Thrassian Stranglers is balanced

Maulkin

While people are debating whether it can be used on actual end game content or not, here's a "decent" parse in vSS from a guildmate.



I'm just so glad we nerfed bash, re-balanced arena weapons and added them to normal modes in order to close the gap between players

thorwyn

And the APM dude... don't forget the APM!!!!!11

JinMori

340k assassin's will? wtf?

Mortiis13

100k la, 195k swallow, 185k impale, 340k assassins

Nerf nightblade.

;-P

JinMori

And where does that 136 % crit damage comes from? are you a khajiit?

Maulkin

JinMori wrote: »

And where does that 136 % crit damage comes from? are you a khajiit?

Kurat

Zos wanted to close the gap but ended up doing the opposite as usual. Noobs can't use Thrassian stranglers in real content because they have trouble staying alive even without it. Only in a good group can you use it. So the ceiling keeps on raising and the floor is still wiping. Lmao well done

notvenousdrake

100 lire allure uptime tho 👌

Maulkin

Kurat wrote: »

Zos wanted to close the gap but ended up doing the opposite as usual. Noobs can't use Thrassian stranglers in real content because they have trouble staying alive even without it. Only in a good group can you use it. So the ceiling keeps on raising and the floor is still wiping. Lmao well done

When balancing and closing the performance gap butts against commercial interests, the latter win. Some of the most watched ESO videos are dummy parses, PvE builds and Trial/Arena speed runs. ZOS needed to add something to the chapter for end game pvers to desire and chase after. That only happens if the item is stronger than existing ones. And so here we are.

I don't believe that this was unintended. I can't imagine a combat dev designs an item with 3000 base wp/sp dmg and thinks players won't find a way to use it. They're intelligent people, they're not that naive.

zvavi

Mortiis13 wrote: »

100k la, 195k swallow, 185k impale, 340k assassins

Nerf nightblade.

;-P

Guys. Chill. Those numbers are on the iron atronach when he takes massive amounts of damage. It is not as bad as it looks.

Dragonredux

zvavi wrote: »

Mortiis13 wrote: »

100k la, 195k swallow, 185k impale, 340k assassins

Nerf nightblade.

;-P

Guys. Chill. Those numbers are on the iron atronach when he takes massive amounts of damage. It is not as bad as it looks.

Isn't Yol selected in the combat metrics? Or am i just reading it wrong?

Crash427

Have you tried them? I was farming all day with with them and didnt worry about healing at all. Dungeons, world bosses, all over Craglorn. With 9k spell damage I'm getting 7k a tick spamming swallow soul. My rad regen still gives me a ton of healing.

The crazy thing was I didnt even build for them. Just equipped them and away I went. With a little bit of theory crafting I'm sure I could come up with some completely insane.

Czekoludek

Dragonredux wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Mortiis13 wrote: »

100k la, 195k swallow, 185k impale, 340k assassins

Nerf nightblade.

;-P

Guys. Chill. Those numbers are on the iron atronach when he takes massive amounts of damage. It is not as bad as it looks.

Isn't Yol selected in the combat metrics? Or am i just reading it wrong?

No, Yol isn't selected. This cmx shows damage to all enemies during the fight

Septimus_Magna

When I tested Thrassian on the PTS I found out that healing is only reduced by 1% because your heals get more powerful with higher spell dmg. So it seems some classes are just better suited to Thrassian than others.

Joxer61

strangle this...….

JinMori

Maulkin wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

Zos wanted to close the gap but ended up doing the opposite as usual. Noobs can't use Thrassian stranglers in real content because they have trouble staying alive even without it. Only in a good group can you use it. So the ceiling keeps on raising and the floor is still wiping. Lmao well done

When balancing and closing the performance gap butts against commercial interests, the latter win. Some of the most watched ESO videos are dummy parses, PvE builds and Trial/Arena speed runs. ZOS needed to add something to the chapter for end game pvers to desire and chase after. That only happens if the item is stronger than existing ones. And so here we are.

I don't believe that this was unintended. I can't imagine a combat dev designs an item with 3000 base wp/sp dmg and thinks players won't find a way to use it. They're intelligent people, they're not that naive.

I honestly don't really care for the gap as long as they add cool stuff.

The problem is that for every thing they do well, they *** up 10, and also, zos has this general lax approach at doing things or fixing, which is damaging the game.

