Ring of Malacath issues.

Wing

i would once again like a dev or ZOS employee comment on the state of this item and what is or is not intended.

(yes this is primarily pvp related, the issues i want to know about and see fixed do not effect pve, and if they do then why are you built that way for pve content?)


alot of various, set, build, and meta complaints tend to share in common that they can benefit from malacath.
proc sets, including things like crimson, zaan, vateshran dstaff, etc. are all effected by malacath.
heavy attack lightning staff builds also benefit from malacath.


while some numbers on these sets or builds may need to be looked at, it would be a shame to nerf everything else to the point that it depends on a singular mythic item to be worth using, and instead simply not benefit from the mythic item and be okay on their own but not overbearing.


so i ask what i usually ask for, and explanation from ZOS:

-why does malacath work on the stated sets and effects?
-is it intended?
-if so why, is it a code issue that you simply cannot fix or differentiate damage sources? (would not surprise me)
-is it to sell expansion copies? (please be honest)
-if not then why leave it in such an overbearing state?
-do you or do you not know how this is effecting pvp? (this is a trick option, any direct yes or no makes you look bad)

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

master_vanargand

If it had any disadvantages, it might have been balanced.
Or reduce the effect and disable the critical heal.

Urzigurumash

Assuming the buffed baseline stats don't moderate the Malacath meta: How do we feel about buffing baseline Crit Damage, maybe by 10%? Would Crit Rush, Mech Acuity, etc., be too OP? Would this make the Shadow sign and Khajiit less relevant for PvP, or more? Could PvE Bosses get some Impen if this would be an issue for PvE? There are probably reasons why this is a bad idea, but somebody clue me in to some of them.

Generally I'm for buffing underpowered things rather than nerfing overpowered things.

ApoAlaia

May I point out that this might have had a lesser effect on PvE currently but with the changes made to criticals in the next patch having 25% more damage overall at the expense of critical damage may not necessarily be out of the question.

At least not universally out of the question.

More testing is needed before categorically saying 'PvE people stay out of this, nothing to see here, move along please.'

olsborg

They should reduce the impen you get as base by a bit, they should also make it so malacath will not boost things that initially cant crit, like proccsets.

Firstmep

I want to make a point here, that Malacath isn't just strong Beacuse of procsets.
When Greymoor rolled out, procsets weren't as prevalent as they're now, and yet malacath gained popularity insanely fast, even for Stat builds.
I made a thread just recently on crit in pvp, and it sums up my thoughts on why nerfing crit had an adverse effect on pvp.
Long story short, the extra stats you gain by able to ignore crit and still put out as much dmg as someone Constantly landing critical strikes, allows you to put all that towards defense.
This upcoming cyro test is going to be a great testing ground for this, it's likely that more and more ppl will pick up malacath as a way to boost their damage, since most of the usable 5pc sets are fairly lackluster in today's meta.
Malacath needs to be reworked or its values toned down massively.
I'd prefer a rework, to be fair, something that doesn't make it such a massive power increase with no real downside.
Once that's done, we can finally take a look at things like procsets and such to see where we stand.

Wing

master_vanargand wrote: »

If it had any disadvantages, it might have been balanced.
Or reduce the effect and disable the critical heel.

not criting is the disadvantage.

its supposed to a semi viable alternative to building traditional damage stats and if it were not for the fact that it was buffing a bunch of unintended (or not, waiting for confirmation) cheese it would probably be fine.

the damage you can achieve through crit chance and damage still far exceeds what malacath provides. its just that as stated, most problems even in no CP were it is most potent atm (no crit stats from CP) its still mostly only used on proc set builds.

procs should be decently viable

malacath should be decently viable

but they should not work together to create the overbearing mess that they currently are.

malacath not effecting proc sets would go along way in and of itself to solving alot of problems that are only problems because of that interaction.

honey_badger82

I dont pvp unless I have to for a ticket event (thanks ZoS for forcing players to do content they hate if they want items from an event) so the PvP malcath issue is a non one for me. Only reason I say anything here is because due to the massive crit chance nerf this update malcath is actually good for anyone who is under 45% crit chance even for PvE content. If your crit chance is lower than that malcath will outperform which is why one of my PvE characters is using it now.
Now... it has been stated many times on the forums that you are not actually getting a 25% increase in your total damage (proc sets excluded) as it scales rather early instead of late. This means you are actually getting only about a 12-15% buff to your damage/ heal skills and light+ heavy attacks.

