Bloodspawn vs Baron Zaudrus (Monster Mask) which is better

Starlight_Whisper

Baron Zaudrus (Monster Mask)
1 – Adds 548 Maximum Stamina
1 – Adds 548 Maximum Magicka
1 – Adds 603 Maximum Health
2 – Applying a status effect to an enemy grants you a stack of Zaudrus’s Ambition for 10 seconds, up to 3 stacks max. When you gain 3 stacks, the stacks are removed and you gain 3 Ultimate. On gaining Ultimate, you cannot gain additional stacks of Zaudrus’s Ambition for 2 seconds.

Blood Spawn
1 : Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
2; When you take damage, you have a 6% chance to generate 13 Ultimate and increase your Physical Resistance and Spell Resistance by 3731 for 5 seconds. This effect can occur once every 5 seconds

actosh

The one that pushes fire dmg taken is better.

satanio

Better than nothing, but both are weak. On Zaudrus, 7 ulti would be optimal, 5 would be reasonable, but 3 is too little.
I dont know how is the Bloodspawn since the nerf->buff time period. Seems weak, 6% on a 5s cooldown.

Both of them are slot&forget, but they also fit different playstyles. To me, Bloodspawn fits more of a passive defensive style, and Zaudrus more active with the need to use the offensive abilities to apply status effects. Zaudrus is working great with Charged trait but offers too little.

kojou

Baron Zaudrus is obviously better. Nothing to see here. Please don't nerf Bloodspawn to make the newer set more appealing.

Septimus_Magna

I dont have an opinion about Blood Spawn but I personally wouldnt use Baron Zaudrus, having to apply 3 status effects within 10s for only 3 ult doesnt seem very useful in PVP.

Ratzkifal

All this thread achieves is getting Bloodspawn nerfed. We've seen it before when people pointed out how much worse Mother Ciannait is than Iceheart.

kojou

Ratzkifal wrote: »

All this thread achieves is getting Bloodspawn nerfed. We've seen it before when people pointed out how much worse Mother Ciannait is than Iceheart.

Some players never learn...

Realistically though, I think this (Baron Zaudrus) would be a more useful if it had a DPS 1 piece bonus and an increase to the chance to apply status effects. Then I could see it being more useful for Dragon Knight DDs.

I don't feel like my tank applies status effects often enough for this set to be useful to a tank.

SgtNuttzmeg

Bloodspawn is the best of the two but depending on what you are trying to build there are better monster sets that offer you more. Is this in general or with respect to a specific role or build?

Elo106

kojou wrote: »

Baron Zaudrus is obviously better. Nothing to see here. Please don't nerf Bloodspawn to make the newer set more appealing.

This^
If anything buff the new set but dont nerf Bloodspawn again please

tsaescishoeshiner

Why compare two sets that are completely different? Zaudrus won't do anything if you're using Charged weapons, and isn't a defensive set. It should be buffed to be 4 or 5 ultimate IMO, as 3 ult every 3+ seconds is not that impressive. The best case scenario should at least be worthwhile

Evil_Rurouni

Does taunt count as a status effect for Zaudrus?

If so, between taunt, ice or frost staff's relevant effect, crusher enchant on the staff, and possibly a weakening enchant on the 1H weapon, Zaudrus sounds like it'll give a PvE tank 3 ultimate every 5 seconds pretty consistantly.
Thats not even including other status effects from sets such as alkosh.

Not amazing, but not bad.

Not sure how to math out the bloodspawn ult gain, but since its 6% chance of every single tiny tick of damage the tank takes, its better than it sounds.

Downside, no resistance buff.
Upside, the 1 piece bonus defecates all over the stam regen alternative.

kojou

Evil_Rurouni wrote: »

Does taunt count as a status effect for Zaudrus?

If so, between taunt, ice or frost staff's relevant effect, crusher enchant on the staff, and possibly a weakening enchant on the 1H weapon, Zaudrus sounds like it'll give a PvE tank 3 ultimate every 5 seconds pretty consistantly.
Thats not even including other status effects from sets such as alkosh.

Not amazing, but not bad.

Not sure how to math out the bloodspawn ult gain, but since its 6% chance of every single tiny tick of damage the tank takes, its better than it sounds.

