Empower: Is it right to confine this effect to PvE only?

edward_frigidhands

Hello,

As the title suggests I would like to querstion if the decision to confine this effect to PvE only is a good one.

I don't think it is best for the game to proceed with changes like this one and I would like to have some discussion regarding alternatives.

WrathOfInnos

Yes, separation between PVE and PVP is necessary for balance, and I'm glad to see it finally happening. The one-shot heavy attack builds in PVP were a problem for months, while PVE heavy attack builds were trash for the past several years. Buffing them in PVE while nerfing in PVP was a good move.

That being said, I don't love the concept of a buff that does nothing in PVP. It could at least have a smaller effect there, such as 20% buff to heavy attacks.

Zekka

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

As the title suggests I would like to querstion if the decision to confine this effect to PvE only is a good one.

Yes, it is.
This buff has always caused issues in PvP every time ZOS tried to make it more useful for PvE, now ZOS can finally help PvE heavy attack builds without bringing ridiculous 40k damage inferno heavies or unhealable dps lightning heavies to PvP.

Artim_X

This is the best course of action. Imagine if the Negate ultimate stunned players *shivers* that ultimate would have ceased to exist in its current form by now. This is the type of change that helps balance PvE and PvP separately.

Arcanasx

No. Its a [snip] change that was rushed in after their initial goal helping certain builds in PvE failed and with little regard to how this will suddenly make existing morphs for PvP useless. They essentially greatly inflated the values of buffs for heavy attacks to make them more competitive for PvE. Knowing this would be too much for PvP, they simply removed its function for PvP without any compensation.

They could have prevented these bonuses from applying while attacking from stealth/invis and while out of combat; they literally did this with sets increasing light and heavy attack damage before and reverted it for some reason. They also could reduce the charge up time for inferno heavy attacks while keeping the DPS the same to reduce the burst potential to help fix the one shot issues for PvP.

For PvE they could have introduced a new PvE only buff (through new sets) that increases the damage of heavy attacks by a significant percentage similar to how buffs like major slayer and aegis exist.

This would have been much better than taking existing morphs that worked in PvP for several years then proceeding to make them useless. Now they'll have more balancing work to do because these morphs are going to have to be compensated for eventually.

[edited for bashing]

boi_anachronism_

I'm split. I think yes the new empower can NOT be in pvp as it stands. It would be disastrous. That said- why not alter it with battle spirit. Make it a 20% buff as opposed to 80% buff? Idk just my thoughts. It does compromise certain pvp based skills that have empower built into them making them fairly useless in both pvp and pve.

Lalothen

Yes it's right that this buff is only effective in PvE content - and it's absolutely a step in the right direction with regard to splitting PvE & PvP balancing, which has always been a constant issue. If PvPers are annoyed about Empower getting taken away from them.... well I'm afraid I'm short on sympathy since so many of my PvE builds - including sets and skills - over the years have ended up having the guts ripped out of them purely because of PvP.

Arcanasx wrote: »

For PvE they could have introduced a new PvE only buff (through new sets) that increases the damage of heavy attacks by a significant percentage similar to how buffs like major slayer and aegis exist.

How about you guys get a new PvP-only set that increases the damage of light and heavy attacks against players only by either a flat amount, a percentage, or an amount impacted by sp/wp. That way you get to sacrifice another set to do more basic attack damage against players, the same way PvE players sacrifice another set to do more basic attack damage against monsters.

Arcanasx

Lalothen wrote: »

Yes it's right that this buff is only effective in PvE content - and it's absolutely a step in the right direction with regard to splitting PvE & PvP balancing, which has always been a constant issue. If PvPers are annoyed about Empower getting taken away from them.... well I'm afraid I'm short on sympathy since so many of my PvE builds - including sets and skills - over the years have ended up having the guts ripped out of them purely because of PvP.

Arcanasx wrote: »

For PvE they could have introduced a new PvE only buff (through new sets) that increases the damage of heavy attacks by a significant percentage similar to how buffs like major slayer and aegis exist.

How about you guys get a new PvP-only set that increases the damage of light and heavy attacks against players only by either a flat amount, a percentage, or an amount impacted by sp/wp. That way you get to sacrifice another set to do more basic attack damage against players, the same way PvE players sacrifice another set to do more basic attack damage against monsters.

