Theory crafting is dead in PvP

StaticWave

The gradual decline of usable sets pretty much reduced theory crafting to slotting the same sets for every class. There are 200+ sets in the game, but only a handful of them are actually decent enough to be used in a PvP build. I think it's time that old sets get slightly buffed to a more usable state, like Veiled Heritance, 7th Legion, Fury, New Moon, etc..

Urzigurumash

Do you think this could be achieved indirectly through any global adjustments?

To clarify my line of thinking here - read @DrNukenstein 's comment in this thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/637120/you-have-to-do-something-about-pvp-balance-zos#latest , and see there my reference to @JerBearESO 's suggestion in some recent thread to massively adjust the Battlespirit modifiers.

Following those ideas:
- Would massively adjusting the Battlespirit modifiers achieve Nukenstein's postulated Sustain Solution?
- If so, would this increase the efficiency of a number of sets, like - to use your example - 7th Legion and Fury? Since they grant Stats based on things one does besides Crit Heal (i.e Rallying Cry) or apply a Major/Minor Debuff (i.e. Wretched Vitality)

You see what I mean? By simply adjusting the Battlespirit Modifiers, does it make it so everything becomes so much more difficult to sustain that we find new value in the different auto-procs? In this hypothetical new environment we would have to be much more selective with what skills we use when, maybe now everybody can't quite maintain 100% uptime on Rallying Cry and Wretched quite so easily and need to look to other ways of proccing their sets, like 7th and Fury.

Urzigurumash

The obvious end to my line of thinking here: compare the cost/casual PvE ramifications of adjusting Battlespirit modifiers to going back through hundreds of sets and making individual adjustments. Little to none versus tremendous.

Redguards_Revenge

StaticWave wrote: »

The gradual decline of usable sets pretty much reduced theory crafting to slotting the same sets for every class. There are 200+ sets in the game, but only a handful of them are actually decent enough to be used in a PvP build. I think it's time that old sets get slightly buffed to a more usable state, like Veiled Heritance, 7th Legion, Fury, New Moon, etc..

Yeah I started noticing a good number of sets are about the same both in PVP and in PVE. They make no difference. I don't have or don't use mythics. So I've been cycling through the base game and crafted sets. When you are not using a back bar, hundings rage is superior to briarheart.

However, as you know in PVP, to get 1k to 2k more health, you must choose a back bar otherwise be at a severe disadvantage with your stats. Without using Mythics this disadvantage becomes even larger.

So what I've done is simple. For a person who doesn't use myhtics....

2 hander front bar, 2 hander back bar.


New Moon Alcolyte front bar, (2h sword, 3 body pieces)
Briar Heart back bar ( 2h sword, 3 rings)
Balorgh set.(both heavy set)
1 Trainee Heavy Chest
1 Druids heavy legs.

I am vampire, but I get annoyed with having to go somewhere and bite someone just for 30% damage reduction when close to death. I would clean it off but I give free bites.


I usually have 30k health, 20k stam and 15k magica.

Food Jewels of Misrule for stam and mag recovery.

I have the 2 hander back bar to activate briarheart with the always crit move.

However, I switch briarheart with Seventh Legion to use a 1h 1 shield build. Which I am currently using. Since The rings were not infused like my briar heart, I actually moved some health resources into stamina and mag. Recoveries for both are at 1k mag and 1.8k stam.

I can put up a decent fight, but I know that I should lose at every point. When I win, it's because they are either new to PVP or they're in the same boat as me.

They out tank me, they out damage me, they out heal me. I just wonder sometimes what I am doing in PVP. I've gone as far as I could.

I guess it's good, I don't really put any effort into pvp anymore. I know I'll lose so I just do enough to get by. Every time a BGs deathmatch comes, I use my Vampire abilities to run and hide and then come out of stealth to execute people.

When I saw I could walk normal speed hidden as vampire...that was kind of a game changer. Then I realize everybody else has been doing this with mythics lol.

I always wondered how certain classes were getting away with certain things.

Now that I finally have the whole picture I was never going to win. Quiet PVPing i guess...

