The change to Vykosa monster helm is a bad change

cheifsoap

I believe I understand why this change is made, to promote a new set; but I think this is a bad change in general and is counter productive to making more monster helms useful. Vykosa as it stands on PTS, it useless; no one will use it. Where it stands on live, it serves a purpose; and it serves that purpose very well.

Urzigurumash

You say this because you think the 268 power reduction is much weaker than Major Maim? If I understand the note correctly, this new debuff will have a possible 66.6% uptime, whereas the live debuff has only a possible 20% uptime. I have no idea whether it's accurate or not, but I've read most bosses have 2500 weapon damage, which means Major Maim gives 750 power reduction.

Anyhow if these things are true (which they may not be), the new Vykosa provides a little more overall power reduction:

268*.666= 178.488 overall reduction
750*.2= 150 overall reduction

Also, I believe there are at least 2 other sources of Major Maim: Frozen Device, which might not be practical to use in most situations, and Solar Prison, which I assume is difficult to use to get 20% uptime on Major Maim in most groups, but regardless, the new unique debuff provides for more possible power reduction.

I assume we do not consider PvP use of Vykosa in this contemplation, if this is your concern I'm very interested in this build - if you're out there in Vykosa and Vanguard's Challenge then I'm impressed.

cheifsoap

Urzigurumash wrote: »

You say this because you think the 268 power reduction is much weaker than Major Maim? If I understand the note correctly, this new debuff will have a possible 66.6% uptime, whereas the live debuff has only a possible 20% uptime. I have no idea whether it's accurate or not, but I've read most bosses have 2500 weapon damage, which means Major Maim gives 750 power reduction.

Anyhow if these things are true (which they may not be), the new Vykosa provides a little more overall power reduction:

268*.666= 178.488 overall reduction
750*.2= 150 overall reduction

Also, I believe there are at least 2 other sources of Major Maim, Frozen Device, which might not be practical to use in most situations, and Solar Prison, which I assume is difficult to use to get 20% uptime on Major Maim in most groups, but regardless, the new unique debuff provides for more possible power reduction.

I assume we do not consider PvP use of Vykosa in this contemplation, if this is your concern I'm very interested in this build - if you're out there in Vykosa and Vanguard's Challenge then I'm impressed.

I say this because Major Maim is percent based and not static. It was useful for fights such as vSS. It has nothing to do with up time but more to do with usefulness. My point has more to do with the counter productive nature of taking a useful monster helm and making it useless.

Urzigurumash

cheifsoap wrote: »

I say this because Major Maim is percent based and not static. It was useful for fights such as vSS. It has nothing to do with up time but more to do with usefulness. My point has more to do with the counter productive nature of taking a useful monster helm and making it useless.

Do you know the weapon/spell damage of bosses in vSS?

Let's assume in any situation live Vykosa provides a stronger debuff per second than pts Vykosa: you are dismayed that you can no longer use this stronger debuff in a well-timed way to briefly reduce the bosses' power during particular phases of a fight, despite the trade-off of slightly overall more power reduction?

cheifsoap

Urzigurumash wrote: »

cheifsoap wrote: »

I say this because Major Maim is percent based and not static. It was useful for fights such as vSS. It has nothing to do with up time but more to do with usefulness. My point has more to do with the counter productive nature of taking a useful monster helm and making it useless.

Do you know the weapon/spell damage of bosses in vSS?

Do I? No. Brief google search has the flat amount wish-washy at best.

Edit: Its early, lots of typos

actosh

The new Helm they wanna promote is kinda dumb.

cheifsoap

actosh wrote: »

The new Helm they wanna promote is kinda dumb.

The new monster helms in general are very lackluster, IMO

Urzigurumash

cheifsoap wrote: »

Do I? No. Brief google search has the flat amount wish-washy at best.

Edit: Its early, lots of typos

Then I'm not sure how you're able to say pts version is useless compared to live. Anyhow I added another question to my last post above.

cheifsoap

Urzigurumash wrote: »

cheifsoap wrote: »

Do I? No. Brief google search has the flat amount wish-washy at best.

Edit: Its early, lots of typos

Then I'm not sure how you're able to say pts version is useless compared to live. Anyhow I added another question to my last post above.

