PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

GloatingSwine

Mr_Stach wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I believe there is still more work to be done with Warden's Scorch ability and morphs. The dev comment states that that the 10s timing was "too disruptive with those who are familiar with the class" and I agree completely. However the new 9s version is not any better in this regard. The 3s rhythm is defined by casting Deep Fissure every 3rd skill, and casting it every 9th does not provide this rhythm.

It is implied by the notes that players can choose to cast Deep Fissure every 3s instead of waiting until 9s, but this results in significantly lower damage (in part because the 2nd hit at 9s is the powerful one). For comparison, a player using DF every 9s can do the following over 18s:

16X spammable (2376) + 2X Deep Fissure both hits (2850 + 3960) = 51636

While a player casting DF every 3s can do:

12X spammable (2376) + 6X Deep Fissure 1st hit (2850) = 45612

That is a massive difference, and anyone who cares about dealing damage effectively will be forced to use the 9s duration. This also fits poorly with every DoT in the game, where most are now 10, 15, 20 or 30s. If it were a 3s timer then at least we could plan around the 15 and 30s morphs of various skills for a clean rotation.

For Subterranean Assault, I'm very happy that the duration is back to 6s. However, as pointed out by @skinnycheeks this morph is underpowered compared to Deep Fissure, even if you ignore the armor debuffs. In the same 18s duration shown above, a player using SA can do:

15X spammable (2376) + 6X Subterranean hits (2591) = 51186

This all seems very backward. The 9s morph deals the most DPS, followed by the 6s morph, and the classic Warden 3s rhythm gives much lower DPS than either. Choosing a more active rotation is rewarded by dealing less damage. I'm for all 3 being similar, but recasting on 3s should deal slightly more damage overall than waiting until 9, and subterranean should fall between these 2 options.

My recommendation would be to swap the 1st and 2nd hits on Deep Fissure, so the larger one occurs first and only the weaker one is lost if recast early. This would result in the 3s rhythm producing 52,272 damage, and slightly outperforming the 9s with 51636. Then Subterranean could get a flat 5% increase to its damage, which would result in each hit dealing 2720 damage, and a total of 51960 in 18s with 12 spammables (almost directly between the 2 rotation options with Deep Fissure).

My recommendation would be to just make them both 3/6 Timers. Give them both major breach. And then something interesting to differentiate them. Like Sub Assault makes Hemorrhage Procs do more Damage for 10s. Fissure does extra damage to Chilled Targets.

This different timer stuff is annoying

I would go as far as to say that the different timer stuff is the problem with combat and the thing they should have been trying to change to close the gap in player performance.

All timers in the game should have a common factor, in the mathematical sense that they can all be neatly divided by the same number (that's greater than 1).

I would suggest that 3 would be the best common factor, with every timer (other than a few super short effects at 3) also having 6 or 9 as a factor. That means that all timers for all DoTs, Buffs, Debuffs, and so on would be things like 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, and 54.

What that would mean is that when used in a rotation there would be more instances where skills naturally line up to be used together. For example if you have DoTs with cooldowns of 6 and 18 then every third time you cast the 6 you cast the 18 as well. That means that it is a lot easier to develop muscle memory around your rotation because the times where everything lines up define a rhythm, and that means more people can build a rotation that they are comfortable using from memory without having to watch timers.

It would also make it easier to manage debuff uptimes, because they would naturally sit on the rhythm that you are doing other skills.

It would also allow different classes to be biased towards certain durations and styles of DoT. a 6 duration would be less resource efficient but more intense at the expense of using less spammers, an 18 would be resource efficient but leave more time for spammers. That would produce a different feel when using different classes and reinforce their identity.

Just making DoTs longer doesn't help, making them all the same is boring, making them all line up frequently allows for variety and also ease of building a rotation.

