Roaring Opportunist, Alkosh, and the gear from Halls of Fabrication: A look at effect efficiency

code65536

TL;DR summary: Reduce Roaring's effect from 12 to 3 people. Increase the effect of Vrol's Command, Inventor's Guard, and Automated Defense to 12 people.


Introduction: Why is Alkosh a support set?

Roar of Alkosh was intended by ZOS to be a damage-dealer set. But the reality is that this is a set used almost exclusively by tanks, and the only time damage dealers used this set was very early in this set's life (back before players got the idea to use it on tanks) and when hitbox problems prevented Alkosh from hitting the bosses in Sunspire if used from a tank's position.

Question: So, why is Alkosh actually a support set, despite ZOS's clear intent that it be a damage-dealer set?
Answer: Because it is efficient in its effect. Specifically, what I mean here by "efficient" is that because this is a set that debuffs targets, its effect benefits everyone in the group.

In a trials group of 12, you just need 1 person to use Alkosh. That's what I mean by "efficient". Furthermore, because the effect does not stack, it is actually disadvantageous to have too many people wear Alkosh, since the extra effect procs will just be wasted. So even if a damage dealer were to wear Alkosh, it would only make sense for 1 damage dealer (or maaaybe 2) to wear the set--there's little point in having the others wear it.

If you think about it, every popular support set is one that can affect a full group of 12; they're all "efficient". Ebon. Worm. Hircine. Yolnahkriin. Olorime. Alkosh.

Why is Roaring Opportunist the next Alkosh?

Four years later, we have another "Roar" set, this time Roaring Opportunist, which grants Major Slayer to 12 people upon the completion of a heavy attack. As it currently stands, even after the week 2 PTS changes, this is a support set.

1. One person can give Major Slayer to a full trials group of 12.
2. You can't have more than one person wear this set because the cooldown is on the recipient of the buff.
3. In order to get the most out of this set, it's necessary to build specifically for heavy attacks, and for the kinds of players that this set is aimed at (players who run trials), it's one thing to ask them to heavy attack every now and then (which some do anyway for sustain), but it's quite another to ask them to build specifically for heavy attacks. And without a heavy-attack build, a damage dealer is not going to do that much more heavy attack damage than a healer (particularly since it is now commonplace for healers to spec more into spell damage) and will not get significantly more uptime than a healer.

So the reality is that, despite the week 2 changes, Roaring Opportunist is still considered by players to be a support set. The only difference now is that it's a weaker support set, and groups are now considering having healers come on the DK class because of the DK's unique class ability to boost heavy attack damage.

How do you fix Roaring Opportunist?

There's a very simple solution to this problem: Cap the Roaring Opportunist effect to three players. Eliminate/revert the duration scaling from heavy attack damage. And instead of Roaring Opportunist becoming the next Alkosh, it will become the next Master Architect. Roaring Opportunist has the (ahem) opportunity to become a more desirable alternative to Master Architect, particularly for those classes that lack cheap ultimates.

That's it. If you want RO to be a set used by damage-dealers, you MUST eliminate the 12-person effect. As long as it can affect 12, people will look for ways to shoehorn it onto a support. And even if groups do decided to put RO on a damage-dealer, only one damage dealer could use the set. All other RO sets in the group would be wasted. Is that what you really want, ZOS? For a damage-dealer set to be usable by only 1 out of 8 DDs in a group?

Effect efficiency and Major Aegis

Vrol's Command suffers from the opposite problem. This is a set that is designed to be a support set, but supports will never use it. Why? Because it's inefficient. In order to cover the entire group, you need both of your tanks to run it. It's one thing to ask one tank to sacrifice a set for Vrol. But asking both tanks to do this? No, I can't imagine any group accepting that level of sacrifice.

I find it amusingly ironic that ZOS made the mistake of letting Roaring affect 12 people while also making the exact opposite mistake of letting Vrol affect only 6.

Furthermore, this is the same mistake that was made with Inventor's Guard and Automated Defense.

The Major Aegis sets from Halls of Fabrication are automatic decons for everyone. Why? Because they affect only 3 people. In order to cover an entire group, you'll need all four supports running Inventors/Automated. That's completely impractical.

