Tri Focus Lightning Staff over nerf

Hotdog_23

Yes, Trifocus was strong, and if I'm being honest, it was too strong. But removing its AOE completely is wrong. Tone down the damage, which I believe would have been more appropriate than gutting it out completely.

But I guess we have to sell the new expansion, and the heck with players' fun and enjoyment. I believe they are trying to kill the HA style of play for most people, despite what they are telling us.

Stay safe

Turtle_Bot

A nice compromise would have been to make the AoE damage scale with how long the HA is held for.

1st tick does 25% damage as AoE
2nd tick does 50% damage as AoE
3rd tick does 75% damage as AoE
4th (final) tick does the full 100% damage as AoE.

(Or 33%/66%/100% if its only 3 ticks for a HA)

It's a significant reduction to the AoE damage of the build without completely deleting it, but keeps it just as strong as current for those that can get their HAs to fully charge.

Traxxar

Lalothen wrote: »

Traxxar wrote: »

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.

Look at it in terms of how Trifocus already interacts with the other two staff types: both have a "fully-charged attack" caveat. So what ZOS has done is apply that same caveat to lightning to standardise the passive as one designed purely to impact fully-charged staff attacks.

From that point of view it does make sense, but I do agree that ZOS needs to appreciate that players have become accustomed to lightning staff working this way for years, so such a change is far more jarring and negatively received than achieving the AoE output reduction by cutting the AoE %.

Speaking for myself I am not concerned about a change. It is just a very high nerf. And the thing to understand is that Lightning staffs are a channel and that has always been very different to the other staffs. To keep it equal all the ticks of the lightning staff during a heavy attack would need to be summed up and then used as the AoE at the end. Then we are again at apples for apples.
Would even work from a Lore perspective. Like you charge up the enemy and at the end they will release one big AoE blast with all that stored up damage.

In summary: There are other ways to create a standardized approach without just throwing out a huge component of the lightning staff damage and just pretend it isn't a huge nerf.

loveeso

Another thing re. "elemental fantasy" : an electric arc going through enemies between the caster and the target and not causing any damage to them looks just incredibly stupid and breaks immersion. But yeah, who needs immersion for their elemental fantasy in a fantasy RPG game when there are much more important things, like the new amulet and the arcanist

FrancisCrawford

Malkosha wrote: »

Traxxar wrote: »

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

Actually, there was ONE trial for which HA Oakensoul seemed to be the strongest build due to AoE, and people complained about that one a lot.

RenderingDragon

I've been playing a lightning staff wielding magsorc since day one. Just because I like how the staff works. Not sure what I'm going to do if this happens.

Why... Necrom? I pre-purchased it. What gives, huh? How does changing the staff increase Necrom sales exactly?

Almost everywhere I go, it's basically a green beam laser light show already.

Game balance my butt...

Bl4ckR3alm93

I think everyone needs to calm down, actually do some research on this being tested ( Xynode Gaming latest 2 videos on it ) or test yourself because its already been tested and confirmed that the nerf really wasnt a nerf and more of a rebalance so no need for bashing. Your OakenSorcs are going to be just fine and actually perform better then the current OakenSorc in certain cases as the Devs did listen to feedback and carefully. This next update is actually really good and I cant wait see it released. Literally people on the forums are crying and overreacting for no reason because of laziness to do research and test.

Lumenn

Bl4ckR3alm93 wrote: »

I think everyone needs to calm down, actually do some research on this being tested ( Xynode Gaming latest 2 videos on it ) or test yourself because its already been tested and confirmed that the nerf really wasnt a nerf and more of a rebalance so no need for bashing. Your OakenSorcs are going to be just fine and actually perform better then the current OakenSorc in certain cases as the Devs did listen to feedback and carefully. This next update is actually really good and I cant wait see it released. Literally people on the forums are crying and overreacting for no reason because of laziness to do research and test.

For those that don't have access to pts yes please do some research. Xynode DID do a video on this. Unfortunately the people in the comments roasting the test a bit have a VALID point that the videos with full groups dont show what the changes do to solo players. It does show that if you're always running full groups( and since the single target dmg hasn't changed much) you won't notice much of a difference.

