U28 Combat Preview & Developer Update

ZOS_BrianWheeler

Today, we’d like to present to you what the Combat team has been focused on for Update 28! As always, please be aware these are just the current proposed adjustments and are subject to change during the upcoming PTS cycle. On top of a substantial amount of new item sets coming with this patch, the team has been focused on making the Major/Minor system more performant, as well as some adjustments to Frost staff and Critical calculations.

First off, let’s talk about the Major/Minor system. Originally, buffs and debuffs were designed as standard abilities, meaning they had to go through the same calculations as all abilities. As we have been moving towards making combat more performant, we identified this as a key area where we could get better performance due to how prevalent buffs/debuffs are in battles. As such, we’re shifting the buffs/debuffs system so they are calculated on the server much in the same way as Sprint and Block. With Major/Minor effects no longer being standard abilities, they will be more performant per calculation as they won’t go through the same process as other abilities do in a fight. This “hardcoding” of Majors/Minors will also make them less prone to incorrect stacking and mismatched values.

During this change, we also adjusted buffs/debuffs to bring them more in-line with our standards for item sets and abilities. This was also combined with the overall goals to increase sustain, decrease damage done, and increase damage taken. Players with builds that aren’t 100% optimized will see an increase in power, while players utilizing all Majors/Minors at once in coordinated efforts will see a decrease in power.

For Frost Staff changes, we looked at the prior goals where Magicka users could tank in PvE and PvP scenarios. We found that many of the tools provided by Frost Staff abilities either did not hold up to other tanking abilities, or directly conflicted with other Destruction Staff abilities and created some pain points in dungeons. This, in turn, led us down the path to give the Frost Staff greater viability for doing things other than tanking. The end result was a focus on two changes: Give Frost Staff users more flexibility to fill the role of a tank, and also give Frost Staff users the opportunity to better fill the roles of support or DPS.

A good example of this is the following upcoming adjustments to Wall of Frost/Flame/Shock:

• Lowering the damage done by Wall of Frost compared to Wall of Flame and Shock
• Removing Snare from Wall of Frost
• Casting Wall of Frost will create a Damage shield on you and up to 5 other nearby group members that absorbs projectiles
• Unstable Wall of Frost will apply a weaker version of the Damage Shield when the ability ends

In terms of reducing some pain points that Frost Staff users and their groups, we’ll be removing the Auto-Taunt from Tri-focus. The taunt from Frost Staff will instead reside in Frost Clench, and will taunt the enemy for 15 seconds. We believe these changes, along with several others in the Destruction skill line, will help bring some parity between the three damage options for staff users and give greater flexibility to that weapon choice.

When it comes to Critical Damage, Critical Chance, and Critical Resist, we’ve started to get a tighter grip on these bonuses in our efficiency standards and have begun sourcing more of them in the game to counter each other. While this naturally balances itself in PvP scenarios, that is not the case in PvE situations; this already powerful stat is slowly creeping up in power with each update and global increase in damage.

The main cause of this imbalance is the ease of access to gain Critical Chance in our game; we have a large amount of passive Crit enabled from passive abilities (Armor, Champion Points, Base Chance). On top of this, the raw standard of Crit Chance is higher than other DPS stats which results in stacking Crit being incredibly powerful. Due to this, certain classes scale more effectively in group content, resulting in “just stack X” in our end-game meta. While this is somewhat mitigated in PvP with Critical Resistance, we still hear a large number of complaints about the line certain classes teeter on in terms of balance in PvE as a result (either too strong, or we nerf them and they become too weak in other areas).

As such, we have created a new combined stat for Critical Chance which is a combination of Spell and Weapon Crit. This means if you see an item that grants 106 Critical Chance, it’s giving you both Spell and Weapon Crit. With this change, we are adjusting many sources of Critical Chance so they grant the new stat. This also results in fewer effects you need to track on your character. We’re making several other adjustments to individual stat faucets, such as reducing the amount of Critical Chance you can get from Champion Points and lowering the value of the Thief Mundus and Precise trait. We know this is only a small step in the larger picture of combat regarding Criticals, which we plan to continue in U29. We believe these changes will bring about better experiences, from the moment-to-moment combat to formulating your groups for Trials and PvP.

Lastly, as a little bonus not mentioned in the beginning of this post, let’s talk about Battleground queues. Over the past several updates, we’ve been running a test where the only available queue is the Solo queue. While we have seen Battleground participation fluctuate from update to update, we’ve not seen a considerable change in overall population.