I imagine, back in 2017 when the Halls sets were designed, that someone at ZOS thought, "Well, the Major Slayer sets affect 3 people. So wouldn't it be nice and symmetrical for the Major Aegis sets to also affect 3 people?" The problem with that symmetry in the set design is that, in practice, the roles are not symmetrical. You have 8 DDs, but only 2 healer and 2 tanks. There are a lot more DDs than there are supports.

Also, defensive bonuses really need to go to everyone. If someone doesn't get an offensive bonus, that's fine, they just do a bit less damage, but that's not a big deal. But for defensive bonuses, if someone needs a defensive buff to survive, then not getting it means death. In places where groups need to mitigate a lot of damage, the damage usually affects everyone. Think about the execute phase on Assembly General. Or the laser on Lokkestiiz HM. Major Aegis is never a consideration in those scenarios because we need that buff on everyone, and in order to get it, we would would need to sacrifice four support slots (if using Halls support sets) or two support slots (if using Vrol).

The Galenwe treatment

There is one more trials support set that ZOS had made this mistake with: Galenwe. Before the Update 26 PTS, Galenwe affected only 3 people. It was too inefficient to be used as a support set. But with Update 26, Galenwe can now affect an entire trials group, and suddenly, the set is on the radar for consideration instead of automatic decon fodder. This was a great and necessary change. Now you need to do the same for Vrol, Inventor's Guard, and Automated Defense. All three of these sets could be interesting and useful in certain situations, if only they were able to affect everyone.

And of course, you need to do the opposite for Roaring Opportunist. Reducing the effect count is the only way to get people to actually use RO on damage dealers instead of on a support or just a single damage dealer. And it would make it a far more balanced set.

usmcjdking

Amazing write up.

The set design in this game is really lacking on a lot of sets. WM and MA were perfect sacrificial sets - sure you were losing out, but you were giving WAY MORE than you were losing. Alkosh on Tanks is a perfect example of a tank losing absolutely nothing to give a whole lotta free damage. Resource tanking (to include health) is a zero sum game in ESO due to the sheer necessity of nigh permablock - this is how you end up with tanks wearing *** like Alkosh or some other nondescript support set.

Alkosh could be thematically fixed by making it do 1 shred and 3 Dmg per Wep Dmg (up to X amount).

John_Falstaff

usmcjdking wrote: »

Alkosh could be thematically fixed by making it do 1 shred and 3 Dmg per Wep Dmg (up to X amount).

It sort of contradicts with the whole point of this write-up, which begins with Alkosh being efficient because it affects whole group. Make it scale with WD, and you'll still have a support sets, shoehorned on some support, like right now RO will be shoehorned on special DK healer build. But penetration will still affect whole group and it will stay a set for support, not for DD. I think it's too late to change Alkosh at this point, the most ZOS can do would be turning it into another mediocre DD set nobody will be using.

wills43b14_ESO

Your post is spot on @code65536 . I would say the Heavy Attack (HA) requirement is still something dps absolutely hate, but it's workable. Your reasoning behind why it will end up on supports vs. dps, however, is absolutely spot on. I would possibly add in that dps won't run it if it results in an overall dps loss or vastly increases complexity/effort with low reward.


As far as the specific implementation goes, I would tweak it to be multiples of 2 or 4, that way forming "stacks" is logical (i.e. it affects 2 or 4 people, total per proc). ZOS should also find a way to prioritize targets who don't have major slayer yet to prevent overlap... and combine this with their current distance idea (i.e. prioritize those closest with the lowest major slayer uptime), otherwise it will just get wasted on tanks constantly. Furthermore, since this procs off HAs and therefore disrupts a rotation, I would also give better uptimes over MA. You're going to be sacrificing dps by wearing the set and by HAing, so the reward should be greater imo. To prevent just having one dps HA constantly, implement a cooldown before one person can proc it again, that way it ends up on 2-4 people (depending on the number it affects).