Mr_Stach

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I believe there is still more work to be done with Warden's Scorch ability and morphs. The dev comment states that that the 10s timing was "too disruptive with those who are familiar with the class" and I agree completely. However the new 9s version is not any better in this regard. The 3s rhythm is defined by casting Deep Fissure every 3rd skill, and casting it every 9th does not provide this rhythm.

It is implied by the notes that players can choose to cast Deep Fissure every 3s instead of waiting until 9s, but this results in significantly lower damage (in part because the 2nd hit at 9s is the powerful one). For comparison, a player using DF every 9s can do the following over 18s:

16X spammable (2376) + 2X Deep Fissure both hits (2850 + 3960) = 51636

While a player casting DF every 3s can do:

12X spammable (2376) + 6X Deep Fissure 1st hit (2850) = 45612

That is a massive difference, and anyone who cares about dealing damage effectively will be forced to use the 9s duration. This also fits poorly with every DoT in the game, where most are now 10, 15, 20 or 30s. If it were a 3s timer then at least we could plan around the 15 and 30s morphs of various skills for a clean rotation.

For Subterranean Assault, I'm very happy that the duration is back to 6s. However, as pointed out by @skinnycheeks this morph is underpowered compared to Deep Fissure, even if you ignore the armor debuffs. In the same 18s duration shown above, a player using SA can do:

15X spammable (2376) + 6X Subterranean hits (2591) = 51186

This all seems very backward. The 9s morph deals the most DPS, followed by the 6s morph, and the classic Warden 3s rhythm gives much lower DPS than either. Choosing a more active rotation is rewarded by dealing less damage. I'm for all 3 being similar, but recasting on 3s should deal slightly more damage overall than waiting until 9, and subterranean should fall between these 2 options.

My recommendation would be to swap the 1st and 2nd hits on Deep Fissure, so the larger one occurs first and only the weaker one is lost if recast early. This would result in the 3s rhythm producing 52,272 damage, and slightly outperforming the 9s with 51636. Then Subterranean could get a flat 5% increase to its damage, which would result in each hit dealing 2720 damage, and a total of 51960 in 18s with 12 spammables (almost directly between the 2 rotation options with Deep Fissure).

My recommendation would be to just make them both 3/6 Timers. Give them both major breach. And then something interesting to differentiate them. Like Sub Assault makes Hemorrhage Procs do more Damage for 10s. Fissure does extra damage to Chilled Targets.

This different timer stuff is annoying

I would go as far as to say that the different timer stuff is the problem with combat and the thing they should have been trying to change to close the gap in player performance.

All timers in the game should have a common factor, in the mathematical sense that they can all be neatly divided by the same number (that's greater than 1).

I would suggest that 3 would be the best common factor, with every timer (other than a few super short effects at 3) also having 6 or 9 as a factor. That means that all timers for all DoTs, Buffs, Debuffs, and so on would be things like 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, and 54.

What that would mean is that when used in a rotation there would be more instances where skills naturally line up to be used together. For example if you have DoTs with cooldowns of 6 and 18 then every third time you cast the 6 you cast the 18 as well. That means that it is a lot easier to develop muscle memory around your rotation because the times where everything lines up define a rhythm, and that means more people can build a rotation that they are comfortable using from memory without having to watch timers.

It would also make it easier to manage debuff uptimes, because they would naturally sit on the rhythm that you are doing other skills.

It would also allow different classes to be biased towards certain durations and styles of DoT. a 6 duration would be less resource efficient but more intense at the expense of using less spammers, an 18 would be resource efficient but leave more time for spammers. That would produce a different feel when using different classes and reinforce their identity.

Just making DoTs longer doesn't help, making them all the same is boring, making them all line up frequently allows for variety and also ease of building a rotation.

That's some good points, I was primarily talking scorch, but having everything on factors of 3 would work fine as well. The biggest issue is consistency. As it is right now rotations are kind of Volatile. I makes them very annoying.

GloatingSwine

Additionally, any effect which currently extends durations of things should reduce costs instead, which produces the same effect of making them more efficient over time but would keep them on the rhythm of "everything lines up on a 6 second beat".

siddique

RIP. I would rather not even get the new dungeons if it means it will come with these broken combat changes.

