DoT nerfs increase the skill gap and don't fit to dynamic gameplay

Jeezye

I don't see any benefit or even reason in the DoT changes proposed in the patch notes.

Damage decrease:
- the 33% damage decrease across the board makes DoTs even less viable as they are already. In PvP, we have a strong burst meta focusing on delayed burst and strong spammables. Dot builds are super niche and arguably less potent. In PvE, the nerf will result in a lot more sweaty "spammable" weaving, which makes it even harder for new players to consistently output decent damage.
- If the goal was to low the ceiling, I would have expected the opposite: a damage increase in Dots makes it a lot easier for new players to achieving meaningful numbers both in PvE and PvP.

Increased timers
- increasing the timers of dots to 20 seconds is not a bad change per se, as it reduces APM.
- However, countless players have stated this effect does not benefit dynamic combat at all, as PvP and Boss fights are all centered around repositioning. A 20 sec window is insanely long in these cases, both for HoTs and DoTs

Proposals
- I'll leave numbers crunching to others, but to me DoT damage should've rather been increased than decreased.
- For timers, I would expect noramlisation across two levels, potentially 10 sec for ground-based skills and 20 sec for single target skills.

Holycannoli

A 20 second DoT would be fine and even preferable if the DPS was the same and depending on if the DoT has an additional effect upon expiration which many do, in which case you don't want it to last that long.

Necrotech_Master

sticky dots would be good in mobile fights, but the real problem is the massive dmg decrease

most of the skill dots are being nerfed to sub 600 dps (in pve content)

i personally think longer timers might be better, but dmg would have to be tripled from where it is to make it have any impact

take pillar of nirn or gryphons reprisal, but have 10 sec dots, and only tick once every 2 sec, however with the nerfs these arent going to just supplement skill dmg, but completely surpass it (these are still like 30k dmg over 10 sec in most cases, which do about 10-15k dmg ticks, putting it at 5k-7.5k dps, which completely overshadows all the class dots (doing a measly 600 dps)

as far as i remembered, all dots were supposed to be mostly standardized around 1000-1500 dps for class skills, they are currently doing half of that

BretonMage

Longer timers which give players the choice for longer rotations would be good provided damage remains 1 tick/s for ground AOEs, and the same as live in the first 6-8 seconds. That way players who like dynamic rotations, or players fighting mobile bosses, will not be penalised for refreshing the DoTs.

Matteo11

I think they had a noble goal of making the game more accessible. ESO is a physically demanding MMO in terms of aggressive APM, and they could probably tone that down.

Its just that the tradeoffs here do more harm than good.

I think when spam attacks feel weak, and when ground AoEs require an eternity of static position, you are not only hampering new players, but turning them off to a power system that feels super weak among major MMOs.

I wish I was exaggerating, but the PTS is looking bad.

Tannus15

The update I saw "raise the floor" the most was just after elsewhere when dots where OP.

All the people who were struggling to be fast enough to get in an extra attack and not miss any light attacks just stacked as many dots as they could and made sure they were all ticking.

All the people who were struggling at the time loved it and when the heavy nerf came next patch a bunch of them just stopped doing trials.

taugrim

Matteo11 wrote: »

I think they had a noble goal of making the game more accessible. ESO is a physically demanding MMO in terms of aggressive APM, and they could probably tone that down.

This may be a / the stated reason, but what seems to be the bigger driver is to lower the number of calculations on the server.

I.e. ZoS is seeking optimize server performance. I don't genuinely believe they are seeking to optimize player performance.

And frankly, you can't really help skill floor / ceiling concepts by tweaking abilities, unless you fundamentally make them easier to use.

E.g. Overwatch did that by creating heroes who had more shields (e.g. Bridget) or required less accurate target (e.g. Moira).

Necrotech_Master

Matteo11 wrote: »

I think they had a noble goal of making the game more accessible. ESO is a physically demanding MMO in terms of aggressive APM, and they could probably tone that down.

Its just that the tradeoffs here do more harm than good.

I think when spam attacks feel weak, and when ground AoEs require an eternity of static position, you are not only hampering new players, but turning them off to a power system that feels super weak among major MMOs.

I wish I was exaggerating, but the PTS is looking bad.

the problem is that their changes are doing nothing to change overall APM

you are just trading some GCDs recasting dots, to using your spammable more, so the overall APM is staying the same

MindOfTheSwarm

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

sticky dots would be good in mobile fights, but the real problem is the massive dmg decrease

most of the skill dots are being nerfed to sub 600 dps (in pve content)

i personally think longer timers might be better, but dmg would have to be tripled from where it is to make it have any impact

take pillar of nirn or gryphons reprisal, but have 10 sec dots, and only tick once every 2 sec, however with the nerfs these arent going to just supplement skill dmg, but completely surpass it (these are still like 30k dmg over 10 sec in most cases, which do about 10-15k dmg ticks, putting it at 5k-7.5k dps, which completely overshadows all the class dots (doing a measly 600 dps)

as far as i remembered, all dots were supposed to be mostly standardized around 1000-1500 dps for class skills, they are currently doing half of that

Standardization kills games.

Necrotech_Master

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

sticky dots would be good in mobile fights, but the real problem is the massive dmg decrease

most of the skill dots are being nerfed to sub 600 dps (in pve content)

i personally think longer timers might be better, but dmg would have to be tripled from where it is to make it have any impact

take pillar of nirn or gryphons reprisal, but have 10 sec dots, and only tick once every 2 sec, however with the nerfs these arent going to just supplement skill dmg, but completely surpass it (these are still like 30k dmg over 10 sec in most cases, which do about 10-15k dmg ticks, putting it at 5k-7.5k dps, which completely overshadows all the class dots (doing a measly 600 dps)

as far as i remembered, all dots were supposed to be mostly standardized around 1000-1500 dps for class skills, they are currently doing half of that

Standardization kills games.

standardizing dmg is a bit different, it promotes diversity in your build

if you had a choice between 2 gear sets and 1 set did equivalent 1000 dps, and one did 10000 dps, its a clear cut choice which one to use and nobody would use the lower dps set except for RP/meme builds

however there are other considerations too, such as proc conditions, if the 1000 dps one was easy to proc it might still get used more than the other if it required some very specific condition

but if the sets were a lot closer in terms of dmg output, you would have more freedom to choose which one fit your build better

so some standardization is good for balance, especially when there are 500 gear sets in the game, but 70% of them are just obviously worse than other choices because the effect is too niche or dmg is too low

the primary topic on hand with the U35 is standardizing rotations, and increasing spammable usage, which i agree can be a bad thing for those who like more active combat