Disgusting PvP Meta

Overamera

Ahk1lleez wrote: »

As much as I'm inclined to agree that the "meta" needs to change....I think we have a much different idea of what META looks like. Single target DOT pressure in open world Cyrodiil means next to nothing when you're playing outnumbered. They're gonna get outside heals and you won't bring anyone down. The pvp this game was built around relies heavily on burst damage. DOT's are more of a liability than anything.

Complaining about DOT's means you're either playing BG's, dueling, or trying to play Cyrodiil in a manner that it was not meant to be played (1vX). I can tell you that the vast majority of 1vXers are NOT running single target DOT builds. Dying to them means you have to build better or get better in the skill department.

And BG’s, dueling or playing Cyrodiil in a way that you like (1vx) isn’t part of PvP? This single target dot meta is still one of the best setups for outnumbered. This setup will kill squisy targets in seconds and with pale order healing you with all dots active your healing is really good.

xFocused

Personally it just feels like if you're not running the current meta, whether it's the Vate/Maarselok/Dragons appetite/Masters DW or the bomber meta, you're going to struggle with getting kills or even having a fair chance in Cyro. Not to mention, everyone is a tank anymore, lol, Cyro would be more enjoyable if there was more variety in fights and the sets but meta builds are always going to be a thing

IZZEFlameLash

xFocused wrote: »

Personally it just feels like if you're not running the current meta, whether it's the Vate/Maarselok/Dragons appetite/Masters DW or the bomber meta, you're going to struggle with getting kills or even having a fair chance in Cyro. Not to mention, everyone is a tank anymore, lol, Cyro would be more enjoyable if there was more variety in fights and the sets but meta builds are always going to be a thing

Yeah, my meta sorc secures kill a lot faster than my off-meta DK lol.

xFocused

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

xFocused wrote: »

Personally it just feels like if you're not running the current meta, whether it's the Vate/Maarselok/Dragons appetite/Masters DW or the bomber meta, you're going to struggle with getting kills or even having a fair chance in Cyro. Not to mention, everyone is a tank anymore, lol, Cyro would be more enjoyable if there was more variety in fights and the sets but meta builds are always going to be a thing

Yeah, my meta sorc secures kill a lot faster than my off-meta DK lol.

Easily. I’ve tried some “off meta” sets on my Warden and would like to try a Magplar build but lately it feels like it’s a waste of time lol, I understand meta is going to always exist but can the other sets and have a chance at least?

OBJnoob

In my opinion it's like this... You can wear off-meta sets as long as you're a good player on a meta class. And you can be very successful of course until you run into someone good like you with the meta sets AND a meta class.

If you want to play templar sorc or Necro then you'd better wear meta sets or you won't have much success except the pugliest of the pugs.

And it isn't so much... Well, I don't know. NB works because they can pretty much kill anyone with just their class kit. DK and Warden work because, if you're willing to give yourself carpal tunnel, you can actually outheal the bullcrap and even find a second or two to turn the tables.

I don't play templar... I hear they're trash, but on Xbox NA I frequently run into templars that just seem to hit so hard I'm left confused and not sure what the truth is. And I don't mean Beam either.

Necro... Ironically, somebody needs to Necro the Necro, cuz it's hard to find anyway. In my limited experience playing one the survivability is good. So my gut tells me you could maybe do good with one, but you'd have to use the meta arena weapons.

Sorc feels the worst to me personally. I understand that a sorc in the meta setup is one of the best... But I can't seem to muster much offense against anyone good wearing anything else. Sorc has always been strong for me, personally, Xing potato's or even in 1v1s against decent players. But against DKs or Wardens, for example, eventually I need to break off from my own offense and that's when I know I'm going to lose in 10 seconds.

xDeusEJRx

loosej wrote: »

I'm actually quite happy this became the new meta. I agree it's gotten a bit predictable, and predictable can get boring after some time. But at least it seems to have reduced the amount of unkillable tanks in Cyro. Everyone hitting with a wet noodle and nobody dying was the real "disgusting" no-skill meta. Despite what a lot of people think, running Maarselok/Vateshran/Masters successfully requires at least a bit of skill. If you put a newbie with that combo against an experienced player in no-proc sets, the beams alone won't be enough for the first player to get the upper hand.

I would argue that when those builds are so prevalent that every fight has Vate masters usage, it eventually has nothing to do with "needing" skill to finish the fight, you just need enough vate masters users bringing free damage and you will win the confrontation.

It's to the level of dark convergence on launch, where every fight has it and there's multiple users of it in every fight. So eventually whichever side has bigger numbers of cheese users will win.

