Update 33 Combat Preview

Nic727

Noob here! Does that mean that instead of being an hybrid of magicka/stamina, I could put all my attributes into like stamina for example and get max damage applied to magicka skills?

So no more splitting?

Arthtur

Sooo... whats the point of magicka or stamina builds at this point? Both will use the same sets, weapons and skills....

Also this will improve sustain on DDs so everyone's sustain will be nerfed. Tanks will be happy.

Those changes are too much... Its just "use whatever u want because it doesnt matter at all".

axi

sonwon.1_ESO wrote: »

Since weaving is allowed with light attacks shouldn't weaving also work with heavy attacks?

What do You mean? You already can weave skills inbetween heavy attacks.

mwo1480

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Greetings everyone,

. This means any ability that used to scale exclusively with Spell Damage and Max Magicka will now dynamically scale with Weapon Damage and Max Stamina, and vice versa

so only stamina and magica, and not health? cuz we dont want 52k health tanks with insane dps in pvp

ChaosArcher84

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

In Update 33, the changes are focused on making almost every player ability in the game scale dynamically with your highest offensive stats when applicable.... This means any ability that used to scale exclusively with Spell Damage and Max Magicka will now dynamically scale with Weapon Damage and Max Stamina, and vice versa.

As others brought up concern I must ask for clarification, will health be used in the same way? I main a tank and would enjoy it, however, I would not truly want that to be a thing, Tanks smacking down mobs would be 1) unfair in pvp 2) make vDungeons melty.

This really could create the opposite effect that you're looking for. The last thing you want in an MMO is to "over simplify" the game (look at Neverwinter *puke*). The over simplification will severely reduce the amount of "META" builds in the game. meta builds are already small in numbers and we are in desperate need of variety for endgame.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

We’ll also be dual sourcing buffs on abilities and item sets like Major Prophecy with Major Savagery, with the same thing applying to Brutality and Sorcery.

Once again over simplification.... I really do not know want this to happen!

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

In addition to the continuation of hybridization, we’ve also gone through many abilities and cleaned up some of their functionalities, making sure the ones that aren’t used as often received some sprucing up to make them feel more up to par with abilities of their like. This is in addition to the usual bug fixing and back-end improvements and targeting of outlier abilities or sets for balance adjustments. Some of these are larger in adjustment, such as Power Bash’s new functionality of being treated as a Bash attack, or Piercing Javelin’s new functionality of living up to its name and piercing through block. Most of the adjustments are not as flashy or different but instead gain added quality of life improvements like increased durations for easier management or scaling adjustments. For example, the morphs of Lotus Flower giving you the choice of gaining more healing overall or a significantly longer uptime for less micromanagement.

I like where you're going with this.... I am going to love my piercing jav ripping people through walls, however, in PvP this tactic could make griefing even worse. Maybe put a max thickness to it if possible OR lower the damage output when piercing solid objects. This would still allow damage to be performed by like a bullet going through solid objects it would hit with less force than if there was no obstructions. Yes it's a fantasy game so we can be creative, but I think the slightly lowered dmg output for piercing solid objects would be a decent compromise for some people?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Other than that, I just came back to the game after a year and a half break and have really been enjoying the QoL changes and companions added to the game. However, with my limited exposure to some of the DLC dungeons, it would be nice to always have objectives for dungeons even if it's just marking general areas for boss progression. We only get the mission once going through, and that's supposed to be enough for everyone to memorize the routes? If there are already objectives then awesome , my bad, and I will figure it out. I of course wouldn't want XP tied to completing the objectives as we get the chunk for completing it at the end already. As a tank it's always annoying to get left behind by the very experienced dps' and not knowing which way to go or what to interact with when there's no objectives. I love that your dungeons are not linear and boring, please do not think I'm saying that they should be simpler, I just would like to see a way to figure out objectives a little easier.

Either way, "Thank you" Zenimax and Bethesda for your amazing work and the massive immersive world of Tamriel you have given us all access to.

Gaebriel0410

Sounds fantastic imo. After the previous combat updates I already had the most fun with making char builds I've had in a long time, so going through with that to extend it to more things is great to hear.

I hope I can now finally use one of my fave spells on my stamina dps build, if I read it correctly it will now likely scale with my highest stats and give the major buff appropriate to my damage type so I love it for that alone!

This is exactly the kind of combat changes I like to see, more variety is always a good thing.

