PvP Balance

ZDunlain

I restarted my statistics (PvP addon) a month or two ago and in this chart you can see how well balanced is the game around nightblades, the class that kills me more than a third (34.35%) of the time is nightblade meanwhile necros not even 2% of the times and well, templars just because of the op radiant oppression, if not they couldn't kill anything because jabs is a wet noodle.

The difference between classes is abysmal.



Don't think is because i dont know how to play against nb because I have 33k resistances and more than 50% crit resistance and merciless resolve hits me around 10k each time if I am not blocking

That said, ZOS, if you are gonna add more content to PvP in Q4, just fix your game first.

Major_Toughness

Why are you not blocking bow procs if you claim you know how to play against NB's?

Icy_Nelyan

Not always you can block bow proc, for example when under CC or when in the middle of the fight against someone else, or well, because they shoot you from stealth/invisible close to melee range while you are not aware of them.

In addition most people play this game without sounds so it is not easy to hear the boom sound from the bow, not counting that, even if you play with sounds and effects, when you are in a fight against others there a many different sounds/effects that sometimes notice something specific is a bit hard.

And as a side note not all nightblades shoot their merciless resolve after they hit you with their ulti or only as an execute, I play a non-invisible mage like nightblade and I don't play that combo, I even use meteor ulti and not the class one to empower damage and still my bow melts people.

So "dodge it", or "block it" or "you cannot notice that when they fire it because of noise it produces" are the most useless and unhelpful comments a person may write ^^.

Mayrael

These statistics aren't very reliable for several reasons:

- The PvP mode in which you play largely determines the classes encountered, thus distorting quantitative statistics.
- Character deaths typically involve more than one player, often the one dealing the most damage doesn't deliver the killing blow, leaving classes without finishers at a disadvantage. The amount of damage dealt is much more reliable (as in battlegrounds).

I'm not saying you're wrong, but these statistics are rather unreliable, especially considering the small sample size.

Jierdanit

Icy_Nelyan wrote: »

Not always you can block bow proc, for example when under CC or when in the middle of the fight against someone else, or well, because they shoot you from stealth/invisible close to melee range while you are not aware of them.

In addition most people play this game without sounds so it is not easy to hear the boom sound from the bow, not counting that, even if you play with sounds and effects, when you are in a fight against others there a many different sounds/effects that sometimes notice something specific is a bit hard.

And as a side note not all nightblades shoot their merciless resolve after they hit you with their ulti or only as an execute, I play a non-invisible mage like nightblade and I don't play that combo, I even use meteor ulti and not the class one to empower damage and still my bow melts people.

So "dodge it", or "block it" or "you cannot notice that when they fire it because of noise it produces" are the most useless and unhelpful comments a person may write ^^.

Dodging or blocking is literally the counterplay against Merciless Resolve, so the only useful comments are "dodge it", "block it" or if you cant do that "learn to play".

Icy_Nelyan

Jierdanit wrote: »

Icy_Nelyan wrote: »

Not always you can block bow proc, for example when under CC or when in the middle of the fight against someone else, or well, because they shoot you from stealth/invisible close to melee range while you are not aware of them.

In addition most people play this game without sounds so it is not easy to hear the boom sound from the bow, not counting that, even if you play with sounds and effects, when you are in a fight against others there a many different sounds/effects that sometimes notice something specific is a bit hard.

And as a side note not all nightblades shoot their merciless resolve after they hit you with their ulti or only as an execute, I play a non-invisible mage like nightblade and I don't play that combo, I even use meteor ulti and not the class one to empower damage and still my bow melts people.

So "dodge it", or "block it" or "you cannot notice that when they fire it because of noise it produces" are the most useless and unhelpful comments a person may write ^^.

Dodging or blocking is literally the counterplay against Merciless Resolve, so the only useful comments are "dodge it", "block it" or if you cant do that "learn to play".

Learning to play while under CC is pretty pointless, if you are able to dodge or block while stunned or when you are not even aware of the nightblades ready to shoot the bow against you, you probably aren't even human, still the comment is highly useless and unhelpful.

