If you're gonna nerf Arcanist DPS...

merpins · February 8

It needs to be balanced with careful forethought. Arcanist's design itself, for DPS, is pretty obviously centered around accessibility. Fatecarver is an ability that basically makes it so you don't need to light attack weave properly. The fact that the class came out at the same time as Velothi-Ur tells me that this was an intentional design decision. Many players don't like to light attack weave, and have been enjoying heavy attack builds? Here's a class that makes it so you can do less light attack weaving, and still get end-game levels of damage.

This design comes with a flaw. It makes the class much easier than other classes. 50% of your damage comes from one skill, more than any other class. Is that really a flaw? No, but it makes the class' damage inflated. The damage floor is higher, but the ceiling isn't. You're going to be doing similar damage at end game as other classes, but it's just easier to get to that end game with arcanist, since the gear setup is just x + Deadly + Velothi + 1 pc Slimecraw. Deadly and Velothi and Slimecraw are easy to get. Then, you only need to learn the Arcanist rotation, which is pretty simple, especially when compared to other classes. Is this a bad thing? No, not at all. Sometimes I want to play something easier and fun, but still run a harder dungeon. Can't really do that with a heavy attack build, or at least for me it isn't as fun. Easier options are fine. Not every class needs to be Nightblade DPS after all.

That brings us to balancing. We can see that Arcanist is topping leaderboards, but that's not due to damage, that's due to aoe potential. The recent U41 week 1 patch notes are appropriate, the damage of Fatecarver was a bit high, and the shield it provided was too big. That's fine, but people still think the damage is too high. What can we do without jeopardizing the class itself?

1. Lower the damage of other abilities or sets that affect the class damage the most. This would be passives that are overperforming in Arcanist's kit, other skills in the kit that are pumping up the damage (Flail as an example is pretty overtuned), or Velothi-Ur. Other options would be outside sources of damage, the nerf to Hemorrhaging and Barbed Trap helps here, though this effects all classes so it won't see much of a difference by comparison. Nothing major, the class isn't doing too much damage as I stated before, but if it needs its damage lowered further, it can't be from Fatecarver, otherwise it will jeopardize the class.
2. Reduce the AOE potential of the class. Fatecarver is overperforming in leaderboards due to its AOE. So, make it so the damage goes down after the first creature, or first couple creatures, hit. Kinda like Templar jabs. You could even remove the shield from Pragmatic and make that one do full damage to enemies in an AOE, and give the damage shield in some way to Runeblades. Not an ideal solution, but it's an idea.

Do I really think Arcanist needs much of a nerf? No, not really. Arcanist damage at the high end is between 130 and 140k dps (closer to 130k) when parsing, not the highest but not the lowest in terms of end-game DPS numbers. It feels great to use as-is, and its numbers seem to be inflated in content due to how it works. If you look at the damage numbers from trials and dungeons, it's higher than other classes because of the AOE aspect of the class' main spammable. It probably shouldn't be dominating leaderboards as it is right now, and the only way to address this is to address its AOE potential, or for those sites to somehow only calculate the damage numbers against bosses and not against ads as well... Or to buff other classes and their AOE. Sorcerer for example should do just as well at AOE, but just doesnt.

aspergalas4 · February 8

This whole philosophy of nerfing what's strong just makes the game more dull even when balance is achieved in the end, they really should just buff everything else across the board. Make every class and spell feel powerful when we are playing it, instead of every class feeling equally meh.

Galeriano · February 8

aspergalas4 wrote: »

This whole philosophy of nerfing what's strong just makes the game more dull even when balance is achieved in the end, they really should just buff everything else across the board. Make every class and spell feel powerful when we are playing it, instead of every class feeling equally meh.

Yeah because killing everything like it's cake walk doesn't feel dull...

Overbuffing is as wrong or even worse than overnerfing stuff. If something is overperforming You don't bring everything else up to that one thing You nerf that one things to be in line with everything else.

aspergalas4 · February 8

Galeriano wrote: »

aspergalas4 wrote: »

This whole philosophy of nerfing what's strong just makes the game more dull even when balance is achieved in the end, they really should just buff everything else across the board. Make every class and spell feel powerful when we are playing it, instead of every class feeling equally meh.

Yeah because killing everything like it's cake walk doesn't feel dull...

Overbuffing is as wrong or even worse than overnerfing stuff. If something is overperforming You don't bring everything else up to that one thing You nerf that one things to be in line with everything else.

