The PvP Plight

MurkyWetWolf198

Yo. Veteran ESO no-lifer here. I like PvPing on my magdk, mainly stick to duels and Battlegrounds. Honestly, while I understand why maybe Templars, Sorcs and Magdens aren’t so hot right now, other than that I’m really enjoying PvP this patch. Yet, I see a LOT of complaints regarding “Tank Meta” and other terms that I really don’t see happening in what I do. Please, not saying it isn’t a thing, but it’d be nice if y’all could drop an explanation on what’s wrong and what could change. Don’t try and cook me here.
(1 thing; if you’re changing things, keep it reasonable. Don’t try and nerf or buff a class unless it needs it. I hear way to many people trying to nerf things out of salty reactions or petty grievances. Changes should make the game more fun, not less)

Firstmep

Bgs are not as tank filled, since it's no cp, and procs are also typically better there.
As for duels, I think most ppl play really high damage setups, since you only ever have to worry about 1 opponent.
The whole tank thing is really more of a cp pvp issue.
Like, I take my templar to cyrodiil and my vigor casually gains like 10k tooltip from bgs due to cp and the completely unnecessary combat medic passive.

MurkyWetWolf198

Gotcha.
So a current problems is the excess tankiness from CP that makes healing too powerful.
What else is contributing to the issues, that can’t be the only thing?

Lebkuchen

On Playstation EU we have to deal with a lot of performance issues in Cyrodiil. The moment an enemy shows up you can kiss your 1 second global cooldowns goodbye, because you have to spam your abilities, ultis and pots a couple of times and pray for them to work. You get sucked in by invisible dark convergence, time delayed, in block, and will not be able to break free for a couple of seconds. Enough time for an enemy bomber to use his combo (if he is lucky) and one of your "allies" to blow you up with occult overload, plaguebreak or vicious death. At the moment it is just zerging, bombing, ganking/sniping and tanking. 1v1 is no fun when abilities do not work when you need them. Sometimes you have to break free 3 or 4 times. Only a few chosen ones can play with no lag, and nobody knows why. That's why a lot of players are building to survive the lag. Doors do not work. Sometimes siegeweapons just do not work, you can not even put them away again. They are there, but you just can not use them. For a few weeks now our controllers sometimes just stop working for no reason and we have to restart the console. There are so many more bugs and performance issues in the game, and just thinking about it makes me angry, so i will stop here and go for a walk.

OBJnoob

The new proc heal set maras balm contributes. Old standbys like pariah and fortified brass contribute. The vampires undeath passive. High self healing. -shrugs- its also just a matter of human choice. Most people prefer to have that extra protection they don't necessarily feel the need to kill lots of people themselves they're maybe just happy to be part of a group.

I PvP in no proc cyrodiil and while champion points makes matters worse it is not the only thing. Exact same problem in no cp. Everybody plays innately tanky classes, has a minimum of 30k HP, and probably wears 1 defensive set. Cuz their crown told them to, lol.

Sergykid

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

it’d be nice if y’all could drop an explanation on what’s wrong and what could change.

first, let's take out CP of a pvp discussion because no balance (no-cp is hardly balanced either but better).

"tank" meta is not what it's commonly thought it is. You can wear hist sap, mara balm, any combination of tank sets. A character can normally heal 1.5x of damage (with occasional bursts but then it's sustain race), so nobody dies 1v1 just by default if one of those opponents wants to. When you hear complains "u can't kill me 1v1" or "yeah only 2v1 u can" yeah by game's default, that's the actual point.
If a good player stands still like a target dummy he can outheal the damage of another good player (if he wants to and builds in such way). But he can not outheal, just by simple numbers war, the damage of another two good players. It will take a lot for full tanks build but it's a sustain race that nobody wants to bother with.

so out of the way with sets that people think they bring the tank meta, the real problem with "tanks" is line of sight. This game has a global ~1 sec delay of your position (and any action in general). You will often cast your animation and then it cancels because target is out of sight. It shouldn't have casted in the first place if target was out of sight, right? This makes running around a pillar impossible to get hit because the game desyncs your position against your enemy's attacks. Good players do this by anticipating enemy's movement on the pillar and going there ahead of enemy, to keep the "real" time in same place while in game the desync is tricked.