Revert.

Sandman929

ZOS is about half way through the field of rakes they've decided to step on and repeatedly hit themselves in the face. This disaster is coming on schedule no matter what it's final form and then we can spend a few more updates fixing it.

This is the way.

Personofsecrets

Can you please increase the length of the stagger debuff applied by stonefist, remove the channel portion of stonefists cast, or do both?

Thank you.

siddique

Sandman929 wrote: »

ZOS is about half way through the field of rakes they've decided to step on and repeatedly hit themselves in the face. This disaster is coming on schedule no matter what it's final form and then we can spend a few more updates fixing it.

This is the way.

Probably what is going to happen. Been nearly 4 weeks I cancelled sub and I can safely say I am not missing anything.

Whats tragic is, everyone told them. And they still went ahead.

exiledtyrant

Did a Short 10 Second vs 15 Second rotation parse using Flurry rotation on both. 10 Second rotation was performing with no clipping and 15 second rotation had clipping to keep the rotation within 15 seconds.

Video of parse found here:

https://youtu.be/fToTb8z8Nv8

Results:

10 Second - 73.9k
15 Second - 74.6k

Initial Conclusions:

About the same results as last week in that 15 seconds in outperforming 10 seconds in a static encounter. I would still wager that in a movement intensive fight the damage skews the other way. Both are still so close that you could slot one or the other depending on personal preference and not really see a noticeable gap in performance. Still would like the morphs to just be split as 10 seconds and 20 seconds so I don't have to clip my rotation and people who want the faster 10 second rotations still have the option.

Personofsecrets

I'm adding a little bit of more context with regards to Stonefist. I'm doing so since the environment seems to be calling into question things like ease of keeping dots going and I'm considering the stagger debuff to be dot like, at the least, in how it is applied.

In a raid environment, I may perform a simple rotation such as the following.

Stonefist, bar swap, wall, clench, bar swap, pierce armor, Stonefist. In my opinion, this isn't too much activity, but the things that I am doing in this case are still valuable.

Even though this isn't much activity, the stagger debuff still falls off when it's time to follow a mechanic, dodge, spot heal, fit in an ultimate, etc. And recasting to the stacks of stagger feels very punishing. There are situations such as avoiding casting stonefist because I can soon be attacked for alot of damage and I can't risk the channel portion of the stonefist cycle causing me to drop block.

As evident by that example, it should be seen how the skill leads to these convoluted ways of playing very quickly. And some of that is okay, not everything has to be simple, but the drawbacks of this skill are pretty big. That includes dying during a channel, but also just having to use 3 global cooldowns to reach the proper number of stagger stacks prior to a mechanic leading to them all falling off again.

HEIIMS

At this point the ESO balance updates have started their Joker arc. When you think it can't get any more ridiculous you get slapped by next week’s update. This whole debacle was very tiresome to watch, but now it’s just plain comedic. The random changes brainstormed in few days due to negative feedback from community followed by bandage-like last minute changes attempting to fix them. Even more, say, naïve players who truly believed in your mission statement and had put absolute trust you will fulfill it have started having doubts, when either presented with stone-cold data or by testing themselves. I honestly feel bad for some of the community members spending many hours on PTS testing to provide hard proof of something being completely off the rails (even though a lot of things were obvious just from patch notes alone) discover even more broken things with each hour spent on PTS. I honestly cannot see how this will be healthy to the game long term, changes are aplenty, and they are severe, and from looking through some PTS tests, either poorly or not tested at all and we haven’t even gone to adjusted pve content (supposed reduction of boss/add HP), which is another massive change, that very likely, was cooked up on the fly with minimal testing. Also, more class changes coming etc. Everyone can look at this and tell that you’ll have to spend subsequent patches fixing whatever is coming live with U35, everyone, from low dps quester to sweaty tryhard scorepusher or PvP addict, which ironically is the only silver lining with U35 - you managed to unite almost entire ESO community. The circus is back in town, and we all have front seats.