Take the time to read what I said again, to avoid confusion. I never mentioned buffing so everything is a cakewalk, I said buff to make us feel more powerful. So its more FUN. I don't want my spells to feel like they barely do anything, I want them to feel engaging and useful. Which is what nerfing prevents as you have to chip away at things until you just use something else. Which if we follow the philosophy of nerfing to achieve balance will feel just as dull anyway. You mitigate things being a cakewalk by providing harder content, then we get a sense of achievement with our FUN new buffed spells/abilities. See how that works?

I'd rather feel like I'm actually powerful for defeating that super hard boss that provided a challenge even with my super OP abilities than feel meh for defeating that middling difficulty boss that was a slog because my spells have been diluted to balance them with others to the point I just use proc sets for a little excitement.

Necrotech_Master · February 8

the current "adjustment" is barely a nerf, i dont even expect to notice the 7% drop in dmg on the beam

i think the reason why they are being cautious about the adjustment is they know that arcanist beam is the bread and butter of arcanist dps, and overall arc dps could very quickly go from OP to UP (underpowered) if the adjustment was too severe

merpins · February 8

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the current "adjustment" is barely a nerf, i dont even expect to notice the 7% drop in dmg on the beam

i think the reason why they are being cautious about the adjustment is they know that arcanist beam is the bread and butter of arcanist dps, and overall arc dps could very quickly go from OP to UP (underpowered) if the adjustment was too severe

This is true. As I stated above, Fatecarver is the main DPS ability of arcanist. Its damage really shouldn't be touched much, if at all. Any nerfs should come from other sources of Arcanist damage, if they even nerf anything. The DPS is fine, arcanist isn't performing higher than other classes DPS wise, but is topping leaderboards due to its high damage that is also AOE.

Reginald_leBlem · February 8

Maybe they should make some fights actually be single target fights and buff NB again

Galeriano · February 8

merpins wrote: »

It needs to be balanced with careful forethought. Arcanist's design itself, for DPS, is pretty obviously centered around accessibility. Fatecarver is an ability that basically makes it so you don't need to light attack weave properly. The fact that the class came out at the same time as Velothi-Ur tells me that this was an intentional design decision. Many players don't like to light attack weave, and have been enjoying heavy attack builds? Here's a class that makes it so you can do less light attack weaving, and still get end-game levels of damage.

This design comes with a flaw. It makes the class much easier than other classes. 50% of your damage comes from one skill, more than any other class. Is that really a flaw? No, but it makes the class' damage inflated. The damage floor is higher, but the ceiling isn't. You're going to be doing similar damage at end game as other classes, but it's just easier to get to that end game with arcanist, since the gear setup is just x + Deadly + Velothi + 1 pc Slimecraw. Deadly and Velothi and Slimecraw are easy to get. Then, you only need to learn the Arcanist rotation, which is pretty simple, especially when compared to other classes. Is this a bad thing? No, not at all. Sometimes I want to play something easier and fun, but still run a harder dungeon. Can't really do that with a heavy attack build, or at least for me it isn't as fun. Easier options are fine. Not every class needs to be Nightblade DPS after all.

That brings us to balancing. We can see that Arcanist is topping leaderboards, but that's not due to damage, that's due to aoe potential. The recent U41 week 1 patch notes are appropriate, the damage of Fatecarver was a bit high, and the shield it provided was too big. That's fine, but people still think the damage is too high. What can we do without jeopardizing the class itself?

1. Lower the damage of other abilities or sets that affect the class damage the most. This would be passives that are overperforming in Arcanist's kit, other skills in the kit that are pumping up the damage (Flail as an example is pretty overtuned), or Velothi-Ur. Other options would be outside sources of damage, the nerf to Hemorrhaging and Barbed Trap helps here, though this effects all classes so it won't see much of a difference by comparison. Nothing major, the class isn't doing too much damage as I stated before, but if it needs its damage lowered further, it can't be from Fatecarver, otherwise it will jeopardize the class.
2. Reduce the AOE potential of the class. Fatecarver is overperforming in leaderboards due to its AOE. So, make it so the damage goes down after the first creature, or first couple creatures, hit. You could even remove the shield from Pragmatic and make that one do full damage to enemies in an AOE, and give the damage shield in some way to Runeblades. Not an ideal solution, but it's an idea.

