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Grundwulf Set Balance
WrathOfInnos
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In the Greymoor update, we got several adjustments to sets, and it appears that will be continued in U27. A dev comment in the 6.0.5 patch notes explained that the goal is for 2 piece monster sets to be balanced with 5 piece gear sets, which is an idea I agree with (typically trading off one of these for the other in builds). I would like to comment on the current form of Grundwulf and explain why it is not currently balanced, and has fallen out of use.
In its current form, Grundwulf gives a maximum of 700 primary resource and 350 secondary resource every 5s. This results in Grundwulf returning 140 primary resource per second and 70 secondary resource per second in the best case scenario (crit to proc it exactly every 5s, and no downtime in combat).
First I want to look at what values a typical sustain set should give. I'll look at this from a magicka point of view for simplicity, but all the same points can be made from the stamina perspective. We can see from comparing the Atronach and Apprentice mundus stones that Magicka Recovery and Spell Damage are valued at a 1:1 ratio. This is confirmed by jewelry enchants, which give either 169 Magicka Recovery or 174 Spell Damage (not quite 1:1, but 97% is close enough for this discussion). With this conversion, we can use the golden standard set: Julianos. While it is fine for some sets to be more powerful than Julianos (especially if they have a special condition for use, or are difficult to obtain), historically any set that is weaker than the crafted Julianos has ended up unused (may as well not exist in the game).
So converting 300 Spell Damage to 300 Magicka Recovery we get a good baseline at what a Recovery set should be. Typically a build will have bonuses to Magicka Recovery through Evocation (20% to 28%), Arcanist CP (14%), Major Intellect (20%) and Magicka Controller (2% to 4% depending on Mage's Guild skills slotted), resulting in approximately a 1.6 multiplier on Magicka Recovery. Note this could be significantly higher if you include Minor Intellect (10%), Magicka Aid (10%), and Capacitor (10%) or Flourish (12%), in some cases nearing a 2.0 multiplier. To be conservative with this, and representative of a reasonable worst-case, I'll stick with the 1.6 multiplier and say that 300 Magicka Recovery gets buffed to 480, which ticks every 2s for a total of 240 Magicka per second as our baseline value.
Now let's bring in some additional examples to see if this 240 Mag/s is a reasonable baseline.
Amberplasm: Currently gives 276 Magicka and Stamina Recovery. The Magicka Recovery gets the 1.6 multiplier, but the Stamina side has no guarantee of bonuses on a Magicka build, so to be safe we can assume a return of 276 x 1.6 / 2 = 221 Magicka per second and 138 Stamina per second. Note the Magicka return is slightly lower than the baseline 240/s, but it also has the additional utility benefit of some stamina return as well. I believe this is fairly balanced.
Previous Amberplasm: Before Greymoor this set gave 250 Magicka and Stamina Recovery, which resulted in 200 Mag/s and 125 Stam/s. In my opinion this is also reasonably balanced with the baseline 240 Mag/s. I have no problem with the slight buff in Greymoor, but it's interesting to note that the balance team found this to be slightly too weak.
Shroud of the Lich: This one has a proc condition, so is a little tougher to compare, but at max uptime (20s every 60s) it gives and average of (1032 x 1.6 x 20) / (60 x 2) = 275 Mag/s. This is higher than the baseline, but given it's proc condition I think this is reasonable and balanced.
Vestments of the Warlock: Again, a proc condition requiring low magicka, but we can look at the maximum potential of 11350 Magicka returned every 45s or 252 Mag/s. Maybe a little low compared to Lich, but this one at least exceeds the baseline 240 Mag/s to account for its proc condition, and seems relatively balanced.
Bloodthorn's Touch: This set isn't very well-known, most likely because it has been underpowered since it's introduction. It gives 660 Magicka and Stamina on direct damage with a 5s cooldown, resulting in 132 Mag/s and 132 Stam/s in a best-case scenario. Strangely, this seems to be the set that Grundwulf was adjusted to match (although Grundwulf is actually significantly weaker than Bloodthorn on the secondary resource), but I believe Bloodthorn is an outlier and not balanced with the rest of the game.