HackTheMinotaur

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

In Update 33, the changes are focused on making almost every player ability in the game scale dynamically with your highest offensive stats when applicable. Similar to what we’ve worked on with passives and item sets, we want to ensure you feel empowered to pick an ability or weapon based on the gameplay mechanics and expression they offer you first and foremost, with fewer restrictions. This means any ability that used to scale exclusively with Spell Damage and Max Magicka will now dynamically scale with Weapon Damage and Max Stamina, and vice versa. With this, we want to retain the identity of many playstyles by reinforcing ability cost as a limiting factor in how frequently you can engage with abilities, but with less concern as to how powerful that ability is based on what stat path you’ve chosen.

We’ll also be dual sourcing buffs on abilities and item sets like Major Prophecy with Major Savagery, with the same thing applying to Brutality and Sorcery. In the long term, we plan on simply merging these bonuses so there are fewer names and effects you need to worry about, but there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that will result from that; as such, it may take quite some time before we’re able to do that.

@ZOS_Gilliam while this is awesome and I truly appreciate the hybrid love, these types of builds are still significantly disadvantaged due to magicka/stamina damage scaling. A true hybrid, play as you want type of build will still need split resource pools resulting in lower overall damage numbers. When will damage only be dependent on weapon and spell damage and not max resource as part of the calculation?

maxjapank

Stamina players just got even stronger in pvp.

Casul

maxjapank wrote: »

Stamina players just got even stronger in pvp.

I think your are forgetting some strong options for magicka builds. Vigor now, master daggers, vate 2h, rally.

I could see a lot of build variety appear.

Mandragora

I'm not sure what that change will mean in combat, I cannot do the math, but I do appreciate the hybridisation effort, because I tend to have much more characters than classes, and I like to roleplay different skills combinations, like a healer growing up in a forest, so he does have staff and bow, so I'm happy I have more of variations to choose from for different builds.
I hope variations of different weapon/skill buffs will be replaced by something different, not just taken away - that is usually the main flaw of streamlining. But it seems like that is the plan.

Still there are few things, where I cannot go further with my builds, but I'm not an expert, so maybe I do something wrong, or maybe the change will make it possible, but atm - this is just some of my thoughts:

1. if I want to play different magic dps, I have to use staff skills. There is variety of weapons for stamina skills, but there is no mana morphs. So I have mana staff NB, which could be tied to vamp skill line, but those skills don't go well with that build and I would have higher mana requirement for non vamp skills, and the rest of options is all stamina dps skills. Would it be possible to create just a bit different looking magic variation of stamina weapons - like runic daggers, magic sceptral bow, sceptre instead of mace and combat staff and recreate those skills to go well with magic skills?

Then I don't know if I'm alone with this - but would it be better to have 1 immersive proc from a dlc dungeon for all 3 kind of armors? Does it have to be always different? I get it for monster sets, but the ordinary ones? Because it seems to me less bloating and sometimes I want for my hybrid build with different armor, and players use it for jewellery anyway if it doesn't match the type, so atleast there would be more of variability - but maybe that is too late to change it now.

And for vamp, cold you rework those quite the same morphs to be for ranged dps aswell, so there could be "Verandis Ravenwatch" like vampires again?
for example:
EVISCERATE: 1 health cost morph to be from a 22m distance - otherwise useless for mages
BLOOD FRENZY: 1st morph - toggle with heal and weapon /spell dps, 2nd morph - automaticly switched off after a few tics - it is the worst if you lag in that moment as a magic user
VAMPIRIC DRAIN - both is magicka damage/cost and 1 morph is for stamina refresh, other just for ultimate - not sure why, it is very slow heal - could it be magicka/stamina - what is higher?
MESMERIZE - it is duplicate of sorc and NB skills, if ESO does have just a few skill slots available, only 1 CC skill seems to be worthles on the top of it - could the morph do something like create an allie for some time?
MIST FORM - well that is painful theme, so if I loose something in PVE, could you replace it with some other version of it?
And the passives are better sneaking and worse regen, which is already penalty, so those skills don't have to have penalty? I don't know.

But still I will wish for a new prototype class for players, who don't use multiple characters, but instead they finish everything with 1 class and then use amoury for variations, so they can replay the game with a fresh character.

maxjapank

BuildMan wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

Stamina players just got even stronger in pvp.

I think your are forgetting some strong options for magicka builds. Vigor now, master daggers, vate 2h, rally.

I could see a lot of build variety appear.