The changes to this item I think they should make are:
1. It does NOT buff proc sets period.
2. It is the last multiplier to scale with your base stat damage, the highest multiplier should ALWAYS be last to scale.

I am not sure the attainable crit resistance but I know I have characters with 80% crit damage increase so even if that was cut in half it's still 40% and with a crit chance above 50% (still attainable even with nerfs) crit damage will be able to outperform malcath as long as they exclude it from buffing proc sets since those cannot critically strike.

kojou

If they get rid of proc sets in PvP altogether then that would also solve the issue.

honey_badger82

kojou wrote: »

If they get rid of proc sets in PvP altogether then that would also solve the issue.

My view on this is PvP sets for PvP and PvE sets for PvE. It's an easy thing to implement, set bonuses will only be active in the appropriate environment.
Problem solved, problem staying solved.

Sanctum74

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Assuming the buffed baseline stats don't moderate the Malacath meta: How do we feel about buffing baseline Crit Damage, maybe by 10%? Would Crit Rush, Mech Acuity, etc., be too OP? Would this make the Shadow sign and Khajiit less relevant for PvP, or more? Could PvE Bosses get some Impen if this would be an issue for PvE? There are probably reasons why this is a bad idea, but somebody clue me in to some of them.

Generally I'm for buffing underpowered things rather than nerfing overpowered things.

Sounds great, but unfortunately they are nerfing crit again so it just pushes more people to use malacath since there are no drawbacks.

Urzigurumash

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Sounds great, but unfortunately they are nerfing crit again so it just pushes more people to use malacath since there are no drawbacks.

I don't have PTS, did they nerf Precise Strikes / Elfborn? Otherwise didn't they just nerf Crit Chance? There are a few new sources of Crit Damage - Khajiit got a small buff to Crit Damage, and there's the new Ax, and that Spell Crit version of Titanborn.

It seems like with nerfed Crit Chance a buff to Crit Damage would be appropriate, and like I said, give PvE Bosses some Impen. This would help to accentuate the trade-offs for Malacath without nerfing anything, but might engender a Mech Acuity meta.

Wing

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Sounds great, but unfortunately they are nerfing crit again so it just pushes more people to use malacath since there are no drawbacks.

I don't have PTS, did they nerf Precise Strikes / Elfborn? Otherwise didn't they just nerf Crit Chance? There are a few new sources of Crit Damage - Khajiit got a small buff to Crit Damage, and there's the new Ax, and that Spell Crit version of Titanborn.

It seems like with nerfed Crit Chance a buff to Crit Damage would be appropriate, and like I said, give PvE Bosses some Impen. This would help to accentuate the trade-offs for Malacath without nerfing anything, but might engender a Mech Acuity meta.

i have actually noticed a few top end players running acuity recently. the inclusion of mythics have really pushed the need to have a back bar set with an effect with a cooldown like alchemist or acuity to take full use of a 5-5-2-1 build.

acuity fits nicely with the kite and ult dump playstyle those groups tend to play as, and just like with malacath, narrows the damage stats your looking for.

OlumoGarbag

When wearing malacath you should have a 100% uptime of minor brittle on you. This wouldnt effect PVE but would reward building for crit.

codierussell

The funny thing is that nerfing malacath will just push the meta to something else. At least with malacath you can kill tanky builds to a point. Somehow something needs to be reworked to the point where it is still useful but isn't the only choice. Realistically you can tone down most complaints on proc sets by reworking purge. Some classes still don't have a viable option to purge procs like hunters venom that do an outrageous amount of damage. If every class could purge dots like templars I think a lot of proc sets go away. Oh, and add some way to play against the vateshaan destruction staff. Currently it can't be purged, line of sighted and it is extremely hard to get out of range.