For stam, I'm assuming Lokkestiiz is staying in this scenario.

code65536

John_Falstaff wrote: »

I think it's too late to change Alkosh at this point

I agree, which is why I made no attempt at suggesting changes to Alkosh. It's over 4 years old and in wide use.

The reason that I brought it up is that looking at why Alkosh was successful as a support set illuminates (a) why RO in its current design will also be a support set and (b) why a number of actual support sets have failed spectacularly.

wills43b14_ESO

Alternatively, if you want to follow the FF14 model, most classes give a unique damage buff that fits into their dps rotation. I think Stonefist was a prime example of a failed attempt to do this. It just wasn't worth putting a dps in there specifically to use it (clunky and costly). It was also limited to stam only.

IF they go this route, ZOS should have every class provide some kind of buff so that it prevents dps-like support from emerging and ensures the dps are actually having to use these skills/rotations.

Eleandor

code65536 wrote: »

TL;DR summary: Reduce Roaring's effect from 12 to 3 people. Increase the effect of Vrol's Command, Inventor's Guard, and Automated defense to 12 people.


Introduction: Why is Alkosh a support set?

Roar of Alkosh was intended by ZOS to be a damage-dealer set. But the reality is that this is a set used almost exclusively by tanks, and the only time damage dealers used this set was very early in this set's life (back before players got the idea to use it on tanks) and when hitbox problems prevented Alkosh from hitting the bosses in Sunspire if used from a tank's position.

Question: So, why is Alkosh actually a support set, despite ZOS's clear intent that it be a damage-dealer set?
Answer: Because it is efficient in its effect. Specifically, what I mean here by "efficient" is that because this is a set that debuffs targets, its effect benefits everyone in the group.

In a trials group of 12, you just need 1 person to use Alkosh. That's what I mean by "efficient". Furthermore, because the effect does not stack, it is actually disadvantageous to have too many people wear Alkosh, since the extra effect procs will just be wasted. So even if a damage dealer were to wear Alkosh, it would only make sense for 1 damage dealer to wear the set--there's little point in having the other 7 to wear it.

If you think about it, every popular support set is one that can affect a full group of 12; they're all "efficient". Ebon. Worm. Hircine. Yolnahkriin. Olorime. Alkosh.

Why is Roaring Opportunist the next Alkosh?

Four years later, we have another "Roar" set, this time Roaring Opportunist, which grants Major Slayer to 12 people upon the completion of a heavy attack. As it currently stands, even after the week 2 PTS changes, this is a support set.

1. One person can give Major Slayer to a full trials group of 12.
2. You can't have more than one person wear this set because of the cooldown.
3. In order to get the most out of this set, it's necessary to build specifically for heavy attacks, and for the kinds of players that this set is aimed at (players who run trials), it's one thing to ask them to heavy attack every now and then (which many do anyway for sustain), but it's quite another to ask them to build specifically for heavy attacks. And without a heavy-attack build, a damage dealer is not going to do that much more heavy attack damage than a healer (particularly since it is now commonplace for healers to spec more into spell damage) and will not get significantly more uptime than a healer.

So the reality is that, despite the week 2 changes, Roaring Opportunist is still considered by players to be a support set. The only difference now is that it's a weaker support set, and groups are now considering having healers come on the DK class because of the DK's unique class ability to boost heavy attack damage.

How do you fix Roaring Opportunist?

There's a very simple solution to this problem: Cap the Roaring Opportunist effect to three players. Eliminate/revert the duration scaling from heavy attack damage. And instead of Roaring Opportunist becoming the next Alkosh, it will become the next Master Architect. It would be a better version of Master Architect, particularly because MA's use of ultimates meant that MA was weak on classes that lacked cheap ultimates. Roaring Opportunist has the (ahem) opportunity to become a more desirable alternative to Master Architect, particularly for those classes that lack cheap ultimates.

That's it. If you want RO to be a set used by damage-dealers, you MUST eliminate the 12-person effect. As long as it can affect 12, people will look for ways to shoehorn it onto a support. And even if groups do decided to put RO on a damage-dealer, only one damage dealer could use the set. All other RO sets in the group would be wasted. Is that what you really want, ZOS? For a damage-dealer set to be usable by only 1 out of 8 DDs in a group?