Original Grundwulf: As released in Scalebreaker, and in Dragonhold and Harrowstorm, Grundwulf gave 1000 Magicka and 500 Stamina every 5s, resulting in 200 Mag/s and 100 Stam/s. This is fairly close to the baseline values, and extremely similar to the old Amberplasm (only missing a little secondary resource sustain). Even if it had been untouched in Greymoor, Grundwulf would still fall behind the new and improved Amberplasm.
TLDR: Grundwulf did not need it's resource return decreased in Greymoor, the original values were much closer to balanced with most other sets in the game. If anything it should have been increased to 1100 Primary and 700 Secondary resource every 5s to match the new standard set by Amberplasm. Bloodthorn is not a good example for comparison because it is also in need of a significant buff (yet still somehow outperforming Grundwulf currently).
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_RichLambert thanks for reading and considering.
Edited by WrathOfInnos on July 9, 2020 8:22PM In its current form, Grundwulf gives a maximum of 700 primary resource and 350 secondary resource every 5s. This results in Grundwulf returning 140 primary resource per second and 70 secondary resource per second in the best case scenario (crit to proc it exactly every 5s, and no downtime in combat).
First I want to look at what values a typical sustain set should give. I'll look at this from a magicka point of view for simplicity, but all the same points can be made from the stamina perspective. We can see from comparing the Atronach and Apprentice mundus stones that Magicka Recovery and Spell Damage are valued at a 1:1 ratio. This is confirmed by jewelry enchants, which give either 169 Magicka Recovery or 174 Spell Damage (not quite 1:1, but 97% is close enough for this discussion). With this conversion, we can use the golden standard set: Julianos. While it is fine for some sets to be more powerful than Julianos (especially if they have a special condition for use, or are difficult to obtain), historically any set that is weaker than the crafted Julianos has ended up unused (may as well not exist in the game).
So converting 300 Spell Damage to 300 Magicka Recovery we get a good baseline at what a Recovery set should be. Typically a build will have bonuses to Magicka Recovery through Evocation (20% to 28%), Arcanist CP (14%), Major Intellect (20%) and Magicka Controller (2% to 4% depending on Mage's Guild skills slotted), resulting in approximately a 1.6 multiplier on Magicka Recovery. Note this could be significantly higher if you include Minor Intellect (10%), Magicka Aid (10%), and Capacitor (10%) or Flourish (12%), in some cases nearing a 2.0 multiplier. To be conservative with this, and representative of a reasonable worst-case, I'll stick with the 1.6 multiplier and say that 300 Magicka Recovery gets buffed to 480, which ticks every 2s for a total of 240 Magicka per second as our baseline value.
Now let's bring in some additional examples to see if this 240 Mag/s is a reasonable baseline.
Amberplasm: Currently gives 276 Magicka and Stamina Recovery. The Magicka Recovery gets the 1.6 multiplier, but the Stamina side has no guarantee of bonuses on a Magicka build, so to be safe we can assume a return of 276 x 1.6 / 2 = 221 Magicka per second and 138 Stamina per second. Note the Magicka return is slightly lower than the baseline 240/s, but it also has the additional utility benefit of some stamina return as well. I believe this is fairly balanced.
Previous Amberplasm: Before Greymoor this set gave 250 Magicka and Stamina Recovery, which resulted in 200 Mag/s and 125 Stam/s. In my opinion this is also reasonably balanced with the baseline 240 Mag/s. I have no problem with the slight buff in Greymoor, but it's interesting to note that the balance team found this to be slightly too weak.
Shroud of the Lich: This one has a proc condition, so is a little tougher to compare, but at max uptime (20s every 60s) it gives and average of (1032 x 1.6 x 20) / (60 x 2) = 275 Mag/s. This is higher than the baseline, but given it's proc condition I think this is reasonable and balanced.
Vestments of the Warlock: Again, a proc condition requiring low magicka, but we can look at the maximum potential of 11350 Magicka returned every 45s or 252 Mag/s. Maybe a little low compared to Lich, but this one at least exceeds the baseline 240 Mag/s to account for its proc condition, and seems relatively balanced.
