Should Empower get its 40% damage increase to LA back?

Vahndamme

This change is a huge nerf for example Templar's Solar Barrage. It's basically a dead skill or 'niche' ability cuz the damage is so low. It was strong because of Empower uptime but now only viable for HA? I think there are more situations?

boi_anachronism_

Yes

Yo. Empower got trashed. Couldn't you just make a new buff for heavy? Or have it buff light 40% and buff heavy 60%? Something. It actually looks like light weaving is being punished? Like any opportunity to recover lost dos is being hammered. Just why.

JustAGoodPlayer

Why heavy need to lose our DPS on players ? We are not interested in only PVE sets and skills.

Now you get nerfed with us - why not you happy ?

As we get so much love last years now you get some too

Do you like some love ? ))

Tannus15

No

Nope, this is exactly the right move to "lower the ceiling".

remove buffs that great groups have good uptimes on. stop nerfing characters and classes, start nerfing group buffs.

James-Wayne

No

Light attacks have produced the majority of DPS in rotations for a long time, if you want to drop the ceiling you need to reduce buffs of end game players utilising everything in their kit against players who do not or can not use said buffs.

VaranisArano

The Devs want to reduce the percentage of light attack damage in parses this patch. They made that clear.

Never you mind that sets like Relequen and Kinras ensure that there is a consistent gap between weavers and non-weavers regardless of actual LA damage.

Dragonlord573

Yes

Rip Ambush, you were fun while you lasted

merpins

Yes

Yeah. And they dont even need to nerf the heavy attack bonus.

Lalothen

No

From my testing thus far comparing LA + spammable & HA + spammable no, it shouldn't get it back. I'll post optimised parses tomorrow.

Urzigurumash

VaranisArano wrote: »

The Devs want to reduce the percentage of light attack damage in parses this patch. They made that clear.

Never you mind that sets like Relequen and Kinras ensure that there is a consistent gap between weavers and non-weavers regardless of actual LA damage.

I guess those sets make sure LA Weaving is and always will be meta for scoring, but it won't make or break a non-scoring players ability to complete content. Right?

ToRelax

The current live version of Empower is extremely polarising in pvp regarding which builds can make use of it. Now they simply decided to make it pve only. I can respect that, though they should really make sure to not leave affected skills dead in the water as a result.

JustAGoodPlayer

Why do not you like the changes ?

"Do you think, that it is fair that players who just press one button have so much damage?"

It was some thing you talk about HA before, now the same goes to you with your LA "wiwing".

Do not look like some justice for you ? )))

boi_anachronism_

Yes

Some classes really can't make use of HA anyway. NB is basically required to light weave for bow proc. Ambush is a joke. It is completely counter to the entire style of the class as far as build potential.

Arcanasx

Yes

Lalothen wrote: »

From my testing thus far comparing LA + spammable & HA + spammable no, it shouldn't get it back. I'll post optimised parses tomorrow.

Not everything in this game revolves around parsing on a target dummy.

JustAGoodPlayer

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

Some classes really can't make use of HA anyway. NB is basically required to light weave for bow proc. Ambush is a joke. It is completely counter to the entire style of the class as far as build potential.

In this update now it is one of the best HA classes by the way.

Thecompton73

Yes

Such a ZOS move to randomly change Empower just because they want to without taking into account how it affects abilities and sets and adjusting them to compensate for the nerf. As you said this leaves solar barrage as a dead skill and it also negates the recent buff to NB's ambush to give you empower after using it. It also puts the passives from Mages guild even further behind those received from using Fighter's guild skills.
I'd like to ask the Devs to please quit making half baked changes to major combat buffs. If you're going to remove or radically change a major combat mechanic it should only be done in conjunction with changes to the power budget of all the skills and sets it interacts with.

boi_anachronism_

Yes

😂 it absolutely is not but ok bud 🥴

Foxtrot39

Give it back to LA as they're currently on the PTS, its still a 20% loss from live

Make battlespirit halve both bonus as to not make WW and some skill become completely irrelevent in PVP

Jaimeh

Yes

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

Some classes really can't make use of HA anyway. NB is basically required to light weave for bow proc. Ambush is a joke. It is completely counter to the entire style of the class as far as build potential.

This ^ And because ambush is a gap closer is very wonky for a dummy rotation, and it's even more wonky (and risky) on live encounters with the weird hitboxes and aoes all around, so it wasn't something that could be readily and abundantly used anyway.

karekiz

Yes, but only to monsters

https://clips.twitch.tv/DeafCleanDinosaurCharlieBitMe-hnVKSNyTkIyPkJuR

Revamp it back to OG version.

maxjapank

Yes

It's a ridiculous change. I'm fine with nerfing heavy attack in pvp, but you are completely messing up skills and gear - making them completely useless in pvp and even pve.

Templar's Solar Flare ( Dark Flare / Solar Barrage ). What are you going to do to compensate for gutting these abilities?

Grisly Gourmet Set - not an overly popular set, but I specifically chose it for my werewolf. It's fun to light attack and get sweet rolls, and having Empower buff light attack damage on a werewolf is great. Now?

