Buff Impenetrable trait in PvP

StaticWave

Impenetrable trait has been underwhelming for a while now. With 7 pieces of Impen gear, you're only getting 13% extra crit damage mitigation from the base value. This makes Well-Fitted and Sturdy much better options as most hard hitting abilities are either dodgable or blockable. Furthermore, Rallying Cry allows players to drop Impenetrable completely and still have more crit damage mitigation than wearing 7 Impen pieces.

This creates a situation where you have to use Rallying Cry against certain specs (NB, Sorc, or Warden) because they just deal so much consistent burst damage. It makes theorycrafting boring and limited. I've tried to go away from Rallying Cry by wearing 6 Impen 1 Reinforced and stacking 35k+ armor, but I'm sacrificing a lot of damage and won't have enough kill potential. Playing full damage without Rallying Cry is also suicidal because there's so much damage right now in the game that you can't afford to drop this set.

Right now wearing 7 Impen without Rallying Cry will give you 33% crit damage mitigation. I think buffing Impen's value to ~198 would be a good start. That would bring the 33% crit damage mitigation to 41%. Simultaneously, Rallying Cry needs to be nerfed as well. Yes, this would bring up the general player base's tankiness slightly, but it would also improve theorycrafting because you no longer have to slot Rallying Cry for defense and can afford to wear a better damage set. This would offset the slight increase in tankiness.

Bushido2513

Yeah I'd be cool with this change. Rallying is such a default set that it's obnoxious and we should have an option to sacrifice other traits if we want to mitigate more of that particular damage.

I mean I guess there's also CP but I never really did the math to see if it was worth a slot. I don't hear of many others using it though.

Although while there is a lot of dmg out there would this run a risk of increasing the tank meta?

Solariken

Or.... Hear me out... Leave Impen where it is and nerf Rallying Cry anyway. Big spike damage is the only way good players can be killed haha. Reducing crit spikes by even a little will add more TTK in PvP and that's no bueno IMO

JerBearESO

I would say just nerf rallying is a good point. But not sure if impen needs to be improved as tank meta is bad.... But maybe a smidge would be ok

StaticWave

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Yeah I'd be cool with this change. Rallying is such a default set that it's obnoxious and we should have an option to sacrifice other traits if we want to mitigate more of that particular damage.

I mean I guess there's also CP but I never really did the math to see if it was worth a slot. I don't hear of many others using it though.

Although while there is a lot of dmg out there would this run a risk of increasing the tank meta?

I don’t think the tank meta will be increased. I will use my build as an example. I’m currently in Balorgh, Essence Thief, Rallying Cry, and Sea Serpent. Fully buffed with 117 ulti (which is how much my Dawnbreaker costs on a Sorc with Vamp 3), I have 24k stam, 7.1k weapon damage, 20k pen, 10% dmg done from Essence, 10% Major Berserk, 97% crit dmg, and 34% crit chance. You can see that I am basically 95% full damage.


Basing off my anecdotal evidence when fighting decent players in decent builds, I’ve noticed several things:

1) Against players with sub 25k armor and no Rallying Cry, I’m hitting upwards of 10k non crit Dawnbreakers and 15k crit Dawnbreakers

2) Against players with sub 25k Armor and Rallying Cry, I’m still hitting the same non crit value for DB, but my crit DB is 25% less.

3) Against players with 30-35k armor and no Rallying Cry, my non crit DB drops to 7k, and my crit DB drops to ~12k

3) Against players with 30-35k armor and Rallying Cry, the non crit DB is still around 7k, but the crit DB now drops below 10k

There are outliers though. Some players will wear 6 Impen with Rallying Cry and even slot the Resilience CP, making crit dmg much less.

What’s most prominent though is how strong Undeath + burst heal is when combined with Rallying Cry and 30-35k armor. It essentially makes you impossible to die at low HP unless you have so much damage amplifiers like a NB. I think this is the main offender for the current tanky meta we have.

That is a separate issue that has been raised by other people, so I won’t get into that in this thread. I do believe that people won’t be tankier if Rallying Cry gets nerfed and Impen gets buffed, as players can now afford to drop Rallying Cry for better damage sets.

StaticWave

Solariken wrote: »

Or.... Hear me out... Leave Impen where it is and nerf Rallying Cry anyway. Big spike damage is the only way good players can be killed haha. Reducing crit spikes by even a little will add more TTK in PvP and that's no bueno IMO

There is currently too much damage though. I’m regularly one shotting players without Rallying Cry in my current build. The tank meta isn’t solely caused by high crit resist, but rather Undeath, HP scaling heals, strong mythics like SSC allowing for players to build tankier, etc.

