Malacath's Ring poll - what do you think should happen for it to be balanced?

divnyi

I see Malacath's Ring discussions here and there. Imagine you have the power to change the game, what changes would you bring?

ThePedge

Only boosts damage from abilities, also nerf the percentage increase.

Berenhir

Your option.

Malacath should stay as it is but also affect healing received so that you cannot be critically healed (by anyone including yourself).

Araneae6537

It is balanced. No changes required.

Fine as is but it should not affect proc damage, just like proc damage cannot crit.

Also, not a change to how the ring works, but I’m thinking that crit builds should be more viable in PvP so there is a real trade-off, as there is if you consider using Malacath in PvE. Perhaps we have too much built in crit resistance? You should still be able to mitigate with the slottable CP and impen, etc., as those are trade-offs for other traits you could be using, etc.

MurderMostFoul

It is overtuned. Bonus damage percentage needs to go down by 20-25%.

Honestly 10-15% would be more balanced.

Sneakers

It is overtuned. Bonus damage percentage needs to go down by 20-25%.

It is overperforming when combined with proc sets and high hp/low wep dmg/dmg stats builds.

Probability to critical vs flat dmg increase is hard to balance.

The probability to hit 4x critical hits in a row with 35% chance is 1.500%, thats very low. But if you do crit 4 times in a row you will do a lot more damage then the added 25% from malacath.

Getting paid 1 billion dollars once in ur life with a probability of 0.0000001% or getting 1 million dollar per month? What would u build your life around?

Rhaegar75

Your option.

keep it as it is per se but sort out the damage procs and no link between Mala and them!!!

TheBonesXXX

Code proc sets out. Make it so it doesn't work with heavy armor builds -or- add a negative multiplier directly to heavy armor.

Heavy doesn't need to hit as hard as light and medium.

Araneae6537

It is balanced. No changes required.

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Honestly 10-15% would be more balanced.

But who would give up all attack crit chance and a set bonus for that? They should be competitive options IMHO, with perhaps one or the other being best depending on class, content, etc.

MurderMostFoul

It is overtuned. Bonus damage percentage needs to go down by 20-25%.

Araneae6537 wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Honestly 10-15% would be more balanced.

But who would give up all attack crit chance and a set bonus for that? They should be competitive options IMHO, with perhaps one or the other being best depending on class, content, etc.

Has someone who plays no CP, the math is so heavily in favor of Malacath I run it on pretty much everything except for night blade. Crit chance and crit damage are hard to come by, and players get their base crit resists and still have some impen. Then Malacath is also boosting any proc damage.

I would continue using it at 20% on all of my battlegrounds characters, except for nightblade. Down to 15% is where you might really start feeling trade-offs.

I guess in CP PVP the math is different, but at this point you're only talking about imperial city and duels.

jaws343

Your option.

It needs a negative effect that actually matters. For example, Pale Order requires a user to forgo external sources of healing. That can be a major detriment. Malacath needs to do more than stop you from doing crit damage. That isn't really a penalty, considering Malacath often adds more damage than the crit damage you are removing.

What it should probably do is also make you take 25% (or lower maybe) more critical damage. This would make it still useful to boost damage but it would make the user more vulnerable to crit damage.

If not some negative penalty like that, it should at the least not boost the damage from procs. I personally don't think this would solve the problem. Procs are still strong without Malacath because they don't require stats for scaling. So even if Malacath didn't buff Procs, the Procs would still do decent damage, and players could still stack health and defense while running Malacath to boost skill damage.

relentless_turnip

ThePedge wrote: »

Only boosts damage from abilities, also nerf the percentage increase.

I agree with this! Only boosts damage that can crit and it's percentage to damage done reduced to 15-20%

MurderMostFoul

It is overtuned. Bonus damage percentage needs to go down by 20-25%.

Lol, if they did reduce the damage to about 15%, my nightblade would be getting a pretty solid buff relative to all the Malacath users in BGs.

divnyi

It is interesting item that needs more downsides. For example, you cannot crit and you have 0 critical resistance.

jaws343 wrote: »

What it should probably do is also make you take 25% (or lower maybe) more critical damage. This would make it still useful to boost damage but it would make the user more vulnerable to crit damage.

It's the same as having 0 crit resistance, because all characters have like 20% crit resistance base.

I don't think it will stop being strong in this case, since bruiser characters that run it generally don't afraid of burst, but it all depends on how much the crit vulnerability they get. Would be hilarious if NBs and magsorcs will be the counter to mala meta.

WrathOfInnos

Your option.

If proc sets could crit then malacath would have a real tradeoff. Obviously proc damage would need to be toned down by around 30% so they didn’t become overpowered with crits.

baselesschart

Your option.

Overall damage of malacath needs to be lowered and only affect abilities and not sets. By extension, proc sets need to scale directly off of your weapon damage and give them the ability to crit again. Burst in the past has always been about crits and thats how it should be.

olsborg

Your option.

Berenhir wrote: »

Malacath should stay as it is but also affect healing received so that you cannot be critically healed (by anyone including yourself).