Turtle_Bot

OBJnoob wrote: »

In my opinion it's like this... You can wear off-meta sets as long as you're a good player on a meta class. And you can be very successful of course until you run into someone good like you with the meta sets AND a meta class.

If you want to play templar sorc or Necro then you'd better wear meta sets or you won't have much success except the pugliest of the pugs.

And it isn't so much... Well, I don't know. NB works because they can pretty much kill anyone with just their class kit. DK and Warden work because, if you're willing to give yourself carpal tunnel, you can actually outheal the bullcrap and even find a second or two to turn the tables.

I don't play templar... I hear they're trash, but on Xbox NA I frequently run into templars that just seem to hit so hard I'm left confused and not sure what the truth is. And I don't mean Beam either.

Necro... Ironically, somebody needs to Necro the Necro, cuz it's hard to find anyway. In my limited experience playing one the survivability is good. So my gut tells me you could maybe do good with one, but you'd have to use the meta arena weapons.

Sorc feels the worst to me personally. I understand that a sorc in the meta setup is one of the best... But I can't seem to muster much offense against anyone good wearing anything else. Sorc has always been strong for me, personally, Xing potato's or even in 1v1s against decent players. But against DKs or Wardens, for example, eventually I need to break off from my own offense and that's when I know I'm going to lose in 10 seconds.

This has basically been my experience with the classes as well. Especially sorc.

I can run the meta arena build on sorc and do fine, but as soon as I want to try something else (which I always do), it just feels the absolute worst to play out of every class. Most of that is due to the severe lack of raw defense and healing, but there are a lot of other smaller issues there too that don't help it, especially with high ping.

Note: Add in Arcanist alongside DK/warden because of how tanky arcanist gets, but unlike DK arcanist does tend to rely more on the meta arena weapons for consistent damage and their stun that used to be (is maybe still?) bugged to secure kills.

From what I've noticed, templar has a similar bug with its stun that arcanist has/had where its next to impossible to break free from it. The difference is it has easier counter-play with dodge rolling, but that meteor/javelin/beam combo still really hurts, even for naturally tanky classes like DKs/Wardens.

Alharion

the most depressing PVP game of all time battleground is broken, nothing is possible anymore, nothing holds anymore, less and less construction possible, cold doesn't do anything in "weapon of destruction" yet? lol...

The game is now for arcanists.

There are only deaths that are really bizarre, duels are increasingly incomprehensible and it's becoming more and more impossible to have one, so quickly you die, it's a bit like Call of Duty in the end, you don't understand what's going on anymore, I've never seen a pvp game end in such a state and zenimax remains passive and ignores feedback...

Galeriano

We entered possibly the worst PvP era in the game. Good job combat dev team.

Iriidius

Ahk1lleez wrote: »

As much as I'm inclined to agree that the "meta" needs to change....I think we have a much different idea of what META looks like. Single target DOT pressure in open world Cyrodiil means next to nothing when you're playing outnumbered. They're gonna get outside heals and you won't bring anyone down. The pvp this game was built around relies heavily on burst damage. DOT's are more of a liability than anything.

Complaining about DOT's means you're either playing BG's, dueling, or trying to play Cyrodiil in a manner that it was not meant to be played (1vX). I can tell you that the vast majority of 1vXers are NOT running single target DOT builds. Dying to them means you have to build better or get better in the skill department.

You are contradicting yourself!
You say that Single target DOT pressure in open world Cyrodiil means next to nothing when you're playing outnumbered, so you rate them only from an outnumbered(1vX, smallscalevX or ballgroupvX) perspective, that you say yourself Cyrodiil was not meant to be played from this perspective(1vX).
Master dw+Vat destro+Maarselok+DA/WoF/Mara is Meta not only for 1v1 or Xv1 but also for 2v2, smallscalevsmallscale, Xv2/smallscale or to focuss one player in a ZergvZerg and even 1/2/3/4vX they are usefull to focuss one player when he is too tanky/ reacts too fast to get burstet down and you arent pressured too hard. Only for fights with ballgroup it seems useless. And it is only these sets and a few other proc Sets DoTs that are the problem and people complain about, not about Dot skills.
And it is not like every player getting in a 1vX situation is an arrogant Elitist thinking he is the
center of the world/the best player on his server, other players are too bad to be his teammates and every enemy player is only existing to be his prey and having fun running around towers for hours.
There usually are no PuGs and private Groups dont invite randoms, so when you type LFG in zone chat or ask a group if you can join nobody answers. When you are not member of a PvP guild or regular group of friends and enter Cyrodiil, you have to play alone and every enemy group will Xv1 attack you on sight even/especially when you clearly dont want to fight 1vX.