So just properly using the broken targeting with line of sight you can become "unkillable" even against 2-3 targets even in full damage build, hence the "he can't die but he one shots me", because u r not even taking the damage in the first place, but u r dealing it because your enemy is not behind a line of sight blocker. It's not about sets, these just set the time required for kill and not the possibility of it.

as of what could change, fixing the proper targeting and line of sighting would be hard work and maybe past the engine's capabilities, definitely not worth for a corporation that solves problems as it does now. So for now, band-aid fixes like it's commonly done.
Maybe narrow the corners of target sight blocking terrain and enlarge the players hitboxes, if spell is launched with enemy in sight then fire that spell even if meanwhile target had its position updated to be out of sight.

Just for the healing and survivability itself issue, Defile could be reworked to be like the Relic debuff, some more theory below

instead of having 8/16 % healing reduced, dealing direct damage with disease damage , applies to the target the Diseased and hence the Defiled debuffs.
These are not cleansable, Diseased lasts for 8 seconds, and while active it applies Defiled effect that grows every second by 1% to reduce target's healing received (capped 99%, to keep "healing received" effects).
So if you don't take direct disease damage for 8 seconds, you lose the Diseased debuff, and Defiled debuff is removed any time Diseased expires or is removed in any way. Getting hit by direct disease damage refreshes the duration of Diseased, so this makes Defiled not lose the growing stacks.
Let's say: i am getting hit, debuff starts, during 8 seconds of Diseased i reach 8% Defiled. I get hit again after 6 seconds instead, so for the next 8 seconds of Diseased i reach 14% Defiled. Now again i get hit after 6 seconds instead going towards 12%, so for the next 8 seconds i will reach a total of 20% Defiled. And so on if i fight constantly for 50 seconds eventually i reach 50% Defiled, and can go on.
I know what this looks like, defile sources op now and necros become meta. Well necros in pvp do need something right now but in this case Blastbones should become dodgeable because it would be full uptime dooming someone to death without choice, and Defile could be reworked to be accessible better than some niche debuff. Also sets that apply the Defile debuff would need rework to not grant full uptime without player direct implication, at least for pvp.
Applied by direct damage means no dots or procs, but enchants should work here, also work effects that specifically apply Defile should work to apply Diseased as if being applied as direct damage. This makes absorb shield more valuable, hence magsorcs gain some needed defensive advantage (offensively they are at max limit of power, shouldn't get any more).

inside spoiler is a buff magsorc theory

Adernath

Imo vigor needs to be toned down, to increase its cost significantly if being re-applied within a short timeframe. Because at the current stage it is just ridiculous how people are spamming this over and over like a no-brainer.

boi_anachronism_

Lebkuchen wrote: »

On Playstation EU we have to deal with a lot of performance issues in Cyrodiil. The moment an enemy shows up you can kiss your 1 second global cooldowns goodbye, because you have to spam your abilities, ultis and pots a couple of times and pray for them to work. You get sucked in by invisible dark convergence, time delayed, in block, and will not be able to break free for a couple of seconds. Enough time for an enemy bomber to use his combo (if he is lucky) and one of your "allies" to blow you up with occult overload, plaguebreak or vicious death. At the moment it is just zerging, bombing, ganking/sniping and tanking. 1v1 is no fun when abilities do not work when you need them. Sometimes you have to break free 3 or 4 times. Only a few chosen ones can play with no lag, and nobody knows why. That's why a lot of players are building to survive the lag. Doors do not work. Sometimes siegeweapons just do not work, you can not even put them away again. They are there, but you just can not use them. For a few weeks now our controllers sometimes just stop working for no reason and we have to restart the console. There are so many more bugs and performance issues in the game, and just thinking about it makes me angry, so i will stop here and go for a walk.

I had someone try and tell me that zos should focus mainly on more content and leave bugs by the wayside because there are "no game breaking bugs". What do you call your controller not working randomly several times a session forcing a complete shut down? I'd say that's game breaking.. because my game is broken and I can't play it 😂

React

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

MurkyWetWolf198

React wrote: »

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

Dang, a thorough answer. Props

MurkyWetWolf198

Sergykid wrote: »

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

it’d be nice if y’all could drop an explanation on what’s wrong and what could change.

first, let's take out CP of a pvp discussion because no balance (no-cp is hardly balanced either but better).