Luckylancer

Old devs and new ones have different mindset. Current devs balance the game on an excel file. All classes turned in to reskins of each other with slight flavours. In this meta, one class with a bit more advantage become meta and all classes use items because they are clones of each other.

I think adding sets based on crux usage and necromancer's corpse consumption will make a good difference.

jarlragnar

The reason theory crafting is dead is because as much as you craft you can take that build into cyrodiil or IC and have someone take no damage but turn around and kill you. All the top sweaty players use exploits in the game or run cheat engines that can’t be detected or they run scripts. 50%~60% of pvp players do this.

TechMaybeHic

Most the damage stat sets seem to suck. Low numbers compared to defensive sets or highly situational conditions or penalty where defensive sets tend to happen a lot just by taking damage or buffing.

Shattered fate is a breath of fresh air to me and I'd like to see more

CameraBeardThePirate

jarlragnar wrote: »

The reason theory crafting is dead is because as much as you craft you can take that build into cyrodiil or IC and have someone take no damage but turn around and kill you. All the top sweaty players use exploits in the game or run cheat engines that can’t be detected or they run scripts. 50%~60% of pvp players do this.

"I can't kill them so they must be exploiting" is exactly what this sounds like.

OBJnoob

I think peoples competitive nature gets the best of them. Theorycrafting really isn't about finding what's best. There's only one thing that's best, though that thing may change from patch to patch, and this isn't a theory so much as a fact. One person theorycrafted it... Word got out... And everyone else copied, for lack of a better word.

Theorycrafting is really about finding off-meta sets that synergize with eachother or a class well enough to compete. And I disagree that it's dead. But if your goal is to have fun theorycrafting you will have to accept the fact that there will be some people you won't beat.

My method of theorycrafting is that I usually run one meta set and theorize the 2nd. For example my magden was running rallying cry and Hrothgars (post nerf,) and having great success in BGs. Most people think Hrothgars is trash. But the cooldown aligns with what it corresponds with-- which is CC immunity-- and a character with access to AoE stuns and AoE immobilizes and increased chilled proc damage can do well with it. I made a run deep into the highest mmr for a couple months, and in hindsight it mightve been my most successful character ever.

Scratch that-- tied for most successful. Had a stamDK back before DKs became everything. Ran Affliction backbar with a bow and Ward of Cyrodiil front bar. My best dueling character ever-- dot and defile style. Totally my own making. Doubt people use either of those sets.

Now my same magden is taking laps through Ravenwatch wearing Innate Axiom FB, full trainee 3 piece, and Order of Diagna BB. With Markyn Ring of course. -shrug- It's really what you want it to be.

I think some of us are victims of our own success. You beat certain people, get a certain reputation, and then you hold yourself to a certain standard. But you really don't have to. The game is really still quite fun if you let it be.

OBJnoob

Darn no responses! I was looking forward to this discussion all day at work! I was hoping someone else might've shared some of their off-meta success stories.

Pepegrillos

Luckylancer wrote: »

Old devs and new ones have different mindset. Current devs balance the game on an excel file. All classes turned in to reskins of each other with slight flavours. In this meta, one class with a bit more advantage become meta and all classes use items because they are clones of each other.

I think adding sets based on crux usage and necromancer's corpse consumption will make a good difference.

They did actually boast about having a system called SBE (Set Bonus Efficiency) to balance out sets a few years ago. From the description they gave, it sounded just like a spreadsheet. Theoretically, they could up the bonus efficiency of older sets by some margins quite easily. I wouldn't wait for it, though. Maybe it wil happen when the devs in charge of the SBE are replaced by AI.

ArchMikem

I just take my basic *** PvE builds into Cyro and hope for the best. Got to Legate on my main bashing against that wall.

CameraBeardThePirate

OBJnoob wrote: »

Darn no responses! I was looking forward to this discussion all day at work! I was hoping someone else might've shared some of their off-meta success stories.

I definitely agree fwiw. Meta is meta, there's always going to be a meta. There's hundreds of sets in this game though, and it's absolutely possible to compete with a LOT of them.