In addition, if while fighting against 5 or more enemies, you are able to predict all your target moves able to know what skill/spell they are going to fire in every moment, you are wasting your time on this game, you ahould spent your time better making tons of money and kickstart the humanity directly into the future.

1v1 is a way more different topic, but it wasn't what I was talking about.

So saying "dodge it" or "block it" is useless since, again, it can't be done sometimes.

ZDunlain

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Why are you not blocking bow procs if you claim you know how to play against NB's?

Sure in a 1vX or XvX situations is really easy block and rolldodge all damage you take...

You think in cyro all is 1v1 and you can do something when stunned and you can predict all movements? Literally nosense comment xd.

You must be the best player even in poker lol.

ZDunlain

Icy_Nelyan wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Icy_Nelyan wrote: »

Not always you can block bow proc, for example when under CC or when in the middle of the fight against someone else, or well, because they shoot you from stealth/invisible close to melee range while you are not aware of them.

In addition most people play this game without sounds so it is not easy to hear the boom sound from the bow, not counting that, even if you play with sounds and effects, when you are in a fight against others there a many different sounds/effects that sometimes notice something specific is a bit hard.

And as a side note not all nightblades shoot their merciless resolve after they hit you with their ulti or only as an execute, I play a non-invisible mage like nightblade and I don't play that combo, I even use meteor ulti and not the class one to empower damage and still my bow melts people.

So "dodge it", or "block it" or "you cannot notice that when they fire it because of noise it produces" are the most useless and unhelpful comments a person may write ^^.

Dodging or blocking is literally the counterplay against Merciless Resolve, so the only useful comments are "dodge it", "block it" or if you cant do that "learn to play".

Learning to play while under CC is pretty pointless, if you are able to dodge or block while stunned or when you are not even aware of the nightblades ready to shoot the bow against you, you probably aren't even human, still the comment is highly useless and unhelpful.

In addition, if while fighting against 5 or more enemies, you are able to predict all your target moves able to know what skill/spell they are going to fire in every moment, you are wasting your time on this game, you ahould spent your time better making tons of money and kickstart the humanity directly into the future.

1v1 is a way more different topic, but it wasn't what I was talking about.

So saying "dodge it" or "block it" is useless since, again, it can't be done sometimes.

Nah, don't waste your time on this guys, they show themselves. It seems they dont know what a combo is, the burst is precedeed normally by a stun or burst-stun-execute, they don't know the basics lol.

ZDunlain

Mayrael wrote: »

These statistics aren't very reliable for several reasons:

- The PvP mode in which you play largely determines the classes encountered, thus distorting quantitative statistics.
- Character deaths typically involve more than one player, often the one dealing the most damage doesn't deliver the killing blow, leaving classes without finishers at a disadvantage. The amount of damage dealt is much more reliable (as in battlegrounds).

I'm not saying you're wrong, but these statistics are rather unreliable, especially considering the small sample size.

I understand, I mainly Cyrodiil, but the case is 34% of deaths are from one class between 7 is not a good sign of balance by any chance and more if templars op execute kills me only 12% of the time.

NyassaV

While I wont deny Nightblade is popular... A big reason it's high on your kill list is because bad Nightblades are everywhere and thus easy to kill. As for dying by nightblades? They do a lot of dmg and a lot of people just Xv1 with bows.

Though the point of nightblade being popular still stands I'm pretty sure these stats aren't that accurate number wise.

StarOfElyon

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Why are you not blocking bow procs if you claim you know how to play against NB's?

Today, it took everything I had in me just to break free from the stun on incap. I didn't even get a chance to roll dodge. My character was still in the break free animation when the bow hit me.

StaticWave

Lol the comments telling OP and @Icy_Nelyan to "just block" are pretty hilarious. Here's what most of them don't get:

1) Top tier NBs play the class more like a pressure build instead of pure burst. Obviously, they'll combo bow proc with Off Balance or Incap debuffs when available, but when they aren't available, they will use bow procs on cooldown.

So what's going to happen in a 1v1 against a top tier NB is you have to block cast pretty much everything. If you don't, you're going to eat a bow proc every 5 seconds or so. When you get Off Balanced or Incapped, you will literally have to hold that block button or spam dodge roll until they expire. But that brings us to the 2nd point:

2) Top tier NBs will light attack > Concealed > bash every single GCD. That will drain your stam twice if you just hold block, or drain your stam once if you block cast. You can test that yourself if you doubt me.

