Why nerf Iceheart?

iiYuki

When ZO$ nerfed sorcerer shields they said it was to make people "pick between damage and survivability", people used iceheart sacrificing damage for survivability. Now they are saying a ONE TAMRIEL set is suddenly a problem. After nearly 4 years its suddenly imperative we nerf a set to a point no one will bother using it.
We all really know its because some genius decided to make a monster set that was the same as an existing one and you suddenly realized "oh *** no one will ever use this over Ice Heart" and decided to ass-pull a nerf as usual.
Why not change it, why not make your new set have health or stamina, proc on something different but that would require some effort when all you have to do is nerf the old set to be worse than the new one or at least equal and call it a day.

Na0cho

I stopped playing this game right when elsweyr dropped because of nerfs and direction changed i did not like.

I just came back about a month ago and now the same crap is happening all over again.

I was going to buy the new xpac too. Not for the sets or pve or story, but because I wanted to support the game.

The change to IH albeit terrible, is not even half as bad as I feel they are treating their customer base with that decision.

It feels.....gross, and highly insulting.

logarifmik

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

The plan is to make the baseline function meet the same standards as the Mother Ciannait set, with a 5k shield that lasts up to 6 seconds with a 6 second cooldown. With Iceheart's auxiliary function being focused on preserving the shield to get as much effectiveness out of the damage as possible, and Ciannait around rushing in boldly to break the shield to maximize the Magicka gain, there will be a better parity between the two that helps them both meet our standards as well as feel different from an engagement standpoint.

ZOS_Volpe

Greetings,

As we had to remove some additional comments from this thread, we ask that further posts stay civil and constructive. Please see community rules here and thank you for your understanding.

Odovacar

ZOS community managers in the hallway headed to the cafeteria for a much anticipated break | random ZOS employee--hey guys how's it going today..? -- ZOS community managers---ah, you know, dealing with the Iceheart fallout, /facepalm /shakes head... | random ZOS employee--ahh good luck with that guys! random ZOS Employee--walks away and thinks in their head....OMG how the **** do they deal with that bs on a daily basis.

Onefrkncrzypope

If y'all could revert only one thing what would it be. Maybe they would accept a compromise, if they knew what iceheart promises to the player. Is it a Damage set that sacrifices for defensive or a survival set with a damage component?

ice heart does original x damage with lower shield
ice heart with original shield and lower damage

Let them find the compromise. Its going to get changed, give them direction or they will get lost.

Nefas

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

That said, based on some in-game data, testing, and the feedback we’ve been reading, we’re going to make further adjustments to this set in next week’s PTS patch. The plan is to make the baseline function meet the same standards as the Mother Ciannait set, with a 5k shield that lasts up to 6 seconds with a 6 second cooldown. With Iceheart's auxiliary function being focused on preserving the shield to get as much effectiveness out of the damage as possible, and Ciannait around rushing in boldly to break the shield to maximize the Magicka gain, there will be a better parity between the two that helps them both meet our standards as well as feel different from an engagement standpoint.

jecks33

please don't talk about Bloodspawn or they'll nerf it next time

Kemenril

Also, can we take a minute to appreciate the superb irony of nerfing a set that does a piddly ~700 damage in AOE? Like, literally zero people who use Iceheart use it for the AOE, but it got thrown onto the nerfpile along with the other stats (minus cooldown -- yay, thanks for the table scraps)? That AOE has helped kill zero world bosses, zero dungeon bosses, zero raid bosses, probably only a handful of players ever. It's just to fend off adds in PvE, and is nicely flavorful. This is comically bad design philosophy to assume it needs nerfing along with the rest of the set.*

* The rest of the set does not need nerfing. For reference: see every post in this thread wondering why you're picking on the wimpy kid in the class.

Hurbster

Hmmmm, just got used to a good warden hybrid build.

I'll admit it, I prefer to solo content, Iceheart lets me do that and you are damaging the way I want to play. I don't bother anyone else, I don't care about VMA and things like that. I just want to do the content and know I can solo a dungeon if I want to.

Andy why now after so long ? I think we all know the answer to this.