That doesn't mean that the current meta is fun however. The procs that are really strong at the moment are very mindless procs, even for arena weapon sets. The tankiness thats slowly built through the past year or so is outrageous. Its a boring meta. I abhor it personally, and look forward to all of the casuals seeing just how bad it's gotten during MYM.

StaticWave

OBJnoob wrote: »

Darn no responses! I was looking forward to this discussion all day at work! I was hoping someone else might've shared some of their off-meta success stories.

The thing with off-meta builds is that you have to be a very strong PvPer to pull off kills, but it doesn’t mean you can equally compete with someone in a meta build who’s as good as you.

For example I’ve tried a health recovery build in the current meta. Health recovery is a dead stat in PvP, everyone knows that. The highest I could get to was a little more than 3000 health regen, and that took sacrificing 3 dmg sets, Undeath, and a bunch of other stuff. Could I kill an average player? Sure, I could do that with any build. But the moment I run into someone competent, I tend to lose more. I know I would have a higher winning chance if I wore something like Rallying Cry and Essence Thief.

LittlePinkDot

jarlragnar wrote: »

The reason theory crafting is dead is because as much as you craft you can take that build into cyrodiil or IC and have someone take no damage but turn around and kill you. All the top sweaty players use exploits in the game or run cheat engines that can’t be detected or they run scripts. 50%~60% of pvp players do this.

Switch to console

Turtle_Bot

OBJnoob wrote: »

Darn no responses! I was looking forward to this discussion all day at work! I was hoping someone else might've shared some of their off-meta success stories.

I've been super busy with work lately, so haven't had much time to post on the forums.

I have had some decent success with off meta builds quite frequently. Some notable ones include:

- 2h RoA hrothgars chill stamden bomber (long before RoA ever became popular) (U28 to U30ish iirc).
- Melee petless and shieldless magsorc using vamp spammable (U32 or U33). This has been by far one of my favourite builds ever alongside my next build, the "door buster" petsorc.
- My OG door buster/defender petsorc build with tinkers construct, atro etc. (long time ago).
- nearly unkillable magdk bomber (before DK got any buffs).
- DW stamden (U36/37), everyone was/is frostden.
- brief period with shieldless magsorc in U35 (got a few good sessions in with it over about a week before the DK + NB meta took off and sorc just died to everything).

Some of my interesting but failed attempts were:

- DoT cro maelstrom DW and soul assault (the tooltip got to stupid numbers but it was so insanely hard to line everything up to get it there that it wasn't practical).
- frostden (long time ago, well before all the changes to warden making frost staff good on it, I even tried some of the now meta frostden sets back then and it was still bad lol).
- pure lightning sorc (fun not having a proper heal and no shields lmao, was thematically really cool though, just needed a lightning bolt ability similar to frags to make it thematically complete).
- pure mag version of the U34 savage werewolf stamsorc build (I just couldn't get it to work right, elemental weapon was just inferior to both crystal and crushing weapon).

StaticWave

It’s not about having fewer sets to work with for min-maxing. Min-maxing has always been about picking the most optimal set for that specific build. I fully understand that.

What I'm talking about is the power disparity between current sets compared to several years ago. I will re-use the Fury/7th Legion meta as an example because it was one of the few balanced metas.

Back then, Fury/7th Legion was meta, no doubt, but there were drawbacks for using those sets. First of all, you had to be taking enough damage to reliably proc their 5th bonus, making them best for 1vXers. You wouldn't want to use them when small-scaling or playing organized groups because you'd want to synergize your burst window, and having unreliable proc windows could mess that up. Fury/Clever Alchemist was better for that.

But those weren't the only sets that could be used. You could also use Veiled Heritance, Ravager, Spriggan, Hulking, Briarheart, Automaton, etc. and still be competitive. The power disparity was much smaller.

Now, if you're not slotting Rallying Cry you're going to have a higher chance of losing against someone with it, assuming both of you are equal in skill. If you're not slotting Master DW, you're probably going to lose more. If you're not slotting Maarselok or Zaan, you're definitely going to lose almost all of the time.