WrathOfInnos

How many stacks were active? It doesn’t appear to be much of a damage boost so I’m guessing not 20. I also would not want to stand in a Flare while taking 40% more damage and receiving 40% less healing, so lower stacks is probably the smart move.

zvavi

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

How many stacks were active? It doesn’t appear to be much of a damage boost so I’m guessing not 20. I also would not want to stand in a Flare while taking 40% more damage and receiving 40% less healing, so lower stacks is probably the smart move.

Just have a second equipment set with health enchantments for everything...

WrathOfInnos

zvavi wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

How many stacks were active? It doesn’t appear to be much of a damage boost so I’m guessing not 20. I also would not want to stand in a Flare while taking 40% more damage and receiving 40% less healing, so lower stacks is probably the smart move.

Just have a second equipment set with health enchantments for everything...

Lol, I don’t think healers will like that. 30k health DPS taking massive damage with effectively permanent double-defile on them. Maybe Sanctuary will finally see some use

Sanguinor2

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

How many stacks were active? It doesn’t appear to be much of a damage boost so I’m guessing not 20. I also would not want to stand in a Flare while taking 40% more damage and receiving 40% less healing, so lower stacks is probably the smart move.

I´d assume that stranglers were used for the trash after lokke towards yolna, since you only get stacks for killing Blows (unless that changed from pts?) I´d assume that it is somewhere between 5 to 10, just a guess tho.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Maulkin wrote: »

While people are debating whether it can be used on actual end game content or not, here's a "decent" parse in vSS from a guildmate.



I'm just so glad we nerfed bash, re-balanced arena weapons and added them to normal modes in order to close the gap between players

This is a cherry picked parse fight. Let's not overreact too much with these. They are super fun to play with and they do come with a pretty serious drawback as you build stacks. Very few people, if anyone is going to be able to run these for a whole trial.

If they were going to adjust these, the best thing to do would be to tone down the number of stacks. If you increase the damage taken much more, it will just get harder for the average player to use and good players will figure it out.

I have run these through VMA a few times. The damage is very high (not all that much higher than a VAS build, but higher). The damage increase is very noticeable. Yes its fast, but you are very squishy. I dont see how healers could realistically keep up an entire raid running these.

These guys might need toned down (reduce stacks to like 15), but they dont need destroyed with a nerf hammer.

Maulkin

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

How many stacks were active? It doesn’t appear to be much of a damage boost so I’m guessing not 20. I also would not want to stand in a Flare while taking 40% more damage and receiving 40% less healing, so lower stacks is probably the smart move.

This wasn't me lads, this was a guild-mate so only he can answer your questions about how many stacks he had active if he pops in. Flare, evidently, wasn't a problem.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

This is a cherry picked parse fight. Let's not overreact too much with these. They are super fun to play with and they do come with a pretty serious drawback as you build stacks. Very few people, if anyone is going to be able to run these for a whole trial.

Ofc it's cherry picked but there's still a quite few trial bosses you can cheese with these, if you want to push score. You don't have to use them for the whole trial, nor do you need too many stacks. At only 4 stacks it significantly outperforms every monster set already. And the point exactly is that few people can run them, therefore raising the ceiling and its distance from floor. Contrary to ZOS' stated intentions.

I'm not sure reducing the max number of stacks will make any significant difference. Might even have the opposite effect. I actually think if they cap them to something low, like 5 stacks, they are reducing the risk and then pretty much everyone will run them.

Treeshka

I did this parse but my stacks was not twenty in Yolna boss but at around fourteen. You can still survive the fire damage in hard mode but i recommend to use Swallow Soul if you are a Nightblade, since more you hit you get more healing.
One time i died to Fire Atronach's light attack in fire boss while using this set, so some things that is not being paid attention in fights might require more attention while using this set.
Later in the same run i went to portal in last boss and managed to survive with near full stacks, but it is too risky to use for perfect run, but it is definitely fun to use.
I also went into ice cage in Sunspire with less then ten stacks and managed to survive, but beam phase in hard mode is so risky with high stacks.
I would rather use it and control the stacks since even with four stacks you get a free Siroria set in terms of spell damage and in lower stacks, like between five and ten the negative effects are barely noticeable.

I did a few runs in Maelstrom Arena as well and it makes it so much easy to kill everything with full stacks but you become so fragile which makes you get killed with two or three overlapping damage.

In my opinion this set makes everything much more easy in dungeons and arenas or even trials for skilled players since i believe that they can utilize it properly and kill everything faster.

