"Heavy Attack build lovers... we want better for you"

HackTheMinotaur

We've been testing. It's NOT better! This comment from a new player who can barely achieve 30K DPS on LIVE:

This update is painful and really hurts low to mid-tier players. I use your Infinity One-Bar Sorc build. I have severe arthritis and it really helped me be able to get through more content since I can't weave. I ran tests against both the trial dummy and the 6 mil dummy. On Live, with no weaving, I had over 33k DPS on the Trial and over 28k DPS on the 6mil. On PTS, I managed to just squeak out 27k DPS on the trial and only got 14k DPS on the 6 mil. If this goes through as is, it may very well end the playability of ESO for me.

While longer duration effects will be helpful for some, nerfs to DOT damage, heavy attack damage, passive damage and other skills will drop the floor into the basement for players using simple, accessible builds like this. On more standard content, not a trial dummy, this player lost half their DPS! Heavy attack builds in PVE content should be buffed, not nerfed.

If PVP burst is a concern, it should be mitigated through Battle Spirit, and set and skill bonuses that only work against PVE enemies. We've seen that you can do this with recent changes to Noble Duelist, Sergeant's Mail and other sets.

Undaunted Infiltrator and Unweaver: These sets now increase your damage done with Light and Heavy Attacks against monsters by 1645, rather than increasing their Weapon and Spell Damage scaling.

Do this STILL, but ALSO keep a high scale factor or baseline for Heavy Attacks to begin with. Good scaling on a wet noodle is still a wet noodle.

Fully charged melee Heavy Attacks deal 2500 base damage multiplied by their cast time and cooldown

Double or Triple this and it might be OK. This would give a high enough baseline where things like Weapon's Expert, Heavy Attack Sets and Empower would actually start to be noticeable. Right now, these effects do almost nothing and a build totally invested in Heavy Attacks can barely crack 40K DPS on a Trial Dummy.

and 10% less for ranged.

If I use a Lightning Staff but am in Melee Range do I still lose 10%? Hopefully this is looking at range to target and not just a blanket reduction based on weapon type.

PrincessOfThieves

HackTheMinotaur wrote: »

If I use a Lightning Staff but am in Melee Range do I still lose 10%? Hopefully this is looking at range to target and not just a blanket reduction based on weapon type.

This is actually a very good point. In dungeons and trials (or even world boss fights) you can't really stay at max range. Dds usually stay in front of healers, right behind the boss, outside of some very specific mechanics (such as storm of heavens in vAS).
So it's not really that different in terms of risk vs reward.

Lalothen

I can just about hit 60k using Relequen, Unweaver & Kilt on a MagSorc HA build on the PTS atm. That's with Weapons Expert slotted, Crushing Wall buff and using Scalding as a source of Empower during the spammable period, and popping Silver Shards once every 10s for the Unweaver buff.

A significant problem is the removal of 1 tic from the lightning staff channel. I have no idea why they did this; 3 channeled tics 500ms apart + 1 final "fully charged" hit fit neatly into a 2s timer. That's not only a chunk of DPS shaved off the channel, it means slower buildup of other set bonuses like Relequen too - and rapidly applying Relequen is currently one of the few marginal perks of an HA build on Live.

The other thing is that the longer duration DoTs mean more time in the "spammable" portion of a rotation, and being frank even a Sorc channeling an HA with +5% shock dmg + Crushing Wall + Unweaver + Empower + Weapons Expert buffing it, simply doesn't put out close to comparable damage to that same sorc spamming LA>Skill>LA, meaning the longer "spammable" period exacerbates the problem further.

Definitely agree utilising Battle Spirit to mitigate PvP burst from these sets would be a good solution. I don't know why they don't make more liberal use of Battle Spirit to curb set power in PvP; it certainly beats nerfing stuff into the ground for ALL content as they've been prone to doing.

Based on my tests thus far, I'd like to see the following:

Lightning staff fully charged heavy attack return to 3 channeled tics + 1 final "fully charged" hit (I'm wondering if the current situation on the PTS is a bug).

Unweaver/Infiltrator 5-piece bonuses buffed to 2750 dmg and put on a 20s timer.

Noble Duelist's bonus buffed to 3250 with a 10s timer.