Nefas ALSO did a video in real combat showing how badly the changes affect solo players regarding add management. Seemed to be surprised at HOW badly the change hit solo aoe HA builds.

It's been "tested and confirmed" that single target hasn't changed much, maybe a slight improvement. Aoe it's toast in many cases. I suppose it's just what you got out of the build as to whether it's a bad change or not. But do watch the tests from several sources, rather than just one and see if they're testing single target or not. And please, let's not call people lazy as some don't have access to pts, or they enjoy aoe(which this does change) or they see a different content creator than one you follow say something different. I too have difficulty being civil at times, but we must make an effort yes?

jecks33

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

Quethrosar

will be nice when the HA lightning isn't cleaving so much in trials where you are supposed to stop damaging the boss and focus on adds.

Draxund

Some of us HAVE done our due diligence on the PTS. These days, I primarily derive fun from the game by soloing challenging content (e.g., soloing Vet dungeons, both base and DLC). Sure this is niche, but it's a playstyle nonetheless (and plenty of people solo dungeons for the dailies/keys). I've been on the PTS since the first iteration of U39 testing many of my builds and testing many new setups as well. For a variety of reasons, I still employ lightning heavy attack builds in this context (both with and without Oakensoul).

I don't notice a significant difference in single target damage--perhaps a smidge better if I build into it. However, there's no denying that the AoE damage is greatly reduced. Trash packs take a little longer to drop, but no biggie there. However, my survivability has taken a BIG hit during boss encounters with challenging adds. And most boss encounters are set up this way. I've restructured and tested out different setups to work around this and to try and compensate for that loss of AoE damage and survivability. So far, nothing is getting me back up to the level of survivability or damage that I had prior to the Trifocus nerf. So it is what it is.

Also, it would be great if people kept in mind that this doesn't ONLY affect Oakensorcs (although I do think Oakensorcs are the most common variation, at least when it comes to the Trials scene). ANY builds that utilize lightning heavy attacks are impacted by this loss of damage/survivability. For instance, most of my heavy attack builds for soloing are wardens, followed by templars, DKs, and then sorcs.

Solution: I think ZOS should test some of the suggestions I've seen on the forum, specifically reducing the damage on initial AoE ticks instead of outright eliminating the damage. That seems like a great way to tone down the power of the splash damage, but still maintain enough damage over time to survive in necessary contexts.

Malkosha

jecks33 wrote: »

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

I agree. The one from Xy seemed to be aimed at shilling for ZOS by showing what it does in groups and not for solo players. I went on the PTS many times testing this out and if you're a solo player you're getting a HUGE nerf. Personally, I sense the connection between Lightning staff playstyle and the Arcanist playstyle is the issue. I can't prove it of course so don't take my word for it since it's just my opinion.

The problem for me now, is this nerf came out of nowhere which makes me wonder what nerf is next for no reason at all. Maybe kill the AOE damage for Blastbones? Sound far fetched? Before Tri-Focus nerf I would have thought so but now? With all due respect, I'm losing faith in these dev's on a daily basis and every PTS patch I look to see if maybe this time, they listened and reversed the Tri-Focus nerf. At this point I doubt it will happen. The real question for me is ... where is my breaking point? There are a lot of games out there and when the dev's start killing the fun stuff, what do you have left?

robpr

It is a mix of boosting Arcanist sales and removing the Empower in PVP abuse since (I believe) you can dodge the final pulse.

I said in some previous threads, they should just make the Trifocus aoe to not damage players and leave it alone.

Lalothen

jecks33 wrote: »

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

What did Nefas really show, besides the actuality that Trifocus no longer applies to the first 2 channeled tics? I'm struggling to understand, because at one point he talks about not dealing enough damage any more for the healing needed to survive, but he's wearing Oakensoul not Pale Order, and Crit Surge only procs a maximum of once per second & doesn't work with lightning Trifocus because it cannot crit. So what was he on about with regard to survivability; that it's no longer possible to burn down most of those mobs before the incoming damage overwhelms Crit Surge's very limited healing capacity? He could've slaughtered that entire trash pull by slotting an active heal instead of Crit Surge - or using Matriarch instead of Tormentor for the burst heal - and putting in minimal additional effort.

