Nesfaq's community mentioned it, but this seems like a goal to drive people to buy the expansion because Arcanist does the same thing.
I don't see why they went any other way then that.
It probably nerfs heavy attack sorc more so than other classes during to the reliance on crit surge, I dunno just speculating...
Dear Devs.
I understand that you wanted to reduce the strong AoE with the lightning staff. Not sure that was such a big problem but I can except that it was slightly too strong.
But you are taking a sledgehammer approach to fix a slightly bent nail.
You could have left it all as it is with every tick and just reduced the AoE damage by e.g. 1/3 and it would have been just fine.
If you are hell bent on doing only the last tick than double the last tick AoE damage for lightning staff as some kind of "big lightning explosion."
Dear Devs.
I understand that you wanted to reduce the strong AoE with the lightning staff. Not sure that was such a big problem but I can except that it was slightly too strong.
But you are taking a sledgehammer approach to fix a slightly bent nail.
You could have left it all as it is with every tick and just reduced the AoE damage by e.g. 1/3 and it would have been just fine.
If you are hell bent on doing only the last tick than double the last tick AoE damage for lightning staff as some kind of "big lightning explosion."
I also don't understand why this change was made but unlike you I will not accept it was too strong. It wasn't. There is no game play reason I've heard yet to justify this. The forums weren't filled with people complaining. There was no sudden change that made this passive supper duper strong to the point of affecting everyone else's game play. I could see though in PvP, you could hit a player while killing a nearby MOB, hitting that player for 100% of the damage but that's easily fixed within PvP without destroying the whole thing.
There was no issue with this passive from the perspective of someone playing the game. Not a machine. Not a data set. A player playing the game.
I have no issue with changes. In fact, change is good! That's what happens in MMO's after all and it's a strength that sets them apart from other genres, but to change a core game ability, present in the game since the start for no reason is wrong. People were having fun. People enjoyed it. The Tr-Focus passive caused no issues for anyone yet it was changed to something completely different that will alter some people's play styles drastically. Go on the PTS and see. It's a major deal with limited workarounds.
IMO, this is what's killing some MMO's these days. Too many changes that take away fun at the expense of what .... a blip on a database printout? Too many people acquiesce to needless changes and that's why they keep coming. Yes, this triggered me and I'm not going to apologize for it but changes like this, for no apparent reason, have left me exhausted with the whole thing. YMMV
Meanwhile in the real world (a sample of comments from Nefas’s YT):
U can tell this change is not made because of players feedbacks, it's clearly interreference from the finance department because the Necrom sales revenue prob failed to meet certain financial goals
It’s because they want you to pay up and play an archanist. All these changes bud the one barchanist builds. The tentacles and beam are both channels. Add the aoe dot and a wall and you’re set
Oh god I hate that trash of an update, I took a 7 month break because of it. Might take another one when once Starfield releases and Baldurs Gate 3.
Zos been going down the path bungie took with it's decisions/updates. I'm closing my wallet to this game as I'm losing hope in it's future.
Little by little I've never been more bored with the game.
Yet month to month I keep giving them my money hoping for better results.
They are screwing some few things that actually were good in the game. The combat system is weird and clunky even with the HA builds helping to feel more fluid and simple - so they decided to create an overpowered new class (who will be nerfed soon) and destroy the HA mechanics slowly at each new update. Why? I personally play this game because I love TES lore and characters and have friends playing but...this is so messy.
they are selling Arcanist as the new "begginer best friend" - but they will nerf Arcanist soon enough
I’ve never seen a company nerf their game into the ground this hard holy ***. Every little bit of fun I’ve had in this game has either been nerfed away or broken due to server instability.
So nerf class that many enjoy and get people to want to play archanist. Once players get addicted to archanist and start destroying content be prepared for a nerf even on paid content . It’s endless . Meanwhile let’s ignore the pvp aspect balance that matter where in pve is shouldn’t matter .
This was a stupid change in 2016 and its a stupid change in 2023.
I have to agree with others here. This just reeks of trying to make people play arcanist to regain the feeling of playing a heavy attack build. As usual, zos disappoints me.
"Buy our expansion and shoot laser beam! Don't play the other dumb classes!" -Crown Store Studios
Perhaps there's still a chance to gain traction on a compromise that would cut Lightning Trifocus damage to 40-50% whilst retaining it over the course of the channel, instead of restricting it only to the fully-charged hit. This would solve the overtuning problem whilst tackling some of the main issues people have raised in testing.
IMO, this is what's killing some MMO's these days. Too many changes that take away fun at the expense of what .... a blip on a database printout? Too many people acquiesce to needless changes and that's why they keep coming. Yes, this triggered me and I'm not going to apologize for it but changes like this, for no apparent reason, have left me exhausted with the whole thing. YMMV
Perhaps there's still a chance to gain traction on a compromise that would cut Lightning Trifocus damage to 40-50% whilst retaining it over the course of the channel, instead of restricting it only to the fully-charged hit. This would solve the overtuning problem whilst tackling some of the main issues people have raised in testing.
