from shadow barrier passive)
-minor ward/resolve (mirage)
-minor protection (dark cloak)
-major protection (consuming darkness)
-major evasion (blur)
-minor maim (summon shade)
-unnamed 15% mitigation (grim focus)

This is thematically wrong.

Replacing the mitigation with brutality/sorcery would be extremely useful for magblades, and open the door to dw stamblades in PvP. It wouldn't affect the overall power of the class, because brutality/sorcery is a buff that NB already have access to. It's a perfect way to tone down the skill a bit while at the same time maintaining its usefulness.

If ZOS truly is hell bent on tying a defensive benefit to grim focus, another alternative would be to replace the stacks of 3% mitigation with stacks of 2% movement speed (for a total of 10% at five stacks). This would still allow the skill to keep its defensive benefit, but would at least do so in a way that is more true to the NB class identity.

15% mitigation is only close to 9.9k resistances if you have no other sources of armor or Spell Resistance. Consider the following example:

A build has 27k resistance, resulting in 40.9% damage reduction. So a 10k incoming hit will be reduced to 5909.

If you add a flat 15% mitigation from Grim Focus this reduces the hit from 5909 to 5022.

Now if you add 6k resistances (instead of the flat 15% from Grim Focus), this goes up to 33k for 50% mitigation. The same 10k incoming hit will be reduced to 5000.

So in this case the 15% from Grim Focus is very close to 6k resistances, resulting in damage taken within 0.5% (5022 vs 5000).

This is obviously the best case example for armor (where the amount added brings you to the hard cap), and in most cases 15% will fall somewhere in the 7k-8k range for equivalent resistance.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Major brutality is useless on relentless every stamina build out there will be using rally or forward momentum. I completely agree with major sorcery on merciless tho I have been asking for this since first lot changes.

Not for pve. Everybody uses dw/bow. They're forced to use wd potions when raiding.

What about bow/bow builds or dw/bow in pvp? Or snb/bow if that's a thing?

Lol "forced" you need to use them for sustain as well, it is a major DPS loss to run a skill for your major buffs, even Major prophecy, the reason mag builds use inner light is the 7% max magic, not the major buff.

fred4

My own post doesn't sit right with me. What it actually shows is that a 15% mitigation buff is strong for low resistance builds. The reason I don't particularly care for that is likely my playstyle, which involves a lot of cloak. If you successfully cloak, mitigation counts for nothing.

The real problem I have, and which some other players have identified, is the lack of reliable healing. Resistances matter little, if you can't get decent healing into the build. Magblades used to have great self-healing and I get the feeling that the devs don't realise how thoroughly that has been dismantled over the course of the past 3 years, the addition of Siphoning Attacks notwithstanding.

I would also point out that tanks probably benefit the least from this change. They're not going to actively use the bow and their first priority will remain getting to mitigation cap and to sustain blocking, because those are the two most important forms of mitigation. As the numbers show, other multiplicative buffs piled on top of that are badly affected by diminishing returns.

twing1_

fred4 wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

15% mitigation is crazy strong in PvP.

It more than makes up for the resistance difference in wearing 7 pieces of light armor vs 7 pieces of heavy armor.

It is the rough equivalent of 9915 resistance. That's almost double what major ward/resolve offer.

It is stronger than Mark of the Pariah's 5th piece bonus until about ~40% health.

This is incorrect. Mitigation buffs are multiplicative. If you got +9915 resistances, had no other mitigation and weren't blocking, that would be +15%. On the other hand, if you got, for example, Minor Maim on top of:

10K effective resistances: Minor Maim = 12.75%
20K effective resistances: Minor Maim = 10.5%
Naked and blocking: Minor Maim = 6.75%
Resistances + other mitigation: Minor Main = you get the picture

While resistances as a whole also suffer from multiplication effects, they tend to be the largest factor while you are not blocking or in Mist Form. Resistance boosting sets are additive with your other resistances. That makes those sets (Brass, Armor Master, Pariah) more effective than the 15% buffs (Riposte, Grim Focus) in the current patch.

Other than that, I totally agree with you, not just for thematic reasons, but also due to how I play nightblade. I would love the speed buff too.

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

While I agree that grim focus should get major brutality/sorcery, it is for different reasons.

15% mitigation is crazy strong in PvP.

It more than makes up for the resistance difference in wearing 7 pieces of light armor vs 7 pieces of heavy armor.

It is the rough equivalent of 9915 resistance. That's almost double what major ward/resolve offer.

