Caluurion's changes and Malacath.

GetAgrippa

"Caluurion's Legacy:
Slightly increased the travel speed of the projectiles from this set.
Reduced the minimum travel time to 750ms, down from 900ms.
Increased the damage done to 13290, up from 12900.
Removed the critical requirement for this set."

If this goes live without changes to Malacath, then no-cp pvp is going to be (even more) of a joke. Malacath simply must not work with Caluurion's. It will be a disaster.

Dracane

While it is a valid argument to have Malacath stop working with any proc set, I would not be more concerned about Caluurion in this regard than on live.

390 more base damage and a bit less travel time will not fundamentally change something.
Also, it is most often used by nightblades who, especially after the changes to merciless resolve, certainly do not want to use malacaths to lose their big crit advantage.

What worries me, is the removal of the critical requirement. This makes it more easily available for everyone, especially classes who experience little detriment by using Malacath. I still hope they will eventually disallow Malacath from affecting proc sets, provided this is even possible for them code wise.

GetAgrippa

Dracane wrote: »

What worries me, is the removal of the critical requirement. This makes it more easily available for everyone, especially classes who experience little detriment by using Malacath. I still hope they will eventually disallow Malacath from affecting proc sets, provided this is even possible for them code wise.

This is exactly my point. The removal of the crit requirement is what makes it work with Malacath.

ItsJustHashtag

Just as malacath doesn’t work on siege and was fixed to do so it should not work on proc sets either.

katorga

ItsJustHashtag wrote: »

Just as malacath doesn’t work on siege and was fixed to do so it should not work on proc sets either.

Five bucks says Malacath's prevents crit heals as well as damage by the end of this PTS cycle, but they keep it buffing proc sets.

xaraan

I mean, I'm all for making certain procs trigger on crits so they don't work with malacath, but making all procs not work with malacath makes the item useless. You get more damage doing without it even if your crit chance isn't that high, so using it with effects that cannot crit is really the only big use for it.

relentless_turnip

katorga wrote: »

ItsJustHashtag wrote: »

Just as malacath doesn’t work on siege and was fixed to do so it should not work on proc sets either.

Five bucks says Malacath's prevents crit heals as well as damage by the end of this PTS cycle, but they keep it buffing proc sets.

What was your thought trail leading to that conclusion?

Dracane

xaraan wrote: »

I mean, I'm all for making certain procs trigger on crits so they don't work with malacath, but making all procs not work with malacath makes the item useless. You get more damage doing without it even if your crit chance isn't that high, so using it with effects that cannot crit is really the only big use for it.

If that would make Malacath useless, then its value can be increased to make it useful outside of proc sets and I do not think this is what anybody wants. People complained about it since it came out even without a reference to proc sets.

xaraan

Dracane wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

I mean, I'm all for making certain procs trigger on crits so they don't work with malacath, but making all procs not work with malacath makes the item useless. You get more damage doing without it even if your crit chance isn't that high, so using it with effects that cannot crit is really the only big use for it.

If that would make Malacath useless, then its value can be increased to make it useful outside of proc sets and I do not think this is what anybody wants. People complained about it since it came out even without a reference to proc sets.

Sure, but I think leaving it where it's at and just correcting a few chances for it to overtune certain procs leaves it in more of a niche place than flat out making it not work on procs and buffing it to be useful without crit damage on all abilities. I'm sure it can be done, but I think it's the harder way to balance it and have less faith in that method.

katorga

Dracane wrote: »

What worries me, is the removal of the critical requirement. This makes it more easily available for everyone, especially classes who experience little detriment by using Malacath. I still hope they will eventually disallow Malacath from affecting proc sets, provided this is even possible for them code wise.

The same problem exists for every proc set that triggers on damage. If your sets are not on cooldown, you will proc all three sets on demand. The numbers are big even without Malacath.

With the changes to grim focus and impen, I am seriously considering leveling up a Khajiit NB for the next patch, and going full crit crazy.

relentless_turnip wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

ItsJustHashtag wrote: »

Just as malacath doesn’t work on siege and was fixed to do so it should not work on proc sets either.

