99% of the sets in ESO are non-competitive and the next ones are just the same [Discussion]

TheDarkRuler

Hello,
i was just browsing through Alcast's ESO-Hub.com website and was looking what to expect with the next High Isles chapter.
When looking at the sets, I felt quite surprised at first but the surprise because of seeing some unique ideas was quickly washed away by the fact that those sets will probably never see competitive play.

Take a brief look on them:

• Glacial Guardian: Trigger condition not really doable on purpose in multi-enemy fights and only 2/3 uptime. Also the damage is disgustingly low even with full-health tank.
• Gryphons Reprisal: Probably the best of the batch because the damage is ok'ish on paper. But the synergy itself can be stolen from you by an ally. The AoE is also triggered around the synergizing person and with 5 meter radius the damage is often missing in random groups.
• Spriggan's Vigor: At max stack you get 2,2k max stamina and restore 100 stamina per crit, but that is on a set with only one critical bonus. And due to the fact that stamina gives more buffs to pure weapon/spell damage the crit trigger feels bad.
• Maligalig's Maelstrom: The set that encouraged me to write this post. The idea behind this set is nice. If you are overhealing allies you can cause more damage onto enemies. But the 10seconds global cooldown causes it to be a 3,3k per second DoT in a small area only.

To complete the list Turning Tide and Storm-Cursed's Revenge look still promising because of a fact i am later pointing out.

What determines if a set is good or not?
The most played sets in ESO either have an easy to trigger condition, have high percentual uptime and benefit the group with unique or relevant buffs.
Kinras is easy to enable due to light attacks and has no cooldown, Relequen is the same and deals almost unconditional damage per second. Yolnakriin has an uptime even longer than its cooldown, causing its percentual uptime to be 100% . However most of the sets have too little of those benefits to be worn effectively.

Maligalig's Maelstrom would be nice because 6/10 seconds is a decent but not perfect up-time percentage and the damage per target is okay. However the nail in the coffin is the global cooldown. If the set were to be changed to a 10s per target, the set could be worn by an healer to give a weak-dps group some additional dps.
Ice Furnace is a set from base game (Direfrost Keep) that deals fire damage if an enemy is damaged by ice damage. It has weak dps, medium area size but the weakest factor is the global 1 second cooldown. A set that can only give you around 2k dps if playing on the weakest element dps-wise (ice damage) is not worth using.

My suggestion?
Redo most of the sets with global cooldowns to trigger cooldowns per target to make them more effective in groups or in mass fights. Because I personally do not want to play the same 1% of the sets all over again. If 99% of the sets is useless the whole sticker book collection theme would loose its purpose.

Marcus_Thracius

Nice thinking , but nothing will change.
But keep the hope alive

dmnqwk

Maybe it's time to campaign that all sets are capable of a 100% uptime?

Having sets crit (aka produce an effect you cannot control, with limited uptime like 8 seconds out of 15) do not produce a feeling of being beneficial - they feel like having employees that wont listen to anything you say (the term herding cats comes to mind).

I think Z should consider looking at which sets are used and which are not and, hopefully, come to understand why if a set cannot produce 100% uptime then the effect needs to compensate (aka if a 100% uptime set produces 2k dps then a 50% uptime one needs to produce 6k dps while up, to compensate for the uncontrolled nature.)

Ksariyu

This has long been a pattern in the set design of this game. It is a shame, because there's a lot of cool ideas in the game that theoretically fit into the design of the combat system, but don't fit with the way combat has evolved to work at even the mid-tier.

There's also a history of conflicting effects on sets/skills. Your complaint about Spriggan's Vigor is exactly my same complaint about Sorcerer's Surge, which relies on crit damage/healing but gives you Brutality/Sorcery.

A note on Gryphon's Reprisal though: I may be misreading, but it looks to me like the radius is based on the initial enemy that got the synergy, rather than the caster. It's still not great that the damage could be cut if say, your tank uses the synergy before you do, but it's not a terrible set by the looks of it. It's also not clear if they synergy's damage is based on the set-wearer's stats or if it's like skill-based synergies and scales with the user of the synergy (And I'll never use that word so many times in a paragraph again).

dmnqwkb16_ESO wrote: »

Maybe it's time to campaign that all sets are capable of a 100% uptime?

Having sets crit (aka produce an effect you cannot control, with limited uptime like 8 seconds out of 15) do not produce a feeling of being beneficial - they feel like having employees that wont listen to anything you say (the term herding cats comes to mind).

I think Z should consider looking at which sets are used and which are not and, hopefully, come to understand why if a set cannot produce 100% uptime then the effect needs to compensate (aka if a 100% uptime set produces 2k dps then a 50% uptime one needs to produce 6k dps while up, to compensate for the uncontrolled nature.)

For this, I don't know if sets need to have 100% uptime, but I agree with the ability to control the effects. If you're trying to make a skill-based gameplay system, any effect that has a percent-chance to activate is going to feel clunky compared to something with a constant uptime or a guaranteed activation condition. It's also inherently less competitive to have skills or sets that work like this, as random chance directly counters the effects of skill.