This is Xynode's latest video about the changes (PC PTS vs. PS5 live comparison), and showcases both ST & AoE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFe6EDlGnco

For a pure dummy comparison skim to the end, where he uses an atro with a bunch of skeletons around it. Trifocus AoE is around 40% less looking at the numbers there, whilst ST is about 14% more.

Bl4ckR3alm93

jecks33 wrote: »

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

You didnt want the whole Xynode video.....

l

Lalothen wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

What did Nefas really show, besides the actuality that Trifocus no longer applies to the first 2 channeled tics? I'm struggling to understand, because at one point he talks about not dealing enough damage any more for the healing needed to survive, but he's wearing Oakensoul not Pale Order, and Crit Surge only procs a maximum of once per second & doesn't work with lightning Trifocus because it cannot crit. So what was he on about with regard to survivability; that it's no longer possible to burn down most of those mobs before the incoming damage overwhelms Crit Surge's very limited healing capacity? He could've slaughtered that entire trash pull by slotting an active heal instead of Crit Surge - or using Matriarch instead of Tormentor for the burst heal - and putting in minimal additional effort.

This is Xynode's latest video about the changes (PC PTS vs. PS5 live comparison), and showcases both ST & AoE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFe6EDlGnco

For a pure dummy comparison skim to the end, where he uses an atro with a bunch of skeletons around it. Trifocus AoE is around 40% less looking at the numbers there, whilst ST is about 14% more.

Thank you so much for posting the video. People saying the video was meaningless when he did a side by side comparison with PTS and Pre PTS which he Xynode did admit that the AoE was nerfed alittle. Nefas just through something on.
I also like how u pointed out most people didnt even watch the WHOLE video 😂. In the end like you said, Xynode tested with multiple skeletons and even ran around side by side comparison killing stuff lol

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

jecks33 wrote: »

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

Xynode has a bad habit of trying to make every change look positive, even when they're not, so I discard his opinions. His test showed nothing useful for what people actually wanted to see, like a solo arena or solo content. Nefas actually did, and his conclusion was much more realistic.

Galeriano

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

Xynode has a bad habit of trying to make every change look positive, even when they're not, so I discard his opinions. His test showed nothing useful for what people actually wanted to see, like a solo arena or solo content. Nefas actually did, and his conclusion was much more realistic.

From solo arenas and solo content perspective Nefas's test was even more unrealistic than Xynode's. Hel ra trash packs are not the best representation of how HA setup is behaving in places like maesltrom or vetashran. In reality for solo arenas not much have changed and same goes for solo content.

BasP

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

Xynode has a bad habit of trying to make every change look positive, even when they're not, so I discard his opinions. His test showed nothing useful for what people actually wanted to see, like a solo arena or solo content. Nefas actually did, and his conclusion was much more realistic.

Luckily you can still easily clear veteran solo Arenas with an Oakensoul HA build even with the nerf to Tri-Focus. I don't have videos or anything, but I've done the Trifecta with okay scores on the PTS with a Sorc and a Warden (and I'm far from a great player).

Now I'm not saying that the nerf to the AOE damage from Heavy Attacks isn't noticeable, but it's not the end of the world or anything. If you do more than just Heavy Attack your way through content, you'll probably be fine.

boi_anachronism_

I play a lot of higher end content with a lot of different toons and builds. I was disappointed. Fact is that sometimes even the sweaties just want to have some fun and nuke some stuff. it kinda just puts the kabosh on that.

ApoAlaia

BasP wrote: »

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

AOE dmg was the peculiarity of lightning HA builds and it's gone.

I'm not a fanboy of this or that content creator but nefas did a smart test, the Xy one only showed the single target dmg. Meaningless.

Xynode has a bad habit of trying to make every change look positive, even when they're not, so I discard his opinions. His test showed nothing useful for what people actually wanted to see, like a solo arena or solo content. Nefas actually did, and his conclusion was much more realistic.