You know, I've largely remained quiet during these patch notes and pts cycle. I'm of course honestly tired of the way you combat devs have been pushing and pulling us in so many directions over the last two years. It's exhausting really. But you have really messed things up with Empower. And you know, rather than everyone going in pts and testing things to provide you devs feedback, why don't you do some testing yourselves and really think about what the players want? We are the ones who play this game.

xaraan

Yes

Yes. But they probably won't. They've wanted to make HA's a competing meta (even if it won't be top) for a couple years now (since LA/HA tests two years ago) and will probably force this through. Let's take any reason to actually make use of the dynamic combat by creating a meta of longer dots and "hold down button forever" to channel an attack. Makes a lot of sets and skills useless to run now if you don't use this one niche build now. And more importantly, makes the gameplay a lot more boring.

remosito

No

Lalothen wrote: »

From my testing thus far comparing LA + spammable & HA + spammable no, it shouldn't get it back. I'll post optimised parses tomorrow.

very much looking forward to those

WrathOfInnos

No

Need to test, but my understanding is that light attacks were buffed significantly (relative to 8.1.2) when empower was removed. Essentially shifting power from the empower buff to simply weaving without maintaining any buffs. This is probably a good move, since unbuffed weaving was too weak last week and the empower buff was too strong.

I don't see any reason to add light attacks back to the empower buff. If empower worked on light attacks I bet we'd just see light attacks nerfed further to compensate. In the new form, empower can actually be impactful for heavy attacks.

This change does open up the possibility of a future named major/minor buff for just light attacks. I'd love to see something like this for Necromancer's empowering grasp (so Necro healers don't lose their unique group buff and become instantly irrelevant). Making it a separate buff allows independent balancing, and maybe the light attack buff has a modifier of 40% and 20% for Major and Minor. It does not have to match empower's strength for heavy attacks.

ArzyeL

Yes

Absolutely, the current rework to Empower makes zero sense. They can always make it give more damage for Heavy Attacks if they insist of making Heavy Attack Builds a more common thing.

Varana

No

Yes, there are some skills and sets that need to be looked at. That can be done in the next patch as well, though.

They probably want to tweak some values here and there so people don't post meme-y resto staff parses.

But generally, this is a move in the right direction.

phaneub17_ESO

I would like to see Heavy Attacks restore more resources when Empowered as well so it's not entirely useless in PvP.

francesinhalover

No

Other option.

Empower should also buff light attacks by at least 5% so the passive isn't 100% useless for people that weave light attacks

HatchetHaro

No

People need to stop thinking "oh no my damage got gutted this is bad" especially when ZOS has specified that they are going to adjust content to match so the actual difficulty remains pretty much the same.

Look, I know this may look bad, but the fact of the matter is that ZOS has never adjusted content to match their combat changes because prior to all this U35 nonsense, the combat team and the encounter team never communicated to each other (which by itself is stupid but I'm not opening that can of worms). Them deciding to work together for once is absolutely fantastic, however underwhelming it may be, and at this point the community needs to take any wins they can get.

Here's why this Empower change is good: it buffs heavy attacks now, and the top players pretty much never heavy attack. Heavy attacking is, by itself, a big damage loss overall, and those players pushing trial trifectas and scores already have the builds and skills to manage their Magicka to make the best use of Bahsei's Mania while not actually running out of resources. Anyone with lower skill will just run out of Magicka and be stuck heavy attacking for resources, losing out on damage, and this Empower change is going to alleviate some of that damage-loss. It benefits mid-tier players way more than top-tier players, and that is a really good thing in a game where top-tier groups are already snowballing off of a million group buffs.

Basically, in this iteration, it lowers the skill gap between mid-tier and top-tier groups, and since trials have historically been balanced for the top-tier groups, that means mid-tier players are effectively getting buffed.

VaranisArano

HatchetHaro wrote: »

People need to stop thinking "oh no my damage got gutted this is bad" especially when ZOS has specified that they are going to adjust content to match so the actual difficulty remains pretty much the same.

Look, I know this may look bad, but the fact of the matter is that ZOS has never adjusted content to match their combat changes because prior to all this U35 nonsense, the combat team and the encounter team never communicated to each other (which by itself is stupid but I'm not opening that can of worms). Them deciding to work together for once is absolutely fantastic, however underwhelming it may be, and at this point the community needs to take any wins they can get.

I have a few quibbles here, namely that ZOS isn't entirely adjusting content to match so that actual difficulty remains the same. They are reducing Vet Boss and bannerman health to compensate, but there's a lot of concern still around the other areas of difficulty that just boss health. Player healing is still getting nerfed. Incoming damage is not.

Additionally, the change to Vet boss/bannerman health is coming next week, so its not been tested by players who are pushing that content. Hey, it might be exactly the balance change that we need. It also might not be, and if its not, then there's no more time on the PTS to test it. How fair is it to ask players to wait around for a couple months for another update before content gets adjusted properly?

I'm looking forward to that final PTS patch and seeing what trials teams have to say about the difficulty in combination with the final round of changes. Hopefully, its good news!

But I will be honest and say that I am not particularly optimistic about it. We have seen ZOS adjust individual encounters in trials and vet dungeons to improve their completion rates before, which seems to be what the team is aiming for with accessibility. When that happens, its a comprehensive change as boss abilities and mechanics get tweaked to target areas that are causing problems. That's not at all what's happening here, which makes the health reduction feel more like a bandaid fix meant to assure the players that ZOS is listening rather than a comprehensive fix for accessibility that should have rolled out with the Combat changes.

I don't think its a win if we're looking at an example of "Doing it fast, not doing it right." We'll find out next Monday.

Finedaible

I'm awaiting to see if they will address skills neutered by the empower change this upcoming week, but at first impression it seems like this rework of Empower was done solely to justify putting Empower onto the Oakensoul Ring without it becoming op in PvP again. If this is true, I do not think that tailoring the majority of changes this PTS cycle around that accursed ring is wise, and the game should never be reworked to this extent for a single item, that's just absurdity.