Update 26 Combat Preview

Faint_One

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Why not new difficulty mode on DSA and VMA？ blue non-perfect for normal，purple for vet and perfect for upper difficulty？
At least it gives ppl more challenge to get a new version rather force us re-farm an arena which was over-farmed

Maxdevil

ELawlis wrote: »

Another question: why so much focus on spell penetration? At least for PVE with a semi-optimized group its a less than needed set stat. Valkyn Skoria is great with health for newer players who can’t get a DLC monster set yet, and the health bonus helps them. If penetration is becoming important, it needs to be added to the base UI for console players.

Pen is pretty good for pvp so I personally think it’s a good change.

Giljabrar

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

Literally everyone is Livid that you are going to make us go back and farm those God forsaken places again.

I got ALL of the Master weapons, and every Maelstrom I actually want. Please don't make me go RNG farm them all over again. It's going to take potentially DAYS OF PLAYTIME TO GET ALL OF THESE UPGRADED

heaven13

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

So it seems like there are 3 groups of people, all being affected in different ways with the perfected arena weapons change.

Players without arena weapons: Just got a large buff, casual or new players can finally use Malestrom Staves and Bows. The DPS floor has been significantly raised. Vast majority of the population, but apparently none of these people have forum accounts.

Players with Arena weapons that don’t like doing arenas: Entirely unaffected by the change. They have the exact same gear and stats before and after Greymoor. Infuriated by this, and apparently make up a majority of forum accounts.

Players with Arena weapons that like doing arenas: Willing to play the game, and will be rewarded with minor upgrades for doing content they enjoy. Small buff to the DPS ceiling (1-2% max). Apparently very few of us in this category, but seemingly the target audience for the perfected weapons.

Or maybe you could read all the responses? Quite a few stated that they had never completed vMA and still disagree regarding current weapons not being adjusted to reflect the perfected versions.

Maybe you would see people, like @Inklings who runs vMA quite often and enjoys it who states no, this is not an okay change.

I enjoy vMA myself. That doesn't mean I want to refarm 13+ weapons, plus the transmutes to go with them, plus the mats to upgrade them by doing the exact same content. A maelstrom weapon is the reward for completing veteran maelstrom arena. Come update 26 all my maelstrom weapons will reflect rewards for completing normal maelstrom arena, effectively trivializing all the time and effort I spent in the veteran instance.

RoninOfNight

Insulting.

Paradisius

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

This is really discouraging to see, I spent many hours running vMA to get both the lightning and inferno staves. And to have them not being upgraded despite me having obtained them from playing the veteran content, is insulting to say the least, I am tempted to just accept the fact that I will not get the perfected versions, as the thought of running them for hours yet again, not to mention the transmute costs if I dont get the trait I have on my current ones, just makes it feel not worth the effort.

Vicinia

angelofdeath333 wrote: »

marius_buys wrote: »

BohnT2 wrote: »

Are you aware that healing isn't all that big of an issue but rather the naturally high health pools and the abstinence of being burstable for most of the time, due to casttimes on ults, lack of offensive CCs.
@ZOS_BrianWheeler

I tend to agree, I now regularly see top players 1vXX and take no damage despite simultaneous multiple debuffs and ultimates. If anything you need to look at how much damage LOS and structures absorb with players playing ring-a-rosie around and in structures. It's simply ridiculous and it favors heavy armor to a point of unfairness.

Lol ok.

....He knows that medium armor affords more survivability right? Just because one is tanky doesn't automatically equal heavy armor 😐

Joinovikova

So zos decided to kill any fun on the game and make it to farm pve go mealstorm 100 times to gain op web make 100 times cheap mobile game to gain mythic item to win Pvp ... is this really mmo what players want??