Cast_El

This meta remind me crimson meta.
Worst part: people think they are good, whereas they don't kill you, their cheesy proc set do.

And almost every veteran I fight wear thoses set on BG or IC, shame on them.

Skill should be more important than set.

SandandStars

I have developed an off-meta warden bow build that’s doing well in bgs.

😊

Skilled nbs still get me with incap/merciless/spam concealed when my health isn’t topped off, but that’s unavoidable if you don’t want to play a tankturd.

She runs around pew pewing and getting a decent number of kills.

OtarTheMad

Part of the problem could literally just be that there are too many sets in the game. I love theorycrafting so it’s a bit different for me, I like to try to make sets that don’t make sense work well or at least passable and fun.

The issue is that all of that is time consuming. Not everyone has hours upon hours and months upon months to go through different set combos to see if they work well together. It’s easier to just go to YouTube or where a streamer is and see if their build is good and basically copy it and conform it to your playstyle. That takes maybe a day or two, much easier.

So when something becomes overpowered or over-performs or is just kind of strong it is amplified because you’ll have so many others just taking that build and running it.

Turtle_Bot

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Part of the problem could literally just be that there are too many sets in the game. I love theorycrafting so it’s a bit different for me, I like to try to make sets that don’t make sense work well or at least passable and fun.

The issue is that all of that is time consuming. Not everyone has hours upon hours and months upon months to go through different set combos to see if they work well together. It’s easier to just go to YouTube or where a streamer is and see if their build is good and basically copy it and conform it to your playstyle. That takes maybe a day or two, much easier.

So when something becomes overpowered or over-performs or is just kind of strong it is amplified because you’ll have so many others just taking that build and running it.

The meta chasers definitely exacerbate the issue, for sure. But there's more to it than just that. As a theorycrafter myself, I am always trying different sets, to see what I can make work, the issue is that everything either takes drastically more work to line up, that even if it performs better, its not worth running due to the effort involved, or it is just flat out significantly, objectively worse than a meta set-up.

Something that would help a lot imo would be to reduce the downsides and improve the benefits of light armor passives to make that armor type more appealing to work with as an alternative to medium armor considering its huge built in downside significantly lower mitigation values. Doing this would have the benefit of providing a soft check on the current tank meta, as more people will have more light armor pieces slotted (reducing their armor values), and will have more natural pen and crit chance to help even more against the tanks.

If I were to adjust light armor, I'd make the following 2 changes:
- First would be to remove the bonus damage taken from martial (stamina) attacks, it shouldn't have been given this downside since the significantly lower armor value means that you're naturally taking more damage from all sources already.
- Second would be to change the reduced cost of bash attacks (which medium armor has) to increased healing done so that light armor matches medium armor for healing due to medium armors bonus to weapon/spell damage.

This would allow light armor to be an alternative to medium armor that doesn't drop your base healing compared to running medium armor and doesn't compound the issue of low armor values with the additional martial damage taken making anyone wearing it far too squishy unless the light armor set itself is defensive in nature (see RC/buffer of swift/etc).

Alharion

Meta of the killer ray, incredible gameplay.....

maybe they'll wake up when Throne & Liberty comes out and maybe one day Ashes of Creation

IZZEFlameLash

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Part of the problem could literally just be that there are too many sets in the game. I love theorycrafting so it’s a bit different for me, I like to try to make sets that don’t make sense work well or at least passable and fun.

The issue is that all of that is time consuming. Not everyone has hours upon hours and months upon months to go through different set combos to see if they work well together. It’s easier to just go to YouTube or where a streamer is and see if their build is good and basically copy it and conform it to your playstyle. That takes maybe a day or two, much easier.

So when something becomes overpowered or over-performs or is just kind of strong it is amplified because you’ll have so many others just taking that build and running it.

The meta chasers definitely exacerbate the issue, for sure. But there's more to it than just that. As a theorycrafter myself, I am always trying different sets, to see what I can make work, the issue is that everything either takes drastically more work to line up, that even if it performs better, its not worth running due to the effort involved, or it is just flat out significantly, objectively worse than a meta set-up.

Something that would help a lot imo would be to reduce the downsides and improve the benefits of light armor passives to make that armor type more appealing to work with as an alternative to medium armor considering its huge built in downside significantly lower mitigation values. Doing this would have the benefit of providing a soft check on the current tank meta, as more people will have more light armor pieces slotted (reducing their armor values), and will have more natural pen and crit chance to help even more against the tanks.

If I were to adjust light armor, I'd make the following 2 changes:
- First would be to remove the bonus damage taken from martial (stamina) attacks, it shouldn't have been given this downside since the significantly lower armor value means that you're naturally taking more damage from all sources already.
- Second would be to change the reduced cost of bash attacks (which medium armor has) to increased healing done so that light armor matches medium armor for healing due to medium armors bonus to weapon/spell damage.

