Current State of PvP

Purpaleslushii

Hello to everyone reading this post. I wanted to address a few things with ESO and how pvp has shifted in the past few years. Long ago the game used to be amazing. Pvp was fresh and everyone was running around in small groups and solo. There were very few zerg's back then. The game was very much skill based, yes there was always either sets that made you really strong or sometimes a class was really good but for the most part it was balanced. Back then a lot of people complained about the skill gap in the game. The casual players said that it was not fair that one or two people could wipe a whole group them selves, 1v5, 2v8 etc. The problem with this was that these players that would die to small scalers always ran in big groups. They never learned how to protect them self's, manage resources, deal damage, focus different targets, basically just be self reliant. They relied to much on their group, and by doing this they were already at a disadvantage because they never gave them selves a chance to understand and become skillful in the game.

How did ZoS reply? Zos did what they thought was best and made it so casual players didn't need to get skill. They nerfed classes and added ridiculous proc sets. So instead of learning a combo with normal skills, casual players could do 5k to 15k free damage by just using random abilities that proced free damaged. This not only hurt the small scalers and people who enjoyed fighting groups but it also hurt pvp as a whole. Why did this hurt pvp though? The reason is small scale became not a thing anymore. People ended up being even more scared because of the monster that ZoS created. Nerfed classes to the ground as well and insane damage to the point that you cannot even go offensive when someone with a meta proc set build is attacking you. Basically in lamens terms this is like if there was a hockey team and they were so good to the point where they beat everyone, and the league officials said since you guys have to much skill we are making it so your team has to use dull skates so you cant be so fast and good anymore. This way the players that aren't as good have a chance. You see how backwards this logic is. No where in life no matter if its in gaming, sports, school, etc do the the people that are better have to be at a disadvantage just because of their skill. You wont ever get anywhere in life if you have a system that is like this. Players have not become better in ESO pvp they have just been given a crutch to lean on.

So why does this matter? I know a lot of people that still love ESO including myself. But instead of the game getting better and evolving the game keeps getting dumbed down every patch. No other game nerfs classes and things as much as this game does. Instead of nerfing stuff all the time like classes, why not just buff the other classes to be up to par with whatever is overperforming. This way instead of the game regressing it can actually evolve and people have something to look forward to. Right now a lot of people are playing what's meta either DK, Stam Sorc, or some sort of ganking build. Now these players are only playing these classes because it is what's good so even though they might like another class more its not worth them loosing out on what they would miss from these meta classes.

How does all of this effect pvp. The state of pvp right now is really terrible. There is way to much damage and if you don't play what is meta you get punished. For example I play a Mag Sorc and i use shields. 90% of the fights i get into this patch i have to play completely defensively stacking shields and popping resto ult non stop. I cant even go offensive most of the time because if i tried i would instantly just die. Mag sorc is in such a terrible spot right now to the point that people don't even use shields anymore they either go stam sorc or become a hybrid. The problem is ZoS will nerf certain things like shields but then add sets and buff classes to the point that the new buff's and sets' out weigh the old nerfs and classes. Shields are so weak to the point that with 47k mag and 30k health i am still getting 3 shot and melted in CP pvp. In no cp it is even worse to the point that you just instantly die every time. Changes need to be made that balance classes before new sets keep coming into the game. Mag nigh blades are not even a thing anymore because of how poor shield strength is. Every mag class was affected by the shield nerf. Other things that got nerfed that hurt the game were things like, warden beetles no longer stun, crystal frag no longer stuns, mages guild ability's no longer grant empower to moves, magic det no longer does damage to one person but then we have proc sets that do 10k plus free damage it makes no sense.

How can pvp be fixed? The first thing that needs to happen is proc set damage needs to be nerfed in pvp by at least 50% or completely disable any proc sets that grant free damage in pvp. Next balance classes again. Give back things like shields strength so magic classes can be viable again. Make it so if you choose to be a tank in pvp you don't do damage there are to many people that are super tanky right now but also deal insane amounts of damage. Fix most class skills to be how they used to be. The main person who made a lot of the pvp changes back in the day ended up getting fired because his changes and view on pvp was terrible. Although he was fired the changes he had made continued to be left in the game. A lot of these changes really made pvp not fun and devalued the state of the game as a whole.