No, I’m not. Stamina players have always had excess magicka to use for magicka dumps. But stamina being tied into sprint, break free, dodge, etc has never really let magicka players use stamina for anything else. Though the original stamina abilities will scale with magicka and spell power, it still costs stam.

MashmalloMan

Again, your free updates manage to continue to intrigue me. To put it simply, your chapter new mechanics haven't made me impressed and leave a lot to be desired, but you guys are great with the free updates. Armory, Sticker Book, Hybridization of sets, etc, etc. They've all brought me back to the game. Your playerbase is still waiting on new weapons, a new class, spell crafting or a new guild skill line, not sure why we keep getting mini games, but apparently someone is asking for them. Oh well, I hope your card game is good.

I look forward to these changes, I understand why some people are scared about the implications this can cause, but come on. The game is going on 8 years old, these are the types of risks I like to see. Resources are still important, but you can probably throw in 1-2 abilities that are your off-resource type which is really nice to see.

Instead of classes being based off 100% stamina or 100% magicka, you'll actually make a decision based on what your character can afford and what morphs are more interesting to you. Thats how morphs should of always been. Can't wait to try this out.

MashmalloMan

Seperate comment to highlight my point.

Please don't forget to change the base classes minor buffs in this update as you provided both buffs.. ( I know you said you plan to consolidate the buffs into 1 later, but you also said you're changing skills like Lotus which provide both).

Here's my take:

1. NB = Crit Damage instead of Physical Crit Chance (Or something else, a little too easy to get via Trap/Acceleration... unless they change those skills, sets can stay the same like Tzogvin)
2. Sorc = Crit Chance instead of Spell Crit Chance
3. DK = Damage instead of Weapon Damage
4. Templar = Peneration instead of Spell Damage (New buff providing 3k pen or something else damage related like a new minor resource buff)

NB already has a focus on crit damage with a way to guarantee crits, Sorc already has a skill entirely based on higher crit chance in crit surge, DK has a brute force type of playstyle which seems to fit increasing their raw damage and Templar is based on holy magic.. penetration or resources seems to fit that idea, but I'll admit I had a harder time deciding on something for them.

WrathOfInnos

Interesting, this is a massive step toward hybridization and character customization. This opens up a lot of weapon skills, such as flurry or whirling blades for magicka dual wield builds. It also means that all of the forced morphs (one for mag and one for stam) are gone, we will actually get to choose between two viable options.

I'm sure there will be many problems to solve along the way, but I am much more optimistic about this change than about anything I saw during the announcement yesterday. At least this will allow some fresh builds and new combat ideas. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

Einstein_

idk understand why ppl think this is gonna increase diversity.

with this change ZoS just halfs the classes....there will be no diffrent in mag/stam anymore....

instead of mag/stam temp there gonna be only Temps for example.

and we already know that there is always a best in slot set/build which means everyone will run the same skills and sets soon...

you jsut gonna build on WD/stam and use the strongest skills you can find...its always ez to get the sustain for whatever skills you use....

GJ you killed diversity

MashmalloMan

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Interesting, this is a massive step toward hybridization and character customization. This opens up a lot of weapon skills, such as flurry or whirling blades for magicka dual wield builds. It also means that all of the forced morphs (one for mag and one for stam) are gone, we will actually get to choose between two viable options.

I'm sure there will be many problems to solve along the way, but I am much more optimistic about this change than about anything I saw during the announcement yesterday. At least this will allow some fresh builds and new combat ideas. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

Exactly my thoughts, the most boring part about Necromancer and Warden compared to the original classes is they were built with stamina players in mind... now that sounds negative, but hear me out. The original classes stared out as mosly magicka based as was the original design of the game so as stamina identity became a thing over time, so did updating those classes with stamina morphs.

Some examples of morphs that were completely different in functionality and even effects compared to their magicka counter parts: Sorc's Hurricane, Crystal Weapon, Bound Armaments, Crit Surge vs Power Surge. DK's Poop Fist, Claw, Breath. Etc, etc.

Now look at Warden and Necro.. Yes, each damage skill has a magicka/stamina morph, but they're practically identical with minor differences. Which is funny that the classes without that intention in the beggining ended up being more hybrid friendly and interesting to theory craft for.

So while I understand this is just a stepping stone, I hope to see those skills addressed. It's nice to see Lotus Flower as one of the largest complaints finally getting some interesting choice. I hope NB's Siphoning Strike morphs get addressed too as another morph choice that is purely just Stamina vs Magicka.