Effect efficiency and Major Aegis

Vrol's Command suffers from the opposite problem. This is a set that is designed to be a support set, but supports will never use it. Why? Because it's inefficient. In order to cover the entire group, you need half of your supports to run it. It's one thing to ask one support to sacrifice a set for Vrol. But asking two supports to do this? No, I can't imagine any group wanting to do this.

I find it amusingly ironic that ZOS made the mistake of letting Roaring affect 12 people while also making the exact opposite mistake of letting Vrol affect only 6.

Furthermore, this is the same mistake that was made with Inventor's Guard and Automated Defense.

The Major Aegis sets from Halls of Fabrication are automatic decons for everyone. Why? Because they affect only 3 people. In order to cover an entire group, you'll need all four supports running Inventors/Automated. That's completely impractical.

I imagine, back in 2017 when the Halls sets were designed, that someone at ZOS thought, "Well, the Major Slayer sets affect 3 people. So wouldn't it be nice and symmetrical for the Major Aegis sets also affect 3 people?" The problem with that symmetry in the set design is that, in practice, the roles are not symmetrical. You have 8 DDs, but only 2 healer and 2 tanks. There are a lot more DDs than there are supports.

Also, defensive bonuses really need to go to everyone. If someone doesn't get an offensive bonus, that's fine, they just do a bit less damage, but that's not a big deal. But for defensive bonuses, if someone needs a defensive buff to survive, then not getting it means death. In places where groups need to mitigate a lot of damage, the damage usually affects everyone. Think about the execute phase on Assembly General. Or the laser on Lokkestiiz HM. Major Aegis is never a consideration in those scenarios because we need that buff on everyone, and in order to get it, we would would need to sacrifice four support slots (if using Halls support sets) or two support slots (if using Vrol).

The Galenwe treatment

There is one more trials support set that ZOS had made this mistake with: Galenwe. Before the Update 26 PTS, Galenwe affected only 3 people. It was too inefficient to be used as a support set. But with Update 26, Galenwe can now affect an entire trials group, and suddenly, the set is on the radar for consideration instead of automatic decon fodder. This was a great and necessary change. Now you need to do the same for Vrol, Inventor's Guard, and Automated Defense. All three of these sets could be interesting and useful in certain situations, if only they were able to affect everyone.

And of course, you need to do the opposite for Roaring Opportunist. Reducing the effect count is the only way to get people to actually use RO on damage dealers instead of on a support or just a single damage dealer. And it would make it a far more balanced set.

Are you ever getting tired of explaining the game to the developer that clearly doesn’t understand how their player base ticks and has a blurred vision of how the game with the claim to fame “play however you want” is supposed to be played? Instead of going with what the player make of the set RO ZOS is brute forcing the idea of a dps set into the community and is surprisingly agile in trying to make that happen while being surprisingly numb when it comes to giving perfected vMA weapons out. Still the intended effect does not materialize and people will now build a HA heavy healer into the group comp for precisely the reasons you’re outlining. 3 people buff might be too low as I don’t see how it’s much better than MA or if then MA is useless but I do agree with your general idea.

YandereGirlfriend

Interesting ideas and I certainly approve of the changes to Vrol.

I personally liked the idea of a lone support providing Major Slayer to the group, as that would provide more flexibility to stamDPS in their gear selections as well as it would give magDPS a more reliable source (even if it would kill off MA and WM) of the buff.

That said, I also dislike that Slayer buff series in general and think that it does much to contribute to the game's power creep without providing much in the way of unique build or gameplay variety.

What I mean is that players proc MA/WM/Loki simply by performing their basic rotations, there is nothing materially different in their gameplay due to wearing those sets, it is basically just free power, which is boring. Roaring, as you say, tried to encourage a certain playstyle, but sadly it is a playstyle that virtually nobody actually enjoys.

So punting this chore (providing Major Slayer) onto the support roles gives ZOS a mulligan to design more mechanically interesting DPS sets (to that end, I would enjoy hearing your thoughts about Yandir's...) that can replace the current bland crop of Major Slayer sets.

