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Thrassian Stranglers 6.1.1 - What is the goal for this set?

kojou
kojou
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Thrassian Stranglers: Increased the duration of each stack to 10 minutes to make them essentially permanent while fixing some bugs with actual permanent stacks.

Note: This set is currently undergoing some additional changes which are not yet complete. We plan to increase the maximum stack count from 20 to 50, allowing the set to stack up to a maximum of 2000 Weapon and Spell Damage, but with a 50% reduction in healing and shield efficacy and 50% increased damage taken; this should make the maximum power of this set unattainable to reach by multiple players in Trial settings. At the moment, these stacks are also not being removed on death. These changes and issues will be fixed in a future PTS patch.

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Players will tend to min/max. In other words, if a damage oriented player (DPS) is given a choice to increase power at the cost of less "survivability" then the player is going to take the option that gives more power and try to figure out how to survive anyway. You could make it 100% more damage and there would still be DDs trying to figure out how to survive with it if they can get 2000 spell damage with it.

If you make it to where Thrassian Stranglers is not a viable min/max damage option then players will just go to the next best thing and leave it on the shelf, so the choice is either keep it strong enough to use or add it to the list of sets that are not used.

So my point is this:

What does adding this set to the game do for the game? How does it add more fun and make a better playing experience? This question needs to be answered first before any decisions on how to change the set should be made. If you want it to not be used then just lower the damage to the point there are better options and then it won't be used for trials, but then if you don't want it used then why add it to the game in the first place?

When I first saw this set in the previous PTS (6.0) I thought that this was a way to get groups to include healers in 4 person content. In other words, allow 2 DDs to have as much damage as 3 DDs, but include a healer to offset the amount of additional damage taken. I actually liked this as a goal for this set.

Now it is clear that that wasn't the goal for this set... basically it will give a good enough bonus that it will be worth running, but it won't be a high enough risk to make me want to have a healer with me over a 3rd DD, and I am back to trying to figure out what is the point to this set.

Playing since beta...
  • Mettaricana
    Mettaricana
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    Pretty sure the entire goal was to look shiny and cool enough to make you say I NEED GREYMOOR!!!! But now that everyone has greymoor the item is gonna be thrown in the trash bin...
  • katorga
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    Increased the duration of each stack to 10 minutes to make them essentially permanent while fixing some bugs with actual permanent stacks.

    Does this mean 10 minutes stacks is temporary or the final direction?

  • xaraan
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    katorga wrote: »
    Increased the duration of each stack to 10 minutes to make them essentially permanent while fixing some bugs with actual permanent stacks.

    Does this mean 10 minutes stacks is temporary or the final direction?

    They said in the patch notes it may be adjusted.
    -- @xaraan --
    nightblade: Xaraan templar: Xaraan-dar dragon-knight: Xaraanosaurus necromancer: Xaraan-qa warden: Xaraanodon sorcerer: Xaraan-ra
    AD • NA • PC
  • jaws343
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    katorga wrote: »
    Increased the duration of each stack to 10 minutes to make them essentially permanent while fixing some bugs with actual permanent stacks.

    Does this mean 10 minutes stacks is temporary or the final direction?

    I think their target is preventing players from maintaining full stacks in PVP with the timer. So in a trial/dungeon environment, 10 minutes is easy to maintain, but in Cyrodil, you could go 10 minutes between kills.
  • Alidel
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    But now that everyone has greymoor

    Jokes on you, I didn't buy it and have no intent to. A man can by skyrim only so many times..
  • Red_Feather
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    I appreciate the item being tweaked further to try to keep it useful and interesting.

    Not sure 50 stakcs will be useful in any pvp modes. :o
  • IonicKai
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    I think the issue here is that it was in a place where it already was good risk reward but was a little bit too broken. I still think the fix is to tweak numbers in the current set rather than a crazy swing. Like maybe 25 stacks that get to 2k damage with 50% reductions. Enough that when you used it, it was BiS but it was punishing enough to be a question.

    Even right now on live there are times it is used and times its not by prog teams. Once you have content down sure you figure out how to run it permanently because everyone is aware enough or has adjusted their builds to make this work. People already will do things like throw on a health glyph or some tri-stat glyphs to offset the damage taken because it's still a net gain.
  • Atherakhia
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    Pretty sure the entire goal was to look shiny and cool enough to make you say I NEED GREYMOOR!!!! But now that everyone has greymoor the item is gonna be thrown in the trash bin...