So imagine trying to hold block so you don't get stunned by Off Balance and get your stam drained twice every second, or block cast and risk getting stunned into a bow proc because of latency. Next patch Incap gets 12s of duration too, so good luck trying to block cast thru 12s of taking 20% more dmg.

So in short, yes, telling people to "just block" is nonconstructive lol. There's a reason why NB is currently one of the strongest dueling specs in the game. The top NBs already know their combo is easy to avoid. That's why they aren't going to be predictable. They'll combine a bunch of combat mechanics together to create a high "APM" playstyle that converts the bursty nature of NB into pressure. Now add 1-2 procs on top of that, and you have yourself a class with pressure and unmatched burst.

Szende

I don't know mate... I play without significant resistances and no vampirism out of spite, still having a chance to react against these arrows even if eating an incap beforehand. It just really not hard to predict and except these kind of attacks. If you are on 50-70% of health, there is no law against healing yourself if you feel like the NB have it's ultimate up. Really sounds an issue of expertise. Nothing wrong with it, but doesn't really make it impossible to defend against. In fact, it's relatively easy to avoid.

Also 33k resistance isn't that big of a deal, considering the amount of penetration and % based damage increases. 10k crit in that case is quite low and easy to shrug off.

Zabagad

NyassaV wrote: »

While I wont deny Nightblade is popular... A big reason it's high on your kill list is because bad Nightblades are everywhere and thus easy to kill. As for dying by nightblades? They do a lot of dmg and a lot of people just Xv1 with bows.

Though the point of nightblade being popular still stands I'm pretty sure these stats aren't that accurate number wise.

I agree on that - Killcounter doesn't show any good statistics for many reasons.

First - as a magSorc main here - I agree that NB is the most played class in Cyro and I agree that PvP NB are the strongest class at the moment.

But killcounter is not more then an indicator of any statement - but no proof at all.
First it depends only on kills with your class and your skill and your way to play.
For me - for example that means - if I cant kill you in 15-30s I move away almost all the time.
If I play against a warden/DK/S&B/healPlar class/player/style - I walk away, because I can't kill them usually alone.
So that lead to almost no deaths to these classes/setups - but no kills either.

NB on the other hand is and should be high risk - high effort class and that means they can kill you quickly - but on the other hand you should kill them quick too. (in theory - since they got the heal and all the buffs since U35 that you can't kill good NBs quick - but you still can kill less skillfull players which only try to gank and then run away or use cloak)
But thats the reason NB will always #1 of almost every killcounter - except the most tanky builds.
(you didn't tell your health btw and I would guess to change your stats you should maybe add another 5K )

On the other hand, you (OP) should also have the most kills on NBs - and you have!
You didn't talk to your way to counter them - but maybe you could add another way to reveal them?
I'm quite sure your stats would look different then. (+5K health + 1 reveal)

Just for reference here are 3 different sorcs stats from me:

(Yes I have to ckeck for a newer version from killcounter as I have no Arcs inside )
I always make a fresh start every 2-3 patches through mv/cp and del "Killcounter.lua" in the "SavedVariables" folder.

But you could say - DKs/Temp/Warden are less powerfull as Sorcs/NBs - but as I said it's just my way to play.
So you can see, that I fight most of the time NBs and Sorcs - the other classes I only fight if I see a chance to get a kill.
If I remember correctly the middle stats are from a Sorc who had no NB counter except magelight - the other 2 had at least detection pots and the right one even more NB reveals....

TL;DR: NB is the strongest and most played class in Cyro - but killcounter is not a good way to show that.

StaticWave

Szende wrote: »

I don't know mate... I play without significant resistances and no vampirism out of spite, still having a chance to react against these arrows even if eating an incap beforehand. It just really not hard to predict and except these kind of attacks. If you are on 50-70% of health, there is no law against healing yourself if you feel like the NB have it's ultimate up. Really sounds an issue of expertise. Nothing wrong with it, but doesn't really make it impossible to defend against. In fact, it's relatively easy to avoid.