How can this make the game better? By rebalancing pvp and having a fresh outlook on the game this will give players the chance to not have to zerg and run proc sets and meta classes. Players will be able to have fun and part of the fun of any game is learning the mechanic's and becoming good at what ever class you play by getting skill and having fun. This will help the game to evolve and become what it always should of been. The best MMO pvp game out there.

Thanks for reading

PurpaleSlushii-

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding.

acastanza_ESO

No-proc is for sure a better experience than Proc PVP, that said...

MagSorc is absolute trash right now. It has two half decent abilities Streak and Negate.
Streak doesn't work half the time, you just sit there and shoot lightning until you run out of magicka and die. Or you streak and are still CC'ed at the end and die.
Negate only blocks Magicka abilities but everyone is running the broken AF stam abilities so it's just a mediocre AOE dot.
The worst part is that the fixes for MagSorc are so simple.

Streak needs to not escalate in cost again.
Crystal Frags needs to Stun again.
Negate needs to do what it says in the tooltop and remov[e] and prevent all enemy area of effect abilities, not just magicka ones.
Curse should have a good additional effect like apply Magicka Steal or Breach or something to make it not a worse choice than Bound Armaments.
Class shields need to be exempted from Battlespirit like the stupid new roll-dodge mythic.

That might sound like a lot, but compare against the likes of DK or Templar with the ridiculous self heals, CC's and self-sustain. MagSorc might actually be able to compete. The current state is absolutely insulting.

That's just addressing MagSorc specifically though, there are bigger changes that need to be made to CC's and healing.
CC immunity length should scale inversely with group size - running a giant group? Next to no immunity. Solo? Double the current length (maybe more).
Don't allow more than one self-cast and one external Radiating Regen. That'd cut down some of the insane healing we're seeing.
Make the Towers in Cyodiil destructable again (but set them to regenerate health when not being seiged), that'd let people actually do something about the ballgroups and tower-runners that make for painfully unfun gameplay around them.

Tsunahmie

Magsorc is in the worst spot since launch
It's only playable in a group setting right now and when pushing spell damage.
Shields are an absolute nono right now and I have resorted to going medium and heavy armour....this isn't magsorc... it's basically a hybrid and a bad one at that. A more hybrid magsorc is worse than pure stamsorc or even a more hybrid stamsorc lol
My point is that magsorc is unplayable and there's nothing "magicka" about magsorc right now unless you like getting oneshot or doing literally 0 damage

As for other classes? I'm glad DK gets to shine...hell now I know what they felt like for the past 3? Years. But still... I'm not sure they were as bad as magsorc and magblade? are right now

Dorkener

I think the mag/stam divide is no longer relevant. We're all just melee or ranged now, while using the most efficient stat to squeeze out the most dmg/healing output. (Atm any "stamplar" that knows what they're doing is stacking spell damage and using purifying light, for example). Do I like it? No. But it is what it is and does not look like it's changing anytime soon.

So yeah, if you want a ranged sorc, hop on the FotM bow train (yes, shields are utter trash)

Also not a fan of the "well just buff eveything else up to par" approach. They did it to DKs last patch and now we have godzilla...

On topic: yeah it's not fun at all atm, basically stopped playing.

xDeusEJRx

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

No-proc is for sure a better experience than Proc PVP, that said...
Curse should have a good additional effect like apply Magicka Steal or Breach or something to make it not a worse choice than Bound Armaments.
Class shields need to be exempted from Battlespirit like the stupid new roll-dodge mythic.