Ylikollikas

It is to sell expansion copies and no, they are not going to be honest about it. Expect to see Mala nerf once the next chapter drops and Greymoor is moved to ESO+ DLC list.

Urzigurumash

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

When wearing malacath you should have a 100% uptime of minor brittle on you. This wouldnt effect PVE but would reward building for crit.

That's a pretty clever solution, and maybe a better way to alter the meta than buffing Crit Damage for everyone, which might just put everyone back into 7 Impen.

Urzigurumash

codierussell wrote: »

The funny thing is that nerfing malacath will just push the meta to something else. At least with malacath you can kill tanky builds to a point. Somehow something needs to be reworked to the point where it is still useful but isn't the only choice. Realistically you can tone down most complaints on proc sets by reworking purge. Some classes still don't have a viable option to purge procs like hunters venom that do an outrageous amount of damage. If every class could purge dots like templars I think a lot of proc sets go away. Oh, and add some way to play against the vateshaan destruction staff. Currently it can't be purged, line of sighted and it is extremely hard to get out of range.

I haven't tested it outside of combat, but it seems you can Line of Sight the Vat Destro, just not very easily. There might be a little delay before the beam actually breaks. Anyhow, something I haven't seen much discussion about is why are Hunter's Venom and Caluurion's so popular right now if it's Malacath driving the meta? Maybe because crit-based builds have started using them as a way to maintain their DPS but increase their tankiness against Malacath builds? So again buffing Crit Damage, or making Brittle more common, might shake people off of Hunter's Venom and Caluurion's. Not that I have a particular issue with these 2 procs.

milllaurie

Wing wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

If it had any disadvantages, it might have been balanced.
Or reduce the effect and disable the critical heel.

not criting is the disadvantage.

the damage you can achieve through crit chance and damage still far exceeds what malacath provides.

This is simply not true. Copy-pasta from another thread mentioned above.

milllaurie wrote: »

Okay, let's say an average person in cp pvp is running 3000 crit resist (being generous here, I tend to run 2800 ish now since malacath switched the meta). That is roughly equal to reducing attackers modifier BY 45% subtractively.
Let's say an average pvp player has some CP into crit dmg (at least for healing if wearing malacath), some of them are also running race against time which grants the minor crit damage buff. We also have people running neither of those things and we also have Khajiit nightblades with 100%+ crit modifier. Let's take an average of 70% crit modifier in pvp.
So an average player would crit another average player for roughly 25% critical damage.
25%. I have seen this number somewhere, have you?
The problem is, the crit is a chance to do so. And if the critical chance drops to only 20% (1/5 chance), that roughly means crit users are dealing an extra 5% damage, while malacath users are dealing an extra 25%
Tbh, on live I feel that only my Khajiit nb (brawl type, 100% crit modifier) can compete with malacath damage while not running it.

Let's wrap this by: I do not think malacath band of brutality is a healthy addition to the game. It should at the very least be changed to 15% and had some further drawbacks to the healing (like minor defile at all times).

Massacre_Wurm

milllaurie wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

If it had any disadvantages, it might have been balanced.
Or reduce the effect and disable the critical heel.

not criting is the disadvantage.

the damage you can achieve through crit chance and damage still far exceeds what malacath provides.

This is simply not true. Copy-pasta from another thread mentioned above.

milllaurie wrote: »

Okay, let's say an average person in cp pvp is running 3000 crit resist (being generous here, I tend to run 2800 ish now since malacath switched the meta). That is roughly equal to reducing attackers modifier BY 45% subtractively.
Let's say an average pvp player has some CP into crit dmg (at least for healing if wearing malacath), some of them are also running race against time which grants the minor crit damage buff. We also have people running neither of those things and we also have Khajiit nightblades with 100%+ crit modifier. Let's take an average of 70% crit modifier in pvp.
So an average player would crit another average player for roughly 25% critical damage.
25%. I have seen this number somewhere, have you?
The problem is, the crit is a chance to do so. And if the critical chance drops to only 20% (1/5 chance), that roughly means crit users are dealing an extra 5% damage, while malacath users are dealing an extra 25%
Tbh, on live I feel that only my Khajiit nb (brawl type, 100% crit modifier) can compete with malacath damage while not running it.

