This patch is a leap into the wrong direction balance wise

BohnT2

General Overview
Balance in PvP right now isn't perfect by any means but it has found an acceptable middle ground for the most part with some outliers being too powerful or not powerful enough and some distinct meta trends setup, class wise.

Ganking and full damage builds in particular are more threatening than they've been for years. Getting solo bombed isn't uncommon and TTK is rather low especially when building for damage however outside of necromancer and Stamwarden this also resulted in your own survivability taking a huge hit and you could die in the blink of an eye on the other specs when you wanted to run high damage.

Those damage numbers were caused by a few different things over the past few patches like the introduction of CP 2.0, buffs to sets and more sets adding damage along with nerfs to defensive buffs.

Outside of those three specs (Necromancers and stamden) and full damage builds the Time To kill was really healthy for the game, fights end rather fast and individual mistakes are punished far more this patch.
Update 31 defensive issues
With the transition to Update 31 the devs have stated the wanted to increase the TTK but the devs way overstepped the mark of a healthy TTK.
On Pts duels are once again never ending stalemates with the only way of winning duels is by playing templar with the newly buffed Backlash or abusing burst procs again.

The first mistake this patch has done was adding almost 20% flat mitigation to everyone in PvP (44%->55% battle spirit mitigation increase). This alone is way too much of a defensive buff even for classes that needed it previously, what it has done to necromancers and stamden can't even be put into words other than "immortal".
But it didn't stop there we also got new defensive CPs that give everyone access to major protection right after breaking free (the time when most kills are secured) along with the reintroduction of Ironclad and two more overtuned defensive CPs with bracing anchor and Pain's Refuge having the potential of adding more mitigation than any other CP we currently have.

But CP and battle spirit aren't the only issues who have turned pts to a brickwall fighting contest.
Revealing Flare giving permanent major protection.
Deliberation adding 30% unnamed mitigation.
I'll just list those defensive buffs again

22% mitigation via battle spirit
10% mitigation vs direct damage
Major protection after CC break
Up to 20% mitigation via pain's refuge
20% block mitigation via bracing anchor
Permanent major protection via revealing flare
30% unnamed mitigation while meditating

This is simply too much and will push into one of the worst tank meta we have ever had and we had those way too often in the past 5 years.

Update 31 offensive issues
This patch is not only defensive wise a catastrophe for balance but also offensive wise eventhough defence is overshadowing offences right now.

1. Inner Beast
This ability now grants the highest amount of damage done outside of incap. It's so powerful that viability of specs will be strongly influenced by whether a class can free up a bar space for this or not, it will be used by anyone who can no matter if it's a stam or mag spec. This means after ransack, caltrops, ele drain and camouflaged hunter we have one more universal skill that is actively pushing people to drop class skills in its favor. This is yet again an unnecessary change that further weakens the border between classes due to a universal skill overshadowing all class abilities.

2. Return of instant burst procs
Two sets I'd like to highlight here are Hrothgar’s Chill and Thunder Caller. Both deal instant proc damage with very easy proc conditions. Hrothgar's even goes so far that it ignores any own stat scaling and shifts it completely to the target even vs low resistance targets the damage is so high that you'll want to run it as the set is turning your non damaging CC into an offensive CC.
Thunder Caller on the other hand offers 25% more damage than vateshran 2h (which deserves a nerf on its own as it dictates which sets are being used along with it on every stamspec) while being easy to proc with no previous setup and absolutely no time to react to it.

Summary
Mitigation has to be brought down on PTS the main offenders have been listed above.
Inner Beast and the current iterations of Hrothgar’s Chill and Thunder Caller should never see the light of the live servers as they'll be the absolute go to set on most specs.

Don't push the game back into a Tank Meta pit.

Mayrael

Very valid observations, I can't fault what you wrote.

I would only add 2 new sets, which may not be directly and obviously OP, but when you look closer at their capabilities you will find that they can be abused in interesting ways.E.g. Dark Convergence set will allow you to pull people into Daedric Mine Field/Volcanic Rune. While their behaviour is nothing new, the fact that pulling these sets does not provide CC immunity is a serious violation of generic standards we all know.

OlumoGarbag

Agreed Mitigation is way to high espacially in CP PvP. Zenimax stating "they want to do more minor changes instead of some bigger ones" is once again completly wrong.

Overall mitigation should be brought down to 10% mitigation instead of 22%. Also revealing flare should do the same as psijic ult and give minor protection only same with necro mender.

