Selfish Sets

ForeverJenn

I thought this way in the beginning, but no. I main healers and tanks. Support classes should wear support sets. If the tank is dying then he or the healer is doing something wrong. If the healer is not healing enough they aren't wearing a good support set, doesn't understand their rotation, or dps is taking too long and the tank is struggling. For example, It is selfish to wear Sanctuary as a healer, it isn't needed if you are good at healing and brings little to a group.


A healer just standing there healing is useless. They need to be keeping up buffs and debuffs so that dps doesn't run out of resources.

A tank just standing there blocking is also useless. They need to be buffing and debuffing and rounding up adds

They are called support roles for a reason.

Is this required in you normal casual content? No, but it breeds bad habits and leaves players clueless when trying to do harder content.

Ratzkifal

The thing about selfish sets vs selfless sets is that the healer and tank role can be performed well without using these sets. You do not need Plague Doctor to stay alive. You do not need Seducers to be a healer. Now damage dealers don't need your Symphony or Yolnahkriin either, but running these sets increases damage either directly or indirectly by lowering the amount of heavy attacks used for sustain which ultimately leads to more success.
In a game where dps beats every mechanic and all penalties known by ZOS are oneshots, then using Combat Prayer over Blessing of Protection is objectively better. Your Brands of Imperium won't help against a oneshot. Your Plague Doctor does not make you survive the lava in Bloodroot Forge. But using Drake's Rush for more ultimate helps the entire group and makes you able to clear content that people running selfish sets just can't.
That's why these sets are "selfish". They do not help with clearing the content and if you really do need them, then they are a crutch that you should learn to move away from if you want to reach a point where you can reliably clear any content. If you occassionally pug a pledge with your PvP char using a selfish set to be able to tank, then who cares. Just don't expect to be able to do DLC dungeon hardmodes or veteran trials with that.

VaranisArano

mobicera wrote: »

Heimdarm wrote: »

Erelah wrote: »

I have heard the term selfish sets tossed around a lot recently. Typically, it comes from someone in a damage dealing role. It typically refers to other players who do not wear armor or use skills that makes the damage dealer be able to deal more damage.

Having played and still play all the roles this is selfish. If someone is tanking or healing, I do not expect they only use gear and skills that only benefits me. As we are a team, we all do our part to help each other. They do not exist to make me the most powerful damage dealer anymore than I exist to only do damage. I also raise if need be, interrupt mobs, and help with the mechanics, to prevent one person from being overwhelmed trying to do it all while I only focus on a rotation.

If a tank is wearing armor to keep them alive. I do not find it selfish I think the tank is making sure they perform their main function. Being a shield that I am not dying by staying up. If a healer is making sure we are not dying from things other than standing in red aoe I am generally happy. Do I like receiving shards? Sure, but not everyone is a templar. If they are wearing some armor sets to help them do their job I am happy.

I just returned/rebought the game so, I haven't done much things ingame lately. However, I tanked almost all content before. I was a PVE and PVP tank as well, with good and with quiet the troll builds as well.

You are absolutely right and only the alltime elitist crybabies will say otherwise.

A tank job is to tank, to be an undestroyable, invincible, permablock brick and hold aggro. Why wear "selfish" set? Because if something goes wrong, which tends to happen, the tank should be ready not to die. If you have to go to a place to revive someone, if you want to change your usual tactic for someone else's mistake you must survive. If you die, everyone dies and the game is over. And this is not only about human mistake. There can be an unexpected lag for a player or for more players, any technical issues, bugs etc..

The healer should heal, point. No dps, no support, only heal, even if it looks not important. I was with healers who did dps and support. Their heal was insufficient many times, not for me, cause I wear selfish sets, but the dps players died here and there. Focus on your *** role and everyone survives.

The dps should do damage. But not for the expense of healer and tank. I was in vet dlc contents long ago with support heals and myself also weared support sets. We died here and there, mostly because we needed to help out the stupid dps players. Changed sets. Everyone wore sets to his/her class and voila, the content was a piece of cake. Easy.

The big truth is, that if the damage dealer members of the party requires additional support from the healer and the tank, than they are not ready for the content, cause their damage is clearly low. Work on it.

Please post a console pov of godslayer or dawnbringer without the use of any group buff sets.
Otherwise you are incorrect, ty.

It seems to me that a big divide in this conversation is that selfish/selfless sets are both equally acceptable in Dungeons. Meanwhile, in trials, it's all about group support and selfless sets.

And so when people aren't specific about what type of content they are speaking of, wires get crossed.