Let's wrap this by: I do not think malacath band of brutality is a healthy addition to the game. It should at the very least be changed to 15% and had some further drawbacks to the healing (like minor defile at all times).

Not a fair comparison. "Everyone running crit resist so crit is bad". Well duh.
Now imagine all people running extra 10% of damage mitigation or something and suddenly ring of malacath is bad. Shocking.

Ascarl

The main problem is while Malacath is already overpowered, ZOS is nerfing crit chance and making Malacath even relatively stronger.

Firstmep

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Sounds great, but unfortunately they are nerfing crit again so it just pushes more people to use malacath since there are no drawbacks.

I don't have PTS, did they nerf Precise Strikes / Elfborn? Otherwise didn't they just nerf Crit Chance? There are a few new sources of Crit Damage - Khajiit got a small buff to Crit Damage, and there's the new Ax, and that Spell Crit version of Titanborn.

It seems like with nerfed Crit Chance a buff to Crit Damage would be appropriate, and like I said, give PvE Bosses some Impen. This would help to accentuate the trade-offs for Malacath without nerfing anything, but might engender a Mech Acuity meta.

They nerfed crit chance on a few 5pc bonuses, all small bonuses, armor bonuses, and yes cp too.
Crit damage is going up across the board AFAIK, but unless you play a nightblade, you can't really take good advantage of it, due to having to build too much crit chance.
Someone suggested adding a baseline crit chance into battlespirit, I think that would be a great start, it doesn't affect shadowy disguise(so no extra dmg for gankers for example), but would help making non malacath builds stronger.
I still don't understand how the devs can keep nerfing crit chance in pvp, while malacath has been untouched since its release.
They absolutely gutted thrassian, but won't touch this item which causes far bigger issues in pvp than thrassian ever did.

milllaurie

Massacre_Wurm wrote: »

milllaurie wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

If it had any disadvantages, it might have been balanced.
Or reduce the effect and disable the critical heel.

not criting is the disadvantage.

the damage you can achieve through crit chance and damage still far exceeds what malacath provides.

This is simply not true. Copy-pasta from another thread mentioned above.

milllaurie wrote: »

Okay, let's say an average person in cp pvp is running 3000 crit resist (being generous here, I tend to run 2800 ish now since malacath switched the meta). That is roughly equal to reducing attackers modifier BY 45% subtractively.
Let's say an average pvp player has some CP into crit dmg (at least for healing if wearing malacath), some of them are also running race against time which grants the minor crit damage buff. We also have people running neither of those things and we also have Khajiit nightblades with 100%+ crit modifier. Let's take an average of 70% crit modifier in pvp.
So an average player would crit another average player for roughly 25% critical damage.
25%. I have seen this number somewhere, have you?
The problem is, the crit is a chance to do so. And if the critical chance drops to only 20% (1/5 chance), that roughly means crit users are dealing an extra 5% damage, while malacath users are dealing an extra 25%
Tbh, on live I feel that only my Khajiit nb (brawl type, 100% crit modifier) can compete with malacath damage while not running it.

Let's wrap this by: I do not think malacath band of brutality is a healthy addition to the game. It should at the very least be changed to 15% and had some further drawbacks to the healing (like minor defile at all times).

Not a fair comparison. "Everyone running crit resist so crit is bad". Well duh.
Now imagine all people running extra 10% of damage mitigation or something and suddenly ring of malacath is bad. Shocking.

The problem is extra 10% mitigation affects all damage including critical while crit resist does so only on critical damage.
My point was critical resistance is an outdated system now that we have malacath. They should either tune malacath down to critical damage in pvp or tune down critical resistances so it would be worth running crit builds again. Seriously try duelling mala build vs same non mala. You will see the problem.