Do I really think Arcanist needs much of a nerf? No, not really. It feels great to use as-is, and its numbers seem to be inflated due to just how it works. But it probably shouldn't be dominating leaderboards as it is right now... But then again, if it wasn't, it would be a different class that's dominating leaderboards.

One thing is making class accesible and the other is giving it too much dmg. Arcanist have too much dmg in his kit. Damage ceiling for arcanist single target DPS is higher than for majority of other classes and his passive AoE dmg ceiling is way higher than on other classes.

Saying that arcanist toping leaderboards not due to damage but due to AoE potential makes no sense. What is AoE than if not a dmg? There was never a situation that we have right now where around 50% of all DDs participating in all modes were playing 1 class. When other classes were meta they were usually just dominating in HMs but in veteran and nomal modes spread was more healthy and despite top dog still dominating it wasn't 50% of population. Beam should be considered as AoE dmg and its damage should be balanced around standards for AoE DPS not a single target DPS. That means something like 20% dmg nerf not current 7% from PTS. In return ZoS could increase it's size making it even more accesible.

valenwood_vegan · February 8

aspergalas4 wrote: »

This whole philosophy of nerfing what's strong just makes the game more dull even when balance is achieved in the end, they really should just buff everything else across the board. Make every class and spell feel powerful when we are playing it, instead of every class feeling equally meh.

Gotta agree, it's always nerf nerf nerf whatever people are enjoying and using. Just look at Necro to see where that road eventually leads. Someone in a post a while back described it as death by a thousand cuts, which I think is still the best description I've seen of the problem.

(EDIT for clarity: talking more about the general balancing philosophy, not so much this specific arcanist nerf... but although this nerf is fairly mild, there's still a point to be made here that people are having fun and enjoying arcanist, while a lot of other classes have serious issues... don't balance out the fun zos).

Galeriano · February 8

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the current "adjustment" is barely a nerf, i dont even expect to notice the 7% drop in dmg on the beam

i think the reason why they are being cautious about the adjustment is they know that arcanist beam is the bread and butter of arcanist dps, and overall arc dps could very quickly go from OP to UP (underpowered) if the adjustment was too severe

To be fair rotation with tentacular dread and runeblades when it comes to a single target is doing pretty decent DPS so even if beam wouldn;t exist arcanist would still be able to do nice single target. Thing is it wouldn;t be that easy and it wouldn;t have so much passive AoE in it.

Pixiepumpkin · February 8

My fear is using this in PVP. Fatecarver is already lack luster because it does not lock to the target like jesus beam or lightning heavy attack or the soul ultimate. This is just going to make it useless in pvp.

Galeriano · February 8

aspergalas4 wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

aspergalas4 wrote: »

This whole philosophy of nerfing what's strong just makes the game more dull even when balance is achieved in the end, they really should just buff everything else across the board. Make every class and spell feel powerful when we are playing it, instead of every class feeling equally meh.

Yeah because killing everything like it's cake walk doesn't feel dull...

Overbuffing is as wrong or even worse than overnerfing stuff. If something is overperforming You don't bring everything else up to that one thing You nerf that one things to be in line with everything else.

Take the time to read what I said again, and don't retort to comments that you haven't read properly to avoid confusion. I never even mentioned buffing so everything is a cakewalk, I said buff to make us feel more powerful. So its more FUN. I don't want my spells to feel like they barely do anything, I want them to feel engaging and useful. Which is what nerfing prevents as you have to chip away at things until you just use something else. Which if we follow the philosophy of nerfing to achieve balance will feel just as dull anyway. You mitigate things being a cakewalk by providing harder content, then we get a sense of achievement with our FUN new buffed spells/abilities. See how that works?

I'd rather feel like I'm actually powerful while I defeat that super hard boss that provided a challenge even with my super OP abilities than feel meh about defeating that middling difficulty boss that was a slog because my spells have been diluted to balance them with others to the point I just use proc sets for a little excitement.

Context of my comment was pretty easy to deduce. You mentioned buffing everything to arcanist level which basically would make things like a cake walk. It's certainly how it feels when doing content on arcanist atm when compared to other classes.

'There is a difference between spell being engaging and usefull and just dishing out toons of free dmg making fights dull and not hrilling at all. For many people this is NOT FUN. Just look how often threads about veteran overland are poping up on forum. People don't like when things are too hard but also don't like when the're too easy.