Curse doesn't need a change, in my opinion it's better than bound armaments is damage wise. Bound armaments only has one over because it provides passive buffs but curse does an AoE splash from the original target and it re-applies the curse after the explosion. Meanwhile bound armaments requires you to re-acquire the stacks after usage. But curse is honestly better for upfront burst damage, I'd only ever use bound armaments for passive damage.

acastanza_ESO

The AOE on curse isn't particularly good, the area is super small. The passive for Bound Armaments is SO good this patch pushing LA damage, and the stacks give you burst on-demand instead of having to time everything perfectly in advance... only for the enemy to kite behind something for a split second and ruin your entire combo (a combo that is already worse than many classes can pull off with a single skill).

katorga

Dorkener wrote: »

I think the mag/stam divide is no longer relevant. We're all just melee or ranged now, while using the most efficient stat to squeeze out the most dmg/healing output. (Atm any "stamplar" that knows what they're doing is stacking spell damage and using purifying light, for example). Do I like it? No. But it is what it is and does not look like it's changing anytime soon.

So yeah, if you want a ranged sorc, hop on the FotM bow train (yes, shields are utter trash)

Also not a fan of the "well just buff eveything else up to par" approach. They did it to DKs last patch and now we have godzilla...

On topic: yeah it's not fun at all atm, basically stopped playing.

That's a really good way to put it...melee or ranged. Magsorc vs stamsorc is no more.

xDeusEJRx

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

The AOE on curse isn't particularly good, the area is super small. The passive for Bound Armaments is SO good this patch pushing LA damage, and the stacks give you burst on-demand instead of having to time everything perfectly in advance... only for the enemy to kite behind something for a split second and ruin your entire combo (a combo that is already worse than many classes can pull off with a single skill).

Bound armaments is a projectile and like any other, people can avoid it, wasting your stacks.Also the burst isn't on demand, it's kind of like a channel, the weapons hit 1 after another with a 0.3 second time gap. Which is short sure but is not really good if you need upfront burst that someone isn't just gonna spam roll away from the moment it hits them. One person can get hit by 1 the armaments and dodge the rest because they don't all hit at the same time due to the 0.3 delay between each cast. Not exactly an on-demand ability.

Meanwhile curse can't be dodged period, it sticks to a target and it works through line of sight unlike bound armaments which requires the target to be within LoS range. So I could curse my target, shift the corner and come around and hit them right as the curse goes off. I personally think curse allows for way better 100-0 damage burst potential than bound armaments does. I dropped it on my stam sorc to use curse and I honestly think it was such an upgrade since Dizzy, Crystal weapon, and curse can all do 5k+ damage alone with some extreme highs like 9k+ which 100-0's most enemies if you can keep pressure down on them.

I think curse is perfectly fine the way it is. But crystal fragments needs a change however to match crystal weapon at this point, an rng burst can't match up to crystal weapon the way it is now, it's a little loaded of a "spammable"

Rohamad_Ali

TBH what happened was they lost the original Dev team here. Sliding downhill ever since.

AdamLAD

Magicka Sorcerer is rough to play. Shields seriously needs to be buffed. The changes the made years ago to they cannot hold up to todays climate of PvP. Everything is better than them in terms of a defensive mechanism. Healing is better, dodgerolling is better, blocking is better, cloak is better and cloak has so many counters. Its not just Sheilds though, in lag its the worst class. Soon as those Sheilds don't cast. Dead. Soon as streak doesn't work. Dead. Block will always work, dodgerolling will always work in lag. Which compounds the problem. The fact that some Sorcerers don't even use Shields anymore is a problem. Class identity gone. Since healing is way way overtuned, Sorcerers cannot burst people down like they used too. Especially when blocking and dodgerolling costs literally nothing nowadays which hurst sorc more as we have to line up our burst. 30k is the average health pool now also, completely unburstable. We need some extra BEEF in all areas. The only thing sorc currently that does well is running away and killing players who have no idea what they are doing at range. I say at range because all classes can kill players who have no idea what they are doing. As a veteran at the class id could easily sit down with the devs and tell them exactly how to fix it without it being broke. Unfortunately that will not happen.