RIP HA builds?

munster1404

Seems like both a buff and a nerf. A buff to single target and a nerf to AOE (especially splash damage). Most Oakensorcs are playing solo content anyway and usually at melee range. Splash damage helps to whittle down the trash mob when the player is overwhelmed. And I think crit surge heal also procs off the splash damage? That would affect the sustain to a certain extent.Anyway, I’m saving my conclusion until the hard core testers do their analysis.

It’s my belief that in the short term the devs will not overly tweak/nerf HA builds seeing how Oakensoul has benefitted players who for some reason either physically unable or through lack of practice cannot attack weave. Heck, I have been playing since 2017 and I still fumble my parses and have a mere 60% success rate in LA weave. It just doesn’t come easy to many, many players. Tbh, one bar HA build is the best thing since One Tamriel. I even made the effort to convert all of my DD toons that currently function as inventory mules into One Bar HA builds so I can finally start solo arenas or normal dungeons after years of being excluded due to lack of skills. I sincerely hope this HA playstyle is viable for many years to come.

deyjasagus

I tested just the lightning heavy attack on an Iron Atronoch, no other attacks were used at all and the damage only increased by 1.029% over a 5 minute test on the PTS.

I don't have the mats to setup test dummies like bowling pins but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the AOE damage is going to be a decrease of more than 50-75%. Even testing the damage on dummies isn't going to be reliable because the mobs we normally attack will be moving. Losing the damage done on the way up to a full charge is going to be anecdotal until someone actually does an instance or raid on both live and test and compare the numbers.

jaws343

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

James-Wayne wrote: »

HA builds got buffed. This is not a nerf.

I'd like to see data on that. Lightning staves have channeled damage, single target damage, and aoe splash damage. If I can see parses and reports of people playing content not experiencing a nerf... that's what I want to see. Regardless though, I am absolutely not a fan of changing out aoe damage for channeled damage. Only two classes in the game truly benefit from that.

It buffs dot damage as well. So the aoe portions of the build most people use will not be impacted since those are primarily dots. Outside the splash damage and the lack of trifocus on ticks.

Does it buff pet active abilities too? Not sure if those count as dots.

Vulkunne

Gendizer wrote: »

(It is about "Tri Focus" nerf). Have you just nerfed HA builds and are doing it again? You made the Arcanist with a HUGE AoE and single-target damage, but you're depriving us of the only advantage that gave us a chance to overcome difficult content. Where is the logic? Why are you ruining the game again?

Yeah RIP. Good riddance.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

Vulkunne wrote: »

Gendizer wrote: »

(It is about "Tri Focus" nerf). Have you just nerfed HA builds and are doing it again? You made the Arcanist with a HUGE AoE and single-target damage, but you're depriving us of the only advantage that gave us a chance to overcome difficult content. Where is the logic? Why are you ruining the game again?

Yeah RIP. Good riddance.

There's always these guys, hoping for other playstyles to go away because they don'tlike them. Lol.

Faulgor

Gutting. Taking away what made lightning staves unique and fun for most of the games existence, their channeled AoE, just because you overbuffed HA builds.

Also once again lowering damage ticks per second, so indirectly nerfing all proc conditions such as Crit Surge and sets like Storm-Cursed's Revenge, as if the DoT nerf last year wasn't terrible enough.

Gendizer

James-Wayne wrote: »

HA builds got buffed. This is not a nerf.

Have you ever played a HA build? This is the worst nerf in HA history.

Soarora

Gendizer wrote: »

James-Wayne wrote: »

HA builds got buffed. This is not a nerf.

Have you ever played a HA build? This is the worst nerf in HA history.

I doubt that. This isn’t the first time HA was viable. The original HA builds got demolished… think they’ve gone through worse nerfs still considering this iteration of HA is still playable.

jaws343

Soarora wrote: »

Gendizer wrote: »

James-Wayne wrote: »

HA builds got buffed. This is not a nerf.

Have you ever played a HA build? This is the worst nerf in HA history.

I doubt that. This isn’t the first time HA was viable. The original HA builds got demolished… think they’ve gone through worse nerfs still considering this iteration of HA is still playable.

I think in a group and single target setting, this feels like a buff. Especially for sorcs if the pet active skills get buffed by the lightning staff Dot buff.

For solo, in single target, still a buff. Cleave is a huge nerf though. Something like 20K-30K (10K per tick with Tri-Focus + crit chances) damage loss through the course of the channel to enemies around your target if you are built right. Over the course of a fight, that adds up to a lot of missed AOE damage.

gariondavey

xiphactinus wrote: »

Why don't they just adjust in battle spirit. The mind boggles sometimes.