It is stronger than Mark of the Pariah's 5th piece bonus until about ~40% health.

And, most importantly, it directly contradicts NB class identity.

NB are described by the character creation screen as "relying variously on stealth, blades, and speed" and "trusting to their cunning and luck to survive".

Meanwhile, NB are granted by far the most and strongest sources of mitigation, accross all classes:
-major ward/resolve (for free from shadow barrier passive)
-minor ward/resolve (mirage)
-minor protection (dark cloak)
-major protection (consuming darkness)
-major evasion (blur)
-minor maim (summon shade)
-unnamed 15% mitigation (grim focus)

This is thematically wrong.

Replacing the mitigation with brutality/sorcery would be extremely useful for magblades, and open the door to dw stamblades in PvP. It wouldn't affect the overall power of the class, because brutality/sorcery is a buff that NB already have access to. It's a perfect way to tone down the skill a bit while at the same time maintaining its usefulness.

If ZOS truly is hell bent on tying a defensive benefit to grim focus, another alternative would be to replace the stacks of 3% mitigation with stacks of 2% movement speed (for a total of 10% at five stacks). This would still allow the skill to keep its defensive benefit, but would at least do so in a way that is more true to the NB class identity.

15% mitigation is only close to 9.9k resistances if you have no other sources of armor or Spell Resistance. Consider the following example:

A build has 27k resistance, resulting in 40.9% damage reduction. So a 10k incoming hit will be reduced to 5909.

If you add a flat 15% mitigation from Grim Focus this reduces the hit from 5909 to 5022.

Now if you add 6k resistances (instead of the flat 15% from Grim Focus), this goes up to 33k for 50% mitigation. The same 10k incoming hit will be reduced to 5000.

So in this case the 15% from Grim Focus is very close to 6k resistances, resulting in damage taken within 0.5% (5022 vs 5000).

This is obviously the best case example for armor (where the amount added brings you to the hard cap), and in most cases 15% will fall somewhere in the 7k-8k range for equivalent resistance.

I am very well aware of how mitigation works. I just thought I would expedite things by comparing the 15% damage mitigation to the exact amount of resistances required to mitigate 15% damage. I failed to note I was analyzing these in a vacuum, where no other sources of mitigation are being applied.

I deliberately chose to look at this way because I felt it was unfair to make assumptions and generalizations on the other sources of mitigation people are running. Equally so, I did not want to run through absolutely every possible scenario, because there are quite a few. This is mainly due to the fact that some people play in light armor, others play in medium, and even more play in heavy. Then you take into account other sources of mitigation like minor protection which some people run, major protection which others do, etc. And then comes into play the question of whether or not you are blocking, and the additional mitigations pertaining to that (snb passives, frost staff passives, footman, etc).

Due to the high amount of potential differing scenarios, I didn't want to make any assumptions and it would be much simpler to instead directly compare 15% damage mitigation to the exact number of resistances required to mitigate 15% damage.

Although, I guess one assumption I could have safely made is that everybody, at the very least, will be running the resistances granted by a full set of light armor, because nobody goes into battle naked.

15% damage reduction in this scenario would be equal to ~8790 resistances.

I believe my points still stand. That is a crazy amount of mitigation for a single skill to offer, especially considering that most abilities devoted solely to mitigation (skills that offer major ward/resolve) only grant 5280 resistances.

Edit: I've updated my original comment to avoid future confusion.

Izaki

IMHO the initial cast of the skill should simply buff Light and Heavy Attack damage (by like 10%)... Solves the issue of the empty cast and it stays within the role of a pure DPS skill.

Wuuffyy

twing1_ wrote: »

While I agree that grim focus should get major brutality/sorcery, it is for different reasons.

15% mitigation is crazy strong in PvP.

It more than makes up for the resistance difference in wearing 7 pieces of light armor vs 7 pieces of heavy armor.

It is the rough equivalent of 9915 resistance. That's almost double what major ward/resolve offer.

It is stronger than Mark of the Pariah's 5th piece bonus until about ~40% health.

And, most importantly, it directly contradicts NB class identity.

NB are described by the character creation screen as "relying variously on stealth, blades, and speed" and "trusting to their cunning and luck to survive".

Meanwhile, NB are granted by far the most and strongest sources of mitigation, accross all classes:
-major ward/resolve (for free from shadow barrier passive)
-minor ward/resolve (mirage)
-minor protection (dark cloak)
-major protection (consuming darkness)
-major evasion (blur)
-minor maim (summon shade)
-unnamed 15% mitigation (grim focus)

This is thematically wrong.