    Pretty much this. On the plus side I guess Solitude looked nice?
  • Magdalina
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    This change and the dev comment on it actually do look much better than the previous one. The 'it was just a lure to get everyone to buy Greymoor' conspiracy theories aside, I'd say the dev comment states its point clearly enough - it's to be a niche set that should not always be used by the majority of the group in challenging group content because the drawbacks are just too big. You could use it in easier (group) content, in certain fights in challenging content, or perhaps you could get away with the most flawless of the players using it full time, but that would not be everyone.

    This does not contradict the concept of min-maxing, it might actually make it more interesting in a way as people will have to work out scenarios where using this set can be a win and where it's a loss that you cannot compensate. Admittedly I do not exactly run trials for #1 leaderboard score but this actually looks quite reasonable to me (especially given they're still working on it and might change something else yet). I also gotta say I'm impressed that after disastrous change #1 they read the feedback, took it into account AND manage to roll out a relatively reasonable change #2 within just a week. That seems totally unlike ZOS, but that's a welcome direction.
  • XellJarmar
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    Now I'm confused of what ZOS actually want to achieve with all those changes. Seems they want to reject all kinds of BiS concepts. But truth to be said, nerfing what's working does not make lame to fame, but makes more useless things.
  • Apox
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    really dont like their philosophy of making it so nobody in the raid can get max stacks. i know thrassians allow for insane dps but its frustrating when youre trying to be the one that gets the stacks but cant secure the killing blows. you get to a boss with 3 stacks and just thing man whats the point
  • Red_Feather
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    Pretty sure the entire goal was to look shiny and cool enough to make you say I NEED GREYMOOR!!!! But now that everyone has greymoor the item is gonna be thrown in the trash bin...

    It really feels that way. And it's a not good thing to do!

    Designed to be as attractive as possible to as many people as possible.
    And now changed to be less so to all those people.
  • Mettaricana
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    Alidel wrote: »
    But now that everyone has greymoor

    Jokes on you, I didn't buy it and have no intent to. A man can by skyrim only so many times..
    Fair enough given they sold us half of skyrim with the base game lol
  • Kingslayer513
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    Apox wrote: »
    really dont like their philosophy of making it so nobody in the raid can get max stacks. i know thrassians allow for insane dps but its frustrating when youre trying to be the one that gets the stacks but cant secure the killing blows. you get to a boss with 3 stacks and just thing man whats the point

    Yeah on live right now Thrassians is horribly designed. It's way too powerful for the penalty, and encourages players to fight amongst their own group for killing blows. This is bad design philosophy.

    So I think these proposed changes only addresses half the problems. Now it's weaker, with a stronger penalty, but still is fundamentally flawed with its rng of who gets the stack.
  • Tanis-Stormbinder
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    Any timer on the stacks is to much. Having to gain 25 out of 50 stacks would make this useful but having to try and maintain 25 stacks by the end of a trial or pledge would be difficult and a dps loss. So as the OP stated, What is the goal for this set? Starting to feel this set should have never gone live. Keep the 50 stacks and the increase damage, reduced healing but remove the timer.
    Edited by Tanis-Stormbinder on July 20, 2020 7:44PM
  • Moloch1514
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    Marketing required content to sell a chapter with no selling features compared to prior chapters. The pitch was Skyrim, Vampires, and.....and...some grindy gear that will look amazing when we market them.. dont worry combat team you can nerf them after we sell Greymoor.
    PC-NA
  • UntilValhalla13
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    Pretty sure the entire goal was to look shiny and cool enough to make you say I NEED GREYMOOR!!!! But now that everyone has greymoor the item is gonna be thrown in the trash bin...

    Along with vampires, unfortunately.

    *flushing sound*
  • carlos424
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    jaws343 wrote: »
    katorga wrote: »
    Increased the duration of each stack to 10 minutes to make them essentially permanent while fixing some bugs with actual permanent stacks.

    Does this mean 10 minutes stacks is temporary or the final direction?

    I think their target is preventing players from maintaining full stacks in PVP with the timer. So in a trial/dungeon environment, 10 minutes is easy to maintain, but in Cyrodil, you could go 10 minutes between kills.

    Theyve watched a couple of videos on youtube where a couple of groups have had dps wearing stranglers in trials and have beaten world records. They assume the rest of the player base is able to exploit the set in the same way so it has to be nerfed. The 50 stack proposal seems a bit extreme, and to a lesser extent, the 50% damage taken/ less healing. Why not just leave everything the same and cut damage in half? What would really be nice is for there to be a way to manually stop gaining stacks. So if you only want 15 stacks, then you could somehow “toggle off”
  • katorga
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    So as the OP stated, What is the goal for this set? Starting to feel this set should have never gone live.
    carlos424 wrote: »
    jaws343 wrote: »
    katorga wrote: »
    Increased the duration of each stack to 10 minutes to make them essentially permanent while fixing some bugs with actual permanent stacks.

