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Some concerns over the DoT nerfs on the PTS
zbzszzzt123
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Introduction
On the first iteration of the Dragonhold DLC PTS published on the 16th of September, 2019, there has significant changes to almost every single Damage over Time skills in the game, namely a significant reduction of damage output of those skills were published. The damage over time standard was changed from 2.5x the damage of a spammable to 1.25x. This has raised some concerns regarding the state of game in both PvP and PVE, and I would like to express some of my personal opinions on only the PvE aspects of these changes.
Keep in mind that this is only the first week of the PTS, and many more changes are expected to happen.
Purpose of nerfs
With respect to the past devstreams and dev communications, I can tentatively assume some of the intents of these nerfs:
1. Closes the gap between skill ceiling and floor.
2. Reduces the prominence of the DoT meta
3. Reduces player power and restrain power creep.
All three purposes are great directions that the game should take and ZoS has made noticeable strides in this patch to push towards those goals, but the way the changes are executed has raised some significant concerns
Concerns
Most rotations before Scalebreaker uses a mixture of DoT and spammable abilities. A theoretical best DPS rotation in this game revolves around selecting skills that does the most damage per cast time (as in the time to cast the skill, which is instant for most, as opposed to the duration damage is done over) and filling your bars with all said skills and then creating a rotation around them, with the only limiting factor being the 10 bar space. The minimal requirement for a DoT-skill being selected as part of a rotation is doing more damage than a spammable, otherwise, you would cast the spammable to deal that much damage immediately rather than less of that much damage over time.
Pre-Scalebreaker, there are about 5-7 skills that fulfill these requirements, and players will create a rotation using those DoTs, and since DoTs usually last around 10s on the lower end, there exist spaces in the rotation where all the DoTs are running and you can use your spammable.
After Scalebreaker, the number of skills that fulfil those requirements have increased to around 8-10 due to Soul Trap, Degeneration and Destructive Reach. Thus, when a player has finished laying down all their DoTs, they will not have any free time to use a spammable before the first DoT has to be refreshed and thus endgame meta players dropped spammable almost entirely and this gave rise to the DoT meta that we are currently in.
On the PTS patch, ZoS has went in the completely opposite direction, nerfing all DoTs to only doing 1.25x of a spammable’s damage in order to distance the game away from the DoT meta, and while this has significantly helped in the assumed purposes of the nerfs, it gave away to the following issues concerning each of the three purposes.
Regarding purpose 1:
Immediately, the skill ceiling has drastically fallen compared to before, and to see this, let us make an unrealistic but representative assumption on the maximum achievable damage: Assume that we use 7 DoTs and 1 spammable in our rotation, assume infinite time scale (i.e all DoT cast run their full duration) and assume all other conditions equal, a player who spams only a single spammable skill will deal 8 portions of damage over an 8 cast time intervals, and a player performing a flawless (and I mean flawless) rotation will deal 9.75 portions of damage over the same time interval after patch, and 18.5 before patch.
So what does that mean? **It means that compared to a player who is using ONLY a spammable, a player performing a perfect rotation will do only 21.9% more damage as opposed to 123.1% more damage than before the patch.** This means that a player skill will play a much much less prominent role than before.
And the even more scary part is that the above is a very unrealistic assumption. A perfect rotation refers to a zero downtime and overlap on any DoTs, something that’s impossible to attain even on a target skeleton by the best of players. Even a highly-skilled player who is using a dynamic rotation will not even come close to achieving a perfect rotation, and that means that even for them, you will probably being doing something close to only 10%-15% more damage than a spammable-only player. That’s madness.
To take a more specific case, magDKs have a 16-second static rotation that is very popular. To perfect a rotation like this, you will have to spend hours practicing in front of a dummy and much more running in actual contents, and before the PTS patch, you will be rewarded with a significant damage increase over someone who does not practice their rotation or uses their spammable only. But now, since you overcast a lot of DoTs in that rotation, it means that the rotation itself might end up doing about as much damage as if you were to just spam molten whips, or even less than that. And that’s ridiculous, the results you get after spending hours to practice an 8-Dot rotation is no different than just using Molten Whips back-to-back: and hell, it’s even more resource efficient that way.
And thus, although there has been drastic decrease in skill ceiling, the change has been too great that you would not notice a large difference between an amazing player and a new one whilst being completely unable to tell the difference between a good player and a new one.