Downside, no resistance buff.
Upside, the 1 piece bonus defecates all over the stam regen alternative.

Status Effects refer to things like, burning, chilled, etc.

Moonsorrow

I like turtles.

Starlight_Whisper

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

I dont have an opinion about Blood Spawn but I personally wouldnt use Baron Zaudrus, having to apply 3 status effects within 10s for only 3 ult doesnt seem very useful in PVP.

Doesn't seem useful like anywhere

Skoomah

You guys do realize you can proc baron on multiple targets at the same time. That’s a flood of ultimate offensively that bloodspawn can’t keep up with in terms of rate of ult gen.

It’s going to be OP AF.

robpr

Skoomah wrote: »

You guys do realize you can proc baron on multiple targets at the same time. That’s a flood of ultimate offensively that bloodspawn can’t keep up with in terms of rate of ult gen.

It’s going to be OP AF.

Not really, in best scenario It's 3 ult every 2s, that's equivalent of Minor Heroism. So unless you stack both with minor heroism its hardly OP. You can proc Baron on cd if you use Asylum Destro, it applies 3 statuses at once giving all 3 stacks. Otherwise you need to spam something that guarantee at least one status like Snipe, new Surprise Attack, Ele Weapon or attack multiple targets.

satanio

Skoomah wrote: »

You guys do realize you can proc baron on multiple targets at the same time. That’s a flood of ultimate offensively that bloodspawn can’t keep up with in terms of rate of ult gen.

It’s going to be OP AF.

Chance to proc status:
Weapon enchants 20%
Standard ability 10%
Area of effect abilities 5%
Damage over time abilities 3%
Area of effect damage over time abilities 1%
Light and Heavy Attacks 0%

This is what you are talking about. With Charged and new CP, yes we could assume that this sets generates 3 ulti/2s. But that is a best case scenario = value of Minor Heroism. I'd call it LAME AF.

hakan

satanio wrote: »

Better than nothing, but both are weak. On Zaudrus, 7 ulti would be optimal, 5 would be reasonable, but 3 is too little.
I dont know how is the Bloodspawn since the nerf->buff time period. Seems weak, 6% on a 5s cooldown.

Both of them are slot&forget, but they also fit different playstyles. To me, Bloodspawn fits more of a passive defensive style, and Zaudrus more active with the need to use the offensive abilities to apply status effects. Zaudrus is working great with Charged trait but offers too little.

Bloodspawn was always like that. they nerfed the ult gain by 1 (from 14) and resistance by 3k ish (6450 previously). it was always 6percent on a 5 cooldown(prev 6 sec).

BS is still good.

satanio

Zaudrus 6.3.3, 4 ulti with 1 sec CD. Wow.

AinSoph

Oh boy, will the Iceheart incident happen again?

XomRhoK

satanio wrote: »

Zaudrus 6.3.3, 4 ulti with 1 sec CD. Wow.

I am really shocked by such changes. They create and adjust their "power budget" system for sets and skills over two years, have some formulas and weight coefficients and then boom, they buff new set by 167%. It means they have very bad "power budget" system or they just don't give a *** about preparing to PTS.

kojou

XomRhoK wrote: »

satanio wrote: »

Zaudrus 6.3.3, 4 ulti with 1 sec CD. Wow.

I am really shocked by such changes. They create and adjust their "power budget" system for sets and skills over two years, have some formulas and weight coefficients and then boom, they buff new set by 167%. It means they have very bad "power budget" system or they just don't give a *** about preparing to PTS.

At least they didn't destroy Bloodspawn, which was their other option.

I may use this set on my Magicka DK DD now. At 4 ult per second that is an extra Standard of Might every minute.

YandereGirlfriend

XomRhoK wrote: »

satanio wrote: »

Zaudrus 6.3.3, 4 ulti with 1 sec CD. Wow.

I am really shocked by such changes. They create and adjust their "power budget" system for sets and skills over two years, have some formulas and weight coefficients and then boom, they buff new set by 167%. It means they have very bad "power budget" system or they just don't give a *** about preparing to PTS.

Indeed, anyone who read the PTS notes could see that the old version was not even remotely worth using (an entire monster set for, at best, Minor Heroism, hard pass).