The power disparity between sets is also greater. Why would anybody use Eternal Vigor when Wretched Vitality can be one barred? Who would even use Briarheart when Rallying Cry is better?

I'm not asking for ZoS to nerf Rallying Cry or Wretched Vitality. They would just overdo the nerf and make them unusable. I'm asking for ZoS to buff old sets to a more attractive state. Fury could use an extra 150-200 WD for the 5th bonus. New Moon could use an extra 100 WD buff, etc.

TybaltKaine

I think it's worth differentiating between goals in PVP when we talk about the lack of sets being used.

If you are going into PVP with the mindset to play a support character who is there to heal, shield and siege, then the world is your proverbial oyster.

If you are in PVP purely to fight and kill others, then yeah, there isn't too much variation from the meta, which is unfortunate. Those that can create nice builds and have the skill to use them are few and far between, and likely will not want to share those builds for fear of others copying them and risking the nerf hammer.

I think a real discussion about healing and shielding without devolving into damage numbers and combat effectiveness would open some eyes as to the state of sets being used in PVP.

Lumenn

I'm not being sarcastic here, but what would be the point? As soon as sets start getting good there is a bunch of wailing, crying, gnashing of teeth until it's nerfed, then on to the next one. The "King of the hill" mentality has ruined sets, skills, classes. If it worked it's "Too OP". Don't get me wrong, pve does it as well but pvp has their special place on the boards as well. From a developers point of view I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole.

FENGRUSH

jarlragnar wrote: »

The reason theory crafting is dead is because as much as you craft you can take that build into cyrodiil or IC and have someone take no damage but turn around and kill you. All the top sweaty players use exploits in the game or run cheat engines that can’t be detected or they run scripts. 50%~60% of pvp players do this.

Thanks Jarl Ragnar. This post was very informative and helpful. Now that I know 50% of my opponents are cheating, I won't bother trying. I now know what to do if I lose.

tsaescishoeshiner

While the Mara's nerf did a good job of making it an acceptable backbar set that isn't useless, it's too bad that Necrom didn't address the supremacy of Master's Dual Wield and Vateshran Destro. I think there's more diversity in mid-range PvP than in PvE, but I'm sure at the high ends (1vXing, competitive duels) it feels more limited.

HidesInPlainSight

its extremely limited. You have to find builds that should not work but do because of spaghetti code.

Ive spent more than 100mil gold just trying to find the best build for Arcanist. Which there is not, because none of their skills register in the lag and they are 100% avoidable by walking away from the Arcanist.

None of their class skills weave properly in animation canceling for proc'ing sets. Its very clunky, so even going full proc for damage, is unreliable.

The class is just not good in pvp, outside of a support role in group.

A lot of the sets would become more viable, if ZoS did something about the tank meta. In all honesty getting rid of Vamp stage 3 and Pariah would go a long way making more sets viable.

Also making more interesting sets, that work in both CP and No CP campaigns.

There is reason most theorycrafters dont release their personal builds because, they get adopted and eventually nerfed.

OBJnoob

Okay gents now we're conversating (ugh don't you hate it when people use that word)!!

I enjoyed hearing about other people's non meta builds. I'll probably start my own topic soon just for that so I don't derail this too much. I like theorycrafting and I like hearing about people's theories. Having more success than you thought with a non-meta build is so rewarding! It has kinda become my thing, as I enjoy it more than I enjoy trying to be "the best."

There was a time when I might've been considered one of the best where I play. One of like 15, just to be clear. When dueling one of those 15 was fraught with nervousness and cheese because we were scared to die and become part of someone else's clip. I lost a friend because of it. A streamer who I won't name. He'd just got done dueling someone else to solve an argument... We, his cronies, had left cyrodiil to come watch the duel. So many people watching on both sides, you'd think it was a highschool cafeteria fight. When it got over I challenged my friend to a duel. Cuz why else was I just standing in Grahtwood for 20 minutes listening to people bicker?? My man stood in his templar rune heavy attacking for ages waiting on his 500 Ult. On the third try he got me. Well. I called him cheesey... I even tried to get him to admit that he was cheesey, lol. "Come on man... That was lame though, right?" He did not think so as it turned out. He's the "best."