Replacing the mitigation with brutality/sorcery would be extremely useful for magblades, and open the door to dw stamblades in PvP. It wouldn't affect the overall power of the class, because brutality/sorcery is a buff that NB already have access to. It's a perfect way to tone down the skill a bit while at the same time maintaining its usefulness.

If ZOS truly is hell bent on tying a defensive benefit to grim focus, another alternative would be to replace the stacks of 3% mitigation with stacks of 2% movement speed (for a total of 10% at five stacks). This would still allow the skill to keep its defensive benefit, but would at least do so in a way that is more true to the NB class identity.

Wrong... it’s a percentage buff and therefore is only around as good as major resolve/ward as we get hit hard with diminishing returns on these as there are so many.

WrathOfInnos

Tanks will benefit most from this because they can easily maintain 5 stacks for the duration of combat (where DPS will only have about 2-3 average) and from a single cast. Tanks also have the most incoming damage, which makes mitigation more important to them. And there is no diminishing return on this multiplicative damage reduction buff. Regardless of any other defensive buffs you have, the incoming damage with this buff is going to be 15% lower than incoming damage without this buff.

mr_wazzabi

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Major brutality is useless on relentless every stamina build out there will be using rally or forward momentum. I completely agree with major sorcery on merciless tho I have been asking for this since first lot changes.

Not for pve. Everybody uses dw/bow. They're forced to use wd potions when raiding.

What about bow/bow builds or dw/bow in pvp? Or snb/bow if that's a thing?

Lol "forced" you need to use them for sustain as well, it is a major DPS loss to run a skill for your major buffs, even Major prophecy, the reason mag builds use inner light is the 7% max magic, not the major buff.

Spectral bow buddy. Enough of a reason. This will make magblades a cheaper class to play since they already use inner light. Allows flexibility for other potions.

twing1_

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

While I agree that grim focus should get major brutality/sorcery, it is for different reasons.

15% mitigation is crazy strong in PvP.

It more than makes up for the resistance difference in wearing 7 pieces of light armor vs 7 pieces of heavy armor.

It is the rough equivalent of 9915 resistance. That's almost double what major ward/resolve offer.

It is stronger than Mark of the Pariah's 5th piece bonus until about ~40% health.

And, most importantly, it directly contradicts NB class identity.

NB are described by the character creation screen as "relying variously on stealth, blades, and speed" and "trusting to their cunning and luck to survive".

Meanwhile, NB are granted by far the most and strongest sources of mitigation, accross all classes:
-major ward/resolve (for free from shadow barrier passive)
-minor ward/resolve (mirage)
-minor protection (dark cloak)
-major protection (consuming darkness)
-major evasion (blur)
-minor maim (summon shade)
-unnamed 15% mitigation (grim focus)

This is thematically wrong.

Replacing the mitigation with brutality/sorcery would be extremely useful for magblades, and open the door to dw stamblades in PvP. It wouldn't affect the overall power of the class, because brutality/sorcery is a buff that NB already have access to. It's a perfect way to tone down the skill a bit while at the same time maintaining its usefulness.

If ZOS truly is hell bent on tying a defensive benefit to grim focus, another alternative would be to replace the stacks of 3% mitigation with stacks of 2% movement speed (for a total of 10% at five stacks). This would still allow the skill to keep its defensive benefit, but would at least do so in a way that is more true to the NB class identity.

Wrong... it’s a percentage buff and therefore is only around as good as major resolve/ward as we get hit hard with diminishing returns on these as there are so many.

What assumptions are you making?

By my calculations you are assuming 30,900 resistances with no other sources of mitigation (minor protection, minor maim, etc.). This is far more than most players run. Tanks? Sure. DPS, healers, and most PvPers? Not so much.

While it is true that percentage mitigations interact multiplicatively with each other, there are no diminishing returns: 15% damage reduction reduces the damage you would normally take by exactly 15%.

For example, let's assume an enemy attack does 5k dmg.

Without resistances (unrealistic, I know), this 15% damage reduction would reduce their damage by 750 (15%).
5000*(1-.15)=4250

With max resistances (50% mitigation), this 15% damage reduction would reduce their damage by only 375, but this is still 15% of the damage you would have been taking without it.
5000*(1-.50)=2500 dmg with max resistances but no 15% reduction
5000*(1-.50)*(1-.15)=2125 dmg with max resistances and 15% reduction
375/2500=.15

Claiming that this 15% damage reduction isn't strong because of how % damage reductions work in this game isn't a valid argument. Minor maim and minor protection are both considered very strong, despite working in the same way this 15% damage reduction does.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Major brutality is useless on relentless every stamina build out there will be using rally or forward momentum. I completely agree with major sorcery on merciless tho I have been asking for this since first lot changes.