The buff is perfectly done and presents an interesting alternative to Bloodspawn (more potential ultimate gain but at the cost of defensive utility and having to build specifically for it) while keeping Bloodspawn itself perfectly viable.

But one does wonder, as you say, how ZOS could have under-shot the power budget by that much on their first pass.

IMO, the concept of the 'power budget' is a bunch of contrived claptrap - complication for the sake of complication. Perhaps it is possible to achieve a sort of Golden Mean between every stat and ability in the game but it is clear that, at the moment at least, that is not the sort of formula that ZOS is working with. In the end, those who actively play the game at a reasonably high level know what constitutes good balance far more than any spreadsheet.

XomRhoK

I see another possible reason for such changes, they intentionally noticeably "misup" with some skills/sets and after "fix" that to please players and to look like they listen. Maybe i am paranoid, but it looks like every PTS some big "misup" happens and fixed after. I don't belive their "power budget" system can misup so much.

UnknownResults

Moonsorrow wrote: »

I like turtles.

I like them too

Evil_Rurouni

The 33% increase in ult gain is nice, but for most character builds I can't see the 50% reduction in cooldown having the practical effect that the big number theoretically implies.

The bottleneck is the procs, not the cooldown.

*If* it really is limited to the 7 status effects applied via damage types as stated a few post prior, then only 3 element builds can proc it consistantly in single target scenarios, such as duels, small scale PvP, and many PvE boss encounters.

Fire Damage -> Burning.
Shock Damage-> Concussed.
Ice Damage -> Chilled.
Disease Damage -> Diseased.
Bleed Damage -> Hemorrhaging
Physical Damage -> Sundered.
Magic Damage -> Overcharged.

Still, it now sounds like a halfway decent set for the handful of builds that actually have 3 damage types on their bars.
Better than it was.

Potentially similar to the elemental catalyst set, which was relegated to being a magcro niche set occasionally used in trials last I heard.

magcro + Elemental Catalyst + master architect + Baron Zaudrus could be fun.
Convert the ultimate gain into extra major slayer and major Vunerability uptime for the group.

Stamcro might get some milage out of it too, due to having access to disease, poison, and physical damage.

codierussell

I haven't seen it on the PTS since the change but the way I read it is

1 stack every time you add a status effect you gain a stack 3 stacks max. After you get 3 stacks you get 4 ultimate, but can't get another stack for 1 second. So even if you get 3 stacks on cooldown, which you won't, you still only get 20 ultimate for 5 seconds compared to the 13 for bloodspawn.

This doesn't mention it is status effects not dots.Status effects are things like chilled, burning, concussion, poisoned and diseased. To get 3 of these active is going to be hard unless you are spamming something that applies these.

I want to be wrong but I think this is a dead set.

kojou

codierussell wrote: »

I haven't seen it on the PTS since the change but the way I read it is

1 stack every time you add a status effect you gain a stack 3 stacks max. After you get 3 stacks you get 4 ultimate, but can't get another stack for 1 second. So even if you get 3 stacks on cooldown, which you won't, you still only get 20 ultimate for 5 seconds compared to the 13 for bloodspawn.

This doesn't mention it is status effects not dots.Status effects are things like chilled, burning, concussion, poisoned and diseased. To get 3 of these active is going to be hard unless you are spamming something that applies these.

I want to be wrong but I think this is a dead set.

It does say explicitly that it is status effects, so I am not sure what the confusion is around that.

It really depends on how consistently your build procs status effects. For example, a Warden has a higher chance to proc Chilled in it's passives coupled with the CP passive, and a Charged weapon trait means a Warden build can get ultimate often.

YandereGirlfriend

This monster set isn't giving you anything for free - you have to actually build around it in order to get the most out of it.

It would be strong in:

• 1xX PvP situations
• On any build using Force Pulse
• On any class that has a roughly equal mix of damage types
• On a magWarden
• And likely more

And people seem to forget that we are getting a CP star that increases Status Effect Chance by 60%.

Skullstachio

satanio wrote: »

Zaudrus 6.3.3, 4 ulti with 1 sec CD. Wow.

5 if you are actively wielding a Decisive weapon that gives you the off-chance of gaining 1 additional ultimate anytime you gain ultimate.

PandaPalace

If they make Baron Zaudrus little better I'd use with ele weapon, guaranteed status effect spam skill.