"tank" meta is not what it's commonly thought it is. You can wear hist sap, mara balm, any combination of tank sets. A character can normally heal 1.5x of damage (with occasional bursts but then it's sustain race), so nobody dies 1v1 just by default if one of those opponents wants to. When you hear complains "u can't kill me 1v1" or "yeah only 2v1 u can" yeah by game's default, that's the actual point.
If a good player stands still like a target dummy he can outheal the damage of another good player (if he wants to and builds in such way). But he can not outheal, just by simple numbers war, the damage of another two good players. It will take a lot for full tanks build but it's a sustain race that nobody wants to bother with.

so out of the way with sets that people think they bring the tank meta, the real problem with "tanks" is line of sight. This game has a global ~1 sec delay of your position (and any action in general). You will often cast your animation and then it cancels because target is out of sight. It shouldn't have casted in the first place if target was out of sight, right? This makes running around a pillar impossible to get hit because the game desyncs your position against your enemy's attacks. Good players do this by anticipating enemy's movement on the pillar and going there ahead of enemy, to keep the "real" time in same place while in game the desync is tricked.

So just properly using the broken targeting with line of sight you can become "unkillable" even against 2-3 targets even in full damage build, hence the "he can't die but he one shots me", because u r not even taking the damage in the first place, but u r dealing it because your enemy is not behind a line of sight blocker. It's not about sets, these just set the time required for kill and not the possibility of it.

as of what could change, fixing the proper targeting and line of sighting would be hard work and maybe past the engine's capabilities, definitely not worth for a corporation that solves problems as it does now. So for now, band-aid fixes like it's commonly done.
Maybe narrow the corners of target sight blocking terrain and enlarge the players hitboxes, if spell is launched with enemy in sight then fire that spell even if meanwhile target had its position updated to be out of sight.

Just for the healing and survivability itself issue, Defile could be reworked to be like the Relic debuff, some more theory below

instead of having 8/16 % healing reduced, dealing direct damage with disease damage , applies to the target the Diseased and hence the Defiled debuffs.
These are not cleansable, Diseased lasts for 8 seconds, and while active it applies Defiled effect that grows every second by 1% to reduce target's healing received (capped 99%, to keep "healing received" effects).
So if you don't take direct disease damage for 8 seconds, you lose the Diseased debuff, and Defiled debuff is removed any time Diseased expires or is removed in any way. Getting hit by direct disease damage refreshes the duration of Diseased, so this makes Defiled not lose the growing stacks.
Let's say: i am getting hit, debuff starts, during 8 seconds of Diseased i reach 8% Defiled. I get hit again after 6 seconds instead, so for the next 8 seconds of Diseased i reach 14% Defiled. Now again i get hit after 6 seconds instead going towards 12%, so for the next 8 seconds i will reach a total of 20% Defiled. And so on if i fight constantly for 50 seconds eventually i reach 50% Defiled, and can go on.
I know what this looks like, defile sources op now and necros become meta. Well necros in pvp do need something right now but in this case Blastbones should become dodgeable because it would be full uptime dooming someone to death without choice, and Defile could be reworked to be accessible better than some niche debuff. Also sets that apply the Defile debuff would need rework to not grant full uptime without player direct implication, at least for pvp.
Applied by direct damage means no dots or procs, but enchants should work here, also work effects that specifically apply Defile should work to apply Diseased as if being applied as direct damage. This makes absorb shield more valuable, hence magsorcs gain some needed defensive advantage (offensively they are at max limit of power, shouldn't get any more).

inside spoiler is a buff magsorc theory

An interesting line of thought. Upon reflection, I've encountered similar things in duels where often times I have the stats and skills necessary to burst people down, but they seem to jump through me to get out of the Line of Sight (LoS). In theory, perhaps having the ability to have your camera track a marked player would be nice. For an example of how this would work, I recommend looking into Xenoblade 3's combat (A JRPG with mechanics reminiscent of ESO in many ways). However, this would still not prevent issues of kiting. So, what if we simply made walls and other obstacles not interfere with LoS. Essentially, abilities go through walls, so long as the target is in range. It's a crackpot idea, and I haven't really thought it through, but that would be my instinct. Any thoughts?