WrathOfInnos

You make some good points here, but I don’t fully agree with the proposed cap of 3. For one thing, buffing 3 players ends up being an awkward RNG issue since DPS are typically stacked in groups of 4 (each with 1 healer providing combat prayer). I never liked that about Master Architect. I’d say make it hit the nearest 4-5 players (user + 3 nearby DPS, and maybe an extra so the healer can’t accidentally “steal” one buff from a DD). You would still need 2 set users in the group, and it’s unlikely that groups have enough support sets open to have both healers use it.

Another big issue here is uptimes. The current RO is extremely dependent on Jorvulds for uptime, because it has such a long cooldown. It’s the difference between ~50% and ~70% uptime. You cannot even share the burden because of the 22s cooldown. I don’t think this set should be artificially excluded from Jorvulds, but if high uptimes in the 80-90% were possible running just RO then adding Jorvulds would have diminishing return (and it would be more viable on a DPS build). Keep in mind that the increased uptimes would be balanced by the previous point, that a single user cannot cover the whole group.

It’s also worth noting that 2 Magblades using Master Architect and Heroism potions can keep 60-70% uptime of Major Slayer on themselves and 40-50% on the other 6 DD’s in some fights. And the only proc condition here is to use your best ultimate as often as possible. If RO requires the user to do something inefficient like Heavy Attack every 20s (skipping 1-2 spammables), then the buff uptimes need to be significantly better than what Architect can provide.

I’m still not clear why the new trial set must replace an old one though. How about a unique new buff, that could stack with Architect and Lokkestiiz? Or just let it be a front-bar Spell Crit set that everyone would love to use (we’ve been stuck in Mother’s Sorrow for far too long). Or anything new and unique would be welcome, a 4th set that provides Major Slayer isn’t exciting even if it’s improved enough to become DPS meta.

code65536

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

You make some good points here, but I don’t fully agree with the proposed cap of 3. For one thing, buffing 3 players ends up being an awkward RNG issue since DPS are typically stacked in groups of 4 (each with 1 healer providing combat prayer). I never liked that about Master Architect. I’d say make it hit the nearest 4-5 players (user + 3 nearby DPS, and maybe an extra so the healer can’t accidentally “steal” one buff from a DD). You would still need 2 set users in the group, and it’s unlikely that groups have enough support sets open to have both healers use it.

Another big issue here is uptimes. The current RO is extremely dependent on Jorvulds for uptime, because it has such a long cooldown. It’s the difference between ~50% and ~70% uptime. You cannot even share the burden because of the 22s cooldown. I don’t think this set should be artificially excluded from Jorvulds, but if high uptimes in the 80-90% were possible running just RO then adding Jorvulds would have diminishing return (and it would be more viable on a DPS build). Keep in mind that the increased uptimes would be balanced by the previous point, that a single user cannot cover the whole group.

It’s also worth noting that 2 Magblades using Master Architect and Heroism potions can keep 60-70% uptime of Major Slayer on themselves and 40-50% on the other 6 DD’s in some fights. And the only proc condition here is to use your best ultimate as often as possible. If RO requires the user to do something inefficient like Heavy Attack every 20s (skipping 1-2 spammables), then the buff uptimes need to be significantly better than what Architect can provide.

I’m still not clear why the new trial set must replace an old one though. How about a unique new buff, that could stack with Architect and Lokkestiiz? Or just let it be a front-bar Spell Crit set that everyone would love to use (we’ve been stuck in Mother’s Sorrow for far too long). Or anything new and unique would be welcome, a 4th set that provides Major Slayer isn’t exciting even if it’s improved enough to become DPS meta.

Well, the exact details--such as the number of people affected, the effect duration, and the cooldown duration, are things that could be adjusted to get the set in a good place balance-wise. And the exact figures to achieve that balance is not something that I have given a lot of thought to.