Find some old footage and compare dmg, survivability and sustain in earlier days to what we have now. Despite all that nerfs we still are getting increasingly more powerfull with every year. Why? Because every nerf is just in place to slower increase of power creep that is happening due to buffs we are getting. And we are getting more buffs than nerfs, people just have the natural tendency to give way more attention to something negative than to something positive. Without nerfs in place power creep would be through the roof lonmg time ago and it's even worse for the game than being a bit hard because for many people it makes things dull, boring, uninteresting and NOT FUN.

Harder content is becoming a cakewalk lately due to how overperforming arcanist is.

You can't be powerfull if boss is super hard at the same time. One is contradicting another. Super hard boss means that You are not powerfull, being powerfull means that boss is not super hard.

Avran_Sylt · February 9

There is a fundamental design issue when the main single-target DPS ability is also the highest AoE DPS ability.

Wonder if it would be more balanced it the beam stopped when hitting the first target, then dealing a lesser amount of AoE damage around it.

Though after trying it out in PvP, if it stays a free-form beam it would kinda be terrible. The hit detection just feels so wrong as it is.

katanagirl1 · February 9

Arcanist has enabled me to keep doing trials since my trials group won’t allow Oakensorc. My hands just can’t do light weaving anymore because they hurt all the time and I can get by with fewer light attacks with the arcanist.

When I started running this toon in trials and parsing I felt the rotation was just what other classes should have. Not stupidly short skills like necro blastbones that have to keep being reapplied. On arcanist I can do the buffs and switch to the dps bar and flail and beam then when I switch back to the buff bar they are ready to reapply. Every class should have this. This is what balance should be, skills that do similar damage and have similar timers.

Buff other classes, don’t nerf arcanist. All of us gamers are getting older, after all.

spartaxoxo · February 9

Galeriano wrote: »

You mentioned buffing everything to arcanist level which basically would make things like a cake walk.

Arcanist is already performing close to the other classes, so I don't agree that pushing the ones that aren't would suddenly make everything a cake walk. Necromancer doesn't just feel bad to play because it isn't as good as Arc or DK. It feels bad to play in general.

merpins · February 9

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Arcanist has enabled me to keep doing trials since my trials group won’t allow Oakensorc. My hands just can’t do light weaving anymore because they hurt all the time and I can get by with fewer light attacks with the arcanist.

When I started running this toon in trials and parsing I felt the rotation was just what other classes should have. Not stupidly short skills like necro blastbones that have to keep being reapplied. On arcanist I can do the buffs and switch to the dps bar and flail and beam then when I switch back to the buff bar they are ready to reapply. Every class should have this. This is what balance should be, skills that do similar damage and have similar timers.

Buff other classes, don’t nerf arcanist. All of us gamers are getting older, after all.

I agree, 100%. But it's pretty evident that's not gonna happen; Arcanist damage is fine and shouldn't be touched much if at all, but other things could be balanced without ruining the playstyle or hurting players like you that need a more arthritis friendly playstyle.

Sarannah · February 9

Arcanists damage should not be nerfed, nerfing fatecarver shield is fine though.

People often seem to forget the weaknesses of the arcanist. The fact that they need to build three crux to even do damage, the fact that they need to choose how to use crux between offensive or defensive, and the fact that when the channeled ability of fatecarver gets interrupted it leaves the arcanist without damage at all(this can even happen before fatecarver gets a damage tick in).

Besides that, I believe the whole point of the arcanist was to make an easier to play class for those who do not like weaving.

RetPing · February 9

People saying that Arcanist damage is fine, please tell me, how did you form your opinion?

I like to look at numbers to form mine, let's just take one example, Sanity Edge.

Probably just a case, right?
Well, let's took DR.

Oh, must just be anbother case, let's look at Rockgrove

Oh, no, not again.

LouisaB75 · February 9

I am one of those who does not like weaving and love playing my arcanist. I finally felt useful in groups and not worried I was being carried and not pulling my weight.

I used armour sets to generate ultimate and my rotation consisted of rune blades, beam and the occasional heal, armour refresh and an interrupt.

My mythic alternates between the amulet, oakensoul and pale order, depending on what I am doing.

Right now my arcanist can just... and only just... manage vet Maelstrom Arena. I strongly suspect that when the nerf hammer hits I will be failing it repeatedly. Which is why I am grinding for the perfected items while I still can.

I am totally gutted that they are nerfing it, though I can't honestly say I am surprised.