Also 33k resistance isn't that big of a deal, considering the amount of penetration and % based damage increases. 10k crit in that case is quite low and easy to shrug off.

Bad NBs are easy to avoid. Good NBs play a lot different. A good NB will make you reclaim this statement lol.

xDeusEJRx

StaticWave wrote: »

Lol the comments telling OP and @Icy_Nelyan to "just block" are pretty hilarious. Here's what most of them don't get:

1) Top tier NBs play the class more like a pressure build instead of pure burst. Obviously, they'll combo bow proc with Off Balance or Incap debuffs when available, but when they aren't available, they will use bow procs on cooldown.

So what's going to happen in a 1v1 against a top tier NB is you have to block cast pretty much everything. If you don't, you're going to eat a bow proc every 5 seconds or so. When you get Off Balanced or Incapped, you will literally have to hold that block button or spam dodge roll until they expire. But that brings us to the 2nd point:

2) Top tier NBs will light attack > Concealed > bash every single GCD. That will drain your stam twice if you just hold block, or drain your stam once if you block cast. You can test that yourself if you doubt me.

So imagine trying to hold block so you don't get stunned by Off Balance and get your stam drained twice every second, or block cast and risk getting stunned into a bow proc because of latency. Next patch Incap gets 12s of duration too, so good luck trying to block cast thru 12s of taking 20% more dmg.

So in short, yes, telling people to "just block" is nonconstructive lol. There's a reason why NB is currently one of the strongest dueling specs in the game. The top NBs already know their combo is easy to avoid. That's why they aren't going to be predictable. They'll combine a bunch of combat mechanics together to create a high "APM" playstyle that converts the bursty nature of NB into pressure. Now add 1-2 procs on top of that, and you have yourself a class with pressure and unmatched burst.

I'm glad someone is here to say it, I'm by no means a top tier NB player but even I grasp this concept

StaticWave

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Lol the comments telling OP and @Icy_Nelyan to "just block" are pretty hilarious. Here's what most of them don't get:

1) Top tier NBs play the class more like a pressure build instead of pure burst. Obviously, they'll combo bow proc with Off Balance or Incap debuffs when available, but when they aren't available, they will use bow procs on cooldown.

So what's going to happen in a 1v1 against a top tier NB is you have to block cast pretty much everything. If you don't, you're going to eat a bow proc every 5 seconds or so. When you get Off Balanced or Incapped, you will literally have to hold that block button or spam dodge roll until they expire. But that brings us to the 2nd point:

2) Top tier NBs will light attack > Concealed > bash every single GCD. That will drain your stam twice if you just hold block, or drain your stam once if you block cast. You can test that yourself if you doubt me.

So imagine trying to hold block so you don't get stunned by Off Balance and get your stam drained twice every second, or block cast and risk getting stunned into a bow proc because of latency. Next patch Incap gets 12s of duration too, so good luck trying to block cast thru 12s of taking 20% more dmg.

So in short, yes, telling people to "just block" is nonconstructive lol. There's a reason why NB is currently one of the strongest dueling specs in the game. The top NBs already know their combo is easy to avoid. That's why they aren't going to be predictable. They'll combine a bunch of combat mechanics together to create a high "APM" playstyle that converts the bursty nature of NB into pressure. Now add 1-2 procs on top of that, and you have yourself a class with pressure and unmatched burst.

I'm glad someone is here to say it, I'm by no means a top tier NB player but even I grasp this concept

Yea, NB is able to bash weave so much because their spammable, Concealed, and burst, Merciless Resolve, all cost magicka. The only 3 skills costing stamina are Vigor, Powered Extraction, and Killer’s Blade. Only Vigor is used frequently, whereas Powered Extraction is only used every 30s or near execute range to kill someone thru roll dodge. Killing someone will also restore 1k stam and mag too.

Adding to that, NB gets access to Major + Minor Endurance and Intellect, so they literally run around with 2k+ stam regen with only 3 skills to dump their stam. Combined with their tankiness, they rarely need to dodge roll and can spend all that stam to bash weave. Even if they do roll, they can do that for no cost because Phantasmal Escape lol..