Pretty much this

ApoAlaia

I am guessing that they grew weary of hearing people endlessly complain about getting killed in IC/Cyro flags/w.e by HA splash damage and this is their answer.

Is pretty meh but it could have been worse.

For low APM/high cleave there is Arcanist now, and it will probably remain as such for the foreseeable future while Necrom sales still matter therefore they could have gone full Thrassian on the subject.

Mind you they have dealt a severe blow in a patch that was supposed to have 'very minor changes', Akatosh only knows what they may do on the 'big update' in Autumn.

What a strange state of affairs where every three months one has to be grateful that the changes weren't as terrible as they could have been.

jaws343

ApoAlaia wrote: »

I am guessing that they grew weary of hearing people endlessly complain about getting killed in IC/Cyro flags/w.e by HA splash damage and this is their answer.

Is pretty meh but it could have been worse.

For low APM/high cleave there is Arcanist now, and it will probably remain as such for the foreseeable future while Necrom sales still matter therefore they could have gone full Thrassian on the subject.

Mind you they have dealt a severe blow in a patch that was supposed to have 'very minor changes', Akatosh only knows what they may do on the 'big update' in Autumn.

What a strange state of affairs where every three months one has to be grateful that the changes weren't as terrible as they could have been.

It doesn't actually solve that issue though. As people were mostly dying to the final tick anyways since it did the most damage. So, that is still going to happen.

ApoAlaia

jaws343 wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

I am guessing that they grew weary of hearing people endlessly complain about getting killed in IC/Cyro flags/w.e by HA splash damage and this is their answer.

Is pretty meh but it could have been worse.

For low APM/high cleave there is Arcanist now, and it will probably remain as such for the foreseeable future while Necrom sales still matter therefore they could have gone full Thrassian on the subject.

Mind you they have dealt a severe blow in a patch that was supposed to have 'very minor changes', Akatosh only knows what they may do on the 'big update' in Autumn.

What a strange state of affairs where every three months one has to be grateful that the changes weren't as terrible as they could have been.

It doesn't actually solve that issue though. As people were mostly dying to the final tick anyways since it did the most damage. So, that is still going to happen.

The final tick has had it's 'splash damage' nerfed by the change in the Ancient Knowledge passive which now won't buff its AoE component and the previous ticks will no longer apply any kind of pressure.

I wonder what the rumbles will be next... will they go back to the ol' reliable 'stop cross-healing'? will be something new?

It can't be [complaining about] Werewolf, which used to be a fan favourite [to complain about], because Werewolf is dead...

Gendizer

If this nerf is due to PvP, why should PvE players suffer from it? Let them separate PvP and PvE, as it has already been done with HA sets.

jaws343

Gendizer wrote: »

If this nerf is due to PvP, why should PvE players suffer from it? Let them separate PvP and PvE, as it has already been done with HA sets.

I don't think it is entirely PVP related. I honestly think the devs are trying to rain in the cleave damage potential of tri-focus. And based on their note, it really does make sense, against the other versions of the staff, that the effect only applies to the final, full heavy attack tick.

valenwood_vegan

I'm just so tired of this cycle of dreading every patch. It's like every time there's a fun way to play the game, out comes the nerf hammer.

Instead of examining *why* so many people are using heavy attack builds (like hey... maybe there's an overall issue with the combat system in this game that's turning off a significant portion of players and potential players), they just have to over-nerf whatever is currently popular and make an assortment of weird random changes to go along with it.

Many of us average players are simply doomed to live out a perpetual struggle of trying to adjust and then getting nerfed again by the time we figure something else out.

I've been in this game a long time and I'm pretty good at it, not amazing... and I can probably adjust if I want to. But whether I want to adjust or take a break (I mean there's no new content anyway) is a very open question right now.

That said, many newer or less sweaty players I know have seen this change and are already talking about taking a break... reducing playtime... moving on to another game until the next actual content release... some of them will probably find another game they prefer and will not come back. They just got these heavy attack builds not long ago, and are finally starting to get beyond casual content... and bam, slapped back to the drawing board. Feels like we've been here before.

Taking away and giving little or nothing back every patch takes a toll. Many setups / gear / classes are in a not wonderful place right now and the focus always seems to be on reigning in what people are enjoying, rather than giving them more options. I hope ZoS can swallow their pride and consider that the game seems to be losing players and failing to retain new players - and this is a complex issue with multiple causes, yes, but the constant, poorly thought-out over-nerfing of popular playstyles is a big part of it.

Well, anyway that's my opinion on it.