This would allow light armor to be an alternative to medium armor that doesn't drop your base healing compared to running medium armor and doesn't compound the issue of low armor values with the additional martial damage taken making anyone wearing it far too squishy unless the light armor set itself is defensive in nature (see RC/buffer of swift/etc).

It is quite funny how they thought giving physical damage penalty was good for light armor. On top of already meagre armor value. Now, it is an armor weight not worn by anyone but NB ganker basically. Why the devs felt the need to double the penalties with damage taken is beyond me. I support this light armor change. As is, almost all armor weights are medium and heavy with medium being the least penalized weight out of all in terms of where it hurts the most.

SandandStars

nerfs to light armor were nerfs to magsorc

more nerfs to magsorc incoming

Turtle_Bot

SandandStars wrote: »

nerfs to light armor were nerfs to magsorc

more nerfs to magsorc incoming

I'm just sitting here waiting for/expecting it at this stage with how sorc has been treated over the past 5 years

Too many sorcs running around currently because of exactly the perma negate bug and no other reason. Can't have sorcs be that strong, gotta nerf the [snip] out of them, U35 style (despite it being an over-abused bug on 1 previously niche, PvP focused ultimate and not the class itself being why they are everywhere).

It's a shame, because since magblade was updated last year (2022), magsorc (and petless magsorc in particular) is the longest running class without a proper update/rework to bring it into modern ESO out of all of the classes/specs, but this bug is going to ensure that it will not happen anytime soon, or even in the medium term.

Turtle_Bot

RoxyPhoenix wrote: »

[snip]

Unfortunately because of ZOS's stance on sorcerers, this is the attitude most sorc players now have because it's all they have left at this point.

And no, I was not bashing you, I was merely pointing out what you have stated regarding broken sets/bugged skills etc. being all sorc has left at this stage.

As a sorc player myself, I too want to be able to fight more like other classes without having to cheese things like bugged skills, broken sets, zoo swarms, or unintended interactions, but until the class is actually brought up to modern standards in areas that are not just the pets, that is just not possible.

So yes, it is absolutely justified to do that until ZOS gets in gear and does a proper rework to sorcerer to bring it up to modern standards of combat.

FYI, some information for those that like to claim sorcerer is OP in PvE, I'll give a hint as to how sorcerer gets its super high parse numbers.

It cheeses a 500 ult Overload at the start of the dummy parse that significantly and falsely inflates its parse numbers since each light attack is essentially a second spammable within each GCD. This is roughly a 20-30k DPS increase for the first 20 seconds of the parse (which is where sorcerers amplitude passive has the biggest impact in increasing DPS making it closer to a 35k DPS increase for that duration).

The issue with using this to say sorc is strong, is that this cheesing of the parse dummy doesn't work in actual content, because if the sorc uses overload at the start of the encounter instead of atro, the entire group loses major berserk (+10% damage done) for about the first 12 seconds of the fight (1 cast of atro, assuming the sorc uses overload until it has just enough left to still drop atro) or the first 20 seconds (2 effective casts of atro if the sorc goes full 500 to 0 on overload), which is a huge DPS loss for the entire group (especially for trials/12 man) and is something that all serious groups would kick the sorc player for if they continuously did it to artificially inflate their own DPS numbers in actual content at the expense of the groups DPS and potentially not clearing the content.

[edited to remove quote]

RoxyPhoenix

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

And no, I was not bashing you, I was merely pointing out what you have stated regarding broken sets/bugged skills etc. being all sorc has left at this stage.

Oh so sorry I did not mean to sound like it, was more of a general approach to the reading audience. Of course, I could not agree more with you and unfortunately, it is what it is. As a class, we are delegated to be a stray dog hunting for scraps.

CameraBeardThePirate

RoxyPhoenix wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Too many sorcs running around currently because of exactly the perma negate bug and no other reason. Can't have sorcs be that strong, gotta nerf the [snip] out of them, U35 style (despite it being an over-abused bug on 1 previously niche, PvP focused ultimate and not the class itself being why they are everywhere).

It's a shame, because since magblade was updated last year (2022), magsorc (and petless magsorc in particular) is the longest running class without a proper update/rework to bring it into modern ESO out of all of the classes/specs, but this bug is going to ensure that it will not happen anytime soon, or even in the medium term.

[snip]

Are you saying you're abusing the Negate bug? Because you do realize that's grounds for getting banned, right?

[edited to remove quote]

RoxyPhoenix

Nope.🤫