What I wanted to address here was the issue of the fundamental identity of the set--whether it is a damage-dealer set as ZOS clearly intends for it to be or a support set as they have actually made it to be. And to that end, I believe that it will not have the identity that ZOS clearly wants it to have as long as it has a 12-person effect.

wills43b14_ESO

@WrathOfInnos seems like we were both on the same page regarding implementation lol. I'm okay w/ this being a slayer set if mag can get guaranteed high uptimes like stam. Going forward, they should probably try new, unique buffs though.

titaniumdust

I agree with everything you said about efficiency, but I would be a bit sad if RO turned into MA with a new paint job. I think MA/WM should have their durations buffed a bit and RO should either become a magicka Lokkestiiz or just scrap the major slayer idea altogether. I always liked that the halls of fabrication sets gave classes with cheap ultimates something special to do. I'd hate for the one new magicka trial set to just be the same thing with a universal proc.

wills43b14_ESO

Yeah I kinda agree - I like MA tbh, it's fantastically designed. But at this point I'd take the rework if it met certain criteria. Then MA can be for newer trial teams who can't clear the new stuff yet.

xaraan

Kind of annoys me how well code communicates the thoughts in my head better than I do

Seriously though, good write up.

I'm still not completely sold on the making Roaring effect 3 people, I'm thinking it should be self buff only. But either way would solve the problem it has now, which is that it's just a support set no matter how they try and make the buff scale off damage.

And yea, that tank set will never really get used as it is. I guess there could be one niche use of one fight at some point where it could shine, but that's not really a reason to use and store it. It's just an auto-decon set as it is now. Even if it goes to 12 people at once, the groups will most often want the tanks running sets that will buff damage, so at least having it go to 12 will make it appealing to some groups or fights.

nud3_voxel

MA and WM were such amazing sets. They provided DPS and group support, while bringing the need for the group to work together to maximise efficiency (slayer stacks). It's a small sacrifice to whoever wears it, but not big enough that people would complain too much about it. Lokke already killed WM as a set. I wouldn't mind moving onto the new mag major slayer set if changes like code's ones came through. And depending on the final rendition of the set, it might not even kill MA.

These suggestions seem pretty solid. Having sets that can/should be worn by a few DPS in the group is fun while leaving space for other full damage sets.

Edit: plz no rip alkosh. Such a fun set to use that also requires good team synergy and make some dead classes useful due to the synergy they provide.

Runefang

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I’m still not clear why the new trial set must replace an old one though. How about a unique new buff, that could stack with Architect and Lokkestiiz? Or just let it be a front-bar Spell Crit set that everyone would love to use (we’ve been stuck in Mother’s Sorrow for far too long). Or anything new and unique would be welcome, a 4th set that provides Major Slayer isn’t exciting even if it’s improved enough to become DPS meta.

I think this is an underrepresented point on this set to-date. Even if its BiS for a DD or two, or its sorted out to be decent for a support to run. It's still boring and just provides the same buff as a bunch of other sets.

Let's see something interesting.

Bowser

They should have Vrol's Command grant major slayer on heavy attacks for the whole raid, with a short duration and no cooldown.

Somewhere

I whole heartedly agree. It's like zos continues to make sets trying to get groups to bring "support dps" roles, whose focus is to increase the rest of the group's dps while also dealing a little damage themselves.

Groups will do everything they possibly can to bring as many damage dealers with maximum damage as possible. If the proc condition is something that can be pushed off onto a healer or tank groups will do that instead. Honestly this makes these support roles even more difficult to play, which isn't necessarily ideal.

Damage dealer sets should have proc conditions that are most easy for a DD to satisfy but difficult for support roles. This would be best done with short durations on the buff provided, but similarly short cooldowns so the only way to maintain good uptimes is to satisfy the proc condition over and over.

Jeffery159

First to note is you do have to deal more than 40k on a heavy to give major slayer for longer than 5 seconds.
Mind, I only fiddles with this on pts for a hot second and tried just a few variations.
Magicka DK of course, Trial Dummy.
First try was Infalliable Aether and RO, 1pc Valkyn Skoria, vMA Inferno, Malacath ring. Only got to 44k Heavies
Second try. Sergeants Mail, RO, vMA inferno, vDSA Inferno (i just stacked Spell Damage). On a full parse i got a ~25% uptime
(I did achieve some 96k crit heavies)
The second set up pulled about a 50k parse (i am no expert parser)

After reading this thread I remembered Jorvulds and realized that just slotting Jorvulds and RO would give you a ~31% uptime just by nature of the minimum with a 7 seconds uptime for Major Slayer.