Five bucks says Malacath's prevents crit heals as well as damage by the end of this PTS cycle, but they keep it buffing proc sets.

What was your thought trail leading to that conclusion?

They do follow the forums, heard the streamers calling it a p2w ring, have seen a pretty steady outcry about malacath in nocp, and know how much they are buffing proc sets. They have already nerfed one mythic into the ground, so I don't doubt they would nerf another.

My gut says they would take the "increase the curse" path instead of reducing the % damage buff.

Dracane

katorga wrote: »

My gut says they would take the "increase the curse" path instead of reducing the % damage buff.

Good. In my eyes, Malacaths was never meant for this non sense. It was something to open up a different playstyle instead of only stacking everything into crit, which is meta literally everywhere except no cp.

It always bothered me that it became so popular. If they increase the curse and/or disallow it from affecting proc sets, they might just increase its effect to actually support this playstyle more. Maybe even enough to make it useful enough in pve. (Even if not competitive with crit stacking.)

Rianai

Dracane wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

My gut says they would take the "increase the curse" path instead of reducing the % damage buff.

Good. In my eyes, Malacaths was never meant for this non sense. It was something to open up a different playstyle instead of only stacking everything into crit, which is meta literally everywhere except no cp.

Huh? When have things like mothers sorrow/whatever the stam version is called, khajiit, thief/shaodw mundus, ... been meta anywhere in PvP? I thought it was always more along the lines of Fury, Bright-Throath, Shackle, NMA, Sprig/Spin, various sustain and defensive sets, ... alongside of procs ofc. Not one of those sets aside from NMA contains a single crit bonus and NMA can hardly be considered a crit set either.
Players just took whatever crit they could get without having to give up on other stats, but it was (and still is) hardly worth building for.

Dracane

Rianai wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

My gut says they would take the "increase the curse" path instead of reducing the % damage buff.

Good. In my eyes, Malacaths was never meant for this non sense. It was something to open up a different playstyle instead of only stacking everything into crit, which is meta literally everywhere except no cp.

Huh? When have things like mothers sorrow/whatever the stam version is called, khajiit, thief/shaodw mundus, ... been meta anywhere in PvP? I thought it was always more along the lines of Fury, Bright-Throath, Shackle, NMA, Sprig/Spin, various sustain and defensive sets, ... alongside of procs ofc. Not one of those sets aside from NMA contains a single crit bonus and NMA can hardly be considered a crit set either.
Players just took whatever crit they could get without having to give up on other stats, but it was (and still is) hardly worth building for.

Well, they seem to pump a lot of points into elfborn, many use acceleration as well. Maybe not for the reason of crit stacking, but crit damage is a natural addition to it.

I always found crits to be near essential in CP pvp. Often times, you can not hope to score a kill on certain targets unless your crits align and the amount of crit damage you can stack, even in the wake of the current crit resistences, significantly overshadows those 16% damage that malacath grants you. Crits still net you the highest burst spikes there and that is what I meant with my statement. Essential burstspikes at times.

So I found rather subordinate to run Malacath there. PvE is not even a question.
It is only in no CP where it is a serious choice without really any drawbacks at all.

EDIT: Against my boyfriend in no CP with 6 impen, my crystal fragementina outperforms my crits with roughly 5% extra damage on top. So it is as if I would crit all the time with extra damage. Now this is not true for Nightblades, Templars and Wardens (who have crit damage buffs) and also not when using minor force. But the low crit chance in no CP makes Malacath so attractive. In CP, crit chances are too realistic.

Mayrael

Caluurion is the last set you should worry about when it goes to Malacath. Pillar of nirn, Unleashed terror, Plague Slinger, Widowmaker, Shadow of the red mountain, Way of the fire... just wait

Tolino

The fact that there are other broken proc sets doesn't mean that this buff should go live!
Caluurion's is already one of the strongest proc sets without Malacath...