But so this was my first eye-opening experience to things like tank metas and toxic elites. And I don't mean toxic language because I'm guilty of that as well from time to time. I mean toxic playstyle. It isn't new. The sets might've changed but the player mentality hasn't. This was like 3 or 4 years ago. Right after balorghs came out, whenever that was.

You can blame balorghs, you can blame vate Destro, rallying cry, sea serpents coil-- I mean you can blame whatever you want. But ultimately it's just people that are super happy to rock a build that is unkillable -v- less than 5 decent players. And as long as they can kill someone once every 5 minutes then that's success. The waiting game. Balorghs, Fury, clever alchemist, mechanical Acuity, blah blah.

And this is why I so frequently disagree with common sentiments like "ballgroups are killing pvp." Nah, they're just doing exactly what everybody does. "Obj BGs suck,"-- at least it sucks in a slightly different way. At least you can lose to someone with a slightly different build! "Theory crafting is dead!" Was it ever alive? "This is a meta that benefits toxic casuals,"-- if that casual is wearing meta gear and holding his own then I say it's time to stop calling him casual. He has found the way it's done. He is now part of the toxic, and boring, elite. Woo freaking hoo.

So, uh, that's my life story lol

@StaticWave So there's one flaw in your plan that I can see. Ravenwatch. You want certain older stat sets to get buffed to modern standards, but some of the sets you name (New Moon for instance,) is already meta in Ravenwatch. Buffing it to fix one meta is going to create problems in another.

Udrath

This is all from UPDATE 29:
Characters now also take 10% reduced damage at base, to reduce the loss of the mitigation from the Champion Point system.

Characters now also start with 1000 Weapon and Spell Damage regardless of your level.

All characters have had their base Health increased to 16,000, up from 8744 and their Magicka and Stamina has increased to 12,000, up from 7958.


The extra 1000 and stats are pretty hefty with the multipliers. Most builds in the far past were usually 3k-4k weapon damage buffed and with decent recovery. 5k+ builds existed but sacrificed recovery and relied on heavy attacking. Now you can have 7k weapon damage easy, good recovery while wearing a defensive set and nearly all your attributes in health.

Don’t get me started on how race against time has destroyed class identity. Take damage=run

Each class used to build to their strengths. For example Fury/7th legion were good on stamdk because they could stand there and tank, then build up and payback. But you didn’t wear those sets unless you were 2H/shield. If you were dw/2h medium armor it was a different playstyle and valued other sets. This doesn’t matter anymore because mobility is king through race against time.

SandandStars

I am really enjoying this thread as I pretty much tinker with off-meta builds to keep the game interesting. Been pvping a couple years, bgs & cyro. Here’s one I get alot of unanticipated kills on: (Magsorc)

War Maiden + Spinners + Kragh helm (heavy, reinf) + Oakensoul

6 light armor, 1 hvy; 2 maces (sharpened)

fbar: blinding flare, matriarch, streak, endless fury, crystal frags, ice comet

The build’s intent is simple: hit ppl with frags/fury/ic/frags as much as possible without dying. Not original by any stretch. What I think is unique is that it’s got ~21k pen at all times (no elem suscep), and a procced frag crits for ~30k (somewhere around 10-12k in pvp) due to War Maiden, mostly.

I can tell alot of tanky builds arent prepared for what’s essentially a high pen glass cannon. Those frag/ic combos actually hurt, and there are many times when an aggressive tanky build turns tail after a couple potent hits.

It’s ultimately too fragile/low resistance to be a competitve build against sweaty meta duellers, but alot of “average” chumps running the DW/Vatesh staff meta don’t know what to do when a ranged magicka build does decent damage while using streak effectively/sparingly.

I’ve had some fun on it, although really it’s probably not that different from a tuned NB ranged build, but with far worse defense.

StaticWave

OBJnoob wrote: »

Okay gents now we're conversating (ugh don't you hate it when people use that word)!!