Pixiepumpkin · February 9

RetPing wrote: »

People saying that Arcanist damage is fine, please tell me, how did you form your opinion?

I like to look at numbers to form mine, let's just take one example, Sanity Edge.

Probably just a case, right?
Well, let's took DR.

Oh, must just be anbother case, let's look at Rockgrove

Oh, no, not again.

So nerf stamina arcanist, not magicka. But is this function solely due to a stamina arcanist, or the synergy with specifc gear sets? (Velothi-Ur cough cough)

How much the damage you show is due to player skill vs less skilled players?

What is the scale of those bars? For all we know the lowest and highest could be a 5% difference.

How much of that is AOE vs boss fight? Arcanist definitely do well with AOE, no question and its due to fatecarver not tracking mobs which is also its bane (cant hit anything in PVP).

Arcanist is fine and the nerfs on the PTR are unwarranted.

aspergalas4 · February 9

Galeriano wrote: »

aspergalas4 wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

aspergalas4 wrote: »

This whole philosophy of nerfing what's strong just makes the game more dull even when balance is achieved in the end, they really should just buff everything else across the board. Make every class and spell feel powerful when we are playing it, instead of every class feeling equally meh.

Yeah because killing everything like it's cake walk doesn't feel dull...

Overbuffing is as wrong or even worse than overnerfing stuff. If something is overperforming You don't bring everything else up to that one thing You nerf that one things to be in line with everything else.

Take the time to read what I said again, and don't retort to comments that you haven't read properly to avoid confusion. I never even mentioned buffing so everything is a cakewalk, I said buff to make us feel more powerful. So its more FUN. I don't want my spells to feel like they barely do anything, I want them to feel engaging and useful. Which is what nerfing prevents as you have to chip away at things until you just use something else. Which if we follow the philosophy of nerfing to achieve balance will feel just as dull anyway. You mitigate things being a cakewalk by providing harder content, then we get a sense of achievement with our FUN new buffed spells/abilities. See how that works?

I'd rather feel like I'm actually powerful while I defeat that super hard boss that provided a challenge even with my super OP abilities than feel meh about defeating that middling difficulty boss that was a slog because my spells have been diluted to balance them with others to the point I just use proc sets for a little excitement.

Context of my comment was pretty easy to deduce. You mentioned buffing everything to arcanist level which basically would make things like a cake walk. It's certainly how it feels when doing content on arcanist atm when compared to other classes.

'There is a difference between spell being engaging and usefull and just dishing out toons of free dmg making fights dull and not hrilling at all. For many people this is NOT FUN. Just look how often threads about veteran overland are poping up on forum. People don't like when things are too hard but also don't like when the're too easy.

Find some old footage and compare dmg, survivability and sustain in earlier days to what we have now. Despite all that nerfs we still are getting increasingly more powerfull with every year. Why? Because every nerf is just in place to slower increase of power creep that is happening due to buffs we are getting. And we are getting more buffs than nerfs, people just have the natural tendency to give way more attention to something negative than to something positive. Without nerfs in place power creep would be through the roof lonmg time ago and it's even worse for the game than being a bit hard because for many people it makes things dull, boring, uninteresting and NOT FUN.

Harder content is becoming a cakewalk lately due to how overperforming arcanist is.

You can't be powerfull if boss is super hard at the same time. One is contradicting another. Super hard boss means that You are not powerfull, being powerfull means that boss is not super hard.

No you jumped to a conclusion. I don't have an arcanist myself so wasn't aware just how easy to stomp everything was, my comment was aping on this topic to reference balance in general. I still adhere to the idea of buffing everything to Arcanist level but making the content harder also. Plenty of people seem to love Arcanist for this reason, whether it the damage or the visuals they feel STRONG.

I don't disagree with you that too much damage is boring, there definitely needs to be a challenge to the content. Steamrolling everything isn't fun, there must be a middle ground compromise. But nerfing is not the way to achieve that.

That may be the case but this is mitigated by adding more difficulty levels to existing content and adding harder content in general. Just because there's power creep doesn't mean there isn't space to accommodate. There's no reason why we can't have a heroic mode in dungeons/trials which is above veteran or something akin to that.

The point about super hard bosses is that it's a challenge, the harder the challenge the more powerful you feel when you complete it. Which is why I used the word slog because that's how it feels when both the player and the boss feel underwhelming. Yeah you defeated the boss, but so can everyone it just takes a bit longer if they are comparatively weaker. I don't feel like I've achieved anything doing the vanilla dungeons for example, but veteran DLC dungeons yes I do, because there is a clear difference in difficulty and not everyone manages it.