Not for pve. Everybody uses dw/bow. They're forced to use wd potions when raiding.

What about bow/bow builds or dw/bow in pvp? Or snb/bow if that's a thing?

Lol "forced" you need to use them for sustain as well, it is a major DPS loss to run a skill for your major buffs, even Major prophecy, the reason mag builds use inner light is the 7% max magic, not the major buff.

Spectral bow buddy. Enough of a reason. This will make magblades a cheaper class to play since they already use inner light. Allows flexibility for other potions.

Lol, buddy, I was giving another example of a skill players put on their bar, not for the major buff, but for the other part of the skill, like the spectral bow you so righteously point out. Having the major damage buffs on these skills will not make pve players use other pots, what else would they use? Pve players already take pots off cooldown because they need the sustain, the ~7.5k mag/Stam and the major regen buffs. This is a PvP reason to change the skill, there is where you use other pots. Doesn't matter to me anyways, I will probably be taking this skill of my bar for the new dark shade, with the new scaling, it actually does more dps for me then the bow proc and is much easier to manage.

Also, I am one of those few who actually run sap/power extraction in pve, they are great skills, again, the only real reason you want to change grim focus to have the major buff is for PvP. Don't try to sell it as anything else.

Chelo

Izaki wrote: »

IMHO the initial cast of the skill should simply buff Light and Heavy Attack damage (by like 10%)... Solves the issue of the empty cast and it stays within the role of a pure DPS skill.

Even that is better than Mitigation!

mr_wazzabi

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Major brutality is useless on relentless every stamina build out there will be using rally or forward momentum. I completely agree with major sorcery on merciless tho I have been asking for this since first lot changes.

Not for pve. Everybody uses dw/bow. They're forced to use wd potions when raiding.

What about bow/bow builds or dw/bow in pvp? Or snb/bow if that's a thing?

Lol "forced" you need to use them for sustain as well, it is a major DPS loss to run a skill for your major buffs, even Major prophecy, the reason mag builds use inner light is the 7% max magic, not the major buff.

Spectral bow buddy. Enough of a reason. This will make magblades a cheaper class to play since they already use inner light. Allows flexibility for other potions.

Lol, buddy, I was giving another example of a skill players put on their bar, not for the major buff, but for the other part of the skill, like the spectral bow you so righteously point out. Having the major damage buffs on these skills will not make pve players use other pots, what else would they use? Pve players already take pots off cooldown because they need the sustain, the ~7.5k mag/Stam and the major regen buffs. This is a PvP reason to change the skill, there is where you use other pots. Doesn't matter to me anyways, I will probably be taking this skill of my bar for the new dark shade, with the new scaling, it actually does more dps for me then the bow proc and is much easier to manage.

Also, I am one of those few who actually run sap/power extraction in pve, they are great skills, again, the only real reason you want to change grim focus to have the major buff is for PvP. Don't try to sell it as anything else.

Tripots. Free boss drop pots. I prefer the option to use those in trials. I flawlessed vma on 4 toons with free trash pots

jypcy

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Tanks will benefit most from this because they can easily maintain 5 stacks for the duration of combat (where DPS will only have about 2-3 average) and from a single cast. Tanks also have the most incoming damage, which makes mitigation more important to them. And there is no diminishing return on this multiplicative damage reduction buff. Regardless of any other defensive buffs you have, the incoming damage with this buff is going to be 15% lower than incoming damage without this buff.

Yeah, it sort of makes sense from an isolated design perspective— build up damage resistance to mitigate a big attack and then fire the bow to recover some health. For pvp this could possibly send your opponent on the defensive, and for pve you’ll have time to build full stacks again before the next heavy attack.

But for tankblades, that bow proc is probably going to be pretty weak, and the heal even weaker. If neither stamblades nor magblades think the heal is all that useful, maybe ZOS could make it a health-based value instead. Then the stam morph could retain a longer duration and the mag morph could come with minor berserk. Stamblade damage output gets nerfed, magblades get a slight buff, and tankblades don’t get screwed lol

Ragnaroek93

Imagine thinking that 15% mitigation is useless

Jhalin

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Tanks will benefit most from this because they can easily maintain 5 stacks for the duration of combat (where DPS will only have about 2-3 average) and from a single cast. Tanks also have the most incoming damage, which makes mitigation more important to them. And there is no diminishing return on this multiplicative damage reduction buff. Regardless of any other defensive buffs you have, the incoming damage with this buff is going to be 15% lower than incoming damage without this buff.