What grates is the blatentness of the reason behind this. The only reason it's being done is to make the DLC sets looks better.

But that doesn't work, Ciannat (sp) only procs while channelling, did I miss a chanelling skill on my Warden ?

Nebthet78

At what point are players going to unit and speak with their wallets by not buying a DLC. We can whine all we want on the forums about changes like these, but unless we actually change our spending habits in the game, we might as well be talking to a brick wall, because nothing is going to change.

It's exceedingly obvious these changes to Iceheart are due to wanting to entice players to actually buy the DLC. It's been ZOS' MO the last few years, which is why I stopped buying DLC Dungeons, and will continue to not purchase them even if they contain a story within them. I don't even keep ESO+ on a regular basis. Just off and on maybe once or twice in a year.

The Marketing team needs to start taking their fingers out of all other aspects of this game as they are really interfering with players ability to have fun. There is too much grind. Too many ploys to try to keep players doing the same things day after day after day and not getting any where with it. Players are getting burnt out quicker now than they ever did in the past because of all the farming and grinding.

Decisions like these being made on Monster sets such as Iceheart only serve to make things worse for the game over all. They cut off lower end players from being able to experience the game like they used to without adding a whole new grind to the game. Those players are now less likely to buy DLC or ESO+. I certainly wouldn't be spending more money than I had to on a game that cuts me out of playing content I used to be able to play.

I've also come to realize, while we all blamed a certain other Combat Dev who left for certain bad decisions we didn't like, I think we all owe him an apology, because those really to blame have actually revealed themselves.

Darkstorne

thadjarvis wrote: »

Didn't get chance to get on PTS earlier, which I will try to do today. I can provide a reference baseline from past testing.

---

Damage

A few months ago, we ran a few vDLC dungeons with MagDK with Grothdaar and Magden with Iceheart otherwise same gear.
It worked out that Iceheart did about 30% the damage of Grothdaar in the logs.

That made sense:

Taking tooltip from ESO sets as I'm not sure what passives are active affecting in game.

Grothdaar is 1907 DPS with potential 50% uptime or 954 AOE DPS with a range of 8m
Iceheart is 770 DPS with potential 100% uptime or 770 AOE DPS with range of 5m
Adjusting for 39% surface area that is 300 or 31% of Grothdaar

Though Iceheart does more than 300 single target, the figure remained at 30% in content because the damage stops if the shield drops which happens when positioning to get the most damage. IE the uptime of IH was close to 70% in tests while Grothdaar was up closer to 45%.

So, we thought it was a fair trade: 1/3 damage in exchange for Crit over max Mag and a bit of sustain and DPS avoiding shield/heal casts. It seemed quite balanced with Grothdaar in content in our perspective.

From the patch notes it appears that IH's max DPS dropped from 770 to 250 (32% of 250)
Thus, IH would do approximately 10% (31%*32%) of Grothdaar in content; considering Elf Bane maybe 5%?

---

Defense

There are no other LIVE shield monsters but healing and shielding skills in ESO are often balanced similarly so we can use healing sets as a proxy. The closest set to IH is this area would be a 40-50% single target heal or shield proc. Chokethorn fits perfectly.

Max Shield/Heal per second:
Chokethorn: 2,250
LIVE IH: 1,433 (63%)
PTS IH: 504 (22%)

One could argue that Choke is not a good comparable. PTS Iceheart vs Scourge, Earthgore, Crest of Cyro would respectively be 52%, 59%, and 27%.

---

Summary

Live IH has 30% damage of a comparable full damage alternative and 63% of a (power budget) comparable defensive set.

PTS IH has 10% damage and 22% defense relative to other options.

This does not consider other important factors like usefulness of uptime etc. That's been covered by others. This is just my data findings.

Related Reference Info (I may have some wrong figure below. So, please check yourself before using)

Amazing detail, thanks for this

I also really don't like the new justification for saying it's to make the damage shield on par with Ciannait, because Ciannait can be proc'd at will (just cast Jabs or something) while Iceheart only has a 20% chance of a proc when you crit.