xylena_lazarow

In case this X_K parse hasn't been seen by devs... note the pathetic DoT skill damage. Is this intended gameplay?

francesinhalover

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I believe there is still more work to be done with Warden's Scorch ability and morphs. The dev comment states that that the 10s timing was "too disruptive with those who are familiar with the class" and I agree completely. However the new 9s version is not any better in this regard. The 3s rhythm is defined by casting Deep Fissure every 3rd skill, and casting it every 9th does not provide this rhythm.

It is implied by the notes that players can choose to cast Deep Fissure every 3s instead of waiting until 9s, but this results in significantly lower damage (in part because the 2nd hit at 9s is the powerful one). For comparison, a player using DF every 9s can do the following over 18s:

16X spammable (2376) + 2X Deep Fissure both hits (2850 + 3960) = 51636

While a player casting DF every 3s can do:

12X spammable (2376) + 6X Deep Fissure 1st hit (2850) = 45612

That is a massive difference, and anyone who cares about dealing damage effectively will be forced to use the 9s duration. This also fits poorly with every DoT in the game, where most are now 10, 15, 20 or 30s. If it were a 3s timer then at least we could plan around the 15 and 30s morphs of various skills for a clean rotation.

For Subterranean Assault, I'm very happy that the duration is back to 6s. However, as pointed out by @skinnycheeks this morph is underpowered compared to Deep Fissure, even if you ignore the armor debuffs. In the same 18s duration shown above, a player using SA can do:

15X spammable (2376) + 6X Subterranean hits (2591) = 51186

This all seems very backward. The 9s morph deals the most DPS, followed by the 6s morph, and the classic Warden 3s rhythm gives much lower DPS than either. Choosing a more active rotation is rewarded by dealing less damage. I'm for all 3 being similar, but recasting on 3s should deal slightly more damage overall than waiting until 9, and subterranean should fall between these 2 options.

My recommendation would be to swap the 1st and 2nd hits on Deep Fissure, so the larger one occurs first and only the weaker one is lost if recast early. This would result in the 3s rhythm producing 52,272 damage, and slightly outperforming the 9s with 51636. Then Subterranean could get a flat 5% increase to its damage, which would result in each hit dealing 2720 damage, and a total of 51960 in 18s with 12 spammables (almost directly between the 2 rotation options with Deep Fissure).

My recommendation would be to just make them both 3/6 Timers. Give them both major breach. And then something interesting to differentiate them. Like Sub Assault makes Hemorrhage Procs do more Damage for 10s. Fissure does extra damage to Chilled Targets.

This different timer stuff is annoying

I would go as far as to say that the different timer stuff is the problem with combat and the thing they should have been trying to change to close the gap in player performance.

All timers in the game should have a common factor, in the mathematical sense that they can all be neatly divided by the same number (that's greater than 1).

I would suggest that 3 would be the best common factor, with every timer (other than a few super short effects at 3) also having 6 or 9 as a factor. That means that all timers for all DoTs, Buffs, Debuffs, and so on would be things like 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, and 54.

What that would mean is that when used in a rotation there would be more instances where skills naturally line up to be used together. For example if you have DoTs with cooldowns of 6 and 18 then every third time you cast the 6 you cast the 18 as well. That means that it is a lot easier to develop muscle memory around your rotation because the times where everything lines up define a rhythm, and that means more people can build a rotation that they are comfortable using from memory without having to watch timers.

It would also make it easier to manage debuff uptimes, because they would naturally sit on the rhythm that you are doing other skills.

It would also allow different classes to be biased towards certain durations and styles of DoT. a 6 duration would be less resource efficient but more intense at the expense of using less spammers, an 18 would be resource efficient but leave more time for spammers. That would produce a different feel when using different classes and reinforce their identity.