Firstmep

React wrote: »

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

This, but I would also add that self healing in general is a little bit too strong atm.

But really it's all the above issues and more compounding on themselves that are creating the issue.
A well built character can take advantage of all the strong or overturned defenses without sacrificing too much in other areas.

Mannjdyr

React wrote: »

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

Totally agree !

Morwe_Haldkan

React wrote: »

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

I agree with all the lines here minus the Major Evasion. Definitely should remain at 20% because without it AoE damage would be far too strong in group fights, where AoE damage already is insanely high through evasion. The only class that has ocassionaly struggled with this is Templar, because most of its damage comes from jabs. Last patches even against targets with Evsaion Templar was doing insane damage. Currently Templars with jabs tickle you, but that isn't because of Evasion, but because the current damage of jabs is awful.

React

Firstmep wrote: »

React wrote: »

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

This, but I would also add that self healing in general is a little bit too strong atm.

But really it's all the above issues and more compounding on themselves that are creating the issue.
A well built character can take advantage of all the strong or overturned defenses without sacrificing too much in other areas.

I think that if they adjusted undeath, support passives, and cross healing like I suggested here, you wouldn't really find self healing to be an issue anymore (outside of outlier cases like current warden).

I forgot to mention one thing in my original post, which is -

5) High HP pools in PVP - Without exaggerating, I can confidently say that the average HP I encounter on PC NA in cyrodiil is in the 32-40k range.

High HP is just one part of the issue, but when combined with vampire undeath and cross healing, it is very problematic. The reasons HP is too high are 1) sources of HP have been added over the past few years that weren't previously available and 2) max stats matter less than ever in terms of healing and damage.

Solution - There are two ways zenimax could tackle the high HP issue. The easiest way would be to impose a hard HP cap in battle spirit of 33-35k, although I think that people wouldn't really be receptivie to this as it would "limit" their (unnecessary) ability to play high HP specs.

The more realistic solution is to rework how max stat contributes to both your damage AND healing. Basically, the max stat value and your weapon/spell damage should equally contribute to your healing and damage tooltips, requiring you to build both to be effective. With max stats being important again, players wouldn't be able to make choices like having half or all of their attributes in health, or using food like the bear haunch and having sub 22k max stat.

React

Morwe_Haldkan wrote: »

React wrote: »

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

I agree with all the lines here minus the Major Evasion. Definitely should remain at 20% because without it AoE damage would be far too strong in group fights, where AoE damage already is insanely high through evasion. The only class that has ocassionaly struggled with this is Templar, because most of its damage comes from jabs. Last patches even against targets with Evsaion Templar was doing insane damage. Currently Templars with jabs tickle you, but that isn't because of Evasion, but because the current damage of jabs is awful.

I still think evasion is a bit too strong. You know me, I'm a nightblade main so I really could care less as evasion doesn't impact me at all and I get it for free as part of my toolkit - but purely for how much it impacts and devalues many of the ultimates in the game, I think it should receive a bit of a nerf. Whether that is cutting major from 20% down to 15%/10% and leaving minor at 10% or cutting it to 5%, I think this would go a long way towards nerfing the scenarios where the buff is actually problematic while still leaving it as a valuable option for players that want it.

Yiko

I would add a few contributing and compounding factors that lead into each other:

Power Creep and Overinflated Stat Budget
One of the best examples of power creep at the moment is Rallying Cry, an incredibly prevalent set in PVP at the moment. The 5 piece of this set has the combined values of the static sets Hunding’s Rage/Julianos and Impregnable Armor, but it only needs to be equipped on one bar (typically the back bar) in order to gain the effects on both bars with virtually 100% uptime while allowing for more value to be stacked on the front bar or both bars. If I recall correctly, the base critical resist of 1320 in PVP translates to 20% critical damage reduction. The 1650 critical resist on this set results in an additional 25% critical damage reduction, bringing the total to 45%. The unmodified amount of damage increase a critical hit provides is 50%, so unmodified critical hits are only doing 5% more damage than normal hits. Critical hits are some of the most impactful ways to burst players in PVP, but Rallying Cry significantly diminishes their value. This enormous amount of critical resist has greatly contributed to passively tanky builds. Another example of defensive power creep is Mara's, which I feel I don't really have to elaborate much on. It's essentially a combination of Robes of the Hist and Wyrd Tree's Blessing but better, because it healed for more health than Hist and also more frequently with less conditional restrictions, and it passively removes negative effects (including hard cc if I'm not mistaken), whereas Wyrd Tree's Blessing requires an active magicka ability. If the current tank meta ends, people are just going to swap one damage set for Mara's if they're not already running it.