Luckily you can still easily clear veteran solo Arenas with an Oakensoul HA build even with the nerf to Tri-Focus. I don't have videos or anything, but I've done the Trifecta with okay scores on the PTS with a Sorc and a Warden (and I'm far from a great player).

Now I'm not saying that the nerf to the AOE damage from Heavy Attacks isn't noticeable, but it's not the end of the world or anything. If you do more than just Heavy Attack your way through content, you'll probably be fine.

In solo arenas is very tricky to create any kind of density, there are just not enough mobs and the ones that spawn don't have enough HP.

There are some specific instances where it might be noticeable, idk yet because life is too short to run vMA or vVH in the PTS with 300 ping, but maybe in MA Rink of Frozen Blood/Spiral Shadows and in VH in Champion's Circle will be noticeable.

Those come to mind as places where the soon to be gone cleave of Tri-Focus came in handy.

Is not the end of the world, nothing is the end of the world until they either sunset the servers or - from a certain point of view at least - the players moves on, but that doesn't mean that we should be grateful for the blessing of getting something that was useful and reliable taken away getting nothing in return, which is the message I read between the lines from some of the most vocal fans of the rework.

StackonClown

This is a very cynical move by moneymax.. I will *never* buy necrom, and soon cancel eso+ I will continue to play for free since i have invested thousands of dollars and hours into eso.

Even a reduced value of splash damage may have been palatable, but not a complete hammer.

AlterBlika

Aoe, magicka restore, ranged, competitive dps - it's just too much for a one-button build. Still, it's somewhat viable even on pts.

CameraBeardThePirate

StackonClown wrote: »

This is a very cynical move by moneymax.. I will *never* buy necrom, and soon cancel eso+ I will continue to play for free since i have invested thousands of dollars and hours into eso.

Even a reduced value of splash damage may have been palatable, but not a complete hammer.

It is just a reduced cleave though - it's not like they're removing the cleave outright. The final tick still does cleave and the final tick is the most damaging by far.

BlueRaven

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

StackonClown wrote: »

This is a very cynical move by moneymax.. I will *never* buy necrom, and soon cancel eso+ I will continue to play for free since i have invested thousands of dollars and hours into eso.

Even a reduced value of splash damage may have been palatable, but not a complete hammer.

It is just a reduced cleave though - it's not like they're removing the cleave outright. The final tick still does cleave and the final tick is the most damaging by far.

It’s only a nerf to cleave…
It’s only a nerf to Storm Master…
It’s only a nerf to empower…

ricklaverd

Its useless. I know some casual players who quit because of this

BlueRaven

ricklaverd wrote: »

Its useless. I know some casual players who quit because of this

We have seen similar issues with our trial groups, people who stepped “out of the shadows” so to speak, have heard and talked about this. Some are staying, some are frantically signing up for everything before the patch hits, others have said they are no longer coming.
Who knows if those players will stick around in game if all they do is go back to whatever they were doing before.

Anyway, the message is pretty clear from zos, casual players are no longer welcome.

CameraBeardThePirate

BlueRaven wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

StackonClown wrote: »

This is a very cynical move by moneymax.. I will *never* buy necrom, and soon cancel eso+ I will continue to play for free since i have invested thousands of dollars and hours into eso.

Even a reduced value of splash damage may have been palatable, but not a complete hammer.

It is just a reduced cleave though - it's not like they're removing the cleave outright. The final tick still does cleave and the final tick is the most damaging by far.

It’s only a nerf to cleave…
It’s only a nerf to Storm Master…
It’s only a nerf to empower…

Cool, and every single one of those things was overperforming.

What's more is none of those nerfs have changed what is achievable with a heavy attack build.

Kusto

Oaken HA will still hit 90k next patch. People are so melodramatic. You can still do the content you're doing today. Single target is still decent, especially for low effort. If you want more aoe go with Arcanist instead. It's as easy and you can also do 1 bar Oaken.