Urzigurumash

milllaurie wrote: »

Seriously try duelling mala build vs same non mala. You will see the problem.

If that were universally true, then players using Hunter's Venom or Caluurion's should ditch those sets in favor of procs which can be used with Malacath?

Dr_Ganknstein

It's flawed because it basically allows players to build for high sustain and defense and still have good damage. I'm speaking from a pvp perspective. Those builds usually have low crit chance anyway so it's a win win.

Firstmep

Urzigurumash wrote: »

milllaurie wrote: »

Seriously try duelling mala build vs same non mala. You will see the problem.

If that were universally true, then players using Hunter's Venom or Caluurion's should ditch those sets in favor of procs which can be used with Malacath?

Venomous smite is mostly used by nightblades that don't use malacath anyway and can use the crit bonuses.
Calurion does so much dmg that giving up malacath isn't really an issue.
But if you could use mala with those, you can bet ppl would.
There was a massive outrage a few patches back when calurion could be used with malacath on the pts, and it was changed back Beacuse of it.

Sahidom

I was thinking about Malacath Band and the coming changes. Particularly, when the bonus from Malacath is applied in calculating damage.

For instan

ApoAlaia wrote: »

May I point out that this might have had a lesser effect on PvE currently but with the changes made to criticals in the next patch having 25% more damage overall at the expense of critical damage may not necessarily be out of the question.

At least not universally out of the question.

More testing is needed before categorically saying 'PvE people stay out of this, nothing to see here, move along please.'

With the new 2.0 CP system coming out the biggest problem that I'm finding about critical damage builds is this,

To reach ~50% critical chance requires at least Mothers Sorrow and Imperial Wrath equivalent critical chance set bonuses. Then you must invest in at least 110 CP to gain +25% critical damage bonus. For a minimum of 8 item slots and 110 CP points under the new 2.0 system is the maximum requirement to achieve ~50% critical chance with +25% critical damage bonus. Of course, this requirement does shift when using skills that offer mProphecy or mSavagery. The base +50% critical damage was not included because that's not the point here, when a single slotted item performs better than a full 5pc+ sets and 110 CP.

The problematic concern about Malacath Ring outside what it does or does not increase damage on by +25%; Its the pale comparison that one item has a higher cost-to-benefit return for a single equipped slot item versus a critical build player that must equip a minimum of 5 armor pieces and spending at least 110 CP to get the same damage bonus effect on a ~50% proc chance for that extra damage. There are no real cons to the Malacath Ring except the illusion you're losing out on using minimum 5 armor pieces or the 110 CP overhead versus "free" 25% on non-critical base damage, and add a cool easy 90 CP to add an additional 10% damage to it.

Thessaian Strangler was gimped for being to powerful. Maybe they should bring this item back to its glory and remove some of the penalties for using the item, or whatever. At least then critical change builds improve their base damage and ~50% proc extra damage on critical strike so the cost-to-benefits is similar to the exceptional benefits of the Malacath Band.

Urzigurumash

Firstmep wrote: »

Venomous smite is mostly used by nightblades that don't use malacath anyway and can use the crit bonuses.
Calurion does so much dmg that giving up malacath isn't really an issue.
But if you could use mala with those, you can bet ppl would.
There was a massive outrage a few patches back when calurion could be used with malacath on the pts, and it was changed back Beacuse of it.

Sure, but in other words, if it's Malacath's interaction with procs which is driving the proc meta then why are people using proc sets on crit builds at a greater frequency than they did before the proc meta? Why is Caluurion's a more popular choice now than before Malacath? I assume it's because its non-scaled damage allows for more health / defense to compete with high health and high damage Malacath builds, or was it simply that the below changes made this set stronger than whatever else was being worn before, and that Malacath has no impact on its recent popularity?

From Update 27: Caluurion's:

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 14200, up from 12900.
This set no longer excludes non Magicka oriented attacks to proc its condition.