Why is that? Percent based scales, flat amount does not.

Do you know the spell power and weapon power of the vet dragons in vSS? Do you know if the breath scales off of spell power or weapon power?

cheifsoap

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Let's assume in any situation live Vykosa provides a stronger debuff per second than pts Vykosa: you are dismayed that you can no longer use this stronger debuff in a well-timed way to briefly reduce the bosses' power during particular phases of a fight, despite the trade-off of slightly overall more power reduction?

Whats a practical use for the PTS version of Vykosa? Not an "assumed" practical use; an actual realistic scenario that a tank would use this helm over any other monster helm available to them

Urzigurumash

cheifsoap wrote: »

Why is that? Percent based scales, flat amount does not.

Do you know the spell power and weapon power of the vet dragons in vSS? Do you know if the breath scales off of spell power or weapon power?

No, I have no idea whatsoever. The best suggestion I've found is 2500 like I've said. I guess we can't really assess one way or another without knowing,

If it's above 3000, then the live Vykosa provides more overall "power reduction per second", if it's exactly 3000, they're about equal, and if it's below 3000, the pts Vykosa provides more overall.

On the basis of spell/weapon power alone that is, not taking into consideration any sort of damage amplification / penetration the boss may have.

Urzigurumash

cheifsoap wrote: »

Whats a practical use for the PTS version of Vykosa? Not an "assumed" practical use; an actual realistic scenario that a tank would use this helm over any other monster helm available to them

Whatever practical use there is for the live version? How are you so convinced the percentile debuff is stronger than the absolute debuff without knowing what absolute value the percentile debuff typically equals?

cheifsoap

Urzigurumash wrote: »

cheifsoap wrote: »

Whats a practical use for the PTS version of Vykosa? Not an "assumed" practical use; an actual realistic scenario that a tank would use this helm over any other monster helm available to them

Whatever practical use there is for the live version? How are you so convinced the percentile debuff is stronger than the absolute debuff without knowing what absolute value the percentile debuff typically equals?

I'm not convinced; which is why I'm continuing this discussion. I just know that percents scale; flat values do not. In my experience using percentage based values; the value its affecting is irrelevant; 30% is 30%. When dealing with flat values, if that value (ex. s/w power) continues to increase; the flat value it negates becomes less useful. It feels like mobs have progressively been hitting harder as content has been released and if that pattern continues; flat amounts such as 268 hold less value.

It would be nice to test this but I don't have access to PTS, just looking at the removal of Major Maim from the set and giving it a generic reduction appears to make the set less useful to me.

Urzigurumash

cheifsoap wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

cheifsoap wrote: »

Whats a practical use for the PTS version of Vykosa? Not an "assumed" practical use; an actual realistic scenario that a tank would use this helm over any other monster helm available to them

Whatever practical use there is for the live version? How are you so convinced the percentile debuff is stronger than the absolute debuff without knowing what absolute value the percentile debuff typically equals?

I'm not convinced; which is why I'm continuing this discussion. I just know that percents scale; flat values do not. In my experience using percentage based values; the value its affecting is irrelevant; 30% is 30%. When dealing with flat values, if that value (ex. s/w power) continues to increase; the flat value it negates becomes less useful. It feels like mobs have progressively been hitting harder as content has been released and if that pattern continues; flat amounts such as 268 hold less value.

It would be nice to test this but I don't have access to PTS, just looking at the removal of Major Maim from the set and giving it a generic reduction appears to make the set less useful to me.

This is all true. I have no clue either. Like I said based on my best available data, it seems to be a slight buff for PvE. For PvP I'll defer to whatever brave soul is out there using Vanguard's Challange and Vykosa, of course with the popularity of Templars in PvP the Nova Major Maim is probably more available in PvP than in PvE.

Urzigurumash

It's also possible, but unlikely, that the ability to combine the debuffs of Nova or Frozen Prison and Vykosa was the motivation here.