SpiderKnight

Y'all got water on the brain?!

brian_stl19

I understand that these weapons can be farmed again. VMA is still difficult for me and for several of us. I feel that the current weapons should be upgraded to perfected. For a lot of us these weapons were farmed before changes to CP levels etc. that I feel made are first clears even more difficult then they are now. Please rethink not upgrading our current weapons to the perfected versions. Ive spent countless hours on this and so much money in gold mats, glyphs and transmutes. so this is not only my time in vma it is my time in cyro farming transmutes, doing surveys to get gold mats etc....

RusevCrush

Why not auto upgrade existing? Makes no sense at all. I'm completely disgusted. When the perf/non perf idea was posted on my guild's discord channel then next person posted "don't worry they'll be updated automatically". Then came a screenshot of Brian's post. Had to doubletake. Discord erupted, just like this thread. At least the light/heavy uproar had people on both sides.

I challenge you to find one person who thinks this is reasonable. Come on, throw us a bone for once.

Epicasballs

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

I have 9 vma inferno staffs, golded out, and traited for my 3 mag toons. 3 each. Each one has either a beserker enchant, daedra enchant or sustain enchant so I never have to swap enchants on any toon... just the staff depending on the situation.

3 master bows, golded out, and traited for my stam pvp toons.

1 master inferno, golded out, and traited for a mag pvp toon.

1 master lightning, golded out, and traited for mag pvp toon.

1 master resto, golded out and traited for pve healer.

3 vma resto, golded out and traited for both pve and pvp.

2 vma bows, golded out, and traited for pve stam toons.

2 master daggers, golded out and traited for pvp.

2 master axes, golded out and traited for pvp.

1 vma battleaxe, golded out and traited for pvp.

1 master greatsword, golded out and traited pve/pvp.

1 master battleaxe, golded out and traited for pve/pvp.

Honestly so many vma daggers/axes golded out and traited but stowed away hoping for a day when they'll be vaible again I couldn't list them all... probably 8-10 in various traits and enchants.

3 vma lightning, golded out and traited for pve.

The amount of progress I stand to lose if these are not upgraded in U26 is shocking. Time, in game resources... all wasted. Given the state of performance right now and having years of progress reset what's the point in playing post U26? Honest question.

EmrisDovahLord

With the changes to VMA, and VDSA weapons. Can we hope to see a system put into place that makes farming these weapons easier. Especially for those of us that spent countless hours trying to obtain the ones we already have.

A potential system that could work is a gear merchant that sells these special weapons where the currency used is obtained from completing the arena.

For example 10 tokens can be traded to this merchant to obtain 1 weapon, and each run of VMA or VDSA will award 1 token for its respective arena.

I'm sure many players would see this as a somewhat suitable compromise if there are no plans to change the currently existing weapons players have obtained into their perfected versions.

Tanis-Stormbinder

Epicasballs wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

I have 9 vma inferno staffs, golded out, and traited for my 3 mag toons. 3 each. Each one has either a beserker enchant, daedra enchant or sustain enchant so I never have to swap enchants on any toon... just the staff depending on the situation.

3 master bows, golded out, and traited for my stam pvp toons.

1 master inferno, golded out, and traited for a mag pvp toon.

1 master lightning, golded out, and traited for mag pvp toon.

1 master resto, golded out and traited for pve healer.

3 vma resto, golded out and traited for both pve and pvp.

2 vma bows, golded out, and traited for pve stam toons.

2 master daggers, golded out and traited for pvp.

2 master axes, golded out and traited for pvp.

1 vma battleaxe, golded out and traited for pvp.

1 master greatsword, golded out and traited pve/pvp.

1 master battleaxe, golded out and traited for pve/pvp.

Honestly so many vma daggers/axes golded out and traited but stowed away hoping for a day when they'll be vaible again I couldn't list them all... probably 8-10 in various traits and enchants.

3 vma lightning, golded out and traited for pve.

The amount of progress I stand to lose if these are not upgraded in U26 is shocking. Time, in game resources... all wasted. Given the state of performance right now and having years of progress reset what's the point in playing post U26? Honest question.

I feel your pain, it's madness

mobicera

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

So it seems like there are 3 groups of people, all being affected in different ways with the perfected arena weapons change.