Sealish

I wonder if you could run heavy armor Seducers and Julianos with Health and Magicka Recovery Enchants and still come up with a net positive DPS vs using a pre-stranglers build.

You should have more than enough sustain to not have to worry about resources, enough extra resists to negate the 40% extra damage, and extra healing taken/health/health recovery to offset the healing penalty.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Maulkin wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

How many stacks were active? It doesn’t appear to be much of a damage boost so I’m guessing not 20. I also would not want to stand in a Flare while taking 40% more damage and receiving 40% less healing, so lower stacks is probably the smart move.

This wasn't me lads, this was a guild-mate so only he can answer your questions about how many stacks he had active if he pops in. Flare, evidently, wasn't a problem.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

This is a cherry picked parse fight. Let's not overreact too much with these. They are super fun to play with and they do come with a pretty serious drawback as you build stacks. Very few people, if anyone is going to be able to run these for a whole trial.

Ofc it's cherry picked but there's still a quite few trial bosses you can cheese with these, if you want to push score. You don't have to use them for the whole trial, nor do you need too many stacks. At only 4 stacks it significantly outperforms every monster set already. And the point exactly is that few people can run them, therefore raising the ceiling and its distance from floor. Contrary to ZOS' stated intentions.

I'm not sure reducing the max number of stacks will make any significant difference. Might even have the opposite effect. I actually think if they cap them to something low, like 5 stacks, they are reducing the risk and then pretty much everyone will run them.

You are probably right that if you go to 5 stacks max, it would just become a meta requirement and everyone would deal with it. If you capped at like 15, it might be a different story. Hard to say. There is sort of an issue with functionality, because you really need to balance around the max stacks whatever they are because you will spend most of your time at that level.

I do really like the idea though. You deal more damage and become squishier. It rewards risky and skilled play style. They really are fun to play with. Unfortunately, anything that rewards skilled play raises the gap between the floor and the ceiling. That is certainly going to be a tension.

I ran VMA 5 times. 4 on Mag Sorc and 1 on NB. There is definitely another balance issue that needs looked at as well. Sorc heals dont scale with spell damage and NBs do. It's a massive difference in how much you feel it. My first impressions were with sorc, and you feel it at max stacks, especially places like stage 5. On NB, not nearly as much. I wasnt as fast, but much easier.

Sealish

Something fun to keep in mind with these too. The 40% damage taken increase is a separate multiplier, so it isn’t actually as bad as it sounds. You only need 29% damage reduction from any single source to completely negate it. That’s 19,140 extra resistance for example, which may sound like a lot, but it’s not a huge trade off for 3000 spellpower. As a dps, you have lots of room to improve your damage reduction through adding resistance since most DPS builds will be at least 20k away from capping it.

CP can also be a huge compensator here. 75 points into Thick Skin and Ironclad reduce the penalty to only a 12% increase in damage taken (1 x (1-0.20) x (1.40)).

Given that healers overheal like crazy, the 40% reduction in healing efficiency shouldn’t be a huge deal, you just need to be able to survive 1-shots and not stand in stupid.

—edit

Come to think of it... Gossamer (already a good set) may become the new BiS healer set. The 25% damage reduction from AOEs (the main source of damage that DPS take) almost completely negates the 40% increase from Stranglers (reducing it to a net 5% damage taken increase).

katorga

Sealish wrote: »

I wonder if you could run heavy armor Seducers and Julianos with Health and Magicka Recovery Enchants and still come up with a net positive DPS vs using a pre-stranglers build.

You should have more than enough sustain to not have to worry about resources, enough extra resists to negate the 40% extra damage, and extra healing taken/health/health recovery to offset the healing penalty.

I'm playing with Eternal Vigor + Ancient Dragonguard....seems to work well. EV/AD gives me 1000 more health regen and 3K armor if I go below 50% and ~300 regen and spell damage above. There are probably better ways to go, but this works well with my necro. Templar would be ideal...10% spell damage as a class passive. Sorc would work, but you are chained to resto staff for heals that scale with spell damage.

GrumpyKlam

https://imgur.com/a/7QSZRHF That's with like 10 stacks

Oreyn_Bearclaw

GrumpyKlam wrote: »

https://imgur.com/a/7QSZRHF That's with like 10 stacks

@GrumpyKlam
I would take the over on 10 with that much spell damage, but hard to say (Templars do get a %spell damage buff, so maybe 10 is right). Shame its not easier to track. Out of curiosity, were you the only when wearing them? When did you equip? Are you taking them on and off throughout the trial? Could you feel the heat at that level of stacks? What was your best parse on that fight up until then?