I enjoyed hearing about other people's non meta builds. I'll probably start my own topic soon just for that so I don't derail this too much. I like theorycrafting and I like hearing about people's theories. Having more success than you thought with a non-meta build is so rewarding! It has kinda become my thing, as I enjoy it more than I enjoy trying to be "the best."

There was a time when I might've been considered one of the best where I play. One of like 15, just to be clear. When dueling one of those 15 was fraught with nervousness and cheese because we were scared to die and become part of someone else's clip. I lost a friend because of it. A streamer who I won't name. He'd just got done dueling someone else to solve an argument... We, his cronies, had left cyrodiil to come watch the duel. So many people watching on both sides, you'd think it was a highschool cafeteria fight. When it got over I challenged my friend to a duel. Cuz why else was I just standing in Grahtwood for 20 minutes listening to people bicker?? My man stood in his templar rune heavy attacking for ages waiting on his 500 Ult. On the third try he got me. Well. I called him cheesey... I even tried to get him to admit that he was cheesey, lol. "Come on man... That was lame though, right?" He did not think so as it turned out. He's the "best."

But so this was my first eye-opening experience to things like tank metas and toxic elites. And I don't mean toxic language because I'm guilty of that as well from time to time. I mean toxic playstyle. It isn't new. The sets might've changed but the player mentality hasn't. This was like 3 or 4 years ago. Right after balorghs came out, whenever that was.

You can blame balorghs, you can blame vate Destro, rallying cry, sea serpents coil-- I mean you can blame whatever you want. But ultimately it's just people that are super happy to rock a build that is unkillable -v- less than 5 decent players. And as long as they can kill someone once every 5 minutes then that's success. The waiting game. Balorghs, Fury, clever alchemist, mechanical Acuity, blah blah.

And this is why I so frequently disagree with common sentiments like "ballgroups are killing pvp." Nah, they're just doing exactly what everybody does. "Obj BGs suck,"-- at least it sucks in a slightly different way. At least you can lose to someone with a slightly different build! "Theory crafting is dead!" Was it ever alive? "This is a meta that benefits toxic casuals,"-- if that casual is wearing meta gear and holding his own then I say it's time to stop calling him casual. He has found the way it's done. He is now part of the toxic, and boring, elite. Woo freaking hoo.

So, uh, that's my life story lol

@StaticWave So there's one flaw in your plan that I can see. Ravenwatch. You want certain older stat sets to get buffed to modern standards, but some of the sets you name (New Moon for instance,) is already meta in Ravenwatch. Buffing it to fix one meta is going to create problems in another.

I don’t think it will create problems because Ravenwatch doesn’t allow full access to other sets. What’s meta in Ravenwatch is not meta in other campaigns where no restrictions are in place. Not to mention Ravenwatch is mostly dead on PC NA.

Buffing them would create more build paths for people.

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, as it deals with PvP.

Thank you for your understanding

OBJnoob

StaticWave wrote: »

@StaticWave So there's one flaw in your plan that I can see. Ravenwatch. You want certain older stat sets to get buffed to modern standards, but some of the sets you name (New Moon for instance,) is already meta in Ravenwatch. Buffing it to fix one meta is going to create problems in another.

I don’t think it will create problems because Ravenwatch doesn’t allow full access to other sets. What’s meta in Ravenwatch is not meta in other campaigns where no restrictions are in place. Not to mention Ravenwatch is mostly dead on PC NA.

Buffing them would create more build paths for people.[/quote]

Yeah Ravenwatch is mostly dead on Xbox NA too. But that's kinda beside the point, isn't it? I mean the only way I can make that a defense of your plan is if I assume your conclusion is "so who cares about balance there?" But I do, cuz that's where I play.

New Moon is already strong there. You add another 100 weapon damage and it'll be the only thing anyone uses.

I'm not sure the disparity between 5piece stat sets and 5piece proc sets is really the issue. The change they made to where procs scale off of stats was a good one. Someone wearing maras and way of fire for instance really shouldn't be capable of much damage theoretically. What the culprit really seems to be, to me, is certain mythics and monster sets that rival or even exceed 5piece bonuses without taking up many slots in your build.