The only concrete example that Heimdarm gave was a Vet DLC dungeon where selfish sets worked fine. And yeah, that's not surprising. If your group is random or so-so, then selfish sets that allow you to perform your own role very well no matter how long it takes the DDs to kill the boss are still a good way to go.

As you say, it would be very surprising to see selfish sets on tanks and healers during a trial, especially a HM or achievement run. Support sets get a lot more bang for their buck when they buff 12 people who know what they are doing, which benefits the whole group.

Xebov

VaranisArano wrote: »

It seems to me that a big divide in this conversation is that selfish/selfless sets are both equally acceptable in Dungeons. Meanwhile, in trials, it's all about group support and selfless sets.

I dont agree. The question is not what content you do, its how experienced your group is overall. You can do a vet trial with DDs that pull 30k, but also with ones that pull 75k. In the second group you will get shorter fights, faster add dispatches (and likely less adds) and less deads. The first group you will likely see a way slower combat. The worse your group is the better a tank has to be to maintain buff sets and the less overall effect they have. This creates the effect that buff sets realy benefit good groups.

The main problem i see is that every 30k DD nowadays thinks they are the pinacle and expects to be fully buffed up and supported while in reality they make life for Tanks and Healers just harder.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Heimdarm wrote: »

Erelah wrote: »

I have heard the term selfish sets tossed around a lot recently. Typically, it comes from someone in a damage dealing role. It typically refers to other players who do not wear armor or use skills that makes the damage dealer be able to deal more damage.

Having played and still play all the roles this is selfish. If someone is tanking or healing, I do not expect they only use gear and skills that only benefits me. As we are a team, we all do our part to help each other. They do not exist to make me the most powerful damage dealer anymore than I exist to only do damage. I also raise if need be, interrupt mobs, and help with the mechanics, to prevent one person from being overwhelmed trying to do it all while I only focus on a rotation.

If a tank is wearing armor to keep them alive. I do not find it selfish I think the tank is making sure they perform their main function. Being a shield that I am not dying by staying up. If a healer is making sure we are not dying from things other than standing in red aoe I am generally happy. Do I like receiving shards? Sure, but not everyone is a templar. If they are wearing some armor sets to help them do their job I am happy.

I just returned/rebought the game so, I haven't done much things ingame lately. However, I tanked almost all content before. I was a PVE and PVP tank as well, with good and with quiet the troll builds as well.

You are absolutely right and only the alltime elitist crybabies will say otherwise.

A tank job is to tank, to be an undestroyable, invincible, permablock brick and hold aggro. Why wear "selfish" set? Because if something goes wrong, which tends to happen, the tank should be ready not to die. If you have to go to a place to revive someone, if you want to change your usual tactic for someone else's mistake you must survive. If you die, everyone dies and the game is over. And this is not only about human mistake. There can be an unexpected lag for a player or for more players, any technical issues, bugs etc..

The healer should heal, point. No dps, no support, only heal, even if it looks not important. I was with healers who did dps and support. Their heal was insufficient many times, not for me, cause I wear selfish sets, but the dps players died here and there. Focus on your *** role and everyone survives.

The dps should do damage. But not for the expense of healer and tank. I was in vet dlc contents long ago with support heals and myself also weared support sets. We died here and there, mostly because we needed to help out the stupid dps players. Changed sets. Everyone wore sets to his/her class and voila, the content was a piece of cake. Easy.

The big truth is, that if the damage dealer members of the party requires additional support from the healer and the tank, than they are not ready for the content, cause their damage is clearly low. Work on it.

Sorry, but that is an extremely narrow point of view. It is pretty darn applicable in a pickup group finder with people you don't know, but you would never touch a leaderboard or likely achieve a trial trifecta with that philosophy. The less experienced/skilled your group is, the more that philosophy makes sense.

The roles of supports are not black and white as you suggests, but rather, a list of priorities. Certainly, the main priority of a tank is to be undestroyable or invincible as you state, because if the tank goes down, the group probably wipes. The main priority of a healer is of course, to heal.

But once those priorities are satisfied, good tanks and healers look to do other things. Most obviously, support their group in other ways. As stated, the only pure metric on score is time, and time is a direct result of DPS. So if I am a healer, and I can keep my group alive in sets that also boost their DPS, why on earth wouldn't I wear them? By the same token, if I can build a tank that satisfactorily holds a boss in place without me dying, why wouldnt I look to see what else I can do to benefit my group, as long as, I still meet the requirements above? Most pure tanks go overkill on defense, and most pure healers wildly over heal.