Regarding Purpose 2:
As above, ZoS has managed to deter the use of DoTs on the PTS patch, but in my opinion, both the intents and execution is somewhat misguided at best. The rise of DoT only became a problem when the universal DoT skills became strong and overtook traditional spammable skills. A universal nerfing of DoT skills is not only unreasonable, but also goes against some of the core principles of combat design. A DoT skill for players is an investment: you trade upfront damage for more potential total damage and DPS done, and all games should reward that investment. But as of currently, the investment is simply too small: 1.25x the damage of an upfront spammable spread over 10s is simply way too unwise to invest in, especially since most DoTs won’t even run their full duration.
If you look at a DPS report you will find that yes, DoT damage takes up a significant amount of the damage done, but that’s due to the very nature of DoT skills, as opposed to the skills themselves: they are supposed to do more damage, otherwise no one will use them. Saying DoT skills are too powerful because they do a lot of damage is like saying bosses are too powerful because they can kill you: that’s not a balancing issue, that’s just the fundamental mechanics of games like this.
Regarding Purpose 3:
I will not address too much on this issue since I suspect there will be changes in the future for the new dungeons and trials. Overall, it’s a good thing that players are nerfed so that the older contents are relevant, because as it stands, the mechanics of older DLC dungeons are pointless for a good DPS group. However, some of the newer contents are balanced with respect to our current power level and will probably need a nerf.
Conclusions:
While the PTS has patch did address some of the pressing issues ZoS sent out to address, the execution can be seen as misguided and will drastically reduce the involvement of player skills in the game should the changes go through as is.
On the first iteration of the Dragonhold DLC PTS published on the 16th of September, 2019, there has significant changes to almost every single Damage over Time skills in the game, namely a significant reduction of damage output of those skills were published. The damage over time standard was changed from 2.5x the damage of a spammable to 1.25x. This has raised some concerns regarding the state of game in both PvP and PVE, and I would like to express some of my personal opinions on only the PvE aspects of these changes.
Keep in mind that this is only the first week of the PTS, and many more changes are expected to happen.
Purpose of nerfs
With respect to the past devstreams and dev communications, I can tentatively assume some of the intents of these nerfs:
1. Closes the gap between skill ceiling and floor.
2. Reduces the prominence of the DoT meta
3. Reduces player power and restrain power creep.
All three purposes are great directions that the game should take and ZoS has made noticeable strides in this patch to push towards those goals, but the way the changes are executed has raised some significant concerns
Concerns
Most rotations before Scalebreaker uses a mixture of DoT and spammable abilities. A theoretical best DPS rotation in this game revolves around selecting skills that does the most damage per cast time (as in the time to cast the skill, which is instant for most, as opposed to the duration damage is done over) and filling your bars with all said skills and then creating a rotation around them, with the only limiting factor being the 10 bar space. The minimal requirement for a DoT-skill being selected as part of a rotation is doing more damage than a spammable, otherwise, you would cast the spammable to deal that much damage immediately rather than less of that much damage over time.
Pre-Scalebreaker, there are about 5-7 skills that fulfill these requirements, and players will create a rotation using those DoTs, and since DoTs usually last around 10s on the lower end, there exist spaces in the rotation where all the DoTs are running and you can use your spammable.
After Scalebreaker, the number of skills that fulfil those requirements have increased to around 8-10 due to Soul Trap, Degeneration and Destructive Reach. Thus, when a player has finished laying down all their DoTs, they will not have any free time to use a spammable before the first DoT has to be refreshed and thus endgame meta players dropped spammable almost entirely and this gave rise to the DoT meta that we are currently in.
On the PTS patch, ZoS has went in the completely opposite direction, nerfing all DoTs to only doing 1.25x of a spammable’s damage in order to distance the game away from the DoT meta, and while this has significantly helped in the assumed purposes of the nerfs, it gave away to the following issues concerning each of the three purposes.
Regarding purpose 1:
Immediately, the skill ceiling has drastically fallen compared to before, and to see this, let us make an unrealistic but representative assumption on the maximum achievable damage: Assume that we use 7 DoTs and 1 spammable in our rotation, assume infinite time scale (i.e all DoT cast run their full duration) and assume all other conditions equal, a player who spams only a single spammable skill will deal 8 portions of damage over an 8 cast time intervals, and a player performing a flawless (and I mean flawless) rotation will deal 9.75 portions of damage over the same time interval after patch, and 18.5 before patch.