These things are obviously super strong. I just want to make sure we have all the cards on the table before ZOS destroys them, because they are really fun. haha

If the meta is going to be, high end raids all equip these for everything, I will probably have issues with it. If its more the kind of thing where the best 2-3 DPS in a trial are going to equip them for specific sections of the trial and fight over KBs to build stacks, I am probably okay with them for the most part.

I was of the original opinion that they were fine as is, but as I have played with them more and more, I am seeing some issues, but its mostly about class balance, not outrageous DPS.

GrumpyKlam

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

GrumpyKlam wrote: »

https://imgur.com/a/7QSZRHF That's with like 10 stacks

@GrumpyKlam
I would take the over on 10 with that much spell damage, but hard to say (Templars do get a %spell damage buff, so maybe 10 is right). Shame its not easier to track. Out of curiosity, were you the only when wearing them? When did you equip? Are you taking them on and off throughout the trial? Could you feel the heat at that level of stacks? What was your best parse on that fight up until then?

These things are obviously super strong. I just want to make sure we have all the cards on the table before ZOS destroys them, because they are really fun. haha

If the meta is going to be, high end raids all equip these for everything, I will probably have issues with it. If its more the kind of thing where the best 2-3 DPS in a trial are going to equip them for specific sections of the trial and fight over KBs to build stacks, I am probably okay with them for the most part.

I was of the original opinion that they were fine as is, but as I have played with them more and more, I am seeing some issues, but its mostly about class balance, not outrageous DPS.

I have no idea if I was the only one using them, this was done in a carry run and I was just testing it out for fun. I had them on since the start but never really tried to ramp them up to 20 by getting the killing blow and never took the buff off by dying or sneaking. It was pretty easy to survive all along with jabs on trash and twins. Pretty sure 100K + is possible in a "core raid" environment.

I still feel this is highly situationnal (useless in vAS and vCR mostly) and you need players with high awareness that won't loose the stacks dying all over the place.

I can already see how broken this could be in a trial like vSO or vHRC where you have huge trash pulls right before the first boss.


https://imgur.com/a/JLvvnXB <-- DSA last boss (no necro, no major slayer)

katorga

GrumpyKlam wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

GrumpyKlam wrote: »

https://imgur.com/a/7QSZRHF That's with like 10 stacks

@GrumpyKlam
I would take the over on 10 with that much spell damage, but hard to say (Templars do get a %spell damage buff, so maybe 10 is right). Shame its not easier to track. Out of curiosity, were you the only when wearing them? When did you equip? Are you taking them on and off throughout the trial? Could you feel the heat at that level of stacks? What was your best parse on that fight up until then?

These things are obviously super strong. I just want to make sure we have all the cards on the table before ZOS destroys them, because they are really fun. haha

If the meta is going to be, high end raids all equip these for everything, I will probably have issues with it. If its more the kind of thing where the best 2-3 DPS in a trial are going to equip them for specific sections of the trial and fight over KBs to build stacks, I am probably okay with them for the most part.

I was of the original opinion that they were fine as is, but as I have played with them more and more, I am seeing some issues, but its mostly about class balance, not outrageous DPS.

I have no idea if I was the only one using them, this was done in a carry run and I was just testing it out for fun. I had them on since the start but never really tried to ramp them up to 20 by getting the killing blow and never took the buff off by dying or sneaking. It was pretty easy to survive all along with jabs on trash and twins. Pretty sure 100K + is possible in a "core raid" environment.

I still feel this is highly situationnal (useless in vAS and vCR mostly) and you need players with high awareness that won't loose the stacks dying all over the place.

I can already see how broken this could be in a trial like vSO or vHRC where you have huge trash pulls right before the first boss.


https://imgur.com/a/JLvvnXB <-- DSA last boss (no necro, no major slayer)

Looking at your image you are around 30K mag and 8K spell dmg. You traded off 40% more damage and 40% less healing to get stats only slightly higher than a stam build who with crafted sets hovers around 29K/7K with no negatives. Not sure the term "broken" is justified.

A raid with every dps/healer using this set seems likely to me. You trade off faster runs against higher risk if 10 players are 40/40. Higher risk of wipes, especially for less experienced groups, and high payoff. But if it ends up excluding stamina builds from raids...that will be a problem.