Just making DoTs longer doesn't help, making them all the same is boring, making them all line up frequently allows for variety and also ease of building a rotation.

Seems really confusing to me tbh id preffer

6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 like...we have on live more or less.

You can easily slot a 10 sec dot and by the time it ends you can activate it and the second dot thats 12 without losing dps.

Im using atm endless> skeletal archer. Its far from the best. But it works.

With 9 > 12 i cant really use one skill after the other.

IZZEFlameLash

Just revert everything. Give us new dungeons sets. Give these changes more time to be experimented.

MudcrabAttack

Warden


Winters Revenge and Sub Assault (Even assuming Sub Assault will come down to 6 second duration) still seems weak

Necromancer

WrathOfInnos

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Can you please increase the length of the stagger debuff applied by stonefist, remove the channel portion of stonefists cast, or do both?

Thank you.

I agree. Stagger is an important debuff, and uptimes can have a great effect on group damage. However the short duration, and the risk of the slow cast dropping block make it quite difficult for the tank. This is one of the factors that separates mid-tier groups from the top. Giving it more forgiving duration and removing the cast time would make it a more accessible buff for all groups, without increasing the DPS ceiling.

xylena_lazarow

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

Warden

Necromancer

Light attack weaving is providing more damage than class DoT skills. This is the wrong direction, ZOS.

WrathOfInnos

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

Warden

Necromancer

Light attack weaving is providing more damage than class DoT skills. This is the wrong direction, ZOS.

To be fair, that is showing 126 casts of light attack slightly outperforming 17 casts of Boneyard. If you look at damage per button press DoTs are far ahead.

I will agree that DoTs should be ticking harder though, with shorter durations. I don't see why we cannot have skills that function like proc sets: Viper's sting is a single target 4s poison DoT, Grothdarr is a 5s player-centered AoE DoT. Nobody is requesting that these become 20-30s for being "sticky". I'd love some short, powerful DoT abilities, like we had in the old days (when Lightning Flood dealt respectable damage, but lasted only 6s). Acid Spray is the closest example we have now, with a 4s DoT, but it is too weak and expensive to use in a single target rotation. I have not heard anyone that likes the idea that Poison Injection should tickle over 20s, it needs to deal real damage over a manageable duration.

acastanza_ESO

I realized I posted this in the wrong thread before:

@ZOS_Gilliam Frost Clench should not be increased in cost, it is a terrible version of the skill as it is, the range increase is only going to bring it up to par, increasing the cost will only push it back down into being an awful skill again. With the cost as it currently is on live, and the range as it is on PTS, it might actually be possible to do a viable frost build on several classes, but not with the cost increase.

Destructive Clench as a whole needs some love, it's woefully under-used across the board as-is.

MudcrabAttack

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

Warden

Necromancer

Light attack weaving is providing more damage than class DoT skills. This is the wrong direction, ZOS.

To be fair, that is showing 126 casts of light attack slightly outperforming 17 casts of Boneyard. If you look at damage per button press DoTs are far ahead.

I will agree that DoTs should be ticking harder though, with shorter durations. I don't see why we cannot have skills that function like proc sets: Viper's sting is a single target 4s poison DoT, Grothdarr is a 5s player-centered AoE DoT. Nobody is requesting that these become 20-30s for being "sticky". I'd love some short, powerful DoT abilities, like we had in the old days (when Lightning Flood dealt respectable damage, but lasted only 6s). Acid Spray is the closest example we have now, with a 4s DoT, but it is too weak and expensive to use in a single target rotation. I have not heard anyone that likes the idea that Poison Injection should tickle over 20s, it needs to deal real damage over a manageable duration.