Bloodthorn's Touch: This set isn't very well-known, most likely because it has been underpowered since it's introduction. It gives 660 Magicka and Stamina on direct damage with a 5s cooldown, resulting in 132 Mag/s and 132 Stam/s in a best-case scenario. Strangely, this seems to be the set that Grundwulf was adjusted to match (although Grundwulf is actually significantly weaker than Bloodthorn on the secondary resource), but I believe Bloodthorn is an outlier and not balanced with the rest of the game.
Original Grundwulf: As released in Scalebreaker, and in Dragonhold and Harrowstorm, Grundwulf gave 1000 Magicka and 500 Stamina every 5s, resulting in 200 Mag/s and 100 Stam/s. This is fairly close to the baseline values, and extremely similar to the old Amberplasm (only missing a little secondary resource sustain). Even if it had been untouched in Greymoor, Grundwulf would still fall behind the new and improved Amberplasm.
TLDR: Grundwulf did not need it's resource return decreased in Greymoor, the original values were much closer to balanced with most other sets in the game. If anything it should have been increased to 1100 Primary and 700 Secondary resource every 5s to match the new standard set by Amberplasm. Bloodthorn is not a good example for comparison because it is also in need of a significant buff (yet still somehow outperforming Grundwulf currently).
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_RichLambert thanks for reading and considering.
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kojou✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I agree with you, but get ready for everything to get nerfed to the level of Bloodthorn's Touch...Playing since beta...1 -
YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Thank you, Innos, for keeping the hope for Grundwulf alive.
When the competing sets are laid out as well as you presented them, there really is no justification for any fair-minded person to maintain its nerf.
Outstanding post.2 -
Apox✭✭✭✭✭watched an old sorc tank build video that used grundwulf and i excitedly grinded mine out only to find out it has been pretty substantially nerfed since the video i watched was uploaded. felt kinda bad. i understand stonekeeper is a good set for everyone else but on my sorc that already relies on crit to sustain with crit surge, i was excited to see a monster sustain set that complimented what i was building for. but post nerf i may as well just run stonekeeper like everyone else.
inb4 zos just nerfs stonekeeper to match0 -
colossalvoids✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Wish to see some writeup of that level from zeni to why x and z being nerfed to the ground instead of silence or some mumbling we get in developer notes.
Agree fully.2 -
WrathOfInnos✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Interesting new observation that may be the standard for comparing single stat and bistat sustain. Looking at max level drinks, single stat mag or stam recovery gives a value of 604. Bistat recovery food of the same level gives 493 Mag Recovery + 493 Stam Recovery. We can use these to establish a ratio of 493/604 = 0.8 which implies:
1 Mag Recov = 1 Stam Recov = 0.8 Mag Recov + 0.8 Stam Recov
Now we can check this against existing sets. If you take the best case average recovery on Lich (1032 x 20 / 60 = 344) and multiply it by this 0.8 you get 275 bistat recovery (pre-buff tooltip) as the equivalent. Almost exactly the 276 shown on Amberplasm.
So it seems my estimate of 300 primary stat recovery (based on Julianos) for a 5 piece set was a little low, apparently Lich’s 344 is the standard.
We can also apply this 0.8 ratio to Warlock’s 252 Magicka/s and we get 202 Magicka + 202 Stamina per second as the equivalent bistat. This is what Bloodthorn’s Touch should be adjusted to. If we keep the same proc condition and 5s cooldown, this means that Bloodthorn should return 1010 Magicka + 1010 Stamina when it procs (up from the current 660 of each). In reality I’d round them to an even 1000.
Now how does this apply to Grundwulf? Its defining characteristic is bistat sustain procs, but with a higher value on primary resource than secondary resource (with a ratio 2:1). Obviously the primary resource return should be greater than the ~200/s on the adjusted Bloodthorn because the secondary will be lower. The primary should be less than the 252/s on Warlock because Grundwulf does give a little secondary resource sustain.
