Baron Thirsk still useless

Urvoth

It's a monster set with a cool effect (exploding scamps) and somewhat unique ramping damage design, but the damage and minor timidity effect are far too weak for this to be useful with the existing cooldown of 25s. The cooldown likely needs to be closer to 12s and the damage needs to be increased. Minor timidity is far too weak of a debuff to justify such a long cooldown, and the AoE is extremely small (4m) and capped at 6 players. The marked target effect can also be cleansed, so there's also a decent chance the final and most damaging hit won't even go off.

Several content creators have made videos comparing the Baron Thirsk sets to similar monster sets like Selene, Maw of the Infernal, etc., and the damage, which is also less guaranteed, is significantly lower than comparative sets. If ZOS is concerned about Minor Timidity being abused, a viable tradeoff would be to decrease the debuff duration to 4s for example, while increasing the base damage, and decreasing the overall proc cooldown to 12s. Either way, a 25s cooldown is ridiculously long for what this set does.

Baron Thirsk is a conceptually awesome set both design-wise and from a RP perspective, so I would love for it to actually be viable in builds.

Here is the set effect for those unfamiliar: On dealing area direct damage, mark a target for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds after, an Explosive Scamp is spawned nearby and detonates after 1 second, dealing 362 Magic damage to up to 6 enemies within 4 meters and applying Minor Timidity for 10 seconds, draining 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds. Each Explosive Scamp spawned deals 100% increased damage. This effect can occur once every 25 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

Jaraal

Baron Thirsk is a cool idea, but it was clearly designed to be a PvE set. No players I know would stand around in one place waiting to be damaged by scamps every two seconds. It works ok versus dumb NPCs who will stand there and get bombed, but Minor Timidity has no effect on them.

This is a set that is looking for an identity. It’s a unique and interesting concept, but as was mentioned, the 25 second cooldown keeps me from wearing in any situation.

Zekka

You could halve the cooldown and it would still be bad because it's another delayed small AoE set like so many that are just decon fodder like Trinimac's Valor, Soldier of Anguish, Coldharbour's Favorite, Enervating Aura etc...

Jaraal wrote: »

Baron Thirsk is a cool idea, but it was clearly designed to be a PvE set.

Probably not since it's from IC.
Nunatak which is another tiny AoE that doesn't do much monster set from IC was made with PvP in mind from ZOS own admission.

Necrotech_Master

nunatak actually has a decent aoe, and has a decent application in pve as well (major brittle)

i would agree the baron thirsk set is far too low dmg to justify the long cooldown

many sets seem to have the cooldown based assuming the effect lasts for the entire duration, but in many cases that doesnt happen

the other problem i have with some scaling dmg sets is that the scaling is not based on the previous value, but ramps up based on the first tick

so for baron thirsk the first imp does 1x dmg, the 2nd imp is 2x imp 1, and the 3rd imp is 3x imp 1 instead of 2x imp 2

when it reads each imp does +100% dmg, ive always implied it worked as 100% of the previous imp, which going from the 2nd to the 3rd imp is absolutely not true

YandereGirlfriend

At least this set states up-front that it has a target cap of 6 - most sets are just stealth-capped at 6 and people go on using them without even knowing.

But I very much agree with you, OP, and with the general sentiment that there are a truckloads of poorly itemized sets being generated these days.

Three huge problems with recent sets that should be changed:

1. Long cooldowns
2. Target caps
3. Tiny areas

Any one of these factors is hugely problematic but having them all together in a single set makes it an instant deconstruction.

Jaraal

Speaking of tiny areas, it’s ironic that an enemy can be whacking you with melee attacks and still be out of range of 4 meter scamps, or any of the other 4m and possibly 5m aoe effects ZOS likes to use.

Necrotech_Master

Jaraal wrote: »

Speaking of tiny areas, it’s ironic that an enemy can be whacking you with melee attacks and still be out of range of 4 meter scamps, or any of the other 4m and possibly 5m aoe effects ZOS likes to use.

5 meter is technically considered the normal max for melee range

there are a few cases that can push that to 7 meter (like that one DK passive extending melee by 2 meter)

Runkorko

Jaraal wrote: »

Baron Thirsk is a cool idea, but it was clearly designed to be a PvE set. No players I know would stand around in one place waiting to be damaged by scamps every two seconds. It works ok versus dumb NPCs who will stand there and get bombed, but Minor Timidity has no effect on them.

This is a set that is looking for an identity. It’s a unique and interesting concept, but as was mentioned, the 25 second cooldown keeps me from wearing in any situation.

Reducing mobs ultimate ? The heck are you speaking about m8

Jaraal

Runkorko wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Baron Thirsk is a cool idea, but it was clearly designed to be a PvE set. No players I know would stand around in one place waiting to be damaged by scamps every two seconds. It works ok versus dumb NPCs who will stand there and get bombed, but Minor Timidity has no effect on them.

This is a set that is looking for an identity. It’s a unique and interesting concept, but as was mentioned, the 25 second cooldown keeps me from wearing in any situation.

Reducing mobs ultimate ? The heck are you speaking about m8

Mobs don't generate ultimate. Where did you get that idea? That's why Minor Timidity has no effect on them.