Chiannait: 100% chance on cast time/channel for damage shield, with magicka sustain.
Iceheart: 20% chance on crit for damage shield with low range low damage AOE.

Either revert Iceheart changes fully, or give it a 100% proc chance like Chiannait. If you think that makes Chiannait look weak, then buff Chiannait some more. No one is complaining about Iceheart being OP.

SanguineMyBrother

Not since the racial changes to wood elf have I felt this disgusted.

Stevie6

iiYuki wrote: »

When ZO$ nerfed sorcerer shields they said it was to make people "pick between damage and survivability", people used iceheart sacrificing damage for survivability. Now they are saying a ONE TAMRIEL set is suddenly a problem. After nearly 4 years its suddenly imperative we nerf a set to a point no one will bother using it.
We all really know its because some genius decided to make a monster set that was the same as an existing one and you suddenly realized "oh *** no one will ever use this over Ice Heart" and decided to ass-pull a nerf as usual.
Why not change it, why not make your new set have health or stamina, proc on something different but that would require some effort when all you have to do is nerf the old set to be worse than the new one or at least equal and call it a day.

This ^ and they, the devs, will continue in this practice in the near future with other sets as well. MIghty Chundan...nerf too strong because of a new set coming out, Zaans..too strong because of a newer set coming out..BS oops can't have that one..nerf it too. Might as well let us craft our own monster set thru research. Well can't have that either it would be too op for the devs.

Game balance was ok about two years ago. Just had to bring a couple of classes in line with the others. Now everything has been touched by the nerf gods once again. Just delete all of the characters and start over at the basic lvl and stay there. No point in obtaining lvl 50 cp 160 .. most of the gear will be useless after you've obtained it and nerfed into the ground.

Bexy

I'm a solo quester and the Iceheart set made combat a lot more fun to me, these changes make it useless. Please reconsider this decision and revert the changes, thank you.

PS. I just cancelled ESO Plus because my favorite build is in danger. If I see these changes on the live server it will stay cancelled for good. Just saying.

fred4

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We know it’s frustrating to see a strong set get adjusted in this way, but it was a necessary step to bring it a little closer in strength with existing and upcoming sets.

It is not frustrating, it is bewildering. It was not a strong set.

Darkstorne

Also just noticed they are deleting all threads about this in General discussion

Altyrann

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

If y'all could revert only one thing what would it be. Maybe they would accept a compromise, if they knew what iceheart promises to the player. Is it a Damage set that sacrifices for defensive or a survival set with a damage component?

ice heart does original x damage with lower shield
ice heart with original shield and lower damage

Let them find the compromise. Its going to get changed, give them direction or they will get lost.

I think the direction being given by the players is fairly clear. It's in a good state and doesn't need to be nerfed.

usmguy1234

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We’ve been reading everyone’s feedback about the recent change to Iceheart (not just on the forums, but other channels and sources as well) and we appreciate you taking the time to let us know your thoughts. We know it’s frustrating to see a strong set get adjusted in this way, but it was a necessary step to bring it a little closer in strength with existing and upcoming sets.

That said, based on some in-game data, testing, and the feedback we’ve been reading, we’re going to make further adjustments to this set in next week’s PTS patch. The plan is to make the baseline function meet the same standards as the Mother Ciannait set, with a 5k shield that lasts up to 6 seconds with a 6 second cooldown. With Iceheart's auxiliary function being focused on preserving the shield to get as much effectiveness out of the damage as possible, and Ciannait around rushing in boldly to break the shield to maximize the Magicka gain, there will be a better parity between the two that helps them both meet our standards as well as feel different from an engagement standpoint.

Wow. Pve players complain about nerf and immediate response from devs. Pvp players complain about nerfs and crickets. Talk about an unfair disparity. It's fine though because I think the pve players are starting to realize that this whole gig is about money and boosting dlc sales whether it be a new op class that sucks away all the good passives from older classes or new sets released while simultaneously nerfing older sets. I just hope people start using their brain and showing their opinions of the changes with their wallets.