I think i'm trying to say that I do not think the cap should be 3, especially since this sets effect cannot be stacked.

idk

The analysis is spot on. Heck, I think it was less than two months after TG/MoL went live that Alkosh officially became a tanking set.

Since Alkosh became a tanking set tanks have not geared for the resistance cap. They have geared to what benefits the group the most.

Tannus15

I agree, except for 1 thing.

We don't need a magicka major slayer set that affects 3 people. We have that set.
Give us a major slayer set that affects only the user for a longer duration, like lokkestiiz. magicka desperately need a good front bar set.give me 12 seconds of major slayer from a fully charged heavy attack with an 18 second cool down so it's comparable to lokke.

how about this?

Roaring Opportunist – Magicka DPS
2 – Adds 833 Spell Critical
3 – Gain Minor Slayer at all times, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
4 – Adds 129 Spell Damage
5 (Perfected) – Adds 1096 Max Magicka
5 – Dealing damage with a Fully-Charged Heavy Attack to an enemy grants you Major Slayer, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 15% for 12 seconds. Roaring Opportunist can only affect a target every 18 seconds.

That's a set I'd be excited by.

wills43b14_ESO

I just don't understand why their combat "vision" is so much more important than the players' happiness/wishes. I know a year ago they talked about a "grand vision" for combat, but they have neglected to share it with us. If this is all fitting in there somehow, we really need to know. Without knowing the basis for their decision making, we cannot help them achieve their desired results. The end-game community has A LOT of collective knowledge/experience, so if ZOS wants combat to be something, and we don't completely disagree with it, we should be able to help point them in the right direction.

I just wish we could get some kind of view into their "vision". It's like the vMA thread going right now. We WANT communication. The more communication we get, the less we can get angry and continuously flame them like players have. Sure people may disagree with them, but it's FAR more frustrating not even knowing the reason why. As long as the reason isn't completely mental (e.g. if the vMA thread response was to say "suck it up buttercup and quit being lazy" rather than something like "it would actually cause a ton of issues trying to upgrade the current weapons") we will probably get over it. Not communicating is not okay though.

wills43b14_ESO

@Tannus15 I'm not sure how they feel about those sets given they continue to release amazing, selfish stamina sets, but I have a suspicion their goal is to be like other MMOs in that they want most DPS to be supportive DPS (that is, DPS providing group buffs). I think that's where they want power creep to end up rather than through sets/generic dps buffs. I could be wrong though.

John_Falstaff

Tannus15 wrote: »

I agree, except for 1 thing.

We don't need a magicka major slayer set that affects 3 people. We have that set.
Give us a major slayer set that affects only the user for a longer duration, like lokkestiiz. magicka desperately need a good front bar set.give me 12 seconds of major slayer from a fully charged heavy attack with an 18 second cool down so it's comparable to lokke.

So? Lokkestiiz have murdered War Machine. We don't need a set that will murder Master Architect.

Olupajmibanan

Just adding another examples of sets intended for DDs but ended up as support sets: Z'en's Redress and Martial Knowledge. I am pretty sure that the intent when creating Zen Redress wasn't to make healers throw off their healing abilities and filling their bar with dots.

If they really want a support set worn by a DD, they should come with something different. Because despite limitations, if it benefits whole group and is limited to 1 wearer in trial, than it is going to be worn by healer/tank.

How about making Roaring Opportunist last only fixed 3 seconds and making the cooldown per caster rather than per receiver. By chaining multiple ROs you could achieve great uptime, but it requires good group coordination, similar to chaining Colossus. A set requiring group coordination in order to be efficient is a good design IMO.

Septimus_Magna

@code65536 Very well though out explanation, you've hit the nail on the head with the efficiency aspect that makes support wear sets that were intended for DDs.

