Hexos' Ward vs Old Iceheart

Stx

I see in the new patch notes that one of the new overland sets, Hexos' Ward is being buffed to a 12500 damage shield proc with only a 6 second cooldown.

Iceheart monster set as well as other sets like combat physician used to proc a damage shield that when combined with CPs. Could reach up to 10k in value, but these sets were purposefully nerfed in the past.

Considering the buff to Hexos' Ward, could these needless nerfs from the past to iceheart and other damage shield sets be reverted?

Darian_Rath

More likely ZOS will just nerf the new set to ice-heart standards once the hype wears off.

Stx

Darian_Rath wrote: »

More likely ZOS will just nerf the new set to ice-heart standards once the hype wears off.

I'm scared you may be right.

Tannus15

a 5pc set bonus should be stronger than a 2pc monster set, so it seems fine to me
likewise combat physician applies it to other people, so a solo set should outshine that also.

ealdwin

Iceheart (and Ciannit) also have a second effect in addition to the damage shield. It may be reasonable for those monster helms to get buffed up to about 8000 in shield strength, but bringing them to Hexos' strength would be a bit much.

Stx

ealdwin wrote: »

Iceheart (and Ciannit) also have a second effect in addition to the damage shield. It may be reasonable for those monster helms to get buffed up to about 8000 in shield strength, but bringing them to Hexos' strength would be a bit much.

If memory serves, iceheart was 6900 pre nerf. And with cp you could boost that up to 10k which is what made it so good for soloing. The secondary effect back then was very negligible but I see your point.

Even if they just revert the nerf for iceheart that would be fine. But 12500 for this new set is so much higher than current iceheart it's a little silly. With bastion it will be almost 15k. I haven't used iceheart since the nerf but I think it's only 5k?

Ratzkifal

ealdwin wrote: »

Iceheart (and Ciannit) also have a second effect in addition to the damage shield. It may be reasonable for those monster helms to get buffed up to about 8000 in shield strength, but bringing them to Hexos' strength would be a bit much.

Ah yes. The famous Ice-heart damage. How could I forget xD

Ratzkifal

Tannus15 wrote: »

a 5pc set bonus should be stronger than a 2pc monster set, so it seems fine to me
likewise combat physician applies it to other people, so a solo set should outshine that also.

"Should" according to what? Monster sets are designed to have a bonus as strong as a 5th piece on the 2nd piece already. If a two-piece set was always worse than a 5th piece bonus, we'd all be running 3 5-piece sets that switch active sets with weapon swap. Instead we have monster sets and 5-piece sets play in two different leagues, so that monster sets only compete with other monster sets (and now mythics too) while 5-piece sets only have to compete with each other. There is nothing wrong with that, and it simplifies building a character. So why "should" a 5th piece be stronger? Just because 5 is greater than 2? Or is there any actual advantage in that system over the current one?

Stx

If 5 piece bonuses are supposed to be stronger than monster set bonuses or mythics, that's fine (I didn't know they were, but thats okay).

It just seems that with this recent change, zos has changed their mind about the power level they want damage shield sets to have, so I think it's only fair that iceheart sees a buff, or at the very least a revert on the previous nerf it received.

ealdwin

Stx wrote: »

ealdwin wrote: »

Iceheart (and Ciannit) also have a second effect in addition to the damage shield. It may be reasonable for those monster helms to get buffed up to about 8000 in shield strength, but bringing them to Hexos' strength would be a bit much.

If memory serves, iceheart was 6900 pre nerf. And with cp you could boost that up to 10k which is what made it so good for soloing. The secondary effect back then was very negligible but I see your point.

Even if they just revert the nerf for iceheart that would be fine. But 12500 for this new set is so much higher than current iceheart it's a little silly. With bastion it will be almost 15k. I haven't used iceheart since the nerf but I think it's only 5k?

Yeah, it's 5k, I'm still using it on one setup because I'm too lazy to change it up. It used to be 8600 according to previous patch notes, which was higher than I thought. Reverting the nerf or buffing up to 9k might be more appropriate.

Speaking of that nerf, if memory serves, Ciannit at first was much weaker than Iceheart at first, and the discussions about the power difference (with the intent of buffing Ciannit) resulted in the Iceheart nerf, so... maybe being quiet might be better.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

ealdwin wrote: »

Iceheart (and Ciannit) also have a second effect in addition to the damage shield. It may be reasonable for those monster helms to get buffed up to about 8000 in shield strength, but bringing them to Hexos' strength would be a bit much.

Ah yes. The famous Ice-heart damage. How could I forget xD

Eh, I'm just trying to make some sense of the set balancing that goes on and what ZOS' standards might be. Which just guesswork at this point.

ESO_Nightingale

Stx wrote: »

I see in the new patch notes that one of the new overland sets, Hexos' Ward is being buffed to a 12500 damage shield proc with only a 6 second cooldown.

Iceheart monster set as well as other sets like combat physician used to proc a damage shield that when combined with CPs. Could reach up to 10k in value, but these sets were purposefully nerfed in the past.

Considering the buff to Hexos' Ward, could these needless nerfs from the past to iceheart and other damage shield sets be reverted?

nah, frost dps aren't allowed to have a powerful monster helmet or even just any more at all. Hexos's ward isn't frost based so it's fine

here's the list for elemental based monster helmets to show just how stupid this is:

MashmalloMan

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

a 5pc set bonus should be stronger than a 2pc monster set, so it seems fine to me
likewise combat physician applies it to other people, so a solo set should outshine that also.

"Should" according to what? Monster sets are designed to have a bonus as strong as a 5th piece on the 2nd piece already. If a two-piece set was always worse than a 5th piece bonus, we'd all be running 3 5-piece sets that switch active sets with weapon swap. Instead we have monster sets and 5-piece sets play in two different leagues, so that monster sets only compete with other monster sets (and now mythics too) while 5-piece sets only have to compete with each other. There is nothing wrong with that, and it simplifies building a character. So why "should" a 5th piece be stronger? Just because 5 is greater than 2? Or is there any actual advantage in that system over the current one?

Except.. you can't fit three 5 piece sets to begin with. There is a total of 14 slots. Which is why the most common setup is to use two 5 piece sets + a combination of mythic/monster/ability altering set in the remaining 4 slots.

Monster sets typically don't compete with 5 piece sets at all.. they compete with 2 piece ability altering sets, mythics and very rarely, can replace a 5 piece set by combining itself with a 3 piece set like agility, this route is very stat dense which offsets the usually weaker monster set bonus. Before mythics, this was a popular direction to take if you wanted two ability altering sets instead of 1 (pvp).

Eg, instead of a 5 piece, you can do 3 Agility + 2 Balorgh = 1752 stamina + 206 weapon damage + 129 weapon damage + set effect. The stats here are 3 lines LIKE a 5 piece sets 2-4 piece bonuses, except the weight of those stats are equal to about 4 lines.

1752/1096 stamina = 1.598 Set Bonus Standard
206/129 = 1.596 SBS
129 = 1 SBS
Total = 4.19

Theres a reason there is only like 3 useful monster sets for pvp and 0 for pve right now on live.