Sergeant's Mail:
2-piece: change to crit or wp/sp instead of health
3-piece: change to penetration instead of health recovery
5-piece: Sergeant's Focus stacks increased to 10 with a 5s uptime, with each stack granting 375 damage (for 3750 total)

Essentially the more requirements/ramp-up time associated with obtaining the buff and the more you have to babysit it, the more powerful it should be (obviously within reason).

SpiralStorm4

HackTheMinotaur wrote: »

We've been testing. It's NOT better! This comment from a new player who can barely achieve 30K DPS on LIVE:

This update is painful and really hurts low to mid-tier players. I use your Infinity One-Bar Sorc build. I have severe arthritis and it really helped me be able to get through more content since I can't weave. I ran tests against both the trial dummy and the 6 mil dummy. On Live, with no weaving, I had over 33k DPS on the Trial and over 28k DPS on the 6mil. On PTS, I managed to just squeak out 27k DPS on the trial and only got 14k DPS on the 6 mil. If this goes through as is, it may very well end the playability of ESO for me.

While longer duration effects will be helpful for some, nerfs to DOT damage, heavy attack damage, passive damage and other skills will drop the floor into the basement for players using simple, accessible builds like this. On more standard content, not a trial dummy, this player lost half their DPS! Heavy attack builds in PVE content should be buffed, not nerfed.

If PVP burst is a concern, it should be mitigated through Battle Spirit, and set and skill bonuses that only work against PVE enemies. We've seen that you can do this with recent changes to Noble Duelist, Sergeant's Mail and other sets.

Undaunted Infiltrator and Unweaver: These sets now increase your damage done with Light and Heavy Attacks against monsters by 1645, rather than increasing their Weapon and Spell Damage scaling.

Do this STILL, but ALSO keep a high scale factor or baseline for Heavy Attacks to begin with. Good scaling on a wet noodle is still a wet noodle.

Fully charged melee Heavy Attacks deal 2500 base damage multiplied by their cast time and cooldown

Double or Triple this and it might be OK. This would give a high enough baseline where things like Weapon's Expert, Heavy Attack Sets and Empower would actually start to be noticeable. Right now, these effects do almost nothing and a build totally invested in Heavy Attacks can barely crack 40K DPS on a Trial Dummy.

and 10% less for ranged.

If I use a Lightning Staff but am in Melee Range do I still lose 10%? Hopefully this is looking at range to target and not just a blanket reduction based on weapon type.

Ohmygosh!! Hack The Minotaur! I am a pretty darn big fan of yours! On this note, I would like to ask if you've seen this thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/611092/sorc-is-a-dead-class-thanks-zos#latest ...Yet? If so, what is your opinion on it? Is the Sorcerer Class as a whole really dead for good, now? Do you think it should be revived?

Please let your most logical thoughts be known, right here. Thank you.

Snit

They mean they want you to find a better build.

Or maybe not. The language is unclear, but the context of the changes seems like they don't want HA builds to be viable. We'll see.

PrincessOfThieves

Snit wrote: »

They mean they want you to find a better build.

Or maybe not. The language is unclear, but the context of the changes seems like they don't want HA builds to be viable. We'll see.

It's really odd. In the preview post they said "we’ve heard your cries, Heavy Attack build lovers, and we want better for you", but this pts patch makes them weaker than ever before.
I don't understand why, but for some reason almost all changes in this patch go against their stated goals.

Mazio

"we want better for you.... so go play our new extended dot and spam builds. GLHF scrubs"

Like the person above said, most things they touched in the pts notes contradicts anything they have said about the next update. But we should trust them, right?

Tevalicious

I could be wrong, but I think they mean PvP heavy attackers that hit 25-40k heavy attacks on players.

ccfeeling

Tevalicious wrote: »

I could be wrong, but I think they mean PvP heavy attackers that hit 25-40k heavy attacks on players.

You are right indeed, huge nerfed HA build b/c of pvp

Tevalicious

ccfeeling wrote: »

Tevalicious wrote: »

I could be wrong, but I think they mean PvP heavy attackers that hit 25-40k heavy attacks on players.

You are right indeed, huge nerfed HA build b/c of pvp

I mean the heavy attack might have been because of a PvP build but that has nothing to do with light attacks. They are separate things. If they just wanted to get rid of heavy attack ganking they could have just targeted HAs.

Thorncrypt

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

Snit wrote: »

They mean they want you to find a better build.