Kemenril

fred4 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We know it’s frustrating to see a strong set get adjusted in this way, but it was a necessary step to bring it a little closer in strength with existing and upcoming sets.

It is not frustrating, it is bewildering. It was not a strong set.

It was not a strong set.


This cannot be repeated enough. They're nerfing a One Tamriel set that had a small and enthusiastic community who used it, but was neither meta nor considered by any single player as being OP.

It was not a strong set.

Radiance

The response is disappointing as usual... Well no actually the usual response is no response at all.

doesn't this set only deal AoE dmg as long as the shield is up?! So with a lower damage shield and 12 second cool down this is just useless garbage.

I have ESO+ but this is yet another example of Pay to Win by nerfing the Gear from the base game.

I HATE that every time there's a new DLC the new sets instantly become the Meta while everything else gets nerfed!

Why do you even make trash sets, what is the point!?

I would love to see all sets BUFFED to compete with all the top performing sets so we could actually see some Variety for a change! I'm sick and tired of everyone using the same Carbon Copied builds from YouTube.

It's stupid and Boring. And stuff like This:

ZOS_TrishM wrote: »

Greetings,
As we had to remove some additional comments from this thread, we ask that further posts stay civil and constructive. Please see community rules here and thank you for your understanding.

Does NOT help the matter at all. What you're doing is making people scared to voice their opinions out of fear of punishment.

Perhaps you should consider When the people WHO ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME are outraged, it may actually mean something instead of silencing them and obliviously ruining the game.

I thought capitalism was about Supply and Demand, not "Take what we give you."

No, no thank you.

Darkenarlol

it was not a strong set

but at least we've been informed that even mediocre niche set

is too stronK in their opinion and upcoming sets should be

"in line" with IH nerfed version a.k.a don't even bother to farm

before we'll nerf all what you have to the ground


P.S. btw zos performing same cheap trick again -
release HUGE NERF plans>>>survive(or ignore) the outrage >>>
promote a slightly less severe nerf as a gift to the terrified and now accepting community

Dusk_Coven

Moloch1514 wrote: »

Boooooooo. Response means "Sorry but buy our 2 new group dungeons to continue enjoying solo play".

If you're not a class that can work the new set into your play style, you don't even need to buy the new DLC at all. Just go play SWTOR instead -- solo story modes, story accessible to everyone, veteran and master mode flashpoints for people who want a challenge.

It really boggles the mind how ESO is looking at play patterns.

"People don't even want to run DLC dungeons for undaunted keys" + "people are trying to separate out DLC dungeons from the random queues" + "story players can't find a group to experience the story" = "lock more story behind 2 tough non-soloable dungeon DLCs. again."

After people get their sets (IF they even want the sets) they'll just abandon the DLCs and go back to whatever they were grinding before.

Kemenril wrote: »

This cannot be repeated enough. They're nerfing a One Tamriel set that had a small and enthusiastic community who used it, but was neither meta nor considered by any single player as being OP.
It was not a strong set.

It was a niche set. Bewildering where ZOS is getting their data. Do they even play the game and see what people are using?
Probably not. Otherwise they'd also see people who are trying to experience the story grind their way up to high-CP to solo even starter dungeons just to see the story.

Xvorg

Sandman929 wrote: »

I just can't imagine thinking Iceheart was ever too strong as a defensive set compared to...well, probably better not to say since it doesn't seem like they really have any idea

Flanking strategist... what a powerful set, right?

Xvorg

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We’ve been reading everyone’s feedback about the recent change to Iceheart (not just on the forums, but other channels and sources as well) and we appreciate you taking the time to let us know your thoughts. We know it’s frustrating to see a strong set get adjusted in this way, but it was a necessary step to bring it a little closer in strength with existing and upcoming sets.

That said, based on some in-game data, testing, and the feedback we’ve been reading, we’re going to make further adjustments to this set in next week’s PTS patch. The plan is to make the baseline function meet the same standards as the Mother Ciannait set, with a 5k shield that lasts up to 6 seconds with a 6 second cooldown. With Iceheart's auxiliary function being focused on preserving the shield to get as much effectiveness out of the damage as possible, and Ciannait around rushing in boldly to break the shield to maximize the Magicka gain, there will be a better parity between the two that helps them both meet our standards as well as feel different from an engagement standpoint.