Pariah + vamp stage 3 with undead should also see a slight adjustment (for the combat team: slight doesent 90% nerf)

Elo106

Should leave Battlespirit as is, the new CP will help more than enough with tankyness.
Inner Beast Pve Only.

Ragnaroek93

This patch can compete with ESO's worst patches so far tbh. Equalizing everything, making some random Battlespirit changes without adjusting any outliers. Like the game's ttk is definitely not too low for necros or pariah vampires, it's just that the balance and the powercreep between classes is completely broken and changing Battle Spirit won't change that fact. Also wanting PvP players to slot at least one PvE taunt (lots of stam builds will probably use both), just what the hell.

Also where are the class changes which you promised? Why is Templar the only class which gets love and the other vanilla classes are treated like they don't exist?

OlumoGarbag

Elo106 wrote: »

Should leave Battlespirit as is, the new CP will help more than enough with tankyness.
Inner Beast Pve Only.

The time to kill in non-cp/ battlegrounds is close 1 second tho. With inner beast this will turn into a oneshot or be oneshotted duell.
I Think cp potency should be reduced by half via battlespirit that way cps can still be balanced for PVE.

Tommy_The_Gun

I think they should leave battle spirit 44% dmg mitigation as it is on live server, but instead of changing it to 55%, they should remove 50% health recovery de-buff entirely.

When they added it, all the troubles with TTK being too low started. Besides, they made health recovery totally useless stat in PvP.

I am kinda thinking if the "no-proc" test may have contributed to their "statistic data", as a lot of people were running Beekeeper & Endurance, just to mitigate server lag & health bar de-syncs a bit, so they woud have more time to react & play actively.

Alucardo

Is it just me, or was the game better when Wrobel was around

Brrrofski

I totally agree.

I think TTK is liked by most people currently. This is of course just want I hear and see, but I haven't spoken to many who don't like it. That goes for solo, small scale and bigger organised groups.

The one thing is that ganking is very high now, but it's more of an issue of that than overall damage. A lot of fights still end in long stalemates.

When the combar preview mentioned battle spirirt damage reduction, I didn't like it but thought that some set adjustments would mean we could roughly retain the current meta.

But then this massive amount of new mitigation shared as part of the patch notes is insane.

Some of the CP are a bit situational, so while some people will stack a lot, it won't be everyone. But ironclad is a terrible addition.

Flat mitigation also makes penetration less useful, and people will often turn to higher wd/sd or max stats. This in turn means that people will push their healing up, which adds to long, drawn out fights.

Not only are these fights pretty boring and make combat feel less impactful, it surely adds to strain on the server? Those endless fights make everything laggy.

I'm really not a fan of the proposed changes, and it'd be good to understand why ZOS are making these changes. What feedback are they looking at? Who are they asking and speaking to? Like I said, most people I speak to (and if you look at the main pvp steamers), aside from ganking, they mostly think damage is in a good place currently. So what's driven this massive meta shift again?

It doesn't even help the less experiences pvp players. It's the experienced ones that will find those extra little crafty ways to push both damage and survivability. I agree that theory crafting should be rewarded, but if your goal is to make pvp more accessible, this isn't the way.

And it makes fights boring for experienced players, unless they like farming new pvp players.

Please, no more tank metas.

Ragnaroek93

Alucardo wrote: »

Is it just me, or was the game better when Wrobel was around

It was. Balance was a mess but the skills and the classes were actually way more fun to play. I went from playing almost every class to barely playing at all some time after he left. Current game is designed by raid target parse bots.

Grandchamp1989

Changes i enjoy:

Ironclad is back - I missed it so much in PvE
Protection on Flair.. Finally a reveal worth using

But both of those come with a cost of either a slottable star for less dmg or one less bar space

Changes I don't enjoy:

The flat 11% mitigation (more than major protection) to everyone through battle spirit for FREE is complete overkill.

The block mitigation star is just complete overkill for PvE Tanking and will likely just be used to cheese with light armor or even better medium armor. That star alone makes you a tank.. You can literally slot an ice staff on your squishy mag character in light armor and tank vet DLC one-shots with that star on, while most real tanks wouldn't really use it due to diminishing returns on your already rather high blocked mitigation - Not worth being permenantly snared for so little.

Adding 30% mitigation from meditating I'm not sure what they want to accomplish with that one honestly...

katorga

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

Agreed Mitigation is way to high espacially in CP PvP. Zenimax stating "they want to do more minor changes instead of some bigger ones" is once again completly wrong.