Someone wearing Maras and, I dunno, RoA for instance-- really isn't capable of much damage. You're supposed to have to build for damage to make the proc powerful. But you add 1000 base weapon damage to everybody, then throw sea serpents coil in there, and voila you're a powerhouse.

Major courage AND major berserk? A little excessive for a single piece of gear isn't it? Who even needs New Moon?

To actually fix this game you're gonna need a more fundamental overhaul than just balancing sets. And nobody will honestly be on board with it. Because the same things elite players complain about are the same things that help them be elite. Their favorite aspect of the game is that one person can run around tanking 5 people while retaining the capability to kill them also... And run 100mph all the while, never hurting for sustain. But you get 12 people together who do the same thing and "whoa whoa whoa that's ruining the game."

The game needs to return to the trinity where every DD isn't a healer of preposterous power. Healing needs to be at least partially uncoupled from damage. It just does. And this will basically destroy Xing for all but the best of the best. But it's the only answer. If you don't want players who aren't as good as you to survive against you then you're gonna have to give up your ability to fight 5 people.

There's no way to keep casual players from closing the gap on elites when elites are crutching on gear also. The only way to reintroduce the skill gap is to make the game harder for everybody. But people don't want that they just say they do. Nobody wants to get killed by a glass cannon build. They catch the glass cannon out in the open, kill them, decide they're trash, and the next time the glass cannon does manage to kill them "Oo my heals aren't strong enough-- scavenging demise does too much damage-- this person isn't a good player he's being carried by his gear-- I know for a fact he's trash because whenever it's a fair fight I win." People say they want the game to have a rock paper scissors feel to it, but any changes so all-consuming that they themselves can't be all 3 would be unacceptable to them.

Any 3 people-- not super good but that know how to play-- actively targeting and pressing offensive buttons... Should wreck all but the best players in short order. The thought that any one person is 3x better than anyone except a total rookie is nonsense. The game just isn't that complicated. The same mechanisms that allow the elites to feed their egos is what they are now complaining about. The exact same.

Bushido2513

OBJnoob wrote: »

To actually fix this game you're gonna need a more fundamental overhaul than just balancing sets. And nobody will honestly be on board with it. Because the same things elite players complain about are the same things that help them be elite. Their favorite aspect of the game is that one person can run around tanking 5 people while retaining the capability to kill them also... And run 100mph all the while, never hurting for sustain. But you get 12 people together who do the same thing and "whoa whoa whoa that's ruining the game."

.

Lol so much truth here.

HiImRex

The spreadsheet approach to balancing is fine, as long as the qualitative effects of different sets that are functionally similar are properly offset by the quantitative effects. For example:

Fury is a damage set that requires double barring and builds up through tanking; it should build up to a damage buff significantly higher than burning spell weave which can be single barred and comes with a unique dot (a unique instance of the burning dot that stacks with regular burning). That way you’ve got the choice of building around fury to achieve high uptime high damage but losing out on the 5-5-1-2 with trainee setup.

Eternal vigor needs to be double barred and has a health recovery portion which is bad in pvp, so it needs some kind of buff to make it a real choice vs single barring wretched vitality.

You can take all the meta pvp sets and put them next to other gear sets that are functionally similar then ask yourself, how can we buff/change these unused sets to make it worth taking off the meta set?

If you can do that with just the top 4-5 meta sets you would start to see more build diversity.

Bushido2513

HiImRex wrote: »

You can take all the meta pvp sets and put them next to other gear sets that are functionally similar then ask yourself, how can we buff/change these unused sets to make it worth taking off the meta set?

Problem is that the needed creativity just hasn't been there. I don't totally blame ZOS here because it's hard to build something really innovative and amazing when your core is so old and basic.

Better sets would probably come from new mechanics or be something like this set gives an amazing buff if you're a non vamp class of your choice during daytime hours in cyro. And by amazing buff I mean say this one skill you can't otherwise use but that has its own internal longer cooldown.

It's a silly and intricate example but the point is that it could be interesting when will designed if the current engine and dev creativity could support it.