Next patch, NB sustain is ridiculously easy with new Siphoning Attacks. Bash weaving will have negligible cost and you can literally hold block for the entire fight and never run out of stam lol.

So much for “just block”. I’ve dueled both top tier and average NBs and the difference between their APM is insane. The top tier NBs can easily pull 4k DPS and drain your stam so fast it’s crazy. Their block casting and bash weaving is almost perfect too. It’s not uncommon to see half of your spammables blocked against top tier NBs. I’ve gotten pretty good at block casting stuff too, but against top tier NBs it’s hard sometimes because they drain my stam so fast I end up having to stop block casting lol. Albeit it’s mostly because I use more stam costing skills as a stamsorc and getting my stam drained along with expending stam for my skills will leave me dry, but NB having the ability to bash weave so well is something ppl shouldn’t leave out when talking about fighting a NB.

Major_Toughness

ZDunlain wrote: »

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Why are you not blocking bow procs if you claim you know how to play against NB's?

Sure in a 1vX or XvX situations is really easy block and rolldodge all damage you take...

You think in cyro all is 1v1 and you can do something when stunned and you can predict all movements? Literally nosense comment xd.

You must be the best player even in poker lol.

So you died because of a CC from another player, who might not be a NB?
If you are outnumbered and getting CC'd, unavoidable at times I know, how is that a class problem. You were likely to die anyway.

ZDunlain

Major_Toughness wrote: »

ZDunlain wrote: »

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Why are you not blocking bow procs if you claim you know how to play against NB's?

Sure in a 1vX or XvX situations is really easy block and rolldodge all damage you take...

You think in cyro all is 1v1 and you can do something when stunned and you can predict all movements? Literally nosense comment xd.

You must be the best player even in poker lol.

So you died because of a CC from another player, who might not be a NB?
If you are outnumbered and getting CC'd, unavoidable at times I know, how is that a class problem. You were likely to die anyway.

Well if the ability doesn't deal 10k+ damage (near 1/3 of my HP) maybe I will not die, tell me wich ability does the same lol.

StaticWave

Buckle up guys. Sorc will be the new OP class 🤣🤣

Durham

NB and Sorcs are the most common classes in PVP if you do not see that then you do not PVP. People play the most effective classes not the least effective. DK is a strong 3rd option atm. (Arcanist still to new IMO)

All you have to do is look at the top 100 per class and look at the minimum AP to get into the top 100 and you quickly see the most popular classes.

acastanza_ESO

Durham wrote: »

NB and Sorcs are the most common classes in PVP if you do not see that then you do not PVP. People play the most effective classes not the least effective. DK is a strong 3rd option atm. (Arcanist still to new IMO)

All you have to do is look at the top 100 per class and look at the minimum AP to get into the top 100 and you quickly see the most popular classes.

I actually have hard data here. Sorc is roughly tied with DK with Warden only a hair behind.

I created a new character at the beginning of U40 and have played almost 6 nights a week in Blackreach (or during mayhem side campaigns).

I parsed my killcounter data through last night for this new character, and computed unique characters. So this will encompass all characters that either I killed or killed me and each character is only being counted once.
The data totals 2650 unique encountered characters.

Keep in mind that the sorc numbers are boosted by all the new and returning sorcs from the last two nights.



You can clearly see that NB is still head-and-shoulders more popular than any other class. Sorc and DK are roughly tied for second. Then Warden at a clear third. Templar 4th. Arcanist 5th (this data should be outside the initial spike in Arcanist FotM on release popularity), and Necro dead last by a massive margin.

Avran_Sylt

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Durham wrote: »

NB and Sorcs are the most common classes in PVP if you do not see that then you do not PVP. People play the most effective classes not the least effective. DK is a strong 3rd option atm. (Arcanist still to new IMO)

All you have to do is look at the top 100 per class and look at the minimum AP to get into the top 100 and you quickly see the most popular classes.

I actually have hard data here. Sorc is roughly tied with DK with Warden only a hair behind.

I created a new character at the beginning of U40 and have played almost 6 nights a week in Blackreach (or during mayhem side campaigns).

I parsed my killcounter data through last night for this new character, and computed unique characters. So this will encompass all characters that either I killed or killed me and each character is only being counted once.
The data totals 2650 unique encountered characters.