Odovacar

You can be as selfish as you want if I pug with you...Who cares even if its a DLC random or crag... Worse comes to worse we all disband, whatever. Unless someone is actively looking for gear suggestions I could care less what they're running.

Although...

If a tank or heals wants to run trials we expect you to bring your knowledge & gear suggestions (all are heard and discussed) that works best for the group and content we're running. The raid leader ultimately makes the final call but I've witnessed too many times where gear setup before we start grouping causes an immediate or slow-growing rift in a prog group...usually the delivery on how the raid lead addresses it... but ego always plays the biggest role, generally. Then if we fail or have a bag go at our raid the s*** talking and pointing of fingers begins. Also, why is it always trial healers bickering, lmao...

WrathOfInnos

Athan1 wrote: »

The concept of "selfish" sets is just promoting the propaganda of score-pushing/meta groups that want to dictate what you wear, what you slot, and what you do. Support roles (real tanks, real healers) are already selfless because they give up dps, the core essence of games, to keep the group alive, even at the expense of their own health. If Plague Doctor or Crafty Alfiq help you survive and/or heal the group, then go for it. If someone has an issue, it's probably their problem.

How is optimizing a group for maximum group DPS propaganda? More damage = faster time = higher score.

And in score-pushing groups, it’s generally not one individual forcing 11 people to wear sets they dislike. Everyone on the team is aligned to one goal, and tries to adjust their build in any way possible to meet that goal. Nobody wants to wear selfish sets in these groups, it just makes their job boring and reduces overall group effectiveness, and even suggesting it could be taken as offensive (as if they cannot do their role in meta gear).

ForeverJenn

Xebov wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

It seems to me that a big divide in this conversation is that selfish/selfless sets are both equally acceptable in Dungeons. Meanwhile, in trials, it's all about group support and selfless sets.

The main problem i see is that every 30k DD nowadays thinks they are the pinacle and expects to be fully buffed up and supported while in reality they make life for Tanks and Healers just harder.

I agree with this observation and believe a 30k dps in a vet trial needs to understand they are likely at the bottom of the dps log and make some changes to what they are doing or not doing. If people are achieving 75k in the same run, it's not an issue with the support. A good progression guild will point this out. But a pug won't likely take the time.

Ceejengine

I'll start by saying I wear Crimson Twilight. That said

ESO is strictly a DPS check. All mechanics can be bypassed if your group inflicts enough damage. Literally, you can end a boss fight before all boss mechanics occur if your team can deal enough damage fast enough.

Tanks & healers bring a very small amount of value in group content. Fortunately for tanks, we are a hair more necessary than healers and therefore are more desired by DPS.

Due to majority player feedback, healer functionality has been transferred to passive / hybrid skills available to DPS characters without any drawback to their parse numbers.

A lot of buffs or benefits that used to require a healer to gain are generally now a secondary passive effect on widely available abilities

Tank skills, CP & gear are designed with supporting DPS players in mind. Your dedicated gear (and Alkosh, which is medium armor) is designed to passively boost other players' damage abilities

With all that in mind, if you think about it, it's in your own best interest to give everything you can to increase a DPS's damage.

The faster things die -> the fewer mechanics you need to navigate -> the easier your job is + the faster everyone gets loot.

The simplest evidence to find that support characters are on the back burner, look at any of the "ahead of the curve" achievements, they are ALL tied to a short timer. These are impossible to complete without all members of the party contributing to the DPS player's numbers.

Ackwalan

ForeverJenn wrote: »

I thought this way in the beginning, but no. I main healers and tanks. Support classes should wear support sets. If the tank is dying then he or the healer is doing something wrong. If the healer is not healing enough they aren't wearing a good support set, doesn't understand their rotation, or dps is taking too long and the tank is struggling. For example, It is selfish to wear Sanctuary as a healer, it isn't needed if you are good at healing and brings little to a group.


A healer just standing there healing is useless. They need to be keeping up buffs and debuffs so that dps doesn't run out of resources.

A tank just standing there blocking is also useless. They need to be buffing and debuffing and rounding up adds

They are called support roles for a reason.


Is this required in you normal casual content? No, but it breeds bad habits and leaves players clueless when trying to do harder content.

Who is calling them support rolls? Could it be the DD folks that want other players to wear gear for what they want.

ResidentContrarian

Why care what anyone else thinks in the game?

Do what you want, and if anyone complains and you are tank or healer and it annoys you, you can always let them find someone else.

I've seen it all, and players that complain the most in a dungeon group usually aren't worth their weight or need to blame others to excuse their poor performance.