Right now on the PTS 6.0.1 there are multiple flaws in the design of RO.
It should be worth it to have multiple people in the group are wearing this set.
The proc condition is way too difficult to meet, it might be the most difficult one in game to get the full duration.

I can also understand that ZOS doesnt want to make a set similar to Master Architect that procs off HAs instead of casting your ult. And I do like that intention to create a mag DD set thats not just selfishly buffing your own dps.

The damage component as proc condition is pretty interesting if done correctly.
My idea for this set would be something like this:

Roaring Opportunist – Magicka DPS
2 – Adds 833 Spell Critical
3 – Gain Minor Slayer at all times, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
4 – Adds 129 Spell Damage
5 (Perfected) – Adds 1096 Max Magicka
5 – Dealing 800k damage to a single enemy grants you and two closest allies Major Slayer, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 15% for 8 seconds. Roaring Opportunist can only affect a target every 12 seconds.

Ozby

Honestly imo the trial sets are garbage and need huge changes to even come close to the currently used sets. Ill beat this trial on vet when it comes out but if these sets do not get better Ill never step foot in there again once I've cleared it.

colossalvoids

Spot on post as usual, but only thing i can add is i disagree that it should replace ma and wm sets, I'd better have some new effect or at least prioritisation worked out so if both used in a group it won't just cover the same players.

Tannus15

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

I agree, except for 1 thing.

We don't need a magicka major slayer set that affects 3 people. We have that set.
Give us a major slayer set that affects only the user for a longer duration, like lokkestiiz. magicka desperately need a good front bar set.give me 12 seconds of major slayer from a fully charged heavy attack with an 18 second cool down so it's comparable to lokke.

So? Lokkestiiz have murdered War Machine. We don't need a set that will murder Master Architect.

I agree totally. However Roaring as proposed kills all 3 if it's worth running and it's vendor trash if it's not.

I'd much rather see something interesting, but right now ZoS has it in their head that Major Slayer is the trials buff and that's what we're getting.

Sanguinor2

At this Point I just want them to completely rework RO if they really want it to be a dd set. Making it like MA is redundant because its either gonna be better and just replace it or its gonna be worse and wont be worth Picking up.

John_Falstaff

Tannus15 wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

I agree, except for 1 thing.

We don't need a magicka major slayer set that affects 3 people. We have that set.
Give us a major slayer set that affects only the user for a longer duration, like lokkestiiz. magicka desperately need a good front bar set.give me 12 seconds of major slayer from a fully charged heavy attack with an 18 second cool down so it's comparable to lokke.

So? Lokkestiiz have murdered War Machine. We don't need a set that will murder Master Architect.

I agree totally. However Roaring as proposed kills all 3 if it's worth running and it's vendor trash if it's not.

I'd much rather see something interesting, but right now ZoS has it in their head that Major Slayer is the trials buff and that's what we're getting.

Well that's the thing, I think that designing a selfish set a-la magicka Lokke and killing MA as a result will make us poorer, it's worse than not having a set at all. ZOS should leave Slayer alone, and if I'm to be frank, I'd rather RO be released as a garbage like Nahviintaas than MA killer, because we grew poorer for losing War Machine. Soon as Lokke appeared, it was an ideal selfish set (tailored for a specific class too) that removed one more incentive of taking more than one class into group comp.

That's the beauty of sets like MA. Yes, they're only useful on certain classes, but for one, game's chock full of sets ranging from niche to decon material, and for another, that's the whole point. That's the whole gist. With MA, some sorc or necro or DK doesn't have to be upset that they can't run it - they can enjoy running any two 5-pieces they like and still bask in that sweet Major Slayer, and the only thing they have to do for it is to take an MA-toting NB, warden or templar into the group. I don't understand why people complain about that, while shrugging off the fact that we, say, take necros into the group for Major Vulnerability; the only difference is that vulnerability is built into class kit, while MA offers 'externalized' Slayer in form of a set.

So, yes. I want RO to be a complete and total failure, and won't shed a tear if it'll be another Nahvi. Better wait for next - hopefully better designed - magicka set than have set like this.