Hapexamendios

This is akin to a mechanic recommending you use sand as an alternative to gasoline.

svartorn

Yet another set being sent to my poor mule alt already burdened with old sets I don’t use anymore in hopes that one day it will be usable one day again.

Really, really, really, really getting tired of know-nothing devs constantly shitting on my builds.

All the time spent getting transmutation crystals to get the traits right, too. Ugh.

Gnortranermara

LMAO, they locked the poll to bury the embarrassment.

This nerf only hurts casuals. A lot of casual players are going to lose their ability to complete content and achievements. Sweaties will be fine, since they're not wearing Iceheart anyway.

A competent dev team would've taken the wider player base into account and just buffed the other ward sets. What's so wrong with letting regular human beings without 400 years of playtime and hyperactive squirrel-like reflexes complete content?

Dagoth_Rac

I think the reason this nerf has touched a nerve actually goes deeper than, "make a lousy new monster set look less lousy by nerfing an existing set."

In just about every game on Earth, there are multiple ways to approach clearing content. And the two most common are:

1). Fast, high risk, high damage approaches that aim to kill everything before it kills you
2). Slow but steady, low risk, low damage approaches that aim at avoiding dying more than getting a high score

But ESO has a weird design where the first option is actually less risky. And the second approach barely exists. This is one of the most DPS-centric games ever created. If you are struggling with a boss, the answer is almost always, "Kill it faster." Even if you are struggling with a mechanic, doing more damage to avoid mechanic or more damage so you see mechanic fewer times, is usually best option.

Iceheart was one of the only options for this slow, steady, methodical approach to clearing content. You were not going to get any high scores. Were going to get less drops because it takes you twice as long to kill stuff. You often had to deal with mechanics that faster groups avoid. But it was an alternate way to approach content.

Nerfing Iceheart is not just about nerfing Iceheart. It feels like another proclamation of, "Thou shalt use the min/max meta DPS sets! Thou shalt bow down at the altar to DPS! No other way is permissible!"

kind_hero

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We’ve been reading everyone’s feedback about the recent change to Iceheart (not just on the forums, but other channels and sources as well) and we appreciate you taking the time to let us know your thoughts. We know it’s frustrating to see a strong set get adjusted in this way, but it was a necessary step to bring it a little closer in strength with existing and upcoming sets.

That said, based on some in-game data, testing, and the feedback we’ve been reading, we’re going to make further adjustments to this set in next week’s PTS patch. The plan is to make the baseline function meet the same standards as the Mother Ciannait set, with a 5k shield that lasts up to 6 seconds with a 6 second cooldown. With Iceheart's auxiliary function being focused on preserving the shield to get as much effectiveness out of the damage as possible, and Ciannait around rushing in boldly to break the shield to maximize the Magicka gain, there will be a better parity between the two that helps them both meet our standards as well as feel different from an engagement standpoint.

Iceheart was not a strong set, but it was popular because it was fun and useful in certain situations. I actually had fun using it.

To the devs: Why are you changing stuff that is old and none is complaining about, while you delay fixing issues that are constantly brought up to you by the community?

Why don't you try to make some of the old sets interesting to use? There are so many totally useless sets that none uses.

I don't understand why the focus isn't on moving the game forward with new content without nerfing the old content.

IMHO there are enough monster sets already, most of them of little use. I would rather have a 7 piece set, including helm and shoulders that would drop in your DLC dungeon, with a 7 piece bonus that is something unique like cool visuals, ability altering, or something useful outside combat.

It is time to do something original and new. Instead we get a very predictable pattern - year long theme, dlc dungeons, very expensive manors, underwhelming chapters (South Elsweyr had the same copy paste buildings), delayed fixes or requests, and last but not least, unpopular nerfs!

I loved this game a great deal, paying subs since 2015, but after "nerfmire" my favourite game is getting in a direction I dislike more and more.