The only thing selfish is anyone pretending they have authority over how others play IMO.

The impact of a player's decisions can be debated, but ultimately it's their time and it belongs to them. In a group that still applies.

Ryuvain

You have no idea how many times I've been saved by 'selfish' sets as a tank. I'm fine with helping allies as a healer with spc or something.

Usually these 'selfish' sets keep me alive while healer revives or dps does mechanics. If I'm able to hold my own longer as a tank I'm selfish? Ok then. That's why I only tank with friends. Idk about you, but staying alive is my literal job. I can support, but not at my own expense. Saved many a wipe due to staying alive without a healer.

Uryel

Elsonso wrote: »

end-game game play is evaluate based on DPS, and the more DPS you do, the more the group does, and the happier everyone is. Tanks and Healers that provide overall DPS to the group only makes the group better.

Thank you for summing up everything that is wrong in this game.

Uryel

ThoughtRaven wrote: »

OP is reading the word "selfish" and interpreting it without context. While the connotations of the word selfish in meatspace are generally negative, in the context of ESO it colloquially just means "set that helps the tank stay alive, but doesn't buff the group" and is a fairly neutral term in most situations. In fact there may be certain situations in which a tank may be encouraged to wear selfish sets by other members of their group.

Then the proper word would be "personnal use only" or something like that. But hey, in MMOs "selfish" is a very common behaviour, and I mean it as in "meatspace". Jerks who care nothing about the group and just want their stuff done. So yeah, no wonder "selfish" wouldn't be a bad word here, it's basically the staple of most people's behaviour.

tim99

FluffWit wrote: »

For end game vet dlc trials I think running sets that buff other people is pretty much essential.

For pugging dungeons I'd just focus on yourself.

^ this

colossalvoids

The thing is you don't tank or heal the boss to death. The more dps is out there the more your chances for a fastest and painless clears, least mechanics you saw the better. Selfish is selfish, but building for a groups benefit is building for all possible damage with lesser focus on healing as you simply should be good enough not to die yourself doing mech etc. Only the group
and your personal skill matters there, not your preferences.

Anyway it's a talk about actually experienced groups and players, for lower end ones it could be way more beneficial to be more spread out with damage/sustain/mitigation/healing as they're less optimised and tend to die way more than needed. No one really cares if you run plague/leeching in a dungeon or crag pugs, you do you. But if someone cares enough to be annoying be ready to defend your point and tell them why you run it be it rp, lack of experience, dds being rugs and no healing recieved etc, there is no harm in telling the truth, the worst can happen is a kick but why would you care if another people are not your cup of tea.

Not sure why it should be discussed even, people probably watch too much endgame YouTubers or streamers but themselves are doing different kind of content and still care about those opinions on tank/buff sets etc. which is counter productive for them to even think about.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

The main issue for me, as a support role player myself, is that the sets that tanks and healers are often asked to wear are NOT native to that role. I love wearing things like Spell Power Cure, Symphony of Blades, Worm Cult, Hollowfang, etc., on my healer, as they make not only the dps more powerful, but my own heals. It benefits everyone equally. Same with the set Yolnahkriin; I love wearing it on my tank, because the stats are good for me personally, and it still benefits my group. But with sets like, for instance, Alkosh and Powerul Assault... those are medium armour dps sets; and sets like Martial Knowledge, Z'ens, and Roaring Opportunist are dps sets as well, by design. Those sets were not designed to be support sets, and wearing them makes me lose power; I must build around having to sacrifice my own efficiency in my role. That, I hate. I don't hate supporting my group, but I hate being asked to wear things that were clearly not designed for my role. I want to feel powerful in my own right, not just when I'm in a dps role.

Heimdarm

What an irritating elitist comment.

colossalvoids wrote: »

The thing is you don't tank or heal the boss to death.

So, only the god damage dealers count? Good luck doing your content without tank and healer.

colossalvoids wrote: »

The more dps is out there the more your chances for a fastest and painless clears, least mechanics you saw the better.

So, maybe don't go to a trial with your 20k DPS and wait for others, especially the tank and healer, not only to carry you, but even buff your minimal damage output. If the damage dealers have 70k dps than there is no need to buff it.

colossalvoids wrote: »

Selfish is selfish, but building for a groups benefit is building for all possible damage with lesser focus on healing as you simply should be good enough not to die yourself doing mech etc. Only the group
and your personal skill matters there, not your preferences.

lol Tanks and healers are in the game, and in the group for the group benefit. To hold aggro and to heal. Telling them to wear sets that weakening their own role is the most stupid suggestion ever. If you as a DD are not ready for the content, than don't go. As a tank one should be ready to survive and save the team long after something bad (personal mistake, technical issue) happens. The real selfish thing comes from the elitist DDs: to give up the tankiness of the tank, or the healing capacity of the healer, just to buff their damage, this is the only and most selfish thing. No, again: if your damage need buff, you are not ready for the content.