We also have heard you loud and clear that playing with your friends in a Battleground is sorely missed, and we are going to test re-introducing the Group queue with Update 28. This means there will still be a Solo option, where you only fight players who queued as solo, and we will also be adding in a Group queue option! However, the Group option has a twist: you don’t have to be in a group to queue for it. You can be solo, duo, trio or have a full group of 4 and join the Group queue. When you do, be aware that you will be at the mercy of other players joining as pre-made groups as well. Due to this change in our Battleground queue options, we will be limiting the queue choices to just these two. You will also no longer be able to choose a game type; this is to reduce the risk of further splintering the queue on top of the Group or Solo options. We look forward to seeing you all back in groups in the Battlegrounds, and we will continue to monitor the feedback and participation after this change goes up with U28.

Thank you all for reading this preview and update! We look forward to having everyone playtest these changes and on the PTS and reading your feedback when it launches.

Starlight_Whisper

😢 going to need more space to farm frost staves for support.

Starlight_Whisper

Going to miss the option to just play flag games 😑

NirnStorm

Group queues are back AND solo queues aren't going away?!

Is this legal?

BohnT2

How about looking into the big PvP issues right now?

Proc builds and malacath
HP above 30k on every build
Stamina necromancer and warden

code65536

So... you buff Precise from 7% to 8.6%. Then nerf it down to 7.2%. And now there's going to be another nerf?

Stop throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

emilyhyoyeon

I don't see how those changes to frost staff improve it in the DD role. Making the taunt less confusing doesn't improve its use in the DD role.

These changes, while better than the current, just reinforce the staff as a support staff. Destruction magic/staves are meant for destruction magic. I just don't understand


EDIT3:
well these notes were a lie; you made it a support weapon on purpose with no DD buffs. alright


EDIT 2:
Minor brittle is NOT A BUFF for ice DDs. From the sounds of it, it's essentially a debuff applied by frost staves that everyone benefits from, not a debuff that exclusively frost staff users benefit from. In other words, it's another change that reinforces the ice staff as a support weapon. Am I wrong here?


EDIT:
Honestly, the way ZOS can ACTUALLY make frost have the flexibility they seem to be talking about can easily be done as:

each elemental destro staff ability gets a damage morph and a utility morph
add frost damage passives (just give it the 8% single target like fire)
make a separate magicka blocking passive that applies to any elemental staff

blockade: one morph is small and does damage, second morph is larger and has utility
touch: one morph has the utility, second morph has the DOT
impulse: (wasn't proposed with a utility change in the OP)

This still isn't as previously-established-lore-appropriate as making a mag tanking staff like alteration, illusion, etc., but it is way better.

code65536

While this naturally balances itself in PvP scenarios, that is not the case in PvE situations; this already powerful stat is slowly creeping up in power with each update and global increase in damage.

Why is this necessarily bad? Yea, enemies don't have crit resist. They don't do crit damage to us. So what? Enemies in PvE also have hundreds of millions of health, which we don't see in PvP.

This was also combined with the overall goals to [...] decrease damage done, and increase damage taken.

You had better tread carefully, lest you forget that on the PvE side of things, there's content creep to go along with that power creep. Dungeon bosses with 20M health, trials bosses with 276M health, bosses with light attacks that can 1-shot tanks, etc.

CaffeinatedMayhem

The end result was a focus on two changes: Give Frost Staff users more flexibility to fill the role of a tank, and also give Frost Staff users the opportunity to better fill the roles of support or DPS.

A good example of this is the following upcoming adjustments to Wall of Frost/Flame/Shock:

Lowering the damage done by Wall or Frost compared to Wall of Flame and Shock
Removing Snare from Wall of Frost
Casting Wall of Frost will create a Damage shield on you and up to 5 other nearby group members that absorbs projectiles
Unstable Wall of Frost will apply a weaker version of the Damage Shield when the ability ends

*emphasis mine*

How is this helping frost staff users better with DPS??? Players have recently posted how difficult it is to obtain flame/shock staves from the Medusa set. My magwarden has been running double Medusa ice staves (without tri-focus) for weeks, and while damage is higher with medusa than without, a normal flame/shock set would be an 8% damage increase, minimum.

How is lowering one of the main Destruction Staff skills used in PvE helping frost staff be a DPS weapon?
Also, please make sure someone ups the drop chance for fire/shock staves of Medusa. This is ridiculous.

VaranisArano

A while back, I made the joke that whichever dev was responsible for Frost Staff must have slipped on an icy parking lot before they worked on its abilities.

I'm delighted to see that Frost Staff is finally getting improvements!

code65536

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

Also, please make sure someone ups the drop chance for fire/shock staves of Medusa. This is ridiculous.

Don't worry, after they're done gutting crit, you'll never want to use that set again.

SidraWillowsky

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

I don't see how those changes to frost staff improve it in the DD role. Making the taunt less confusing doesn't improve its use in the DD role.