So what does that mean? **It means that compared to a player who is using ONLY a spammable, a player performing a perfect rotation will do only 21.9% more damage as opposed to 123.1% more damage than before the patch.** This means that a player skill will play a much much less prominent role than before.
And the even more scary part is that the above is a very unrealistic assumption. A perfect rotation refers to a zero downtime and overlap on any DoTs, something that’s impossible to attain even on a target skeleton by the best of players. Even a highly-skilled player who is using a dynamic rotation will not even come close to achieving a perfect rotation, and that means that even for them, you will probably being doing something close to only 10%-15% more damage than a spammable-only player. That’s madness.
To take a more specific case, magDKs have a 16-second static rotation that is very popular. To perfect a rotation like this, you will have to spend hours practicing in front of a dummy and much more running in actual contents, and before the PTS patch, you will be rewarded with a significant damage increase over someone who does not practice their rotation or uses their spammable only. But now, since you overcast a lot of DoTs in that rotation, it means that the rotation itself might end up doing about as much damage as if you were to just spam molten whips, or even less than that. And that’s ridiculous, the results you get after spending hours to practice an 8-Dot rotation is no different than just using Molten Whips back-to-back: and hell, it’s even more resource efficient that way.
And thus, although there has been drastic decrease in skill ceiling, the change has been too great that you would not notice a large difference between an amazing player and a new one whilst being completely unable to tell the difference between a good player and a new one.
Regarding Purpose 2:
As above, ZoS has managed to deter the use of DoTs on the PTS patch, but in my opinion, both the intents and execution is somewhat misguided at best. The rise of DoT only became a problem when the universal DoT skills became strong and overtook traditional spammable skills. A universal nerfing of DoT skills is not only unreasonable, but also goes against some of the core principles of combat design. A DoT skill for players is an investment: you trade upfront damage for more potential total damage and DPS done, and all games should reward that investment. But as of currently, the investment is simply too small: 1.25x the damage of an upfront spammable spread over 10s is simply way too unwise to invest in, especially since most DoTs won’t even run their full duration.
If you look at a DPS report you will find that yes, DoT damage takes up a significant amount of the damage done, but that’s due to the very nature of DoT skills, as opposed to the skills themselves: they are supposed to do more damage, otherwise no one will use them. Saying DoT skills are too powerful because they do a lot of damage is like saying bosses are too powerful because they can kill you: that’s not a balancing issue, that’s just the fundamental mechanics of games like this.
Regarding Purpose 3:
I will not address too much on this issue since I suspect there will be changes in the future for the new dungeons and trials. Overall, it’s a good thing that players are nerfed so that the older contents are relevant, because as it stands, the mechanics of older DLC dungeons are pointless for a good DPS group. However, some of the newer contents are balanced with respect to our current power level and will probably need a nerf.
Conclusions:
While the PTS has patch did address some of the pressing issues ZoS sent out to address, the execution can be seen as misguided and will drastically reduce the involvement of player skills in the game should the changes go through as is.
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HatchetHaro✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Extremely well written. I have nothing else to add to this.Best Argonian NA and I will fight anyone for it
17 Argonians
6x IR, 6x GH, 7x TTT, 4x GS, 4x DB, 1x PB, 3x SBS, 1x Unchained0 -
Mayrael✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭ZOS is unable to adjust things like 5-15% nerf/buff, instead they are always going with numbers 50-200% buffs/nerfs. This is not how you balance things....Say no to Toxic Casuals!
I am doing my best, but I am not a native speaker, sorry.
"Difficulty scaling is desperately needed. 9 years. 6 paid expansions. 24 DLCs. 40 game changing updates including A Realm Reborn-tier overhaul of the game including a permanent CP160 gear cap and ridiculous power creep thereafter. I'm sick and tired of hearing about Cadwell Silver&Gold as a "you think you do but you don't"-tier deflection to any criticism regarding the lack of overland difficulty in the game." - @AlexanderDeLarge1 -
stevenyaub16_ESO✭✭✭✭This is the biggest concern. DoTs should do atleast around 30-50% more damage than spammables to keep them competitive, due to the big disadvantages listed above.
Not to mention ground aoes are even worse since the target needs to be within that area for the full duration to get full damage.
Let's just hope a Dev actually reads through this post and takes the criticism on board.1