RetPing · February 9

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

[
What is the scale of those bars? For all we know the lowest and highest could be a 5% difference.
Arcanist is fine and the nerfs on the PTR are unwarranted.

you can check yourself
https://www.esologs.com/

Il will not write in this thread anymore, not interestend in arguing with people that denies direct evidence .

Pixiepumpkin · February 9

RetPing wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

[
What is the scale of those bars? For all we know the lowest and highest could be a 5% difference.
Arcanist is fine and the nerfs on the PTR are unwarranted.

you can check yourself
https://www.esologs.com/

Il will not write in this thread anymore, not interestend in arguing with people that denies direct evidence .

I am not going to a website that sells your data to literally over 200 companies (do not accept those cookies folks).

Arcanist is fine.

Ph1p · February 9

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

So nerf stamina arcanist, not magicka. But is this function solely due to a stamina arcanist, or the synergy with specifc gear sets? (Velothi-Ur cough cough)

If one class gets a lot more synergy out of sets or mythics, then the class should be adjusted down, not the gear. Otherwise that would negatively impact every other class as well.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

How much the damage you show is due to player skill vs less skilled players?

(Stamina) Arcanists dominate across almost all trials, difficulty levels, and player percentiles. It's not just at the top of the leaderboards, where skill would be a valid argument. Even the average Arcanist numbers are higher than the average for other classes. Given that Arcanists are often recommended to and used by players with disabilities and less experience, it's safe to say that this is not just a skill gap.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

What is the scale of those bars? For all we know the lowest and highest could be a 5% difference.

The exact scale differs from trial to trial, but they are not hiding a tiny difference. I had a systematic look at the numbers a few months ago and it's not a mere 5% difference between top and bottom. Even just between Arcanist and 2nd place, there was more than 10% difference in median damage on regular veteran difficulty. Between Arcanist and 5th place, it could be well above 30%.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

How much of that is AOE vs boss fight? Arcanist definitely do well with AOE, no question and its due to fatecarver not tracking mobs which is also its bane (cant hit anything in PVP).

Those are damage statistics across boss fights.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Arcanist is fine and the nerfs on the PTR are unwarranted.

Every data point shows that Arcanist damage dealers do significantly better than every other class, regardless of trial, difficulty level, or player ability/experience. Besides, the upcoming nerf is 7% of beam damage, which is maybe 40-50% of overall damage output, so Arcanists are losing perhaps 3-4% in actual content... Hardly a nerf hammer that will gut the class.

One caveat though, that does have to be looked at: All those arguments above relate to PVE. I don't know about PVP so won't comment there.

Fingolfinn01 · February 9

It seems like they are going to nerf it, by how much depends... I would say a moderate amount, especially if the class isn't to op'ed in pvp. I agree with op, those who find weaving difficult should be able to tackle harder content on a more easy to play class.

Pixiepumpkin · February 9

Ph1p wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

So nerf stamina arcanist, not magicka. But is this function solely due to a stamina arcanist, or the synergy with specifc gear sets? (Velothi-Ur cough cough)

If one class gets a lot more synergy out of sets or mythics, then the class should be adjusted down, not the gear. Otherwise that would negatively impact every other class as well.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

How much the damage you show is due to player skill vs less skilled players?

(Stamina) Arcanists dominate across almost all trials, difficulty levels, and player percentiles. It's not just at the top of the leaderboards, where skill would be a valid argument. Even the average Arcanist numbers are higher than the average for other classes. Given that Arcanists are often recommended to and used by players with disabilities and less experience, it's safe to say that this is not just a skill gap.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

What is the scale of those bars? For all we know the lowest and highest could be a 5% difference.

The exact scale differs from trial to trial, but they are not hiding a tiny difference. I had a systematic look at the numbers a few months ago and it's not a mere 5% difference between top and bottom. Even just between Arcanist and 2nd place, there was more than 10% difference in median damage on regular veteran difficulty. Between Arcanist and 5th place, it could be well above 30%.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

How much of that is AOE vs boss fight? Arcanist definitely do well with AOE, no question and its due to fatecarver not tracking mobs which is also its bane (cant hit anything in PVP).

Those are damage statistics across boss fights.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Arcanist is fine and the nerfs on the PTR are unwarranted.