ZOS continues to invalidate old sets by introducing new power-creeped sets in order to shake up the meta, but there have been some seriously poorly designed sets introduced in the past year or so. Looking at you, Hrothgar, Dark Convergence, and Plaguebreak, which were released JUST after multiple patches of proc tuning. Damage procs were changed to scale with offensive stats and were made to be able to critically hit, but Hrothgar was designed to scale with the target’s defensive stats immediately following those tuning changes? And not only was it bugged, but the final tooltip was decreased by 50%. To design a set running immediately contrary to recently implemented design choices and miss the estimated damage mark by 50% is baffling to me, especially considering the set was also bugged. Dark Convergence is an abomination, and its initial was release was maybe the worst PVP I’ve ever seen. That set was so intrusive and prevalent that combat essentially resulted in being cc’d every 8 seconds (or effectively self-ccing by having to hold block for the pull) by a set and spending several seconds recovering from that. I’m pretty certain that set was bugged on release too and doing more damage than intended. Since then, it has seen several design changes. These are just some recent examples of poor and contrived implementations by ZOS that negatively impacted the game.

The current CP system allows for players to build purely for damage/healing, because there is an overabundance of utility and sustain-related value provided by CP. CP allows players too large of a stat budget, which is further exacerbated by power-creeped sets, leading to builds that can effectively sustain endlessly without any meaningful investment.

Offensive vs Defensive Play - Risk, Effort, and Outcome
Over the years, the effectiveness of strategic active play has been increasingly overshadowed by passive play and effects. Be it passive mitigation and healing options, like Vampire's Undeath, Armor stacking, critical resist stacking, Major Evasion, armor set procs (ie Mara's, Earthgore, Dark Convergence), HoT stacking in groups, or taping down the block button, passive defensive and utility options are far too prevalent and impactful compared to active offensive play. It is far too simple and effective to be defensive in the current state of the game. These defensive options contribute towards a low risk, low effort, medium-high effectiveness playstyle. There is too much of a reward given the risk/investment and player input (or lack thereof). It's sheer mindlessness. Players barely have to think about what they're doing, making individual decisions matter less and less, as poor play isn't nearly as easily punished as it has been historically.

Even active healing and utility are far too effective compared to offense. On my noCP stam sorc, my Twilight Matriarch tooltip is 59%/64% higher tooltip than my Crushing Weapon/Crystal Weapon respectively WITHOUT the Combat Medic 20% healing passive. It also heals 2 targets on top of healing itself. You don't even have to aim the heal to be effective with it. Just mash the heal button, and you're "smart" healing whoever may need the healing. IIRC the heal even goes through line of sight, like Breath of Life in the past. Compare that to people's generally lower offensive tooltips that also require strategic aiming, timing, and setup, and you realize that even just one healer mashing a heal can invalidate one player's damage, especially considering that there are probably HoTs rolling and stacked passive mitigation. My CP Stamblade's Healthy Offering tooltip is 32.7% higher than my Surprise Attack tooltip while I have offensive CP and no healing CP. It is 47% higher with no CP slotted. These are, again, without the 20% increased healing from the Combat Medic passive.

Let's look at some other defensive options. You have:

• Nightblades sitting in Refreshing Path w/ HoT stack and ~55% non-Sprint move speed increase, or NBs resetting with Cloak and/or Shade
• Dragonknights sitting in Cinder Storm and holding block or kiting around it because of the 70% snare (which Templar's Extended Ritual used to have via a class passive and was removed because the snare was too powerful and intrusive). Also hitting Coagulating Blood once and going from 20% to 85% health.
• What Templars remain sitting in Rune and Ritual with Living Dark up, potentially holding block
• Sorcs streaking away
• Warden's overtuned Polar Wind burst heal and HoT, even on non-health stack Wardens.