MashmalloMan

Einstein_ wrote: »

idk understand why ppl think this is gonna increase diversity.

with this change ZoS just halfs the classes....there will be no diffrent in mag/stam anymore....

instead of mag/stam temp there gonna be only Temps for example.

and we already know that there is always a best in slot set/build which means everyone will run the same skills and sets soon...

you jsut gonna build on WD/stam and use the strongest skills you can find...its always ez to get the sustain for whatever skills you use....

GJ you killed diversity

Probably because diversity in PVE end game is next to impossible (for any MMO) so why bother... The only thing that matters is reaching maximum single target DPS for bosses, while trying to get good sustain and aoe damage if possible. People will choose the right class, gear and skills to do that, no matter what update we're in. That won't change. You can literally crunch numbers to figure out the best end game trial composition now, this update won't change that and you could do it years ago too. Basically have 1 of each of the classes for their minor buffs. 6/12 done. Then fill out the rest with Necro's to get max Major Vulnerability uptime.

Allowing skills to be hybridized effects gameplay in pvp, solo and small group content where build choice actually matters. You build for sustain, healing, damage, speed, armor, and your preferred playstyle. Sacrifices are made. You don't have infinite sustain while only increasing DPS stats. That is just going to become more interesting with these changes for those types of content.

DPS parsing bosses only effects 1-2% of the games population and it will always be about DPS only, it's impossible to fix and ZOS's focus is on making a fun and open game, not a competitive end game PVE experience.. thats really never been their focus because they know only a handful of players can do it.

James-Wayne

Yep good change. Thanks!

ANewHand

I, for one, think those changes are very promising for build flexibility.

People complaining about homogenization don't understand the underlying results of these kinds of changes. Yes, there will be a smaller number of "BiS" builds, because almost everyone can take almost everything. But the new thing is the performance gap between BiS and not-BiS builds is greatly reduced.

"Homogenization" people are the ones who'll be building the one best build in the game right now because it's the very best for any character, but I'll be able to build wacky off-meta toons with a (very scary) 0.1% decrease in performance, whereas before those off-meta builds would be so far below the current meta mag/stam build.

You'll only loose diversity if you choose to loose diversity by following the meta instead of being creative and making the most of the increased freedom of choice.



Btw, people scared of health scaling: the devs are intentionally separating offensive stats (mag/stam, damage) and defensive stats (health, armor), just like they did with proc scaling.

Nebula_DooM

Im getting old eso vibes from this very curious to see how this all works out.

Xebov

Einstein_ wrote: »

idk understand why ppl think this is gonna increase diversity.

Because you only think in the terms of meta. Players are extremely used to chase meta builds and as such all end in the same corner using the same sets and the same builds, even if its unneeded most of the time. No matter how well you balance something, there is always one option that is a tiny little bit better. The change does not target meta builds, it targets everything else.

You can now reliable make use of magicka only abilities on your stamina classes and vice versa. This allows stam players to actually utilize their complete class instead of being limited to the few abilities that have stam morphs. The same is true for mag players in reverse.

Its unlikely that you will see single builds per class because after all you have to sustain your skills with their pool. You will still need to choose a primary pool and most of your abilities, especially spamables, need to come from that pool. You can now however throw in some abilities for the other pool as far as you can sustain them and have them on the damage level of your main pool abilities.

BronzeCaiman

ANewHand wrote: »

Yes, there will be a smaller number of "BiS" builds, because almost everyone can take almost everything. But the new thing is the performance gap between BiS and not-BiS builds is greatly reduced.

"Homogenization" people are the ones who'll be building the one best build in the game right now because it's the very best for any character, but I'll be able to build wacky off-meta toons with a (very scary) 0.1% decrease in performance, whereas before those off-meta builds would be so far below the current meta mag/stam build.

You'll only loose diversity if you choose to loose diversity by following the meta instead of being creative and making the most of the increased freedom of choice.

You seem like one of the only people who understands the point of these changes here. People want to be meta they want to be the "best", they lost the role playing element of MMORPG somewhere along the way.

This is a wonderful change, I can't wait to see magdens pulling out those poison shalks, my graveyard on stamcro hitting hard, stamDKs doing work with whip, I could go on and on. Much love from me to you ZoS (And Sir Kevin the courier)

HazardousMetal

So does this mean I can be an Orc stave user without completely throwing?

If so, YAY. I've always wanted this game to move towards the FFXIV style of racials not limiting what you can play. Me happy.

kojou

I am glad to see this direction. I'm also curious to see if all the stats in general will be consolidated.