    Does this mean 10 minutes stacks is temporary or the final direction?

    I think their target is preventing players from maintaining full stacks in PVP with the timer. So in a trial/dungeon environment, 10 minutes is easy to maintain, but in Cyrodil, you could go 10 minutes between kills.

    Theyve watched a couple of videos on youtube where a couple of groups have had dps wearing stranglers in trials and have beaten world records. They assume the rest of the player base is able to exploit the set in the same way so it has to be nerfed. The 50 stack proposal seems a bit extreme, and to a lesser extent, the 50% damage taken/ less healing. Why not just leave everything the same and cut damage in half? What would really be nice is for there to be a way to manually stop gaining stacks. So if you only want 15 stacks, then you could somehow “toggle off”

    The other option is no limit on stacks, get to 100 stacks and have 100% damage increase, healing reduced, etc. Get to 200, 200% damage increase, and so on. Make it gain stacks on death of something you are in combat with, so stacks gain faster.

    Either way, last PTS everyone said it was OP and would have exactly the results that occurred. Everyone knew it would get nerfed quickly. Everyone knew why.
    Edited by katorga on July 20, 2020 11:11PM
  • kojou
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    While I think Mythic items in general were a carrot to get us excited about the antiquities system, I bought the chapter for the story and zone. There is a lot more I could say about Greymoor itemization, but my confusion is related to the goal of Thrassian Stranglers.

    They put a single armor piece that adds more overall damage than any set (5, 3, or 2 piece) and then nerf it because we were using it in trials? What did they expect us to do with it?
    Playing since beta...
  • LukosCreyden
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    My more pessimistic mind would say "We've realized that we made a mistake in creating this item as we cannot effectively balance it, so we are instead going to nerf it to the point that it becomes incredibly niche/useless."

    That's just me, though.
    Struggling to find a new class to call home.Please send help.
  • kojou
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    My more pessimistic mind would say "We've realized that we made a mistake in creating this item as we cannot effectively balance it, so we are instead going to nerf it to the point that it becomes incredibly niche/useless."

    That's just me, though.

    To some degree I think you are right.

    They could have also use a different stat to buff, such as crit damage or armor penetration so that the stat scaling with it isn't so crazy. Having it buff spell damage and weapon damage means it also buffs your healing which directly negates some of the healing debuff.
    Playing since beta...
  • Zer0_CooL
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    In order to reduce its impact in pvp the penalty of decreased shieldstrength and healing taken should be 40% at all time.

    Or stop scaling healing done with damage stats. But that probably wont hapen.
  • StamPlar_1976
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    They have no clue what they want to do with this piece or what the purpose of it is. The dev comment was lol worthy. We want the set to be used, but we don't want it used by too many people. Ummmm...what??? Lol.
  • Elvenheart
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    It reminds me of The Sword of a Thousand Truths.
  • Runefang
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    They needed to think of a different way to handle the curse part of this set. If they thought that increased damage and reduced healing was enough they just don't understand their game enough. So much damage is completely avoidable that its not a curse at all, at least for experienced DDs. That's my biggest problem with the set, it widened the gap between the floor and ceiling more than any other item/set ever has.
  • ccfeeling
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    Why create this mythic that you dont want everyone use it?

    All mag dps run mother Sorrow and u guys just buffed it.

    Im lost.
  • StamPlar_1976
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    ccfeeling wrote: »
    Why create this mythic that you dont want everyone use it?

    All mag dps run mother Sorrow and u guys just buffed it.

    Im lost.

    Ikr? Mind blown.
  • LuxLunae
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    ccfeeling wrote: »
    Why create this mythic that you dont want everyone use it?

    All mag dps run mother Sorrow and u guys just buffed it.

    Im lost.

    What is your thoughts for a solution? It CANNOT BE WHAT IT WAS!!!

    This still looks like an NB dream set... and I don't want that to be the case considering I got hit by a

    damn near 20k blood for blood yesterday...
    Edited by LuxLunae on July 22, 2020 2:29AM
  • kojou
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    LuxLunae wrote: »
    ccfeeling wrote: »
    Why create this mythic that you dont want everyone use it?

    All mag dps run mother Sorrow and u guys just buffed it.

    Im lost.

    What is your thoughts for a solution? It CANNOT BE WHAT IT WAS!!!

    This still looks like an NB dream set... and I don't want that to be the case considering I got hit by a

    damn near 20k blood for blood yesterday...

    Blood for Blood took a pretty good hit so at least there is that...

    This post is about Thrassian Stranglers though.
    Edited by kojou on July 22, 2020 1:04PM
    Playing since beta...
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