Overall mitigation should be brought down to 10% mitigation instead of 22%. Also revealing flare should do the same as psijic ult and give minor protection only same with necro mender.

Pariah + vamp stage 3 with undead should also see a slight adjustment (for the combat team: slight doesent 90% nerf)

Battlespirit: agree, and more. It does not need to change.

Vamp Undeath: Meh. Leave it alone. Too many trade offs going vamp.

Revealing Flair: Everything gives minor protection. It is everywhere. Why bother?

On the other hand, there are already so many multiplicative sources of % damage reduction that adding more really doesn't matter due to diminishing returns. Adding revealing flair to my necro results in a measly 3% increase in actual reduced damage for example. My sorc, otoh, gets a huge benefit from the changes, since it uses fewer sources of % damage reduction.

Major maim on a frost staff spammable will be the problem.

BohnT2

katorga wrote: »

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

Agreed Mitigation is way to high espacially in CP PvP. Zenimax stating "they want to do more minor changes instead of some bigger ones" is once again completly wrong.

Overall mitigation should be brought down to 10% mitigation instead of 22%. Also revealing flare should do the same as psijic ult and give minor protection only same with necro mender.

Pariah + vamp stage 3 with undead should also see a slight adjustment (for the combat team: slight doesent 90% nerf)

Battlespirit: agree, and more. It does not need to change.

Vamp Undeath: Meh. Leave it alone. Too many trade offs going vamp.

Revealing Flair: Everything gives minor protection. It is everywhere. Why bother?

On the other hand, there are already so many multiplicative sources of % damage reduction that adding more really doesn't matter due to diminishing returns. Adding revealing flair to my necro results in a measly 3% increase in actual reduced damage for example. My sorc, otoh, gets a huge benefit from the changes, since it uses fewer sources of % damage reduction.

Major maim on a frost staff spammable will be the problem.

Revealing Flare gives major protection.
Vampire trade offs are pathetic compared to the bonus undeath provides (why else would every good build utilize it no matter whether that spec is stam or mag)

Major maim isn't applied by the damage morph only the Tank morph has it and it didn't gain the 80% damage buff

VixxVexx

- ZoS: Alright we heard you, we'll make proc sets scale with your stats so you can't just build defensively and get free damage.

- Also Zos: Here's a set that will scale of of your opponents total resistances.

Grandchamp1989

VixxVexx wrote: »

- ZoS: Alright we heard you, we'll make proc sets scale with your stats so you can't just build defensively and get free damage.

- Also Zos: Here's a set that will scale of of your opponents total resistances.

Win xDDD

Fhritz

Inner Beast is clearly one of the most op ability if it goes on live now. +15% UNIQUE damage buff is INSANE

DrSlaughtr

Revealing flare was already worth slotting because it let's you see potential killers. People just don't like to slot non damage skills.

All these changes to grant major and minor protection, combined with the battle spirit changes will destroy nightblades and make fights insufferable for everyone else. And all because casuals made a thousand angry posts about NBs during MYM.

Extinct_Solo_Player

I mean if ttk was too high they could have reverted the hp regen change and added more passive healing to combat high damage (stuff like the old heal over time to foward momentum) Also, making necros % based mitigation 1650 armor instead to be consistent with all the other classes over of them having a unique % based number which overperforms compared to flat armor.

BalticBlues

Alucardo wrote: »

Is it just me, or was the game better when Wrobel was around

I admit, I did not like a lot of things Wrobel did.
But balance and build diversity was A LOT better these days.
Today it feels as if a handful of YouTube PvP Stam streamers is setting the game direction,
so the PvP Stam meta gets stronger and almost everything else gets weaker with each patch.

Joy_Division

Alucardo wrote: »

Is it just me, or was the game better when Wrobel was around

How much money would I make if I went back in time and bet that you'd say that in 2021?

itscompton

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Revealing flare was already worth slotting because it let's you see potential killers. People just don't like to slot non damage skills.

All these changes to grant major and minor protection, combined with the battle spirit changes will destroy nightblades and make fights insufferable for everyone else. And all because casuals made a thousand angry posts about NBs during MYM.

I play NB quite a bit and to be honest all the reveal skills in the game are a joke when it comes to helping people catch me so I don't mind giving them a strong secondary effect. At least they have to use an ability slot for it.
The real issue is the free mitigation they're adding to Battle Spirit and how that's going to stack with all the other mitigation such as this, pariah, undeath, and Necros many means of reducing damage taken.