Yeah, as if changes meant for PvE don't ever have adverse effects for PvP as well...like much of this update, or how the entire spreadsheet balancing approach that has been taken the past few years is essentially based on dummy parsing?

Its also obvious that the changes happening this update have the goal of "closing the gap" for PvE content; therefore instead of destroying existing sets and skills to cater to a certain PvE playstyle at the expense of everyone else, why not add something new specifically just to help them instead? And about sacrificing sets, heavy attack builds (both PvP and PvE) are literally doing that already, so what's your point here?

Lalothen

Arcanasx wrote: »

Yeah, as if changes meant for PvE don't ever have adverse effects for PvP as well...like much of this update, or how the entire spreadsheet balancing approach that has been taken the past few years is essentially based on dummy parsing?

I didn't say that; I said I'm short on sympathy. Same can likely be said of PvPers, making the need to split PvE & PvP balancing only more apparent.

Its also obvious that the changes happening this update have the goal of "closing the gap" for PvE content; therefore instead of destroying existing sets and skills to cater to a certain PvE playstyle at the expense of everyone else, why not add something new specifically just to help them instead? And about sacrificing sets, heavy attack builds (both PvP and PvE) are literally doing that already, so what's your point here?

They already tried rebalancing HA builds around PvP and it was a failure, wasn't it. The fact is that you don't currently need to sacrifice a set at all to output powerful HAs in PvP on Live; you just need Empower and a decent offensive PvP build. It works best with Inferno staff because of the extra HA dmg from Tri Focus, but you can easily put out chunky bow or 2H HAs too. Add a mythic like Malacath on top to further amp the damage (or if you want to go to the extreme: Oakensoul), and... yeah. Slapping on a HA set like Sergeant's Mail is just the cherry on top (and also why Sergeant's Mail buff has consequently been changed for U35).

The point I'm getting at about asking for a PvP-centric set that buffs basic attacks against players only, is simple really: there is currently no PvP-centric set that buffs all basic attacks against players only. Creating one - or altering an existing PvP set that sees little to no actual usage - means the set can be obtainable from PvP itself, rather than having to farm PvE dungeons.

Finedaible

It would have been fine if they had compensated all affected skills accordingly BEFORE suddenly re-inventing Empower. In its current state I wouldn't be surprised if it got changed again a month or so after it hits live. There are also going to be multiple half-baked skills which were specifically designed or intended for PvP, like Ambush which they had been literally 'buffed' before this PTS because no one wanted to use it; Now Ambush is broken again and is no longer an attractive option at all anymore.

deleted221205-002626

Its the worst kind of change imo. I agree with correcting the inferno heavy attacks but i 100% disagree with abilities working differently in different places... what the tooltip says it should do period!

EF321

Not a common buff like empower. Should have made that DK HA buff pve only, maybe other niche stuff that adds to it, but not empower.

Rimskjegg

I realize many players who love PvP will disagree, but I vote yes, restricting Empower to PvE was necessary. I mean, I thought PvPers were tired of being heavy attack one shot. Also, medium weaving as a deciding factor in PvP would've been bad, lag and ping is enough of a deciding factor in PvP as is. And disabled heavy attack PvE players who have been nerfed again and again because PvP are very happy about finally being heard. The Combat Preview literally promised those players would be buffed. If they'd broken that promise there would be absolutely nothing left in this update that would raise the floor in PvE.

danno8

Yes, people have been clamouring for separate PvP and PvE standards for skills, sets and passives since the game started.

Now whether 80%/0% is the right choice is certainly debatable, but allowing 80% increased HA's in PvP along with sets and skills that also increase HA damage will just allow 60k, 70k or higher HA instakills for certain classes. Forget that.

Arcanasx

Lalothen wrote: »

Arcanasx wrote: »

Yeah, as if changes meant for PvE don't ever have adverse effects for PvP as well...like much of this update, or how the entire spreadsheet balancing approach that has been taken the past few years is essentially based on dummy parsing?

I didn't say that; I said I'm short on sympathy. Same can likely be said of PvPers, making the need to split PvE & PvP balancing only more apparent.