Djennku

Kusto wrote: »

Oaken HA will still hit 90k next patch. People are so melodramatic. You can still do the content you're doing today. Single target is still decent, especially for low effort. If you want more aoe go with Arcanist instead. It's as easy and you can also do 1 bar Oaken.

The funny thing is, absolutely zero content in the game requires 90k to complete, the highest actual dps check in the game is about 41-43k and only 3 members of your group need to be able to hit that. So technically, hitting anything above 50k means you're golden for every single piece of content in the game, and yes, this includes trifectas, HMs, speed runs, etc.

BlueRaven

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

StackonClown wrote: »

This is a very cynical move by moneymax.. I will *never* buy necrom, and soon cancel eso+ I will continue to play for free since i have invested thousands of dollars and hours into eso.

Even a reduced value of splash damage may have been palatable, but not a complete hammer.

It is just a reduced cleave though - it's not like they're removing the cleave outright. The final tick still does cleave and the final tick is the most damaging by far.

It’s only a nerf to cleave…
It’s only a nerf to Storm Master…
It’s only a nerf to empower…

Cool, and every single one of those things was overperforming.

What's more is none of those nerfs have changed what is achievable with a heavy attack build.

We can say the same exact thing for U35 and and that did not stop the forum freak out over it. Maybe we should have should just have added a rather flippant “cool” and everyone would have just accepted it and moved on.

And “overperforming”? That is a meaningless term. It’s so subjective and is just the go to phrase used by people justifying nerfs for other players.

Daggers are overperforming…
Necros are overperforming…
Everyone doing over 100k dps are overperforming…

A meaningless subjective argument.

Players using “classic” HA builds have no fall back. They have no real alternative build they can turn to. And you are telling them their already 2nd tier build is overperforming? All you are doing is just pushing them away.

I guess we can have less people doing endgame, less reason to improve its budget, or even have less reason to sustain the current budget for it. Is that “cool”?

•••

And since the post is pretty long already I might as well go on a bit of a rant.

Why the HA build is important is because it fixes a fundamental flaw in eso. And that is the combat system in ESO is terrible. It is the biggest complaint about eso.
If people outside of these forums ever talk about the game, the number one complaint is its combat system.

Look at the thread on mmo-champ:

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1743103-Megathread-The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Tamriel-Unlimited/page213

“I've been playing all this time and will continue to play for a while yet,for a variety of reasons, but its in spite of the combat this game has…”

“is worth pointing out that it's more than animation cancelling, it's kind of the whole package. it just feels bad.”

“Combat still sucks, but I'm back and playing and still haven't the foggiest clue how to weave.”

Three different players, all complaining about the combat system. And best defense someone can come up with is that they don’t have to do it for overland questing.

The hA build broke away from that, the whole bar swapping, weaving #%€! Is not fun. Nor does it feel appropriate for a fantasy game much less an Elder Scrolls game.

All of the heroes in “Lord of the Rings” basically have one bar builds. Grimli uses an axe, Legolas uses a bow. They don’t switch to a staff or something stupid and immediately go back to their main weapon. They live out the player fantasy on screen and btw how it played out in the single player elder scrolls games as well.

And one bar HA builds play like how elder scrolls games should play like, where the weapon feels more than a stat stitck.

Now I am not personally a staff person, I like bows, I wish there was a HA build with a bow that could keep up with staffs. But I don’t want to see HA staff builds nerfed, I want bows buffed so players can have a choice.
Because even though I have done vMoL on a two bar build, I hate playing it. I hate it so, so much. Keeping track of timers switching, bars, weaving, it all sucks.

And I think that is why so many players flocked to single bar HA builds. Even though it was not the highest dps build, it did not have to deal with the awfulness that is the eso combat system. It played to the power fantasy of players, while avoiding the pitfalls of unrealistic (even in a fantasy reality) twitchy combat.

So “oh no” this build was overperforming. This mid tier build that people actually liked doing, that did not conform to the standard eso combat that is wildly unpopular (even among people who are current players), was doing far too much damage. Yes, enjoyment must be squashed, so that players that cling to the old ways of combat can feel extra better about themselves in their already superior two bar builds.