TheDarkRuler

Ksariyu wrote: »

A note on Gryphon's Reprisal though: I may be misreading, but it looks to me like the radius is based on the initial enemy that got the synergy, rather than the caster. It's still not great that the damage could be cut if say, your tank uses the synergy before you do, but it's not a terrible set by the looks of it. It's also not clear if they synergy's damage is based on the set-wearer's stats or if it's like skill-based synergies and scales with the user of the synergy (And I'll never use that word so many times in a paragraph again).

On the PTS the synergy is procced around the synergizing person. At least it did during the past version.

Hand_Bacon

I'd say most players don't really want things to change, they want the illusion of change. Remember when proc sets were introduced? This created the biggest seismic shift in PvP, and the wailing was tremendous. Hence, we have short up times on unreliable procs for pretty much everything out there, aside from the small meta window.

So, we get new toys that are, oddly, pretty much the same as the old toys...but at least we get to see new youtube videos and less storage.

AlnilamE

The problem is that, unless you make all sets the same with different colour effects, then people will gravitate to whichever once does 0.001% more damage if they want to be competitive.

So if you want to have any sort of variety, sets need to be different so people can use them in different situations.

TheDarkRuler

AlnilamE wrote: »

The problem is that, unless you make all sets the same with different colour effects, then people will gravitate to whichever once does 0.001% more damage if they want to be competitive.

A game where the sets would only differ by 0,001% would be most welcome.
But currently its more like two-digit percentage differences in strength if not more.
I want diversity, i want meta builds and i am absolutely not against some sets being weaker and some stronger.
But what i dont want is a game where most sets are absolute garbage and a few sets being really good.

In another MMO i played there was a nice procedure: Every few months the least sets played least would get reworked/buffed.
That way there could be a low-curve change in the set meta.

Lumenn

I can definitely see some room for improvement on a few of them, crafted sets especially. The new bash one that as a 5 piece bonus gives barely more bash dmg than one infused enchantment and a cool down cone effect. Some older sets (can we PLEASE look at twice born again. I and many others I play with feel it's a bit outdated, especially for a 9 trait. Thrice born would be nice 👍 ) but I have to admit I can see a use for many of them still. Are they BIS? Nope, but not everything can be.

LashanW

AlnilamE wrote: »

The problem is that, unless you make all sets the same with different colour effects, then people will gravitate to whichever once does 0.001% more damage if they want to be competitive.

So if you want to have any sort of variety, sets need to be different so people can use them in different situations.

True. A lot of people tend to stick with meta sets when it comes to competitive / group content. I do too. This leads to many sets being very rarely used.

However I believe one of the big factors for this situation is the lack of challenging solo content. When playing solo there's so much freedom, no one is bothered by what sets you use. If there were enough challenging solo content, it would give many opportunities to try out many of the the various sets in the game and it can be tons of fun. But in ESO all solo content (except for the 2 vet arenas) are so easy that it's pretty much pointless to worry about builds.

Just recently I was soloing Fang Lair on normal for the story, and for the Ulfnor boss I had to try a pretty wacky build to get past it. There's a pin mechanic here so it requires another player to free you. But psijic ultimate can save you when soloing. However you need high ultimate generation to make sure it's ready again quickly. So I ended up using Bloodspawn, Drake's Rush and Blessing of the Potentates. On a magsorc. Managed to get past this boss that way. Traditional DD builds would be stuck here.

mocap

99% of ESO players don't even know sets like Maligalig's Maelstrom, so they probably don't care about it.

HowlKimchi

How do you define "competitive"?

Because im sure a combination of different sets can still do all the content as long as you build it right. Is that not competitive?

Unless you mean, "meta" because in that case there will always only be a few sets that's the best. When a new set from a dlc is good, it becomes meta, and it replaces an older set.

Jusey1

I think you meant "META" and not competitive.

Necrotech_Master

TheDarkRuler wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

The problem is that, unless you make all sets the same with different colour effects, then people will gravitate to whichever once does 0.001% more damage if they want to be competitive.

A game where the sets would only differ by 0,001% would be most welcome.
But currently its more like two-digit percentage differences in strength if not more.
I want diversity, i want meta builds and i am absolutely not against some sets being weaker and some stronger.
But what i dont want is a game where most sets are absolute garbage and a few sets being really good.

In another MMO i played there was a nice procedure: Every few months the least sets played least would get reworked/buffed.
That way there could be a low-curve change in the set meta.

generally speaking they usually do try to go back and work on sets here and there (they turned the sithis set from total garbage to at least something that has a potential niche use)

there are definitely sets that need to be looked at now for sure with all of the hybridization going on (toothrow and treasure hunter are 99% the same exact set, the only differences are the armor weights (negligible if its on weapon/jewelry) and a max stam/max mag bonus)

there are certainly a lot of sets which are extremely underwhelming and it would be nice to see those get more use or at least be worth considering for theory crafting lol

Varana

For new competitive sets, you need to wait for the chapter release, esp. the trial sets from there.

They will include one or two sets that will be meta for a year so everyone buys the chapter. Then they'll nerf them just in time for the next one. Remember Siroria+Relequen, Lokkestiiz+False God's, and now Bahsei.