This late in pts I doubt it, though anything is possible. I think this was a playstyle that was decided against(after "raising the floor" and oakensoul sales ) and is now dead.
Perhaps there's still a chance to gain traction on a compromise that would cut Lightning Trifocus damage to 40-50% whilst retaining it over the course of the channel, instead of restricting it only to the fully-charged hit. This would solve the overtuning problem whilst tackling some of the main issues people have raised in testing.
Perhaps there's still a chance to gain traction on a compromise that would cut Lightning Trifocus damage to 40-50% whilst retaining it over the course of the channel, instead of restricting it only to the fully-charged hit. This would solve the overtuning problem whilst tackling some of the main issues people have raised in testing.
This late in pts I doubt it, though anything is possible. I think this was a playstyle that was decided against(after "raising the floor" and oakensoul sales ) and is now dead.
That might be a bit overdramatic. While admittedly this wasn't my fastest run and/or highest score, an Oakensorc is stil capable of easily doing vVH and the damage versus a Trial Dummy hasn't changed much either. Yes, it might be best to use one more single target focussed skill setup and one AOE setup from now on, but the same could be said for most builds (aside from an Arcanist).
And I noticed Deltia did an (my guess would be Oakensoul) vVH run tooPerhaps there's still a chance to gain traction on a compromise that would cut Lightning Trifocus damage to 40-50% whilst retaining it over the course of the channel, instead of restricting it only to the fully-charged hit. This would solve the overtuning problem whilst tackling some of the main issues people have raised in testing.
Nevertheless, I'd still prefer that over the change that's on the PTS.
It's essentially just a nerf to One-Bar sorcs and Crit Surge. Which is the primary playstyle for one-bar builds. 10/10, just a "you can't have fun" nerf.
It probably nerfs heavy attack sorc more so than other classes during to the reliance on crit surge, I dunno just speculating...
It's essentially just a nerf to One-Bar sorcs and Crit Surge. Which is the primary playstyle for one-bar builds. 10/10, just a "you can't have fun" nerf.
Perhaps there's still a chance to gain traction on a compromise that would cut Lightning Trifocus damage to 40-50% whilst retaining it over the course of the channel, instead of restricting it only to the fully-charged hit. This would solve the overtuning problem whilst tackling some of the main issues people have raised in testing.
This late in pts I doubt it, though anything is possible. I think this was a playstyle that was decided against(after "raising the floor" and oakensoul sales ) and is now dead.
That might be a bit overdramatic. While admittedly this wasn't my fastest run and/or highest score, an Oakensorc is stil capable of easily doing vVH and the damage versus a Trial Dummy hasn't changed much either. Yes, it might be best to use one more single target focussed skill setup and one AOE setup from now on, but the same could be said for most builds (aside from an Arcanist).
And I noticed Deltia did an (my guess would be Oakensoul) vVH run tooPerhaps there's still a chance to gain traction on a compromise that would cut Lightning Trifocus damage to 40-50% whilst retaining it over the course of the channel, instead of restricting it only to the fully-charged hit. This would solve the overtuning problem whilst tackling some of the main issues people have raised in testing.
Nevertheless, I'd still prefer that over the change that's on the PTS.
There has been no outcry about this passive before this change. No people complaining it was overpowered. No forum posts filled with angst because Tri-Focus as it stands now on live, is broken. Nothing until the Dev's decided to change it.
....
During the PTS cycle for Update 38, when Empower was nerfed by 10% and Storm Master was nerfed as well, there were actually quite a few posts about the Heavy Attack playstyle in which some players did argue that an optimized Oakensorc was too strong (and a good number of players thought they weren't of course). I wouldn't recommend reading the posts at the moment because that ship has sailed and the less-than-polite comments have been removed for baiting, but you could check
out this post or this post.
Reasons given were that it took a relatively low amount of effort to do enough DPS to clear most PvE content in the game (aside from some Trifectas), most damage was AOE due to Tri-Focus, and because of the Oakensoul ring a HA attack build was a lot more tanky than your average 2 bar DPS build. Most likely ZOS agrees with some of those views, otherwise they wouldn't have nerfed Tri-Focus this patch.
Now I'm not saying I strongly believe that Tri-Focus had to be nerfed as I have some HA builds myself (and even made this Reddit post with 6 simple HA builds for solo Arenas 9 months ago, before they were as widespread as they are now), but there was definitely some debate about the current state of Oakensorcs not too long ago.
Thank you for the interesting reply.
From a devs perspective if the Tri-Focus damage is so overpowered and creates a lot of the AoE than a simple reduction by e.g. 1/3 would easily do the trick. That is why this change is so weird.
AOE with Lightning staff just feels right also from an "Elemental Fantasy" perspective, with Fire hitting hard one opponent.
Please ZOS combat team listen to your players.
From a devs perspective if the Tri-Focus damage is so overpowered and creates the majority of the AoE than a simple reduction by e.g. 1/3 would easily do the trick. That is why this change is so weird.