This, also it should not boost proccs since they cant crit in the first place.

master_vanargand

Your option.

Proc damage sets need to be nerfed.

redspecter23

Your option.

I'd change proc sets to scale based off your offensive stats and I might even consider allowing them to crit again (and lower the base damage) so they are basically just an extension of your skills and abilities at that point. If they operate like all other skills, then you can balance Malacath around that. You have a more serious downside as your proc sets would be basically useless with Malacath on unless you spec into mag or stam damage appropriately. Yes there would be some potential burst issues with this setup, but the cost on those builds that burst that hard should be a traditional glass cannon defense.

Ideally, speccing more heavily into damage should come at a cost to survability, which you don't currently have with the proc/Malacath combination at the moment. If I want to hit hard, I should be hit hard back. If I want to be ultra tanky, I should swing like a wet noodle. If I want a bit of both, that should also be viable but not min/max damage or survival.

oscarovegren

Your option.

The issue isnt malacath. The issue is procstacking. A global cooldown on heal/dmg procsets would solve all issues. You would only be able to use 1 procset with malacath that way, which is manageable even with malacath with the statbuffs (increased healing).

A statbuild using malacath isnt an issue at all so the ring itself is balanced. However crit chance is so hard to come by in PvP so it forces a lot of classes into malacath, even when going for statbuilds.

KhajiitLivesMatter

Your option.

would nerf it to 20%
and would disable crit healing BUT would apply the 20% to healing to

divnyi

It is interesting item that needs more downsides. For example, you cannot crit and you have 0 critical resistance.

KhajiitLivesMatter wrote: »

would nerf it to 20%
and would disable crit healing BUT would apply the 20% to healing to

That would make bruisers even more broken.

katorga

Your option.

Several options:

Stop nerfing crit rate. This makes malacath more valuable and allows you to ignore entire stat categories

Nerf critical resistance making the ability to crit, even at the current lower rates, way more valuable.

or

Directly nerf Malacath to 10% damage, logically it should not be higher than major berserk.

Fawn4287

It is interesting item that needs more downsides. For example, you cannot crit and you have 0 critical resistance.

katorga wrote: »

Several options:

Stop nerfing crit rate. This makes malacath more valuable and allows you to ignore entire stat categories

Nerf critical resistance making the ability to crit, even at the current lower rates, way more valuable.

or

Directly nerf Malacath to 10% damage, logically it should not be higher than major berserk.

Have you played or fought a nightblade? 15k relentless after a 12k incap with 9k surprise attacks is pretty stock standard against someone not in impreg, crit damage especially on a stamblade is absurdly strong this patch. Malacath which I think is very overturned gives damage to those without damage, crit adds damage to builds already stacking huge damage essentially allowing gank builds to just have more tankyness and sustain, hence stamblades incredibly strong performance this update.

Xargas13

It is balanced. No changes required.

I'm using malacath and it's not as OP as others make it out to be, I rather see they balance procs and some over performing sets, but I'm not holding my breath, ZOS encourages OP builds, not the other way around.

Ladislao

It is interesting item that needs more downsides. For example, you cannot crit and you have 0 critical resistance.

Malacath's Ring is definitely a strong set but not as much as it is customary to speak about it.

Many people underestimate the importance of crits in pvp. The most dangerous opponents are those whose burst is difficult to predict. And very often this unpredictable burst occurs due to a couple of random crits.
In case of Malacath, all the damage is generally higher, but it is stable and completely predictable, so it is much easier to survive.

Add to this the need for a slot, potential future procsets nerfs and paper-scissors-stone in form of crit-impen-malacath.

So in my opinion, if it deserves a nerf, it is a small one. For example, prohibit critical healing done. As a last resort, prohibit critical healing received. The rest will be balanced by indirect changes.

Vevvev

Your option.

Remove it's synergy with proc sets like the Pale Order Ring.

Dunning_Kruger

Your option.

Gut it

Amottica

New player here, but one that is working to acquire these mythic pieces. What is wrong with Malacath?

oscarovegren

Your option.

Amottica wrote: »

New player here, but one that is working to acquire these mythic pieces. What is wrong with Malacath?

It encourage to build heavy armor with damageprocsets which carries your damage

divnyi

It is interesting item that needs more downsides. For example, you cannot crit and you have 0 critical resistance.

Amottica wrote: »

New player here, but one that is working to acquire these mythic pieces. What is wrong with Malacath?

It comes from PvP perspective.

See, ESO PvP is all about burst, because it has strong healing that can get you back to 100% (and above) in no time. So to survive burst, you want to increase armor and HP pools, you will have to sacrifice your damage (no stam/mag stats and go heavy, so no damage bonuses of light/medium). Your skill damage drops significantly. As it should be.

Now, add in proc sets to the mixture. Their damage is independent of stats. It can't crit. But it is buffed by malacath, as it buffs all the damage. As heavy-armor user, you have like 10% crit, so you don't care. So you go 2-3 proc sets and suddenly you can kill up to 25k without ultimate/teammates.

More on meta here: https://divnyi.gitlab.io/weird-eso-builds/lets-talk-about-meta/