Every data point shows that Arcanist damage dealers do significantly better than every other class, regardless of trial, difficulty level, or player ability/experience. Besides, the upcoming nerf is 7% of beam damage, which is maybe 40-50% of overall damage output, so Arcanists are losing perhaps 3-4% in actual content... Hardly a nerf hammer that will gut the class.

One caveat though, that does have to be looked at: All those arguments above relate to PVE. I don't know about PVP so won't comment there.

and most of that is stamina arcanist, not magicka...the nerf affects magicka as well. So, the issue can not rely solely on the class itself. If the class was the issue then magicka should be performing exactly the same or a lot better.

Ph1p · February 9

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

and most of that is stamina arcanist, not magicka...the nerf affects magicka as well. So, the issue can not rely solely on the class itself. If the class was the issue then magicka should be performing exactly the same or a lot better.

Well, at least we seem to finally agree that stamina Arcanists specifically are significantly stronger than any other build, including their magicka counterparts... Thanks for the discussion!

ceruulean · February 9

Silver Shards and Puncturing Strikes deal reduced damage to AoEs enemies. Fatecarver needs the same treatment.

Galeriano · February 9

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

You mentioned buffing everything to arcanist level which basically would make things like a cake walk.

Arcanist is already performing close to the other classes, so I don't agree that pushing the ones that aren't would suddenly make everything a cake walk. Necromancer doesn't just feel bad to play because it isn't as good as Arc or DK. It feels bad to play in general.

In what world arcanist is performing close to the other classes? It have on average higher single target, way higher AoE that is applied passively, better survivability, way better sustain, way simplier rotation, way higher variety of sets to pick from etc.

Arcanist has left other classes way behind. This is not a coincidence that first time in ESO history one class have similar population in all difficulty modes of group content than all the other classes combined.

Does this really sound like something that would happen when a class is "performing close to the other classes"? We always had metas and always specific class was at the top but never top class was dominating so much.

Jestir · February 9

Galeriano wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

You mentioned buffing everything to arcanist level which basically would make things like a cake walk.

Arcanist is already performing close to the other classes, so I don't agree that pushing the ones that aren't would suddenly make everything a cake walk. Necromancer doesn't just feel bad to play because it isn't as good as Arc or DK. It feels bad to play in general.

In what world arcanist is performing close to the other classes? It have on average higher single target, way higher AoE that is applied passively, better survivability, way better sustain, way simplier rotation, way higher variety of sets to pick from etc.

Arcanist has left other classes way behind. This is not a coincidence that first time in ESO history one class have similar population in all difficulty modes of group content than all the other classes combined.

Does this really sound like something that would happen when a class is "performing close to the other classes"? We always had metas and always specific class was at the top but never top class was dominating so much.

While it does significantly over perform when it comes to AOE damage and to a lesser extent survivability (combination of fate carver shield and tentacle spammable healing), it is going to be a popular pick because for the first time we finally have a class that gives an easy to understand and executable way to play.

While yes Abyssal impact needs it's power spread around elsewhere in the kit (probably into rune blades ) and rune carver needs a jabs or silver shards like less-damage-past-x-enemy those simple changes should fix both of those issues listed above.

There is no reason to completely destroy the class for the many many people who love the class. Arcanist is also probably the first time in years that a majority of people would say that the devs got something right

merpins · February 9

RetPing wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

[
What is the scale of those bars? For all we know the lowest and highest could be a 5% difference.
Arcanist is fine and the nerfs on the PTR are unwarranted.

you can check yourself
https://www.esologs.com/

Il will not write in this thread anymore, not interestend in arguing with people that denies direct evidence .

This site shows DPS during boss fights. It doesn't show sources of DPS, and if you're attacking more mobs than just the boss. Arcanist is performing higher than other classes due to its high AOE damage that's also its main single target spammable. If you just look at dps against single entities, you'll find it's pretty comparable. I mean obviously, the single target Nightblade isn't going to get as high of a DPS score as an arcanist during a boss that summons ads. Parses are more valuable in calculating DPS comparisons in this instance than dungeon and trial tracking data.

Look at the popular builds and their parses. Stam arcanist builds are between 130k and 140k dps, though leaning towards 130. There are other class builds that are higher than that (some significantly higher), but on average, most classes are around there. Some are a bit lower, but those need to be addressed and even buffed (necro, stam warden, magplar...). This means the DPS isn't performing higher than other classes. It's the AOE that is.