Mayrael

Tolino wrote: »

The fact that there are other broken proc sets doesn't mean that this buff should go live!
Caluurion's is already one of the strongest proc sets without Malacath...

If sets I mentioned above will recieve nerf then please, be my guest nerf caluurion and icy conjuror (I don't care that these are pretty much the only magicka proc sets that can compete with stamina ones).

katorga

Dracane wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

My gut says they would take the "increase the curse" path instead of reducing the % damage buff.

Good. In my eyes, Malacaths was never meant for this non sense. It was something to open up a different playstyle instead of only stacking everything into crit, which is meta literally everywhere except no cp.

It always bothered me that it became so popular. If they increase the curse and/or disallow it from affecting proc sets, they might just increase its effect to actually support this playstyle more. Maybe even enough to make it useful enough in pve. (Even if not competitive with crit stacking.)

Stacking crit in noCP....mechanical acuity, the sleeper set.

Mathmatically, Malacath is way over loaded. A player needs at least 50% crit rate and 50% crit damage after target impen to match it. That takes a serious build investment. Malacath allows you to take that investment and put it elsewhere and get the same damage, plus more defense, or pen, whatever. That is BEFORE taking proc sets into account.

fred4

I'm a Caluurion nightblade and I don't even want to run Malacath, because NB is the crit class. Procs aren't the only damage you do in your combos. Other classes may have different ideas, but with Caluurion in particular there is also the pesky fact that it includes 2 lines of crit. You give up a fair amount of stats by running that set with Malacath. I'm moderately concerned, but holding out hope that ZOS will address this in some form before it goes live. Isth3reno1else suggested the following solutions in the below video:

1. A global cooldown on (damage) procs, effectively meaning you can't run multiple procs in a build.
2. Disabling Malacath from buffing proc damage.
3. Reduction of proc damage across the board.

I would add further options:

4. Reduce proc damage via no CP battle spirit only.
5. Put crit activation back onto Caluurion and add it to other sets that may be OP with Malacath.
6. Other ideas from this thread.

I'd hate option 3 which, when implemented properly, would basically make Malacath mandatory for procs to be competitive.

fred4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwp8gxCTxho

Dracane

fred4 wrote: »

I'm a Caluurion nightblade and I don't even want to run Malacath, because NB is the crit class. Procs aren't the only damage you do in your combos. Other classes may have different ideas, but with Caluurion in particular there is also the pesky fact that it includes 2 lines of crit. You give up a fair amount of stats by running that set with Malacath. I'm moderately concerned, but holding out hope that ZOS will address this in some form before it goes live. Isth3reno1else suggested the following solutions in the below video:

1. A global cooldown on (damage) procs, effectively meaning you can't run multiple procs in a build.
2. Disabling Malacath from buffing proc damage.
3. Reduction of proc damage across the board.

I would add further options:

4. Reduce proc damage via no CP battle spirit only.
5. Put crit activation back onto Caluurion and add it to other sets that may be OP with Malacath.
6. Other ideas from this thread.

I'd hate option 3 which, when implemented properly, would basically make Malacath mandatory for procs to be competitive.

I agree completely, especially with your statement about Caluurion and the amount of stats you waste by playing with Malacath.

I also do not like solution number 3, as it would not really fix the issue at hand and only makes it even more mandatory to be run with Malacath. The most obvious solution is to just disable Malacath from buffing proc sets.

nemvar

katorga wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

My gut says they would take the "increase the curse" path instead of reducing the % damage buff.

Good. In my eyes, Malacaths was never meant for this non sense. It was something to open up a different playstyle instead of only stacking everything into crit, which is meta literally everywhere except no cp.

It always bothered me that it became so popular. If they increase the curse and/or disallow it from affecting proc sets, they might just increase its effect to actually support this playstyle more. Maybe even enough to make it useful enough in pve. (Even if not competitive with crit stacking.)

Stacking crit in noCP....mechanical acuity, the sleeper set.