I think probably the motivation is just that the 3 second debuff provides for an unattractive tooltip, and 8 seconds of Major Maim would just be too strong in PvP, so it's 8 seconds of a debuff that is weaker in PvP, but possibly about equally strong in PvE.

actosh

cheifsoap wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

cheifsoap wrote: »

Whats a practical use for the PTS version of Vykosa? Not an "assumed" practical use; an actual realistic scenario that a tank would use this helm over any other monster helm available to them

Whatever practical use there is for the live version? How are you so convinced the percentile debuff is stronger than the absolute debuff without knowing what absolute value the percentile debuff typically equals?

I'm not convinced; which is why I'm continuing this discussion. I just know that percents scale; flat values do not. In my experience using percentage based values; the value its affecting is irrelevant; 30% is 30%. When dealing with flat values, if that value (ex. s/w power) continues to increase; the flat value it negates becomes less useful. It feels like mobs have progressively been hitting harder as content has been released and if that pattern continues; flat amounts such as 268 hold less value.

It would be nice to test this but I don't have access to PTS, just looking at the removal of Major Maim from the set and giving it a generic reduction appears to make the set less useful to me.

If i find the time this week i´m going to test it on vAS Olms to compare it to live.

Need to compare vykosa live vs pts, and of course, vykosa + power extraction (NB Skill, negates 200Wep/Spell dmg) on how and if they stack.

cheifsoap

actosh wrote: »

cheifsoap wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

cheifsoap wrote: »

Whats a practical use for the PTS version of Vykosa? Not an "assumed" practical use; an actual realistic scenario that a tank would use this helm over any other monster helm available to them

Whatever practical use there is for the live version? How are you so convinced the percentile debuff is stronger than the absolute debuff without knowing what absolute value the percentile debuff typically equals?

I'm not convinced; which is why I'm continuing this discussion. I just know that percents scale; flat values do not. In my experience using percentage based values; the value its affecting is irrelevant; 30% is 30%. When dealing with flat values, if that value (ex. s/w power) continues to increase; the flat value it negates becomes less useful. It feels like mobs have progressively been hitting harder as content has been released and if that pattern continues; flat amounts such as 268 hold less value.

It would be nice to test this but I don't have access to PTS, just looking at the removal of Major Maim from the set and giving it a generic reduction appears to make the set less useful to me.

If i find the time this week i´m going to test it on vAS Olms to compare it to live.

Need to compare vykosa live vs pts, and of course, vykosa + power extraction (NB Skill, negates 200Wep/Spell dmg) on how and if they stack.

If you can pull a group together, try vSS specifically dragon breaths. Those hit like a truck overtime

robpr

If all mobs have the same spell/weapon power then there is no difference and new Vykosa will stack with other sources of Major Maim, like new tethering set or Templar's Nova. It's the same deal with Healing Mage set. IMO its a buff since you can apply it more often, so set is useful outside of SS.

satanio

Vykosa was a good option to mitigate some heavy attacks. Tanks don't need more overall mitigation, but right amount of mitigation in specific situation.
If this flat value is % much less than original Major maim, then it's a nail in the coffin of this monster set.

Urzigurumash

Also relevant and something we've overlooked in this conversation is this new set:

Bani’s Torment – Heavy Armor
2 – Adds 4% Healing Taken
3 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
4 – Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
5 – When you taunt a nearby enemy, you tether to them for 5 seconds. While tethered, you apply Major Maim to your enemy, reducing their damage done by 30%, and you gain Major Vitality, increasing your healing taken by 30%. The tether is broken if the enemy moves 8 meters away from you. This effect can occur once every 14 seconds.

nyarthi

But is a tank really going to want to take off Alkosh or COY to use Bani's Torment? Not likely. More dodgerolling in VSS dragon breath it is!

cheifsoap

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Also relevant and something we've overlooked in this conversation is this new set:

Bani’s Torment – Heavy Armor
2 – Adds 4% Healing Taken
3 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
4 – Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
5 – When you taunt a nearby enemy, you tether to them for 5 seconds. While tethered, you apply Major Maim to your enemy, reducing their damage done by 30%, and you gain Major Vitality, increasing your healing taken by 30%. The tether is broken if the enemy moves 8 meters away from you. This effect can occur once every 14 seconds.

I believe this set is the primary reason why Vysoka is being changed.

cheifsoap

nyarthi wrote: »

But is a tank really going to want to take off Alkosh or COY to use Bani's Torment? Not likely. More dodgerolling in VSS dragon breath it is!