These changes, while better than the current, just reinforce the staff as a support staff. Destruction magic/staves are meant for destruction magic. I just don't understand

Yeah, they talk about resolving pain points.

And they did do that... by introducing NEW pain points.

What_In_Tarnation

What about malacath? Asking for a friend.

nqvarihs

we are going to test re-introducing the Group queue with Update 28 (...) You will also no longer be able to choose a game type

1 step forward, 2 steps back. you guys are actually incapable of making common sense changes?

Sanguinor2

Since crit is apparently balancing itself in PvP will we get a malacath proc meta in PvE too where no one runs any crit at all? Asking for a friend

casparian

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

we’re shifting the buffs/debuffs system so they are calculated on the server much in the same way as Sprint and Block...they will be more performant

Because we all remember how much more performant Sprint and Block became after you changed the way they were calculated.

Given how terrible the Sprint/Block changes were for performance, what reason do we have to expect that U28 won't make performance even worse than it is now?

VaranisArano

I will also be very interested to see how the Battlegrounds queue works out. I've been suggesting a split group/solo-only queue for a while, so I'm glad to see it get tested as an option for everyone to play as they want.

AntonShan

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

You will also no longer be able to choose a game type

I see another middle finger to all achievement hunters

Moloch1514

code65536 wrote: »

So... you buff Precise from 7% to 8.6%. Then nerf it down to 7.2%. And now there's going to be another nerf?

Stop throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

This sums this team up perfectly. 🤪

Batmanna

More server calculations ?
Oh boy that smells sooo bad.
BG changes are... curious. Taking away the choice is bizarre but not more than the fact that gap closers are still bugged there.

DropDeadGorgeous

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

This, in turn, led us down the path to give the Frost Staff greater viability for doing things other than tanking.
...also give Frost Staff users the opportunity to better fill the roles of support or DPS.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

A good example of this is the following upcoming adjustments to Wall of Frost/Flame/Shock:

• Lowering the damage done by Wall or Frost compared to Wall of Flame and Shock

^^ This makes no sense.

squinceybones

crit go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrip

Decimus

Allowing solo players to queue for group BGs is a mistake.

If you allow queueing for both solo & group BGs at the same time, what'll wind up happening is that the solo players queue for both to lower the queue times, and games that could've been somewhat competitive otherwise turn into "farm the solo players" competition in case of premade vs premade vs randoms, or a complete stomp in case of premade vs randoms vs randoms - we saw that happen all the time when solo players could queue against a premade group.


In the end I believe this'll just drive away premade groups once again.

VaranisArano

I understand the risk of splintering the BGs queue, but taking away the choice of game types is not going to help its popularity.

It means that players who just want to Deathmatch get mixed into other game types, which frustrates everyone involved.

It means that players who build for certain objective types will struggle in randomized matches they could formerly avoid, thus diminishing build diversity.

It means that achievement hunters and style page hunters get screwed, having to wait up potentially so much longer for their needed game type to show up.

HeroOfNone

Looking forward to the return of group queues while keeping solo queue option. Now I'm just hoping they add in a proper ranking system so PVPers have more incentive to win other than medals.

Interested to see how the changes to major/minor buffs will impact things. I hope it will impact malabeth and a warden builds to be lets tanky/heal heavy in PVP, if we're talking about impacting Vitality and Protection specifically.

With the change to Critical, maybe we can see a stat added in for healing in the future, rather than deriving everything from damage and resources. I'd much rather see healers have to build and balance their stats for a bit more build variety.

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

I don't see how those changes to frost staff improve it in the DD role. Making the taunt less confusing doesn't improve its use in the DD role.

These changes, while better than the current, just reinforce the staff as a support staff. Destruction magic/staves are meant for destruction magic. I just don't understand

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

How is lowering one of the main Destruction Staff skills used in PvE helping frost staff be a DPS weapon?
Also, please make sure someone ups the drop chance for fire/shock staves of Medusa. This is ridiculous.

Because Frost Staff is typically only used for tanking and not DPS due to Trifocus. One heavy attack and a DPS pulls the boss around and wipes out the group. With this, Wardens can now weave in attacks without fear of taunting the boss unless they have Frost Clench slotted. If you have a flame/lightning staff back bar to drop down wall of elements you can front bar your ice staff to weave in force pulse without any issue now.

It also gives some utility to add a damage shield to the group for AOE projectile fights, but I believe that's part of the utility change, not a DPS improvement. Especially with how useless snares are with most boss fights.

CleymenZero

code65536 wrote: »

While this naturally balances itself in PvP scenarios, that is not the case in PvE situations; this already powerful stat is slowly creeping up in power with each update and global increase in damage.