Mathmatically, Malacath is way over loaded. A player needs at least 50% crit rate and 50% crit damage after target impen to match it. That takes a serious build investment. Malacath allows you to take that investment and put it elsewhere and get the same damage, plus more defense, or pen, whatever. That is BEFORE taking proc sets into account.

The part about crit damage is not entirely true due to how damage mods add up.
For the sake of argument, imagine if a warden slotted 5 animal companion skills, which would grant them a +10% global damage mod.
Imagine the dealt 1000 base damage with an attack, this results in:
1000 * 1.1 = 1100 => They dealt 100 extra damage, as expected.

If they also equip malacaths, that damage mod increases to +35%. Let's do the math again:
1000 * 1.35 = 1350 => 350 extra damage... right??

Nope, because at this point, the warden has been playing with the 10% damage mod for ages and considers dealing 1100 "normal". As it turns out, malacaths only multiplied the damage by (1350/1100) = 1.227, or a 22.7% multiplicative damage modifier.

Now let's take a look at crit, which IS a multiplicative damage mod separate from other additive damage. Let's assume a 50% crit chance. In that case we only need a (.227 / .5) = 45.4% damage modifier after impen to match malacaths.

Each damage mod makes malacaths less appealing, and the CP system is filled with these kinds of modifiers.
Other sources include Berserk, Vulnerability and a bunch of random passives all over the place (dw swords, necro DOT abilities, blah blah).

katorga

nemvar wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

My gut says they would take the "increase the curse" path instead of reducing the % damage buff.

Good. In my eyes, Malacaths was never meant for this non sense. It was something to open up a different playstyle instead of only stacking everything into crit, which is meta literally everywhere except no cp.

It always bothered me that it became so popular. If they increase the curse and/or disallow it from affecting proc sets, they might just increase its effect to actually support this playstyle more. Maybe even enough to make it useful enough in pve. (Even if not competitive with crit stacking.)

Stacking crit in noCP....mechanical acuity, the sleeper set.

Mathmatically, Malacath is way over loaded. A player needs at least 50% crit rate and 50% crit damage after target impen to match it. That takes a serious build investment. Malacath allows you to take that investment and put it elsewhere and get the same damage, plus more defense, or pen, whatever. That is BEFORE taking proc sets into account.

The part about crit damage is not entirely true due to how damage mods add up.
For the sake of argument, imagine if a warden slotted 5 animal companion skills, which would grant them a +10% global damage mod.
Imagine the dealt 1000 base damage with an attack, this results in:
1000 * 1.1 = 1100 => They dealt 100 extra damage, as expected.

If they also equip malacaths, that damage mod increases to +35%. Let's do the math again:
1000 * 1.35 = 1350 => 350 extra damage... right??

Nope, because at this point, the warden has been playing with the 10% damage mod for ages and considers dealing 1100 "normal". As it turns out, malacaths only multiplied the damage by (1350/1100) = 1.227, or a 22.7% multiplicative damage modifier.

Now let's take a look at crit, which IS a multiplicative damage mod separate from other additive damage. Let's assume a 50% crit chance. In that case we only need a (.227 / .5) = 45.4% damage modifier after impen to match malacaths.

Each damage mod makes malacaths less appealing, and the CP system is filled with these kinds of modifiers.
Other sources include Berserk, Vulnerability and a bunch of random passives all over the place (dw swords, necro DOT abilities, blah blah).

There are no real diminishing returns. The difference between the buffs diminishes (1.35/1.10 = difference of 23% compared to 1.25/1.0 = difference of 25%), but you are still doing 135% at thet tooltip.

If you are comparing the diminishing "appeal" of multiple additive % bonuses, the largest one is the most appealing.

Appo

Im seeing a whole lot of nerf talk without any real evidence of malacaths "obscene" damage with proc sets everytime iv used it iv taken it straight back off, even with 3 proc sets, its really not that strong in no cp.