DrSlaughtr

itscompton wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Revealing flare was already worth slotting because it let's you see potential killers. People just don't like to slot non damage skills.

All these changes to grant major and minor protection, combined with the battle spirit changes will destroy nightblades and make fights insufferable for everyone else. And all because casuals made a thousand angry posts about NBs during MYM.

I play NB quite a bit and to be honest all the reveal skills in the game are a joke when it comes to helping people catch me so I don't mind giving them a strong secondary effect. At least they have to use an ability slot for it.
The real issue is the free mitigation they're adding to Battle Spirit and how that's going to stack with all the other mitigation such as this, pariah, undeath, and Necros many means of reducing damage taken.

They work fine. Most people don't know how to use them properly. Having said that, they could make their reveals better without giving protection to someone just for slotting it. This will be a nightmare

hands0medevil

I'm glad new world is on the horizon. I guess I'll stay with ESO only for PVE, and play PVP somewhere else, because PVP in ESO is still treated like unwanted kid. Change of direction every half of a year, and performance is still ****

techyeshic

It doesn't matter to me what your position is on what is balanced or not. I agree just because I'm tired of wild swings in balance. Maybe that's the point. Get us all to stop complaining about balance by making it completely awful every 3 months. Still doesn't matter compared to the awful performance.

Alucardo

Joy_Division wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

Is it just me, or was the game better when Wrobel was around

How much money would I make if I went back in time and bet that you'd say that in 2021?

You'd potentially be a millionaire. Nobody could have foreseen this!

BohnT2

Can we please not discuss combat teams but rather combat changes.

The upcoming changes are severe enough to make PvP unplayable outside of significantly outnumbering players and in the case of ballgroups there'll be no chance of stopping them

Sorbin

I'll chime in to add that I'm utterly exhausted with these wild balance swings. I feel like the last patch literally just dropped. I'm still testing builds for this meta, and in a matter of weeks it won't matter anyways.

As for the changes themselves, the Battle Spirit change is obviously completely over the top. When paired with the litany of other mitigation increases, it ventures into the realm of the absurd. I would think that the new mitigation options and maybe a slight buff to Impen would be more than enough to address over-performing gank builds. But frankly, it feels as though this sort of feedback is falling on deaf ears at this point. I refuse to believe that there's anyone at ZOS regularly playing PvP with any sort of intention anymore. The only feedback I can really offer now is to cancel my sub and start playing Tarkov again.

Urzigurumash

Regarding the nerf to Damage in Battlespirit, what if Healing were proportionally reduced? Does that sound good or bad? This would still be bad for NBs, comparatively - maybe unless Cloak became harder to break, which it might be.

DrSlaughtr

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Regarding the nerf to Damage in Battlespirit, what if Healing were proportionally reduced? Does that sound good or bad? This would still be bad for NBs, comparatively - maybe unless Cloak became harder to break, which it might be.

I get what you're saying but imo, instead of countering a ridiculous nerf to damage with a ridiculous nerf to healing, maybe do neither.

Urzigurumash

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Regarding the nerf to Damage in Battlespirit, what if Healing were proportionally reduced? Does that sound good or bad? This would still be bad for NBs, comparatively - maybe unless Cloak became harder to break, which it might be.

I get what you're saying but imo, instead of countering a ridiculous nerf to damage with a ridiculous nerf to healing, maybe do neither.

Yeah the most nuanced solution to some of the current issues in my view is - a buff to mitigation solely for ungrouped players in No CP, including all 4 members in Solo Queue. Here is where TTK is in fact a bit too low, in my opinion. The pace in CP Cyro feels pretty good post MYM.

DrSlaughtr

Urzigurumash wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Regarding the nerf to Damage in Battlespirit, what if Healing were proportionally reduced? Does that sound good or bad? This would still be bad for NBs, comparatively - maybe unless Cloak became harder to break, which it might be.

I get what you're saying but imo, instead of countering a ridiculous nerf to damage with a ridiculous nerf to healing, maybe do neither.

Yeah the most nuanced solution to some of the current issues in my view is - a buff to mitigation solely for ungrouped players in No CP, including all 4 members in Solo Queue. Here is where TTK is in fact a bit too low, in my opinion. The pace in CP Cyro feels pretty good post MYM.

That's kind of what happens when you don't run CP. But they could buff it in no cp and not screw over the majority of players.