*EDIT to add a constructive suggestion so I'm not just complaining: How about *reducing* the AoE damage from lightning heavies in a more reasoned way. Just for example, tri-focus could apply 25% aoe to the first tick, 50% to the second tick, full aoe damage to the final tick. Smaller changes. See how that goes. Revisit it in the next patch if there's still an issue.

Plaguebreak could have also been handled this way, capping the bonus damage to a reasonable level... but instead that became an example of the wrong way to balance, the set was just deleted.

Make more measured changes. This all-or nothing approach is not the way.

CameraBeardThePirate

People complaining that this is a PvP nerf affecting PvErs are gravely misinformed.

It's simply a numbers nerf. In its current form, Tri-Focus causes Empower and Heavy Attack Sets to have 5x the power on lightning staves compared to other weapons. That is, by definition, unbalanced. There's no reason things that buff Heavy Attacks should buff lightning staves so much more comparatively.

Gendizer

I made video for this theme (RIP HA BUILDS)

Braffin

RIP HA builds? Definitely not, as zos simply brought lightning staves in line with all the other weapons present. A well-played HA build will still be viable for most content (as it was before), especially if the player is using actual skills in between.

What was indeed nerfed is the possibility to play vet hm in "easy mode" by utilizing a very specific build, namely master sergeant broakenbrrrrrzzzzz, which is fine.

During the last PTS cycle a lot of us were predicting that further adjustments will be made to even the playfield between the different playstyles in endgame content, and were at least laughed at for this. Now with U39 we see that devs share the opinion these specific builds were overperforming compared to any other build around.

Edit: On a sidenote: The changes to merciless charge are probably a significant buff to 2H HA builds if you build for it, although some testing is necessary. That's something a lot of players (especially more casual ones) were asking for: Don't being forced to utilize lightning staves for playing a HA build.

FrancisCrawford

EramTheLiar wrote: »

Not sure why this will hurt HA builds. I was under the impression they used lightning staff anyway, and I thought the whole point of HA was to use fully charged attacks. Plus you're getting a 12% damage boost.

My first thought was "I think I want to use lightning staff with Deadly Strikes now."

When an attack is channeled, it does a lot of its damage before the final hit. So nerfing the parts that aren't the final hit is indeed nerfing the attack as a whole.

FrancisCrawford

James-Wayne wrote: »

HA builds got buffed. This is not a nerf.

How do you figure that?

Lalothen

The amount of damage output from lightning trifocus in trash packs is currently obscene; all I have to do is press one skill every 10s & hold down lmb (with the occasional re-press if something breaks the auto-channel) to channel HAs with both of my set buffs fully proc'd and stuff melts. I don't even use trash setups on my trial HA builds because I don't need to; that's how insanely powerful channeled lightning's AoE is.

With U39 HA builders will have to put a little more thought into tailoring a skillset - and potentially use something other than just the same pair of HA-buffing gearsets they use for everything else, too - for combat situations where AoE dps is as important as (or more important than) ST dps. I don't really see that as a negative thing, partly because I've always disliked just how much they homogenised HA gameplay with U35. The alteration of the passive to increased channeled & DoT damage is a positive in my opinion, as it opens up synergy with more class skills & set procs that allow for more diversifed HA builds. Maybe it won't play out that way, but I'm hopeful about the results I see when EU characters get copied to the PTS and I get to test some options out myself.

I do think Shock Clench & Pulsar/Ele Ring need to be looked at in light of the change to the passive though. It would be cool to see Shock Clench become a channeled conal attack a bit like Auroran's Thunder (that doesn't break on movement; no channeled attack should break simply on movement tbh), with either an off-balance component or the damage amping slightly per target hit. Shock Pulsar/Ele Ring simply needs the % buff per target hit increasing... off the top of my head I'd suggest +10% per target with a hard cap of +50-60%, meaning it reaches maximum potential at 5-6 targets hit, making it a nice - but not obscenely powerful - AoE DD spammable for larger trash pull situations.

I'm not sure why flame staff got all of the extra frontloaded ele status dmg from Ancient Knowledge; they could've left it as-is without major consequence, or even altered it to impact Direct Damage at a lower % so it provides some additional benefit to DD AoEs, thus better defining flame staff as the DD king, whilst shock would be the channeled/DoT king, and Ice would remain the Def king. I also firmly believe that each staff type should amp its own initial status effect damage tic by 250/500 rather than having one staff type amp them all. That would also slightly improve the AoE output potential of the lightning staff via improved damage from concussion procs on multiple targets hit by the fully-charged HA.

Lalothen

Braffin wrote: »

Edit: On a sidenote: The changes to merciless charge are probably a significant buff to 2H HA builds if you build for it, although some testing is necessary. That's something a lot of players (especially more casual ones) were asking for: Don't being forced to utilize lightning staves for playing a HA build.