Players without arena weapons: Just got a large buff, casual or new players can finally use Malestrom Staves and Bows. The DPS floor has been significantly raised. Vast majority of the population, but apparently none of these people have forum accounts.

Players with Arena weapons that don’t like doing arenas: Entirely unaffected by the change. They have the exact same gear and stats before and after Greymoor. Infuriated by this, and apparently make up a majority of forum accounts.

Players with Arena weapons that like doing arenas: Willing to play the game, and will be rewarded with minor upgrades for doing content they enjoy. Small buff to the DPS ceiling (1-2% max). Apparently very few of us in this category, but seemingly the target audience for the perfected weapons.

You don't get it do you?
Its just insulting how its implemented...
I am all for adding a perfect version and not having it be retroactive if a new difficulty or stipulation was put in place...
Maybe make it score based, maybe make it no sigils, flawless something.
But as it is it is just forcing you back into old content and flat out disrespecting the time you spent farming it.
I may or may not farm vma if it was added with a greater difficulty but I mainly tank so the small dps increase isn't as important.
I would farm vdsa again if a higher difficulty was implemented to obtain perfect and the sword/board was interesting as I use it in my yolna/olo set up.
Its more about the new weapons being implemented with the exact same conditions to get and everything effectively being nerfed in a sad attempt to force people to revisit old content.

LiquidPony

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Lol at some of the comments here. Nobody’s weapons are being “downgraded”, they will be the same as before patch in name and function. Nobody is being “forced” to farm the new version, it will be a very small difference especially on the most commonly used back bar weapons (vMA Inferno and bow).

It’s also not a matter of returning the extra set bonuses these weapons once had. Back when they had these, you could not apply an enchant to the weapon. The extra set bonus was removed when they became enchantable (without removing the primary effect), for most builds this meant giving up one back bar set bonus to gain a Berserker enchant (452 Weapon and Spell Damage with infused). The previous change to remove the set bonus was a buff, and the new change to add them back is again a buff (this one just requires a little effort from the players).

These reactions are why we can’t have nice things. The devs are not aiming to give us a gift of free DPS buffs, they are trying to revitalize content that is largely dead (when was the last time anyone ran Dragonstar?), while hopefully increasing build diversity with some new viable gear options (Master or Maelstrom Daggers coming back?). Make use of the opportunity or don’t, it doesn’t really matter.

This is a logical response and I hadn't really considered that the removal of the 1-piece bonuses coincided with the switch from a Maelstrom/Master "enchant" to an intrinsic bonus.

However I would counter this with the argument that removing the 1-piece bonuses was a bad change in the first place and the only reason they did it was to increase the appeal of Perfected Asylum weapons and push people into farming new content.

Also, I have an analogous situation here that I think makes sense: this is functionally the same thing as increasing the gear cap but limited to just a small bit of content.

What if, in Greymoor, ZOS increased the gear cap to CP180. And the gear cap increase came with a +33% increase to all gear base stats (e.g., +129 Weapon Damage became +161 Weapon Damage) on the 2-4 piece bonuses.

How would everyone take to that change?

I mean my BSW that I currently have at CP160 hasn't changed. I haven't been "nerfed". But now there's *new* BSW and I can get +361 max magicka, +42 spell damage, and +274 spell critical by farming the new CP180 gear.

The effective difference is the same as the Perfected/non-Perfected gap (i.e., on a hypothetical set with 3 +129 Weapon Damage bonuses, the CP180 gear would give you a +129 Weapon Damage advantage over the CP160 gear).

I suspect the forums would be literally burning down right now if that was the case. As it is, it only affects a small percentage of the playerbase negatively so we've just got a small bit of outrage rather than the rage of the entire community.

Giljabrar

12 pages of replies. If this doesn't get implemented, you'll really be shafting A LOT of your veteran playerbase. And I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that most of us, are on our last leg supporting this game the way it is.