Even in the 1 tank 3 dd contents there are sets that help equally both the tank and the dds, so even there the tank do not give up tankiness.


This whole nonsense argument started by long ago players who wanted to be big raid leaders, but without putting real effort in actual building up a proper guild and help it's members to be better dps. Raid leaders who recruit pugs in zone chat, and begging for others pugs on 6 different discord channel cause their own guild has not enough active and good DDs for an actual raid. And because of the large numbers of low dps characters, who are not even ready to do the trial the raid leader demand the tank to support the low dps-s.

The above should not be a problem, it's up to the tank if he plays as the raid leader demands and help the low dps in need and risk the whole raid by going in by weakening himself. However, pushing this stupid idea and try to sell this to the playerbase that this is normal, is more than ridicoulos. While there is place to support the noob dps if the tank want to that, the ideal situation is not that, but to bring high enough damage dealers to the content that they do not need additional buff. Seriously, anyone arguing against this is either a no brainer or never did any endgame content with a good team.

AyaDark

People who always say about selfish sets - are so selfish themself, that they want to take all from you and give nothing back.

My sets are selfish, but less selfish that they are, so why do i need to care about opinion of such people ?

I do not care abouttheir sets, may be they are interested about thingth they must not to much ?

Varana

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

But with sets like, for instance, Alkosh and Powerul Assault... those are medium armour dps sets; and sets like Martial Knowledge, Z'ens, and Roaring Opportunist are dps sets as well, by design. Those sets were not designed to be support sets, and wearing them makes me lose power...

That is a (for tanks: fairly regular) problem with ZOS' set design.

For some reason, ZOS insists on putting clear support functionality ("group of people gets stat increase", "boss right next to you is debuffed", etc.) on sets that otherwise seem like damage sets. Don't blame players, blame ZOS for that. Players just find the most effective strategy with the tools they are given. And things like the main effect of Alkosh, RO, or MK are most effectively used on support roles.

Part of that effectiveness is what others have explained: DPS rules in this game.
Yes, using PA makes your tanking harder. But with more experience, you can do it. Which means - you do not lose any "power" if you're able to perform the normal functions even with PA. Or healers with MK - yes, they don't put out as much HPS with it, but as long as they put out enough healing for the group to survive, that doesn't matter. Again, there is no loss in "power" if the healer can work around the set.
DDs lose damage when using PA, as well. Or Alkosh. So while it may be a good strategy for one DD to take a hit in their damage output if they buff the others to do more overall, the even better strategy is to give this buff set to someone who can perform their role without any loss - i.e. support roles.

If you want to change that, don't blame groups for using effective strategies. Blame ZOS for designing support sets with damage stats.

Edit: To be clear, that is for optimisation, not for everyday pledge-pugging or things like that.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

If you dont like what i wear, you arent worth my time

colossalvoids

[snip]

@Heimdarm

So, only the god damage dealers count? Good luck doing your content without tank and healer.

If you can show me for example tanking Olms the Just to death i'd gladly watch it. You decrease his healthbar generally to deal with it, not standing in red recieving your beating for days until some leeching plates eats him. Good damage dealers, bad damage dealers, killing the target matters and it's the focus and the final result of a fight. The faster you did it the better for the group obviously, the least mechanics you saw the lest your chances for someone dropping, not sure how thats a surprise that dicreasing xyz's health bar deals with content.

So, maybe don't go to a trial with your 20k DPS and wait for others, especially the tank and healer, not only to carry you, but even buff your minimal damage output. If the damage dealers have 70k dps than there is no need to buff it.

[snip] There are tresholds for a minimum needed healing output for a group to not drop dead, your other focus is to speed up \ make easier the process in a good group (yeah, there's a group btw not just you), or give some other necessary stuff for a particular group/situaton be it sustain, more raw healing or whatelse as it's all depends on a group, there are no similar ones. Same for tanking, in endgame after you're survivable enough and have anything required you go for a group support to yet again speed up the process and fill the gaps zos created (hello stam compositions).

Does it all metter for your pugging? Not really, but people are still applying everything they hear to everyone and anything they see [snip]

To hold aggro and to heal. Telling them to wear sets that weakening their own role is the most stupid suggestion ever.