Or maybe not. The language is unclear, but the context of the changes seems like they don't want HA builds to be viable. We'll see.

It's really odd. In the preview post they said "we’ve heard your cries, Heavy Attack build lovers, and we want better for you", but this pts patch makes them weaker than ever before.
I don't understand why, but for some reason almost all changes in this patch go against their stated goals.

what's even more surprising is that they claimed that they tested these changes in-house for tens of hours!

they should re-instate the class rep program because it looks like the in house testers are not able to give them the necessary feedback to help them achieve their stated goals.

colossalvoids

Can see why class reps were disbanded, better for them also not being associated with... this.

prof_doom

Tevalicious wrote: »

ccfeeling wrote: »

Tevalicious wrote: »

I could be wrong, but I think they mean PvP heavy attackers that hit 25-40k heavy attacks on players.

You are right indeed, huge nerfed HA build b/c of pvp

I mean the heavy attack might have been because of a PvP build but that has nothing to do with light attacks. They are separate things. If they just wanted to get rid of heavy attack ganking they could have just targeted HAs.

Which still brings us back to the never-ending chorus of "Separate PVP and PVE balancing".

JustAGoodPlayer

"Some maniacs wants better for their victims too"

Now i feel HA builds dead, so this "better for us" - looks like this for me

They just delete us.

It will be better, because we like the game a lot and it will be the pain for us to see what they destroy next )))

So - it is better for you dear players - just do not look !

What will happen next than, that it is better ? )))

HA always be universal builds - seporate PVE and PVP is not even an acsepteble option ) But ... pve only sets ? With bad stats an no DPS in it ??? Really - it is a joke ???

Relequin is better in PVP than this !!!

Do you ever see some one use it ?

So no - they do not want better for us - it is just empty populistic words.

We do our best to survive from update to update each patch getting nerfs each update. We get 80-100 k dps and get sets/skills nerfs.

But players with 120-140 k damage a ok, no nerf needed !

So nope - they do not want better for us !

BlueRaven

Great post!

If these changes go live I am going to miss doing the more difficult content I just started having the courage to try. (I have a bit of anxiety in groups, I hate being perceived as the “weak link”.)

It will be back to just doing overland dailies and housing for me.

JustAGoodPlayer

You make build, they nerf it. You make build again - they nerf it.

OK, you do 2 builds ))) They nerf your CP and race ... ???

Ok you change race (3 times already !!!) - they "delete your sets", you change sets and have few different - they "delete ha".

Hmmm nice !

It is so better for me ! Why ???

And do you remember how moltan armaments was not even work for a year ???

It is some hell !

JustAGoodPlayer

About PVP ha builds - i already use 2 procs because they do better damage than HA set with 1200+ damage to HA.
(even on sustained race !!! on damage race procs are even better)

And I use HA as a unavoidable source to land some effects.

Ok they do sets PVE, ok they do HA avoidable.

And what ? I will just spam chain and put the same procs on it !

They nerf chain, ok !!!

I will take another spammable, make it cost less or UP my regens and put procs on this spammable and will spam it !

It is so important for you this spammable wil not be HA ?

Even if they restrict player with 1 proc i UP my attack to limit to make this 1 proc same as 2, and spam the same spammable.

If this spammable will be LA as example do ZOS be fine with this ? )

I think yes. Because it is only thing that do not get real nerfs !

MidniteOwl1913

Healing is also getting nerfed. Another thing PVP has complained about. So it's not just HA and Oakensoul.

MudcrabAttack

Yeah it’s really bad. I tested a heavy attack build on PTS,

64 kdps vs 103K for my light attack build (on the buffed up Trial Atronach)
38% less damage

Worse disparity than live servers. I even tried stacking 9 DOT skills around heavy attacks for a 20 second rotation, and that didn't do the trick.

starkerealm

colossalvoids wrote: »

Can see why class reps were disbanded, better for them also not being associated with... this.

I mean, this is the exact situation the class rep team was designed to help with... so, of course they disbanded it right before this popped up. You couldn't invent a better indicator of ZOS's intention to ignore the blowback and steam on ahead than the timing of that decision.

ccfeeling

HA build not deserve some love?

starkerealm

ccfeeling wrote: »

HA build not deserve some love?

Given that HA builds are a major accessibility option, for players, they should be [redacted] enshrined. Not nerfed six feet under.