Rataroto

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

With all due respect, this is a stupid decision and you all know it. The sheer ammount of golden materials and runs needed to get those items is crazy. If this is a way to make people have to re-do maelstrom all over again, this is not the correct way to create incentive.

How about you grant a consumable item per character that has cleared vMA that gives a free upgrade to Perfected version? And what if on top of getting the perfected version of a random weapon with a random trait upon clearing, there is also the chance to get one of those consumables. That way even though we HAVE to re-grind it all over again, you're not punishing those that have already been through all of it.

I'd really like to hear about this idea.

MajThorax

This is insane! People have spent years on vMA and now you are telling me their efforts are not worthy of a perfected maelstrom weapon? Of course some players are very skilled in the arenas but most struggle to even complete a stage. Imagine their enthusiasm when they finally got their desired weapons. Reverse the changes or upgrade all weapons to perfected. Anything else would be unacceptable in my point of view.

JinxxND

Why can't the combat team just focus on performance of the game, and bringing back damage on dots but not to a crazy ridiculous level just a normal one. Stuff like bleeds and oblivion damage post sloads original nerf were fine.

Combat team needs to play the game and realise the problems number 1 being performance and number 2 tank meta caused by overnerfing dots and forms of pressure. Burst damage is still good especially with sets like New Moon Acolyte game it's just that pressure is way too low cause they nerfed all forms of pressure with dots. Classes that are performing well are because they have forms of delayed burst damage that can all hit at once.

Small changes are required not these complete 180 changes which will bring up a lot more problems and most likely create more performance and random problems

Nerfing healing will barely affect ball groups which is the main reason the game lags as much as it does but will affect small groups and solo players a lot more

Tanis-Stormbinder

MajThorax wrote: »

This is insane! People have spent years on vMA and now you are telling me their efforts are not worthy of a perfected maelstrom weapon? Of course some players are very skilled in the arenas but most struggle to even complete a stage. Imagine their enthusiasm when they finally got their desired weapons. Reverse the changes or upgrade all weapons to perfected. Anything else would be unacceptable in my point of view.

I totally agree

spacecitypurrp

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Gearing up for PvP isn’t a simple task because of the need for Critical Resistance. The other issue regarding itemization in PvP is that it’s very limiting due to the need for building Critical Resistance. This means other popular traits and builds aren’t as viable in PvP unless you’re a glass cannon or top-end player. To bring more viable stat and set combinations into PvP play, we are now granting a baseline Critical Resistance. In conjunction with that change, we are making several adjustments to item sets which grant Critical Resistance. We also are making changes to the Impenetrable trait by reducing the value.

HOW ABOUT YOU FIX CYRODIL INSTEAD, y'all want to make all these pvp changes, but cyrodil isn't even playable. Half of the times we can't use abilities because you guys focus on the wrong thing, always catering the roleplaying pugs

Sneaky-Snurr

Aside from the MA and DSA wep issues, your reasoning to nerf healing in PVP is not making any sense. Volatile? What do you even mean by that? 1 click win-heal button?

The issue is players (who screamed nerf) didn't even try to look to increase their own survivability, pressures and CCing the enemy to interrupt their healing rotation and blamed it on "Omg that player has huge heals while easily bursting me down wthbbq?!?!". All the while with having 10-15k spell/phys resistances across the board.
Healing in PvP is working fine, no need for further reductions! This is going to affect no-CP PvP even more where it will discourage people even more to run solo skirmishes.

Now, if you talk about group balls, then have I got news for you. They're groups and most likely they've organised themselves beforehand.

What are you doing @ZOS_BrianWheeler? Stop catering to incompetent players too much!

Red_Feather

I hope a lot of cool sets with % to trigger are changed to just trigger on some action or condition. That makes it way more fun to get and play with sets because the sets special effect can work well on non boss fights.

Universe

I get the frustration many of you have that our VMA and DSA weapons will not be automatically upgraded to the perfected versions.
Though we can still farm the weapons again.

No pressure.