[snip]

Tanks and healers are in the game, and in the group for the group benefit

is just showing you talking about your pugging and random dungeons but trying hard to go on end game standarts that have zero affect on your gameplay. [snip] If your argument is tanks and healers become weaker in their abilities when using support sets than those healers and tanks you talking about shouldn't focus on support to begin with and leave it for ones who are able to.

You can argue to the end of the days that tank should wear stuff designed for them specifically but it wouln't matter for a tank that already is okay with surviving wearing 1/2/3 support sets. You do you, they do theirs. Having different abilities and goals is okay, no one expecting you to wear trifecta/score worthy setups in you random vets.

[Edited to remove Baiting]

colossalvoids

Varana wrote: »

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

But with sets like, for instance, Alkosh and Powerul Assault... those are medium armour dps sets; and sets like Martial Knowledge, Z'ens, and Roaring Opportunist are dps sets as well, by design. Those sets were not designed to be support sets, and wearing them makes me lose power...

For some reason, ZOS insists on putting clear support functionality ("group of people gets stat increase", "boss right next to you is debuffed", etc.) on sets that otherwise seem like damage sets. Don't blame players, blame ZOS for that. Players just find the most effective strategy with the tools they are given. And things like the main effect of Alkosh, RO, or MK are most effectively used on support roles.

Edit: To be clear, that is for optimisation, not for everyday pledge-pugging or things like that.

Basically this.

Xebov

Ceejengine wrote: »

Tanks & healers bring a very small amount of value in group content. Fortunately for tanks, we are a hair more necessary than healers and therefore are more desired by DPS.

Tanks and Healers bring the most value to the group. Tanks and Healers are the main reason you can do hard content. Without them you go nowhere.

Ceejengine wrote: »

With all that in mind, if you think about it, it's in your own best interest to give everything you can to increase a DPS's damage.

Its in the best interest that DDs get their performance right, which is often not the case. The use of Buff sets relies on their performance directly.
If DDs deal low damage any buffs to their damage are nearly pointless because they barely make any use of it. If they deal high damage the buffs will also have little effect because their overall eprformance is already good. The only differenc eis that in the latter case the fight gets fats enought so tanks need less support for themselves.
The same goes for misc buff sets. You can wear Ebon for example. If you have a bad DD that fails to evade one hit mechanics or constantly stands in AoEs the impact of the set will be nearly zero. On the other hand good DDs with propper evasion and movement dont need it either because they dont get hit in the first place.

Thats also the core of the issue. Tanks are only considered good if they can deal with all content, even with a bad quality group, going for full group buffs and for end game content this is what all groups expect. This takes many tanks that could be good out of the picture and shifts the majority of the work towards Tanks and Healers. Simply because a good Tank and Healer can get bad DDs through the content, but not the other way around.

Varana wrote: »

For some reason, ZOS insists on putting clear support functionality ("group of people gets stat increase", "boss right next to you is debuffed", etc.) on sets that otherwise seem like damage sets. Don't blame players, blame ZOS for that. Players just find the most effective strategy with the tools they are given. And things like the main effect of Alkosh, RO, or MK are most effectively used on support roles.

The one thing you can blame players for is that Tanks are expected to always play top tier with maximum buffs available, while many DDs are not even close to this. I met enought DDs that barely get anywhere and have this expectation. This shifts all the work towards Tanks and this is a problem created by players that doesnt get ruled out because DDs are the majority of the players.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

Varana wrote: »

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

But with sets like, for instance, Alkosh and Powerul Assault... those are medium armour dps sets; and sets like Martial Knowledge, Z'ens, and Roaring Opportunist are dps sets as well, by design. Those sets were not designed to be support sets, and wearing them makes me lose power...

That is a (for tanks: fairly regular) problem with ZOS' set design.

For some reason, ZOS insists on putting clear support functionality ("group of people gets stat increase", "boss right next to you is debuffed", etc.) on sets that otherwise seem like damage sets. Don't blame players, blame ZOS for that. Players just find the most effective strategy with the tools they are given. And things like the main effect of Alkosh, RO, or MK are most effectively used on support roles.

Part of that effectiveness is what others have explained: DPS rules in this game.
Yes, using PA makes your tanking harder. But with more experience, you can do it. Which means - you do not lose any "power" if you're able to perform the normal functions even with PA. Or healers with MK - yes, they don't put out as much HPS with it, but as long as they put out enough healing for the group to survive, that doesn't matter. Again, there is no loss in "power" if the healer can work around the set.
DDs lose damage when using PA, as well. Or Alkosh. So while it may be a good strategy for one DD to take a hit in their damage output if they buff the others to do more overall, the even better strategy is to give this buff set to someone who can perform their role without any loss - i.e. support roles.