These are all either very passive and/or very low effort but highly effective ways to mitigate damage.

Player Behavioral Changes
The skill floor of PVP combat has been raised over the past several years in ESO, largely due in part to the increasing effectiveness of passive play. Players have realized that low effort and low risk strategies can be effective, and this has influenced player behavior. As some players still try to press active combat to its limits, the vast majority of players have elected to stack Max Health (which is even more problematic with all of the % Max Health based healing implemented in recent years) and sit in zergs/faction stack/ball groups in an attempt to minimize risk. It's not about optimization or anything remotely like that; it's about not being dead. The majority of players these days do not put themselves in situations where they have individually impactful responsibility. They do not want to undertake any kind of individual risk. This has also greatly contributed to a tank meta on top of all of these other factors.

Conclusion
There are other things at play that have resulted in the tank meta, such as the DoT nerf, Bash nerf, Light Attack nerf, Hybridization, Minor Resolve on Vigor, etc. However, the main point is that the tank meta has various compounding issues that make defensive play easier and more rewarding than offensive play.

nokturnihs

React wrote: »

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

How about PvP players push for separate balancing for PvP. There's never gonna be balance in PvP the way the classes/sets/skills work BEFORE CP or weird stuff like vamp. See this game keeps sucking more and more for PvE players and "filthy casuals", and every time I see suggestions that make massive changes to try and balance something as broken as ESO's PvP my skin crawls. Push for alternative functionality in PvP. A DK in PvE SHOULDN'T function line for line as they do in PvP. Same with everything else.... ZOS should've bit the bullet long ago and split off balancing from the two gamemodes. Instead, EVERYONE is unhappy and ESO is hemorrhaging players with each patch.
Sorry to be negative but these kinds of pushes aren't gonna make anything better and honestly, comparing the PvP crowd and the PvE crowd in regards to getting the devs attention (low chance period) - it's almost always the PvP crowd that gets heard.

Solariken

React wrote: »

The tank meta is being caused primarily by a few specific things. It's not so much an issue of class, despite some being sturdier than others.

I'll outline what the main offenders are, from my experience.

1) Vampire Undeath - This is probably the worst offender in the game in terms of mitigation right now. Up to 30% mitigation at maximum, this is by far the strongest mitigation buff. Undeath constantly prevents people from actually dying in scenarios where they should have, and lowers the burst damage people take significantly. The trade off of the 8% ability cost is not even close to being a reasonable penalty for this level of mitigation.

Solution - Nerf vampire undeath down to a reasonable level (10-15%), or just replace it with a different passive that isn't as absurd as this one is. This passive has been an issue for SO long now.

2) Cross healing - The numbers achievable with healing are generally much higher than those achievable with damage. When heals are stacked between multiple people, they often become so overpowering that you cannot overcome them with damage. This is especially noticeable in cases where there is a dedicated healer, or in the case of ball groups. Ball groups are especially egregious, as they stack 5-6 radiating regens and 5-6 echoing vigors, as well as many heals & healing sets which make them nigh unkillable. Additionally, while every offensive ult in the game has a cast time so that people can "better react" to them, not a single defensive ult has a cast time.

Solution - I think the easiest solution is two fold, and is to simply add a debuff to battle spirit that days "Reduces the healing received from other players by 30%". This would bring scenarios where healing is being shared amongst people more in line with the amount of damage similar numbers of people could deal to them. The second part of this solution is to limit the number of same morph heal over times that can affect any player at any given time. You should not be able to have more than two casts of any specific heal over time on you at once (echoing vigor, radiating regen, etc). Additionally, ground heal over times should have this same restriction.

Finally, if offensive ults are going to have cast times, defensive ults should have them too. Or better yet, just remove the cast times from offensive ults.

3) Major Evasion - Major evasion is too high of a mitigation modifier. It needs to be cut signifcantly. This buff completely nukes the damage potential of many ultimates, and severely harms the damage output of classes like templar and warden.

4) 20% healing Support Passive - This passive is the single strongest healing modifier in the game, currentley. It's a relic of a different time when you actually needed the additional healing to survive, especially when things like siege were involved. With players being able to easily survive on their own now, and even more so with help from others, this passive really should be reconsidered.