I mean, there was a long time where Alkosh wasn't even working on the MT in vSS. I guess it could go back to a stam wearing it?

thadjarvis

2,500 seems low.

I always presumed Mending does about 10% or less on a vet trial boss from (years) old forums posts and well known content creators. I have recalled incorrectly or the info was wrong/outdated.

But suppose mending does reduce damage by 10%. That would mean 4,300.

If 2,500, Mending would reduce by 17%. Moreover, with power extraction, it would be 25% damage reduction with doable 100% AOE uptime independent of maims. I doubt that's the case, as you'd probably see those used more with DD's using much lower health builds with parse food pumping DPS by a significant margin.

Lisutaris

thadjarvis wrote: »

2,500 seems low.

I always presumed Mending does about 10% or less on a vet trial boss from (years) old forums posts and well known content creators. I have recalled incorrectly or the info was wrong/outdated.

But suppose mending does reduce damage by 10%. That would mean 4,300.

If 2,500, Mending would reduce by 17%. Moreover, with power extraction, it would be 25% damage reduction with doable 100% AOE uptime independent of maims. I doubt that's the case, as you'd probably see those used more with DD's using much lower health builds with parse food pumping DPS by a significant margin.

Same. From my experience, the change of vykosa will be a nerf. And that's pretty sad because it's a very situational tank set, providing nice results if you know your stuff/boss mechanics.

I don't care about the numbers, but vykosa has a low uptime -> tank has to be good to make use of it. A nerf is just plain dumb, as it isn't one of the top tank sets. A lil' buff would be better. Or just ... NO TOUCHY!

Finedaible

Not entirely sure but it looks like a buff? If it doesn't inflict Major Maim anymore and is a flat reduction that would mean you can stack it with Major Maim at least. I don't know if this really changes much though.

SodanTok

Changes like this really depend on bosses weapon damage value (they have just this value) since that value is undetermined. Flat damage reduction definitely scales because the value of weapon damage scales with other coefficients same way as it does on your characters. In any case, random test done on usual tank gear against nAS Olms which proves for certain absolutely nothing for other situations and bosses:

Normal damage taken: 11848
Damage taken with Minor Maim: 10071 (=15% less since I have no vykosa on live i couldnt test Major Maim but its fair to assume it would be 30% less)
Damage taken with 226 WD reduction from Infused weakening glyph: 11160 (around 6% less).

Again its nonconclusive pretty much who knows what else affects it but in this exact situation against this exact boss doing this exact attack (goold old Olms 'light' attack) in this exact gear new PTS Vykosa would be weaker damage reduction than Minor Maim for me.

Urzigurumash

@nyarthi

No. Still waiting for a Monster Set with PA / Alkosh / Claws like functionality.

nyarthi

Personally, VSS is the only place I've even used Vykosa and I know that's the case with many other tanks I know. A set I felt like I didn't need suddenly had a use! I'm not the best at understanding the percentages and differences of buffs and what not, but I'm just hopeful this set will still be useful in such situations, otherwise it will sit in my coffer. Hoping to see some testing with it and hear some opinions on how it performs.

cheifsoap

nyarthi wrote: »

Personally, VSS is the only place I've even used Vykosa and I know that's the case with many other tanks I know. A set I felt like I didn't need suddenly had a use! I'm not the best at understanding the percentages and differences of buffs and what not, but I'm just hopeful this set will still be useful in such situations, otherwise it will sit in my coffer. Hoping to see some testing with it and hear some opinions on how it performs.

This is my concern in a nutshell. Does ZOS really want another monster helm to have no use? If the change doesn't have the same impact Major Maim did, i'll just put it in my monster helm chest and completely forget about it and this kind of change is just a bad design decision and very short sided when looked at holistically IMO.

Urzigurumash

@SodanTok @thadjarvis @Lisutaris

I could have done something wrong, and we don't have complete information on the boss's damage done mathematics, but based on SodanTok's test there, it would look like that boss has about 4k weapon damage, which is pretty close to what thadjarvis understood it to be from using Healing Mage.

If that's accurate, adjusted for uptime the comparison for old and new Vykosa is:

new: 268*.666= 178.488 overall reduction
old: 1200*.2= 240 overall reduction