If you want to change that, don't blame groups for using effective strategies. Blame ZOS for designing support sets with damage stats.

Edit: To be clear, that is for optimisation, not for everyday pledge-pugging or things like that.

I am blaming zos. And just to be clear, I can tank and have tanked in those sets; I lead vet dlc trials progressions regularly, as well as their hardmode clears, so I'm quite familiar with how group comp works. I speak in terms of losing power as in taking into account all situations, including pugging vet dlcs with randoms. But I hate that the design is as such for "support" sets. It's one of the main reasons I lost my love for support roles, and now I only dps in trials. It's a terrible design, and I think one of the main reasons why supports are so much more rare than dds.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

Xebov wrote: »

Ceejengine wrote: »

Tanks & healers bring a very small amount of value in group content. Fortunately for tanks, we are a hair more necessary than healers and therefore are more desired by DPS.

Tanks and Healers bring the most value to the group. Tanks and Healers are the main reason you can do hard content. Without them you go nowhere.

Ceejengine wrote: »

With all that in mind, if you think about it, it's in your own best interest to give everything you can to increase a DPS's damage.

Its in the best interest that DDs get their performance right, which is often not the case. The use of Buff sets relies on their performance directly.
If DDs deal low damage any buffs to their damage are nearly pointless because they barely make any use of it. If they deal high damage the buffs will also have little effect because their overall eprformance is already good. The only differenc eis that in the latter case the fight gets fats enought so tanks need less support for themselves.
The same goes for misc buff sets. You can wear Ebon for example. If you have a bad DD that fails to evade one hit mechanics or constantly stands in AoEs the impact of the set will be nearly zero. On the other hand good DDs with propper evasion and movement dont need it either because they dont get hit in the first place.

Thats also the core of the issue. Tanks are only considered good if they can deal with all content, even with a bad quality group, going for full group buffs and for end game content this is what all groups expect. This takes many tanks that could be good out of the picture and shifts the majority of the work towards Tanks and Healers. Simply because a good Tank and Healer can get bad DDs through the content, but not the other way around.

Varana wrote: »

For some reason, ZOS insists on putting clear support functionality ("group of people gets stat increase", "boss right next to you is debuffed", etc.) on sets that otherwise seem like damage sets. Don't blame players, blame ZOS for that. Players just find the most effective strategy with the tools they are given. And things like the main effect of Alkosh, RO, or MK are most effectively used on support roles.

The one thing you can blame players for is that Tanks are expected to always play top tier with maximum buffs available, while many DDs are not even close to this. I met enought DDs that barely get anywhere and have this expectation. This shifts all the work towards Tanks and this is a problem created by players that doesnt get ruled out because DDs are the majority of the players.

That's an accurate statement on tanks being expected to wear maximum debuff sets, at a loss of their own efficiency, even when learning or when placed with low dps. It's also true that when paired with higher dps, that's when those buffs really become relevant at all (the buffs are multiplicative, so it only makes sense that high dps is going to just be that much higher with the proper buffs, whereas low dps is still going to be "bad" even with buffs, due to the numbers they're producing just being so low to begin with).

colossalvoids

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

Varana wrote: »

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

But with sets like, for instance, Alkosh and Powerul Assault... those are medium armour dps sets; and sets like Martial Knowledge, Z'ens, and Roaring Opportunist are dps sets as well, by design. Those sets were not designed to be support sets, and wearing them makes me lose power...

That is a (for tanks: fairly regular) problem with ZOS' set design.

For some reason, ZOS insists on putting clear support functionality ("group of people gets stat increase", "boss right next to you is debuffed", etc.) on sets that otherwise seem like damage sets. Don't blame players, blame ZOS for that. Players just find the most effective strategy with the tools they are given. And things like the main effect of Alkosh, RO, or MK are most effectively used on support roles.

Part of that effectiveness is what others have explained: DPS rules in this game.
Yes, using PA makes your tanking harder. But with more experience, you can do it. Which means - you do not lose any "power" if you're able to perform the normal functions even with PA. Or healers with MK - yes, they don't put out as much HPS with it, but as long as they put out enough healing for the group to survive, that doesn't matter. Again, there is no loss in "power" if the healer can work around the set.
DDs lose damage when using PA, as well. Or Alkosh. So while it may be a good strategy for one DD to take a hit in their damage output if they buff the others to do more overall, the even better strategy is to give this buff set to someone who can perform their role without any loss - i.e. support roles.