JerBearESO

Yes tank meta a combination of factors. So adding more to a factor will buff tank meta a bit, no way around it.

But a nerf to rallying cry likely would be enough to justify a slight buff of impen, which would overall allow for more flexibility. It would need to be enough so that those running both rallying and impen would ultimately gain nothing

Melzo

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Yeah I'd be cool with this change. Rallying is such a default set that it's obnoxious and we should have an option to sacrifice other traits if we want to mitigate more of that particular damage.

I mean I guess there's also CP but I never really did the math to see if it was worth a slot. I don't hear of many others using it though.

Although while there is a lot of dmg out there would this run a risk of increasing the tank meta?

I don’t think the tank meta will be increased. I will use my build as an example. I’m currently in Balorgh, Essence Thief, Rallying Cry, and Sea Serpent. Fully buffed with 117 ulti (which is how much my Dawnbreaker costs on a Sorc with Vamp 3), I have 24k stam, 7.1k weapon damage, 20k pen, 10% dmg done from Essence, 10% Major Berserk, 97% crit dmg, and 34% crit chance. You can see that I am basically 95% full damage.


Basing off my anecdotal evidence when fighting decent players in decent builds, I’ve noticed several things:

1) Against players with sub 25k armor and no Rallying Cry, I’m hitting upwards of 10k non crit Dawnbreakers and 15k crit Dawnbreakers

2) Against players with sub 25k Armor and Rallying Cry, I’m still hitting the same non crit value for DB, but my crit DB is 25% less.

3) Against players with 30-35k armor and no Rallying Cry, my non crit DB drops to 7k, and my crit DB drops to ~12k

3) Against players with 30-35k armor and Rallying Cry, the non crit DB is still around 7k, but the crit DB now drops below 10k

There are outliers though. Some players will wear 6 Impen with Rallying Cry and even slot the Resilience CP, making crit dmg much less.

What’s most prominent though is how strong Undeath + burst heal is when combined with Rallying Cry and 30-35k armor. It essentially makes you impossible to die at low HP unless you have so much damage amplifiers like a NB. I think this is the main offender for the current tanky meta we have.

That is a separate issue that has been raised by other people, so I won’t get into that in this thread. I do believe that people won’t be tankier if Rallying Cry gets nerfed and Impen gets buffed, as players can now afford to drop Rallying Cry for better damage sets.

Many players can't afford to have that much critical damage. If you take light armor and use acceleration, you will receive only 12 percent of the crit damage bonus. This applies to necromancers and dk. You can take the mundus and get 22 percent. You can also take a star and get 30. As a result, you have 80 percent critical damage. And this is if you use the appropriate mundus and acceleration. If you can't afford to get a mundus and an acceleration then you only have 52 percent crit damage. If the enemy has a battle cry then you deal zero damage from critical bonuses.


Even if you have 97% critical damage and the enemy has 30% critical damage resistance, does that mean anything?? I don't understand one thing. When did that 67% critical damage become a huge number?? Should a crit that you can land every three hits be floating noodles?

If you are capable of reducing critical hits to almost zero, then what's the point of just doing these critical hits?

If you inflate that much crit damage then you're missing something. I am accelerating 80 percent of crit damage on my templar but sacrificing the fact that I have to walk like a turtle due to reduced movement speed and use mist form in order to survive, I also have to accelerate not only crit damage but spell damage to 7000-7500 so that mechanical accuracy would inflict big damage. I have 6000 penetration, 7000-7500 spell damage and 80 percent crit damage in non-cp bg. I practically sacrifice resource regeneration in order to have such indicators.

FirmamentOfStars

Solariken wrote: »

Or.... Hear me out... Leave Impen where it is and nerf Rallying Cry anyway. Big spike damage is the only way good players can be killed haha. Reducing crit spikes by even a little will add more TTK in PvP and that's no bueno IMO

No thanks. Crit damage needs to be in check somehow. Its pretty trendy to have a crit damage focus build currently waiting for all your skills align some crits. Its a pretty boring and annoying playstyle.

Small example of many nightblade out there stalemating fights for 10 minutes only going offensive with an incap+bow combo waiting for the chance to land both of them critting.