Why is this necessarily bad? Yea, enemies don't have crit resist. They don't do crit damage to us. So what? Enemies in PvE also have hundreds of millions of health, which we don't see in PvP.

This was also combined with the overall goals to [...] decrease damage done, and increase damage taken.

You had better tread carefully, lest you forget that on the PvE side of things, there's content creep to go along with that power creep. Dungeon bosses with 20M health, trials bosses with 276M health, bosses with light attacks that can 1-shot tanks, etc.

STOP. MAKING. SO MUCH. SENSE!!!!!!!!!

Especially the last part. Try to get Dawnbringer with top dps on trial dummy being 70k. Glhf.

CleymenZero

code65536 wrote: »

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

Also, please make sure someone ups the drop chance for fire/shock staves of Medusa. This is ridiculous.

Don't worry, after they're done gutting crit, you'll never want to use that set again.

Wish I could click both "Agree" and "Awesome".

Also, they react to feedback made a year ago now. The battleground queues have been a request for a long time and samr for frost staves, thing is it doesn't even seem like frost staff changes are gonna help dps at all so not only do they react wayyyy too late, it's not even a proper reaction...

Czekoludek

So basically you introduce another nerfs to group that contains ppl who spend a lot of time working on strategies and group optimalization.
+ crit changes will be just another nerf that will push ppl away from endgame content.

I hope I'm wrong but based on previous experience it looks like next patch will contain nerfs and performance problems

CaffeinatedMayhem

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Because Frost Staff is typically only used for tanking and not DPS due to Trifocus. One heavy attack and a DPS pulls the boss around and wipes out the group. With this, Wardens can now weave in attacks without fear of taunting the boss unless they have Frost Clench slotted. If you have a flame/lightning staff back bar to drop down wall of elements you can front bar your ice staff to weave in force pulse without any issue now.

It also gives some utility to add a damage shield to the group for AOE projectile fights, but I believe that's part of the utility change, not a DPS improvement. Especially with how useless snares are with most boss fights.

Did you know you can just... NOT put points into tri-focus to avoid the taunt issue with Ice staves? That being said, ice staves already lack a damage bonus like Flame and Shock, so already DPS lost even without points in tri-focus. Also, Warden's don't use frost staves in Meta because even with the frost passive bonus, overall damage is higher with either flame or shock, and double flame is currently highest, by a small amount.

The shield is meh as far as DPS is concerned. Your response only showed you haven't actually run frost staves on a warden in PvE.

HEIIMS

Players with builds that aren’t 100% optimized will see an increase in power, while players utilizing all Majors/Minors at once in coordinated efforts will see a decrease in power.

Aka punish players who come prepared and reward those who just have random sets on? Can we get some clarification on this part because right now it doesn't make a lot of sense

emilyhyoyeon

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Looking forward to the return of group queues while keeping solo queue option. Now I'm just hoping they add in a proper ranking system so PVPers have more incentive to win other than medals.

Interested to see how the changes to major/minor buffs will impact things. I hope it will impact malabeth and a warden builds to be lets tanky/heal heavy in PVP, if we're talking about impacting Vitality and Protection specifically.

With the change to Critical, maybe we can see a stat added in for healing in the future, rather than deriving everything from damage and resources. I'd much rather see healers have to build and balance their stats for a bit more build variety.

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

I don't see how those changes to frost staff improve it in the DD role. Making the taunt less confusing doesn't improve its use in the DD role.

These changes, while better than the current, just reinforce the staff as a support staff. Destruction magic/staves are meant for destruction magic. I just don't understand

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

How is lowering one of the main Destruction Staff skills used in PvE helping frost staff be a DPS weapon?
Also, please make sure someone ups the drop chance for fire/shock staves of Medusa. This is ridiculous.

Because Frost Staff is typically only used for tanking and not DPS due to Trifocus. One heavy attack and a DPS pulls the boss around and wipes out the group. With this, Wardens can now weave in attacks without fear of taunting the boss unless they have Frost Clench slotted. If you have a flame/lightning staff back bar to drop down wall of elements you can front bar your ice staff to weave in force pulse without any issue now.

It also gives some utility to add a damage shield to the group for AOE projectile fights, but I believe that's part of the utility change, not a DPS improvement. Especially with how useless snares are with most boss fights.

I'm aware of the taunting thing, I addressed it in my comment. I think everyone else is aware too. When we say ''how does this improve the staff for frost DDs,'' it isn't a genuine ''we genuinely don't understand how making the taunt issue less complicated helps DDs.'' I think we all do.

I don't consider this actual improvement for frost DDs. Heavy attacks offer so little in terms of dps that making this the ONLY change to frost staves that's intended to improve frost DDs (and it's coupled with a DECREASE IN FROST BLOCKADE'S DAMAGE) is so laughable that it feels mocking.