Again we can look to Amberplasm, which I explained in the first post gives 221 Mag/s and 138 Stam/s. If Grundwulf gave the same 221 Mag/s and kept the 2:1 ratio with Stam then it would only give 110 Stam/s, and it would clearly be weaker than Amber. I’d recommend Grundwulf be adjusted to 230 Mag/s and 115 Stam/s, which is 1150 primary resource and 575 secondary every 5s. Any higher than that and it starts to get too close to the primary resource sustain on Warlock. Any lower on primary and Grundwulf would be universally outclassed by Amberplasm and potentially Bloodthorn (if it gets balanced).
Edited by WrathOfInnos on July 10, 2020 6:46PM2 -
In all fairness... Grundwulf is a 2 piece set and such its not fair to compare it against 5 piece sets.0 -
WrathOfInnos✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭DraconicFalcon wrote: »In all fairness... Grundwulf is a 2 piece set and such its not fair to compare it against 5 piece sets.
Making monster sets balanced with 5 piece sets was one of the goals in the Greymoor update. Before this, several of the 2 piece sets were stronger than 5 piece sets.
A couple quotes from dev comments in 6.0.5:
“ Monster Masks have been updated to be more comparable to 5 piece sets in regards to our set bonus efficiency standards. While most are value adjustments, a few sets have received larger adjustments to either bring them in line with intended fantasies or to improve their flexibility in use cases.”
“Often times, Monster Masks that deal with resource management would be significantly stronger than 5 piece counterparts because of this. By reducing the total regeneration possible from this set, we can allow for a healthier balance between all sets in the game.”Edited by WrathOfInnos on July 11, 2020 12:18AM3 -
zvavi✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭WrathOfInnos wrote: »Interesting new observation that may be the standard for comparing single stat and bistat sustain.
I wouldn't compare food for that matter, I mean, look at this totally accurate chart:
1. Step one: have an existing set with dense stats but health recovery is *** so nobody uses it (green pact).
2. Step 2: create a less dense stat set of magicka version that uses drinks instead of food (last piece 2000 mag Vs 2500 hp of green pact and 150 mag recovery Vs 250 health recovery).
3. Step 3: nerf all drinks because when you use it with the new set (bright throat's boast) it is too stat dense. So you have sets that are stronger when you use drinks, so it is not ok.0 -
WrathOfInnos✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭WrathOfInnos wrote: »Interesting new observation that may be the standard for comparing single stat and bistat sustain.
I wouldn't compare food for that matter, I mean, look at this totally accurate chart:
1. Step one: have an existing set with dense stats but health recovery is *** so nobody uses it (green pact).
2. Step 2: create a less dense stat set of magicka version that uses drinks instead of food (last piece 2000 mag Vs 2500 hp of green pact and 150 mag recovery Vs 250 health recovery).
3. Step 3: nerf all drinks because when you use it with the new set (bright throat's boast) it is too stat dense. So you have sets that are stronger when you use drinks, so it is not ok.
@zvavi Step 4: Buff Bright Throat’s Boast and Bone Pirate’s Tatters (6.1.0) because they are underperforming, likely caused by the requirement of using weaker consumables
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WrathOfInnos✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭The plan is starting to come together though. The PTS patch today made the following change:
“ Bloodthorn's Touch: Increased the Magicka and Stamina generated from this set to 958, up from 660.”
This is very close to the 1000 resource return I suggested above. It makes it even more clear that Grundwulf is the outlier and needs to be buffed. Hopefully it’s not forgotten.1 -
zvavi✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭WrathOfInnos wrote: »WrathOfInnos wrote: »Interesting new observation that may be the standard for comparing single stat and bistat sustain.
I wouldn't compare food for that matter, I mean, look at this totally accurate chart:
1. Step one: have an existing set with dense stats but health recovery is *** so nobody uses it (green pact).
2. Step 2: create a less dense stat set of magicka version that uses drinks instead of food (last piece 2000 mag Vs 2500 hp of green pact and 150 mag recovery Vs 250 health recovery).
3. Step 3: nerf all drinks because when you use it with the new set (bright throat's boast) it is too stat dense. So you have sets that are stronger when you use drinks, so it is not ok.
Step 4: Buff Bright Throat’s Boast and Bone Pirate’s Tatters (6.1.0) because they are underperforming, likely caused by the requirement of using weaker consumables
I swear to god I didn't see it coming.0