If you want to change that, don't blame groups for using effective strategies. Blame ZOS for designing support sets with damage stats.

Edit: To be clear, that is for optimisation, not for everyday pledge-pugging or things like that.

It's a terrible design, and I think one of the main reasons why supports are so much more rare than dds.

The problem is that we give enough feedback on this things, even class reps were giving concerns on more recent ones that even if they've designed them for damage dealers (which can be seen in secondary bonuses like minor slayer spd, crit etc) those are probably would land on a support roles because of reliability and open gear slots, not to mention some dps sets are giving too much power currently to be replaced by a support ones. But this feedback leans on a deaf ear, generally nothing is done about it so it actually seems like zos like this exact approach and it's partially intentional.

I'm not fully against the idea, but the most fun I personally had in the game is when dds were wearing supporting set-ups way more often, loved being war machine buffblade. Now it feels like playing a different game of sorts.

Elsonso

Ceejengine wrote: »

ESO is strictly a DPS check. All mechanics can be bypassed if your group inflicts enough damage. Literally, you can end a boss fight before all boss mechanics occur if your team can deal enough damage fast enough.

Tanks & healers bring a very small amount of value in group content. Fortunately for tanks, we are a hair more necessary than healers and therefore are more desired by DPS.

Due to majority player feedback, healer functionality has been transferred to passive / hybrid skills available to DPS characters without any drawback to their parse numbers.

A lot of buffs or benefits that used to require a healer to gain are generally now a secondary passive effect on widely available abilities

Tank skills, CP & gear are designed with supporting DPS players in mind. Your dedicated gear (and Alkosh, which is medium armor) is designed to passively boost other players' damage abilities

With all that in mind, if you think about it, it's in your own best interest to give everything you can to increase a DPS's damage.

The faster things die -> the fewer mechanics you need to navigate -> the easier your job is + the faster everyone gets loot.

The simplest evidence to find that support characters are on the back burner, look at any of the "ahead of the curve" achievements, they are ALL tied to a short timer. These are impossible to complete without all members of the party contributing to the DPS player's numbers.

So, what you are passively suggesting is that @ZOS_Finn design dungeon bosses so that, in addition to the fast burn down, there is also an achievement for taking out the fully engaged hard mode boss that has thrown everything at the players? There is a need for achievements that reward all the roles, not just DPS. This would be more likely to require tanks and healers, and damage players would be a liability. I can imagine that the design for this would be tough, such that it separates normal play from truly inspired full engagement of all roles.

Heimdarm

colossalvoids wrote: »

So, only the god damage dealers count? Good luck doing your content without tank and healer.

If you can show me for example tanking Olms the Just to death i'd gladly watch it.

Same here, show me a video where you do your vet trials without healers and tanks.

colossalvoids wrote: »

So, maybe don't go to a trial with your 20k DPS and wait for others, especially the tank and healer, not only to carry you, but even buff your minimal damage output. If the damage dealers have 70k dps than there is no need to buff it.

There are tresholds for a minimum needed healing output for a group to not drop dead, your other focus is to speed up \ make easier the process in a good group (yeah, there's a group btw not just you), or give some other necessary stuff for a particular group/situaton be it sustain, more raw healing or whatelse as it's all depends on a group, there are no similar ones. Same for tanking, in endgame after you're survivable enough and have anything required you go for a group support to yet again speed up the process and fill the gaps zos created (hello stam compositions).

You talk about minimum tresholds.. A tank and a healer should never ever enter a trial group in an ideal case with only bare minimum tankiness or healing capacity. This is a no brainer.. There is a minimum required dps as well that is needed. Bring good enough DDs to complete the content. If you have low dps players and want to maximize it, its understandable that the tank do everything to push the noob team damage above the limits.. But again, this is not ideal. Ideal case is when you have enough damage that you do not need additional buff. [snip]

colossalvoids wrote: »

To hold aggro and to heal. Telling them to wear sets that weakening their own role is the most stupid suggestion ever.

[snip]

Tanks and healers are in the game, and in the group for the group benefit

[snip] Yes I wrote they are in the game and in the group for the group benefit. And what they give to the group as a benefit? Guess what: holding aggro and heal. [snip]

colossalvoids wrote: »

[snip]

[snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]

colossalvoids

Lmao and they say actual endgame is pvp, it's forums clearly where the most battles held their place.

Anyway it's everyone's right to treat people they play with as "noobs" and stuff and not as a single well oiled mechanism set to conquer.