Melzo

FirmamentOfStars wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

Or.... Hear me out... Leave Impen where it is and nerf Rallying Cry anyway. Big spike damage is the only way good players can be killed haha. Reducing crit spikes by even a little will add more TTK in PvP and that's no bueno IMO

No thanks. Crit damage needs to be in check somehow. Its pretty trendy to have a crit damage focus build currently waiting for all your skills align some crits. Its a pretty boring and annoying playstyle.

Small example of many nightblade out there stalemating fights for 10 minutes only going offensive with an incap+bow combo waiting for the chance to land both of them critting.

And how are you going to control it? Reduce to zero critical damage for everyone who does not disperse it? What nonsense. Tritely create the mana of a sorcerer in light armor and you will have 52 critical damage. I will be able to get 60 percent crit resistance in the next patch with a battle cry and a monster set. And even if the battle cry is nerfed and the impe is uplifted, then nothing will change. Players that don't get around 90 crit damage will be dealing extremely miserable damage.

And complaints about the NB also look ridiculous. If nb does not wake up normal damage, then how will he kill you? I played a lot of BG and it's very rare that I got 15k damage, but even that number is quite reasonable given that NB is the most predictable class in the game besides the Necromancer. I see templars winning more often than nb.. You have 30k health but not 20k. The gameplay is ridiculously predictable. Spam spam spam spam spam and archery shot. If your ass is on fire that NB is killing you, then take a set of armor along with the battle cry. It will be nb to hit you with a bow for 10 thousand and at the same time, even with a full procast, he will not kill. I have a battle cry and 22 thousand armor and that's enough for me.

jecks33

it has been nerfed by 50% some year ago, I don't think they will revert the nerf

Solariken

StaticWave wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

Or.... Hear me out... Leave Impen where it is and nerf Rallying Cry anyway. Big spike damage is the only way good players can be killed haha. Reducing crit spikes by even a little will add more TTK in PvP and that's no bueno IMO

There is currently too much damage though. I’m regularly one shotting players without Rallying Cry in my current build. The tank meta isn’t solely caused by high crit resist, but rather Undeath, HP scaling heals, strong mythics like SSC allowing for players to build tankier, etc.

Undeath is a way bigger concern, yes. And lots of meta sets letting players go tankier (super tired of seeing master DW, vate ice especially).

Crit potential feels great in battlegrounds so I hate to see crits nerfed there.

But the CP tree has a decent amount of Crit Resist too, might need to nerf that slightly if Impen is buffed.

Tyrant_Tim

Or, bare with me, we could just nerf the extreme outliers without encouraging the tank meta.

In no world should I be getting hit by a 20k Spec Bow followed by an 8k Concealed weapon while sitting at above 33k resistance, by an opponent that has tank like mitigation, and support value heals.

Hybrid Nightblade is the only consistent build capable of that level of crit damage and it absolutely needs to be reined in, the change to Concealed Weapon is a good start.

Also, Rallying Cry has been overpowered since day 1 of its release. That set is a closet tank set, regardless of however much damage you get from it. I have held off on picking it up because I’ve been expecting a nerf, but here we are a year later. I think it’s safe to assume they’re okay with it being broken.

MashmalloMan

Impen needs a small buff, I still prefer well fitted, real issue is rallying cry. How the heck is a set that gives 300 damage and 20% crit resist for easy 100% uptime still around after a year +. So tired of this set.

SkaraMinoc

Two defensive kits need to be nerfed immediately.

Rallying Cry is the most stacked set in the game and needs at least a 5% nerf (330) on the crit resist (1650 -> 1320).

Undeath is equivalent to Trial by Fire at low health.

The green area highlights the general range of Undeath, depending on existing sources of mitigation.



For example, 30k armor w/ minor protection would land you in the shaded area. No existing mitigation would be above the green area and a tank w/ protection and resolve, defensive CP, etc. would be below the green area.

Once these get nerfed then we can start discussing anything else like buffing Impenetrable trait.

reazea

Most of the try hards in PvP don't even run impen trait anymore since they nerfed it a few years back. So ya, Impen trait is totally useless where it is now and deserves a buff, else the trait remains irrelevant.

MindOfTheSwarm

Or simply add bonus passives to the armor skill lines.

Light: Critical Resistance to Disease, Magic and Shock Damage.

Medium: Critical Resistance to Poison, Bleed and Frost Damage.

Heavy: Critical Resistance to Physical and Flame Damage.


Or tie Critical Resistance to the average of your Spell and Physical Resistances and divide the amount by 20 to make it simpler.


Example:

Spell Resistance = 23876
Physical Resistance = 28645

23876 + 28645 = 52521

Average = 26260

Crit Resistance = 1313