React wins the forums - somebody get this guy a medal. I cried a single tear, it's so beautiful.

Amottica

There is always a meta to complain about.

Lebkuchen

nokturnihs wrote: »

[...] it's almost always the PvP crowd that gets heard.

I disagree. The always shrinking "PvP crowd" has been screaming and kicking for years, because we got left alone in the woods, like a little child that nobody wants anymore. They wait for us to starve to death or get eaten by the wolves. Everyone blames us for everything. Nobody likes us. They call us toxic, useless and a waste of resources. You remember the "Wahh wahh wahh... i have no sympathy for PvP..." twitch stream? Nobody, i repeat, NOBODY listens to the "PvP crowd"...

I am sick of all the stories about balance issues in PvE because of PvP. Nothing gets balanced, nothing happens, nothing improves in PvP. Same with the constant bullying and blaming of console players. Same with PvE endgame. You are just looking for some easy target to blame because you can not imagine that maybe the company you are paying is responsible for your problems.

Please do not misunderstand, i have nothing against you personally. But i am sick of the constant war between players, and the boring uniformed "i have a fix for everything"-posts, when the real problem is something else.

lonnml

Lebkuchen wrote: »

nokturnihs wrote: »

[...] it's almost always the PvP crowd that gets heard.

I disagree. The always shrinking "PvP crowd" has been screaming and kicking for years, because we got left alone in the woods, like a little child that nobody wants anymore. They wait for us to starve to death or get eaten by the wolves. Everyone blames us for everything. Nobody likes us. They call us toxic, useless and a waste of resources. You remember the "Wahh wahh wahh... i have no sympathy for PvP..." twitch stream? Nobody, i repeat, NOBODY listens to the "PvP crowd"...

I am sick of all the stories about balance issues in PvE because of PvP. Nothing gets balanced, nothing happens, nothing improves in PvP. Same with the constant bullying and blaming of console players. Same with PvE endgame. You are just looking for some easy target to blame because you can not imagine that maybe the company you are paying is responsible for your problems.

Please do not misunderstand, i have nothing against you personally. But i am sick of the constant war between players, and the boring uniformed "i have a fix for everything"-posts, when the real problem is something else.

Well put. I’m not sure how anyone who steps foot in a PVP zone or PVPs regularly or spends a lot of time PVPing in ESO thinking this way. It’s solely PVE players who don’t PVP or know anything about PVP that make these outrageous claims

nokturnihs

lonnml wrote: »

Lebkuchen wrote: »

nokturnihs wrote: »

[...] it's almost always the PvP crowd that gets heard.

I disagree. The always shrinking "PvP crowd" has been screaming and kicking for years, because we got left alone in the woods, like a little child that nobody wants anymore. They wait for us to starve to death or get eaten by the wolves. Everyone blames us for everything. Nobody likes us. They call us toxic, useless and a waste of resources. You remember the "Wahh wahh wahh... i have no sympathy for PvP..." twitch stream? Nobody, i repeat, NOBODY listens to the "PvP crowd"...

I am sick of all the stories about balance issues in PvE because of PvP. Nothing gets balanced, nothing happens, nothing improves in PvP. Same with the constant bullying and blaming of console players. Same with PvE endgame. You are just looking for some easy target to blame because you can not imagine that maybe the company you are paying is responsible for your problems.

Please do not misunderstand, i have nothing against you personally. But i am sick of the constant war between players, and the boring uniformed "i have a fix for everything"-posts, when the real problem is something else.

Well put. I’m not sure how anyone who steps foot in a PVP zone or PVPs regularly or spends a lot of time PVPing in ESO thinking this way. It’s solely PVE players who don’t PVP or know anything about PVP that make these outrageous claims

So I DO PvP in ESO albeit have just started somewhat recently and mainly BG and IC. I wasn't blaming PvP for PvE imbalance I'm saying that collectively, pushing for a separation of functionality so each can be balanced individually would be a win for both crowds.

That said, a large majority of the developers notes (excuses) in U35 patch notes and U36 point out changes due to PvP balance so yeah... Several huge nerfs in U35 were a direct result of PvP. Go back and read them.

I wasn't blaming the PvP crowd, asking for a larger push to separate out the balancing...