WhyEvenTry

Why though?

Kalle_Demos

Any updates on Proc Scaling? As it stands, Magicka users remain at a loss as Spell Damage is still much harder to stack than Weapon Damage. Any plans to address this disparity?

MashmalloMan

Xebov wrote: »

Einstein_ wrote: »

idk understand why ppl think this is gonna increase diversity.

Because you only think in the terms of meta. Players are extremely used to chase meta builds and as such all end in the same corner using the same sets and the same builds, even if its unneeded most of the time. No matter how well you balance something, there is always one option that is a tiny little bit better. The change does not target meta builds, it targets everything else.

You can now reliable make use of magicka only abilities on your stamina classes and vice versa. This allows stam players to actually utilize their complete class instead of being limited to the few abilities that have stam morphs. The same is true for mag players in reverse.

Its unlikely that you will see single builds per class because after all you have to sustain your skills with their pool. You will still need to choose a primary pool and most of your abilities, especially spamables, need to come from that pool. You can now however throw in some abilities for the other pool as far as you can sustain them and have them on the damage level of your main pool abilities.

This should be added to the main post, you put it as well as it gets. Not sure why people think anything will change, if you chased a meta before, you were already pinholing yourself into a specific build, there was already very little choice if that was your focus. Frankly, building for DPS parsing is and will never change. Magicka builds were already more popular for end game trials as they're able to have stronger survivability and dps by attacking from range while also providing way more synergies since only magicka skills provide any synergy at all. That may change a little, who knows.

So whats the difference exactly? Do you ever see an end game mag sorc using the no pet build? Every slot in a 12 person raid is optimized to provide the most dps and group buffs possible.

This change will effect area's of the game where you can be more versatile already.. Solo arena's, 4 man dungeons, pvp. Area's where build choice between sustain, dps, defense, healing and utility are actually a factor. No one can do a 1 size fits all, but PVE end game, thats not the case.

Tank handles your defense. Healers handle your healing. Both provide utility, sustain and DPS boosters... so the remaining slots really just build their gear for maxing out DPS, especially since CP + Food covers sustain. Of course there will be no build diversity there lol.

Then people are acting like in PVP you have unlimited off resource sustain which is just not true. Without a lot of investment, 1 cast of crit surge and 2 streaks kills your entire magicka pool. So if a stam sorc wants to use more than the bare minimum, they're going to have to sacrifice something.

Same with mag builds, Resolving Vigor without Medium armor can be hella expensive if you're not use to managing your stamina pool with rolling, blocking, sprinting, etc. Somethings gotta give, it's not free.

I really look forward to this shaking up the state of the game. We haven't received any new combat related skills, weapons or classes for years now. I was really dissapointed with another year dedicated to a minigame mechanic so it's really nice to see build diversity and theory crafting is going to sky rocket in U33 like it did with Hybrid Sets. ZOS taking risks like this peaks my interest, they would of had less pushback from keeping things as the status quo.

Y2J

Does this mean hardened ward could scale of max stam for a stam sorc?

TheInfernalRage

HackTheMinotaur wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

In Update 33, the changes are focused on making almost every player ability in the game scale dynamically with your highest offensive stats when applicable. Similar to what we’ve worked on with passives and item sets, we want to ensure you feel empowered to pick an ability or weapon based on the gameplay mechanics and expression they offer you first and foremost, with fewer restrictions. This means any ability that used to scale exclusively with Spell Damage and Max Magicka will now dynamically scale with Weapon Damage and Max Stamina, and vice versa. With this, we want to retain the identity of many playstyles by reinforcing ability cost as a limiting factor in how frequently you can engage with abilities, but with less concern as to how powerful that ability is based on what stat path you’ve chosen.

We’ll also be dual sourcing buffs on abilities and item sets like Major Prophecy with Major Savagery, with the same thing applying to Brutality and Sorcery. In the long term, we plan on simply merging these bonuses so there are fewer names and effects you need to worry about, but there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that will result from that; as such, it may take quite some time before we’re able to do that.

@ZOS_Gilliam while this is awesome and I truly appreciate the hybrid love, these types of builds are still significantly disadvantaged due to magicka/stamina damage scaling. A true hybrid, play as you want type of build will still need split resource pools resulting in lower overall damage numbers. When will damage only be dependent on weapon and spell damage and not max resource as part of the calculation?

This has to be taken seriously.

Leogon

If you guys wanna continue hybridization, how about turning all races into hybrids?