Malprave

I’m not sure why you would do a Malacath’s build with Caalurion’s. It has two crit bonuses in the set. One you could maybe overlook if the fifth piece bonus was good enough, but not two. And even with the Malacath’s bonus on top of Caalurion’s newly buffed damage you need a hell of a lot more damage than that to successfully burst anybody down.

Rianai

Appo wrote: »

Im seeing a whole lot of nerf talk without any real evidence of malacaths "obscene" damage with proc sets everytime iv used it iv taken it straight back off, even with 3 proc sets, its really not that strong in no cp.

It absolutely is. Whenever i ran into a player who was dealing an unusual amount of dmg i checked cmx after the fight and guess what - like 90% of the time it was a malacath user (the only non mala build that comes close is draugrkin stamsorc).
Not being able to crit is supposed to be a disadvantage (like increased dmg taken on thrassian or no sprint on snow treaders) so having non crits be able to deal the same or more dmg than crits on some builds just feels wrong. Malacath is by far the strongest dmg item for non gank builds and the only reason why crit is still better for gank builds is that those can afford to heavily invest into (crit) dmg at the cost of survivabilty and sustain. Malacath does not come with such hefty trade-offs.

Edit:

Malprave wrote: »

I’m not sure why you would do a Malacath’s build with Caalurion’s. It has two crit bonuses in the set. One you could maybe overlook if the fifth piece bonus was good enough, but not two. And even with the Malacath’s bonus on top of Caalurion’s newly buffed damage you need a hell of a lot more damage than that to successfully burst anybody down.

7% chance to deal 20-40% more dmg (so at average something like 2-3%) that doesn't even apply to your main dmg source or 25% more to to everything all the time - yes a very hard choice indeed.

nemvar

Of course you are doing 135% of the tooltip, but the tooltip doesn't matter when you are comparing it to critical damage because that's not a additive % bonus.

Malacath still OP.

dominguero96

It seems most of you have ZOS mentality: if something is viable nerf it, and if it's the only thing viable nerf it more.

As someone has mention, maybe you should focus more on all the stam proc sets (which btw a few years ago killed the game) and not on the only mag proc set. I don't even see worth it menioning Icy conjurer.

katorga

nemvar wrote: »

Of course you are doing 135% of the tooltip, but the tooltip doesn't matter when you are comparing it to critical damage because that's not a additive % bonus.

Malacath still OP.

Oh yes. Most definitely OP. You have to invest a lot into crit rate and crit damage done to just to pull even with malacath's flat 25%. You only have to counter damage mitigation with Malacath, but mitigation plus impenetrable with crit damage.

rumple9

The change is fine. With resistances caluurion doesn't hit for anywhere near like it says on the tooltip anyway

fred4

I think what people doing the math tend to overlook is that you're hoping to burst people down partially by luck, namely by getting a succession of crits. Ani used Malacath in the Potatohunter 2.0 build. If you're using a DOT build, like him, or a Jabs or Flurry build, you're likely working with average damage and the Malacath math makes sense. However, if you're using a Dizzying Swing or, say, a Soul Harvest / Merciless build, where your burst consists of just a few hard hitting direct damage / non-channel skills, then your burst will, from time to time, be higher on a crit build than with a statistically similar or even slightly better Malacath build. This assumes you have a decent crit multiplier, of course, which is exactly what nightblade, at least, is being given more of with the Grim Focus change. People like Kristofer ESO work with well over 200% crit damage already and his favored Gryphon set got buffed too.

katorga

fred4 wrote: »

People like Kristofer ESO work with well over 200% crit damage already and his favored Gryphon set got buffed too.

That is kinda the point. Unless you invest heavily into crit chance/damage, malacath is always the more efficient option. His class, race, sets all push those numbers to the extreme. Next patch his NB build will melt people, especially if using no impen becomes a thing.

Compare that to Joe Proc, who gap closes into you, and in one hit puts 5+ dots and a delayed CC and damage from Sellestrix into you. It will melt people too, with a fraction of the effort.

I just wanna know where is the buff to Azureblight equal to what Vicious Death got?