Eri_86

I'm absolutely disgusted. It took me two years to get good enough to finish VMA and now all the gear I have is useless and noobs get a free pass. They havent spent thousands on this game like the veterans have and you are screwing them over. Never been so angry in my life

Enodoc

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

Sure, don't ""upgrade"" the current weapons. I suggest instead that you do this:

Item Sets

• Change the 2 pieces effect for all current Maelstrom and Master weapons to have additional bonuses
• Rename all current Maelstrom and Master weapons to Perfect Maelstrom and Perfect Master
• Add two new sets to Normal Maelstrom and Dragonstar Arenas, called Maelstrom and Master respectively with lower bonuses

This then means there's no need to change the Veteran loot table, as you're only changing the set bonus on the existing items in that loot table, and just adding a new loot table for Normal with the new sets.

katorga

Tanis-Stormbinder wrote: »

MajThorax wrote: »

This is insane! People have spent years on vMA and now you are telling me their efforts are not worthy of a perfected maelstrom weapon? Of course some players are very skilled in the arenas but most struggle to even complete a stage. Imagine their enthusiasm when they finally got their desired weapons. Reverse the changes or upgrade all weapons to perfected. Anything else would be unacceptable in my point of view.

I totally agree

Once the pain is high enough they will release an upgrade VMA weapon token for sale.

monkey36948

I personally agree with everything that's been posted other then the impen changes.
So let's start there. Adding crit resist to base and nerfing impen sounds great on paper right? Yes but it does have some issues that just looking at it like that doesn't solve them. Currently the "meta" is heavy armor with S&B backbar for most setups. These setups are already fairly tanky and adding these changes will make them even tankier. With the current setup everyone has to run impen. With the new setup these tankier builds can swap to divines/infused or sturdy/reinforced. This will allow them to either pull more dps or be even tankier. With the current meta this will make that even more of an issue than it is now. My proposal? Make it where if someone is using 5 piece+ of heavy armor their damage will take a flat 25% nerf. This will make it to where players don't want to sacrifice that much damage in pvp. It won't affect pve since only tanks run 5+. I believe this will still keep an incentive for people who want to sacrifice damage to be tanky while also allowing light/med armor to shine in builds based for it. Which will allow more diversity then just an impen change.

As for the other changes I don't agree with. I think the idea of newer players having access to a weaker vMA/vDSA weapons is a great idea no doubt about that. I have issue with the players that have already spent time farming vet having all of that time and energy being expended for nothing. We earned the weapons on vet they should become the new vet versions. I don't agree with the way that shows how little Zos's seems to care about our time and i think it's a slap in the face of long time players who've supported this game for years.

But I think I have a solution that will help alleviate some of this while also making vMA more accessible. Make two vendors one for normal one for vet weapons. Allow us to talk to each vendor and trade in either the normal weapons or the vet weapons for Normal or Veteran token. With these tokens allow us to buy 1 weapon of our choosing. Have them work similarly to cryo boxes where we can buy 1 guaranteed item with a random trait. For example I want and inferno stave so I'll spend 10 tokens to buy an inferno box and get one with any trait on it. If I want a Duel wield set dagger I'll spend 5 and get a random trait. This will set the "cap" of how many runs we need to get the weapon we want to 5/10 depending on if the weapon is a 1H or a 2H.

With these changes I believe that will make MA in general more accessible and less frustrating to farm for all players regardless of skill level.

Tanis-Stormbinder

katorga wrote: »

Tanis-Stormbinder wrote: »

MajThorax wrote: »

This is insane! People have spent years on vMA and now you are telling me their efforts are not worthy of a perfected maelstrom weapon? Of course some players are very skilled in the arenas but most struggle to even complete a stage. Imagine their enthusiasm when they finally got their desired weapons. Reverse the changes or upgrade all weapons to perfected. Anything else would be unacceptable in my point of view.

I totally agree

Once the pain is high enough they will release an upgrade VMA weapon token for sale.

LOL