Acid spray is working out well as a 4second pseudo spam on Necro or DK, perhaps others. I like the new pace of bow builds without snipe since they aren’t bogged down as much on the PTS by weaving around ground cast abilities

They made all the AOE DOTs weaker, so the extra AOE damage may as well come from somewhere else

A ranged necro build needs about 4 seconds for the skele missile to reach its target, so every 4 seconds would look like Stalking Blastbones/Acid Spray/ Something/Something

It also gives something to do while cycling through the long list of very long DOTs ( Skele archer, Siphon, etc)

I don’t know why Warden is getting pushed away from being a powerhouse AOE class into a single target status effect build, a weak one at that

acastanza_ESO

StamBlade did NOT need buffs.
Templars did NOT need buffs.

Crushing Wall did NOT need nerfs.

You also completely failed to deliver on any meaningful improvements for magicka-based sorcerers.
WE HATE BEING FORCED TO RUN PETS. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
What part of (non-bowsorc) sorcerer being one of the worst classes to run in PVP did you not understand?
Why do you think this is okay?

Why are you pushing forward with this horrible patch and, in fact, making it worse at every turn?

Jazraena

You think this is a buff for Stamblades? I'm scratching my head about this weird sometimes-autocrit-but-with-cooldown-and-only-from-flank nonsense and want my flank stun back.

YandereGirlfriend

Wardens and their Shalks dunked into the sun despite overwhelming community feedback (and data) that it was a poor idea.

What is the purpose of this thread again?

NerfSeige

I think most of the players will be fine if you guys take more time to think about the combat/balance changes just saying. Maybe a publish the changes after a patch or 2 for a more refined experience for us.

neferpitou73

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Wardens and their Shalks dunked into the sun despite overwhelming community feedback (and data) that it was a poor idea.

What is the purpose of this thread again?

So they can pretend that they care about what we say.

Is it sad that I find the week 1 notes better and less confusing than...whatever it is we have now. So many things have been switched back and forth.

FlamingBeard

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

StamBlade did NOT need buffs.
Templars did NOT need buffs.

Crushing Wall did NOT need nerfs.

You also completely failed to deliver on any meaningful improvements for magicka-based sorcerers.
WE HATE BEING FORCED TO RUN PETS. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
What part of (non-bowsorc) sorcerer being one of the worst classes to run in PVP did you not understand?
Why do you think this is okay?

Why are you pushing forward with this horrible patch and, in fact, making it worse at every turn?

Don't worry, Templar beam buff will do nothing to help Templar when its spammable hits (and now looks) like a pool noodle.

Rimskjegg

So enemy damage output in content wasn't even touched, and you're still launching on August 22? You cannot possibly believe 2 weeks is enough to properly test every dungeon and trial in the game. You're going yo risk it anyway just to stick to a deadline you set??

You are gambling MUCH too high here. Put these changes on hold. It's still not too late to avoid massive frustration on the live servers.

AJA

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Wardens and their Shalks dunked into the sun despite overwhelming community feedback (and data) that it was a poor idea.

What is the purpose of this thread again?

At this point I'm convinced that they don't read any of the feedback given

fizl101

FlamingBeard wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

StamBlade did NOT need buffs.
Templars did NOT need buffs.

Crushing Wall did NOT need nerfs.

You also completely failed to deliver on any meaningful improvements for magicka-based sorcerers.
WE HATE BEING FORCED TO RUN PETS. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
What part of (non-bowsorc) sorcerer being one of the worst classes to run in PVP did you not understand?
Why do you think this is okay?

Why are you pushing forward with this horrible patch and, in fact, making it worse at every turn?

Don't worry, Templar beam buff will do nothing to help Templar when its spammable hits (and now looks) like a pool noodle.

and isn't run on a stamplar so we get the pool noodle without the buff

Sandman929

AJA wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Wardens and their Shalks dunked into the sun despite overwhelming community feedback (and data) that it was a poor idea.

What is the purpose of this thread again?

At this point I'm convinced that they don't read any of the feedback given

Just a glance to make sure there's no mean words.

K9002

So players who lost the most damage are the solo players who miss out on the many different group buffs. And the only enemies that had their health reduced were bosses in group content, while solo arenas were not adjusted?