What an oversimplified and inaccurate way of looking at the value of this skill’s mitigation

PvE tanks benefit the least from slotting on this ability.

Consider a 50k hit. Going in order of highest values because that will always be - key priority order for what stays on vs what goes from a build.

- 50k initial hit

*consistent, no build up*
- 33k resists - 50% damage reduction
- 25k mitigated, total mitigation 25k/50k (50%)
- - new hit 25k, 50% mitigation added

**no buildup, blocks normal CC, cost stamina constantly**
- Blocking - 50% damage reduction
- 12.5k mitigated, total mitigation 37.5k/50k (75%)
- - new hit 12.5k, 25% mitigation added

**consistent, no build up**
- 81 Ironclad - 24% damage reduction
- 3k mitigated, total mitigation 40.5k/50k (81%)
- - new hit 9.5k, 6% mitigation added

**inconsistent, 5 GCD build up, has initial cost**
- 5 stacks of held Focus - 15% damage reduction
- 1,425 mitigated
- total mitigation 41,925/50k (83.85%)
- new hit 8,075, 2.85% mitigation added

**consistent, no build up**
- 56 Hardy/Ele Def - 13% damage reduction
- 1,050 mitigated, total mitigation 42,975/50k (85.95%)
- - new hit 7,025, 2.1% mitigation added


You could slot this over Temporal Guard, or dump all your Hardy/Ele Def CP in Quick Recovery, but really why go to that trouble for a measly 3% increase when there are other abilities that have much more utility. Why not run another shadow ability for the extra health at that point? It will have more effective value than stacking another mitigation source.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Major brutality is useless on relentless every stamina build out there will be using rally or forward momentum. I completely agree with major sorcery on merciless tho I have been asking for this since first lot changes.

Not for pve. Everybody uses dw/bow. They're forced to use wd potions when raiding.

What about bow/bow builds or dw/bow in pvp? Or snb/bow if that's a thing?

Lol "forced" you need to use them for sustain as well, it is a major DPS loss to run a skill for your major buffs, even Major prophecy, the reason mag builds use inner light is the 7% max magic, not the major buff.

Spectral bow buddy. Enough of a reason. This will make magblades a cheaper class to play since they already use inner light. Allows flexibility for other potions.

Lol, buddy, I was giving another example of a skill players put on their bar, not for the major buff, but for the other part of the skill, like the spectral bow you so righteously point out. Having the major damage buffs on these skills will not make pve players use other pots, what else would they use? Pve players already take pots off cooldown because they need the sustain, the ~7.5k mag/Stam and the major regen buffs. This is a PvP reason to change the skill, there is where you use other pots. Doesn't matter to me anyways, I will probably be taking this skill of my bar for the new dark shade, with the new scaling, it actually does more dps for me then the bow proc and is much easier to manage.

Also, I am one of those few who actually run sap/power extraction in pve, they are great skills, again, the only real reason you want to change grim focus to have the major buff is for PvP. Don't try to sell it as anything else.

Tripots. Free boss drop pots. I prefer the option to use those in trials. I flawlessed vma on 4 toons with free trash pots

Congratulations? I also cleared vMA using nothing but trash pots, it is all my toons use. Whoop-dee-doo. You can clear any of the content in the game without any major buffs. Point is if you want the best run, you use spell power pots. Best sustain, best uptime on all the major buffs. Tripots are not needed.

Insco851

so theoretically- at what point of resistances do you start having dramatic diminishing returns on - let’s say an average of 3 stacks of this- 9% mitigation?

twing1_

Insco851 wrote: »

so theoretically- at what point of resistances do you start having dramatic diminishing returns on - let’s say an average of 3 stacks of this- 9% mitigation?

There are no diminishing returns. The stacks will always provide the mitigation they say they do.

If you have 10k resistances, 3 stacks will mitigate an additional 9% dmg.

If you have 30k resistances, 3 stacks will mitigate an additional 9% dmg.

It's just that you take less damage the higher your resistances are, so 9% of the dmg taken becomes a smaller flat value the more your armor is mitigating.

Ex/ no resistances = 100k dmg, 9% of this is 9k mitigated.

Max resistances = 50k dmg, 9% of this is 4.5k mitigated.