Merciless Charge + the change to Follow Up and the interplay with Forceful could make 2H more viable for scenarios where there are up to 4 targets to damage at once. I'll definitely be checking 2H HA out again on the PTS as an alternative, though I don't really expect it to come close to matching lightning staff on a pure HA build (but we'll see!)

The outstanding issue is that whilst all weapon heavies are technically channeled, lightning staff is the only one to actually perform any damaging hits during the respective channel time (DW partially excepted due to the fully-charged HA being two hits). ZOS could equalise the playing field for HA builds by standardising all heavies to be comprised of 3 hits total from start to finish. They would still be free to play with channel time for each weapon type, and balance by altering base damage in proportion to total channel time (longer channel time = more damage per tic and vice versa). That would be a fairly involved change though.

katorga

ZOS made Lightning staff an Arcanist-only weapon:

Ancient Knowledge

Lightning Staff: This passive now increases your damage done with over time and channeled attacks by 6/12%, rather than increasing your damage done with Area of Effect attacks by 5/10%.

And THIS will be totally OP in PVP:

Flame Staff: This passive now increases your damage done by the initial hit of status effects by 250/500, rather than increasing single target damage done by 5/10%.

I'm salivating over the Firestaff change.

JerBearESO

This change is sadly needed for pvp situations where the passive is being abused on live to nuke players. With the cleave being restricted to the final tick, players can dodge it. I don't love seeing a solution that hurts the PvE side of things, but as has been pointed out it may be ok in the long run? I hope it works out for y'all!

Notably, running relequen on a lightning HA build got a 12% buff so maybe consider if that in place of noble or whatever will help? Idk, someone crunch the numbers, haha

Slidell_70458

Gendizer wrote: »

I did a parse on my HA warden on PTS. 92k DPS == my DPS on live server.

That is single target; it is AOE damage that was nerfed.

Slidell_70458

James-Wayne wrote: »

HA builds got buffed. This is not a nerf.

Tri Focus - Lightning Staff
Old: Lightning Staff Heavy Attacks damage nearby enemies for 100% of the damage done.
New: This passive now only triggers on fully charged Heavy Attacks, rather than any tick of a Heavy Attack.

This is a nerf.

Slidell_70458

EramTheLiar wrote: »

Not sure why this will hurt HA builds. I was under the impression they used lightning staff anyway, and I thought the whole point of HA was to use fully charged attacks. Plus you're getting a 12% damage boost.

My first thought was "I think I want to use lightning staff with Deadly Strikes now."

It hurts because AOE only pulses once per heavy attack for lightning staves now.

ApoAlaia

ApoAlaia wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

I am guessing that they grew weary of hearing people endlessly complain about getting killed in IC/Cyro flags/w.e by HA splash damage and this is their answer.

Is pretty meh but it could have been worse.

For low APM/high cleave there is Arcanist now, and it will probably remain as such for the foreseeable future while Necrom sales still matter therefore they could have gone full Thrassian on the subject.

Mind you they have dealt a severe blow in a patch that was supposed to have 'very minor changes', Akatosh only knows what they may do on the 'big update' in Autumn.

What a strange state of affairs where every three months one has to be grateful that the changes weren't as terrible as they could have been.

It doesn't actually solve that issue though. As people were mostly dying to the final tick anyways since it did the most damage. So, that is still going to happen.

The final tick has had it's 'splash damage' nerfed by the change in the Ancient Knowledge passive which now won't buff its AoE component and the previous ticks will no longer apply any kind of pressure.

I wonder what the rumbles will be next... will they go back to the ol' reliable 'stop cross-healing'? will be something new?

It can't be [complaining about] Werewolf, which used to be a fan favourite [to complain about], because Werewolf is dead...

Yep, job done here, back to the ol' reliable

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/638132/this-was-supposed-to-be-the-qol-patch-fix-healstacking-in-pvp#latest

EramTheLiar

I feel like some of you are reading a completely different set of patch notes than I am, because I still don't see this nerf to HA:

Lightning Staff damage bonus "only" occurs on channeled and dot attacks. That doesn't mean it WON'T apply to AOE! It just means the AOE has to be channeled or dot. So it won't apply to Impulse, but Impulse isn't usually part of an HA build.

Tri Focus "only" works on fully charged heavy attacks. Well what ELSE do you do with lightning staves? (Staffs? Staves. Pretty sure it's staves. Whatever.)

So if you're using a fully charged heavy attack with a lightning staff, you get tri focus and a 12% damage bonus. Because it's a channel.

So what am I missing here? I'm willing to believe I'm missing something, but I don't see it. HA builds are getting the same thing they were always getting, they're just getting it... differently.