Mr_Stach

I think HA build generally cause some issues.

ccfeeling

True , extreme HA build damage is very high , sets / skills / buffs all stack together in few seconds ,
just like all other extreme builds in game .

But ZOS cannot just nerf those builds / sets directly , it will also impact PVE structure .

Give up PVE not a good idea .

chessalavakia_ESO

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think HA build generally cause some issues.

How many people are actually running those types of HA builds in PvP at the moment?

My impression was a few people did it for a week or so than quit and I'm generally seeing the same clips posted.

If it needs addressed at all, it seems like it'd be cleaner to just reduce the damage of Heavy Attacks via Battle Spirit.

JustAGoodPlayer

ccfeeling wrote: »

HA build not deserve some love?

"They delete us with love"

It is only love they can give )))
Nerf is another love.

They love to delete and nerf ! Why are not players happy ? 🤣

JustAGoodPlayer

starkerealm wrote: »

ccfeeling wrote: »

HA build not deserve some love?

Given that HA builds are a major accessibility option, for players, they should be [redacted] enshrined. Not nerfed six feet under.

Including the fact, that our DPS is already weaker - i do not see any reasons for any nerfs !

If other players can not play good, it is no reason to nerf us, because we can !

JustAGoodPlayer

And as I already write before - I am not interested to HA builds be 1st DPS builds in the game.

We always take people based on all game aspects, and DPS is only 1 small part of it.

We respect ability to live, self sustain, do mechanics, support others and only than do damage.

But with changes that makes mathematically impossible to pass content - i see only scammers make this changes.

I am even OK that when before current patch we have about 95-100k DPS. Than ZOS nerf CP.

Because they buff LA players before with hybridization - they get 2 resources, so better sustain and more DPS.

Than they nerf CP, so they nerf LA players and us !

But for what reason we get nerf ? We get nothing from hybridization ?

I do not care if LA players have 110-120k dps when i have about 100-110k.

But when i for some reason get 50k DPS in patch and that players have the same 110k i feel like some not really "brain" guys do such changes !

Trundik

Snit wrote: »

They mean they want you to find a better build.

Or maybe not. The language is unclear, but the context of the changes seems like they don't want HA builds to be viable. We'll see.

If they don't want HA builds to be viable can we pls throw that HA trigger on yandir might into some random multiuniverse world, far from this one? Because 3 seconds charge to get 120 spellpower for 15 seconds cuts dps instead of buffing it.

PrincessOfThieves

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think HA build generally cause some issues.

There's a thing called battle spirit. They could simply make the adjustments through that mechanic, for example, cap the damage of light and heavy attacks. That would fix overperforming pvp builds without affecting pve.

JustAGoodPlayer

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think HA build generally cause some issues.

There's a thing called battle spirit. They could simply make the adjustments through that mechanic, for example, cap the damage of light and heavy attacks. That would fix overperforming pvp builds without affecting pve.

More importantly - why they need to do this ? It is just the same as any other proc sets.

With the same you can do not use HA and use any skill and put procs on it.

Now HA pvp builds plays like this - we do not even use HA sets, because it do less damage.

So it is nothing developers can really do, to restrict it. It just will be not HA but some thing else.

HA is used more for showing reason - that you play against HA player, it can be easely seen. So enemy will die just the same, but not for HA, but the same spammable if we just use it not HA.
What is even the point to do it ?

https://youtu.be/2XhaIF4mYf8

To make noobs see not damage from (spamable/damage from set/damage from set) = the same damage but from HA in death recap ?

Or to make LA players simpler think about themselves that they are to elit ? Because they do not see HA when players kill them ? )))

Yes you nerf our sets - but you nerf our PVE sets in a first place. And HA is universal builds that is used both PVE and PVP. Yes we may be can not go PVP in our PVE gear, but what is a point if PVP HA gear is even better ?

Yes we will need some time to change it, go home, change setups.

But will enemy be more happy about it ? He even get more damage from PVP geared HA player )))

Or PVP players are so unhappy that PVE players wipe them out, so they want to make some thing bad to us and our sets ? )

Can not win in PVP - than nerf PVE for us ? ))) Very dishonored tacticks )))

But they get even more hate than in PVP, because it will not really make PVP problems for us, but yes - our PVE is ruined.

So one day - if they just start die from relequin - it is not set too OP, but we are to lazy to change PVE gear, that is all it is about.