Its also obvious that the changes happening this update have the goal of "closing the gap" for PvE content; therefore instead of destroying existing sets and skills to cater to a certain PvE playstyle at the expense of everyone else, why not add something new specifically just to help them instead? And about sacrificing sets, heavy attack builds (both PvP and PvE) are literally doing that already, so what's your point here?

They already tried rebalancing HA builds around PvP and it was a failure, wasn't it. The fact is that you don't currently need to sacrifice a set at all to output powerful HAs in PvP on Live; you just need Empower and a decent offensive PvP build. It works best with Inferno staff because of the extra HA dmg from Tri Focus, but you can easily put out chunky bow or 2H HAs too. Add a mythic like Malacath on top to further amp the damage (or if you want to go to the extreme: Oakensoul), and... yeah. Slapping on a HA set like Sergeant's Mail is just the cherry on top (and also why Sergeant's Mail buff has consequently been changed for U35).

The point I'm getting at about asking for a PvP-centric set that buffs basic attacks against players only, is simple really: there is currently no PvP-centric set that buffs all basic attacks against players only. Creating one - or altering an existing PvP set that sees little to no actual usage - means the set can be obtainable from PvP itself, rather than having to farm PvE dungeons.

You absolutely do need heavy attack sets to make the powerful, one shot inferno gank builds that PvP'rs complain about... I believe the most optimal build for high isle ganking is using storm master on the body (its medium so thats extra spell damage plus crit damage) and sergeants inferno on the fb with 2 jewels and one piece on the body. I also havn't seen anyone trying to heavy attack gank with bow or 2h heavy attacks, and I haven't noticed any recent complaints specifically against dual wield ganks either. You'd also would never, ever want to use malacath for gank builds for reasons that should be obvious.

Then there's oakensoul, granting major courage, major berserk and major force (notice the crit damage stacking?)...Its not a coincidence that complaints against inferno one shots have dramatically risen the last few months because of this stupidly strong mythic (that they knew would be OP) that also happens to reward ganking.

As you might be aware, its not just empower that's making these gank builds possible; there's already the oakensoul changes and the swapping of the molten armaments buff to empower (because of stage 4 mag dk gank vamps) so it doesnt stack with the extra 50% heavy attack damage. They also reduced the cast time and the potential burst damage of fully charged inferno heavy attacks, and this would have already helped toned down inferno ganking a lot.

They could even go further and simply prevent any buff that effects heavy attacks from applying while outside of combat to prevent the potential abuse when it comes to ganking with these sets, which is where the complaints against heavy attacks in PvP are coming from overwhelmingly in the first place.

As I've said before, the new empower change is [snip] and rushed, motivated by wanting to desperately give something to heavy attack builds in PvE regardless of how the change negatively effects many other builds that aren't PvE heavy attack builds, including those that weren't abusing inferno heavy attack gank setups.

The simple solution as I mentioned would've been just to make a new PvE only buff that buffs heavy attacks against monsters because that would have been the cleanest solution. Its also odd to ask them to make new heavy attack sets for PvP instead because the goal of the patch is to make PvE heavy attack builds more viable, yet I'm not necessarily against the idea either as long as they design it in a way that isn't effective for ganking.

They basically keep introducing problems, then come up with bad solutions to the problems that they keep introducing with sledgehammer changes, creating even more issues in the future. Just like the new medium attack weave meta that many of you are about to enjoy next update.

Edit: Looks like they'll actually do a last minute fix for medium weaves. Wonder how this will effect the damage ticks for lightning and resto heavy attacks.

[edited for bashing]

Cast_El

This is the only good thing in this patch

Lena_HJ

Cast_El wrote: »

This is the only good thing in this patch

Naaah, I am happy for my SorcHeal and changes to athro.

But seriously now, I remember just hanging out behind the rocks at Sejanus on my Dragonknight HEALER (fire destro backbar with crushing shock for all those pesky templars XD) while my Guildies were working on BRK and I was one-two shooting poor Reds who respawned there and were leaving Sej to go North. It was the most amazing, horrifying and disgusting experience I have ever had in PvP.

So I am very happy empower is not going to be a thing in PvP anymore, cause even I, with really low dueling experience and definitely not a ganker [too feeble, too impatient and build around just running away from combat] was able to pull this off.

Vetixio

If they want to keep it PvE only then they need to change a lot for PvP as Empower is attached to a lot of skills and passives that will be worthless in PvP now.