Keep in mind that the sorc numbers are boosted by all the new and returning sorcs from the last two nights.



You can clearly see that NB is still head-and-shoulders more popular than any other class. Sorc and DK are roughly tied for second. Then Warden at a clear third. Templar 4th. Arcanist 5th (this data should be outside the initial spike in Arcanist FotM on release popularity), and Necro dead last by a massive margin.

I wanted to like necro.

But Sorc has a better pet build.

Where my zombies man.

Urzigurumash

Good players only die to unblockable and undodgeable skills like Wall of Elements

TechMaybeHic

Im sure kill stats are just a popularity contest.

My templars most killed class is always NB, and most killed by is also NB. There's just always been a lot.

i still see a lot of templars as healers that then RO from the back. I see far less that are forward attacking, and a fraction of a fraction that are any kind of threat

I joke with my friends that if you play Necro, you suddenly become Cyrodiils most wanted for people whos only kill quest remaining for the day is necro. They have been nerfed nearly out of existence.

DK has always been popular, but I would argue they are pretty balanced right now

Zabagad

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I actually have hard data here. Sorc is roughly tied with DK with Warden only a hair behind.

I created a new character at the beginning of U40 and have played almost 6 nights a week in Blackreach (or during mayhem side campaigns).

I parsed my killcounter data through last night for this new character, and computed unique characters. So this will encompass all characters that either I killed or killed me and each character is only being counted once.
The data totals 2650 unique encountered characters.

Sorry to tell you, that this are not really "hard data". (But they look nice - good presentation)

First of all - I like that you at least look for unique encounters - that's much better then most ppl do when they look on kills/death only. This helps a lot to go arround many of cons of killcounter.

Because Killcounter has many cons - The biggest problem is that only killings are included.
Every stalemate fight - every succesful escape (cloak/streak) is not inside.
And ofc a high risk high reward class like NB will always be overpresented then a turtle class.
Just as an example - IF sorc were unkillable now - you would not see them...
And playing during MYM and counting kills only is bad on it's own, bc you will kill many PvEers much easier then PvPers and this makes kill based data even worse.
Then - it's only your playstyle and your class (and data from different build/class/playstyle could look different) - but as I said before - at least your way to look for unique occ is leveling out some cons...
I guess the data would be even better, if you only count unique player who are killed/killt you minimum X times. This would at least even out some more PvE player which only play for tier1-3.


Btw: I would recomment to cp/mv killcounter.lua in the "SavedVariables" folder to get fresh U41 data over time, bc U41 is a major change in my opinion...
And thats another problem of killcounter to get fresh data over time and not get only a mean from the hole duration.
As said - MYM included is anyway not the best time to get the "real" data - whatever the "real" data is

But here is the biggest issue, why your data is only a very narrow view and maximum "hard data" for "Blackreach PC/??".
(sitenote: Would be interesting where you play! I assumed you play NA - but from my data I would guess you have to play EU, because my data show a too different picture for blackreach....? But It would fit quite good for EU.)

I analyze the data since U35 with different ways (before I used only killcounter) of "Top100 data" and I do this for both CP campaigns on EU and NA. (I would like to see consoles too, but unfortunately....)
And over the time since U35 I could see so many differences between the campaigns and their population.
It is quite astonishing how different the campaigns and platforms are in relation to the population.

So - again - I like your way and the presentation and it's much better then just a random guess or whatever.
But it's an overestimation to think that this is the truth and that would be hard data for statements like:
"Sorc is roughly tied with DK with Warden only a hair behind."
From my data sorc is already (that means U40, bc I need time to get U41 data - minimum 3 month for a samplesize I trust)
more played then DKs. But - it doesn't matter if my data are better then yours or vice versa!

I agree on "You can clearly see that NB is still head-and-shoulders more popular than any other class" - I don't know if this will change enough with U41 to get sorc on top - but I doubt it. The advantage is to huge in my opinion and NB got nice buffs too.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

ZDunlain wrote: »

I restarted my statistics (PvP addon) a month or two ago and in this chart you can see how well balanced is the game around nightblades, the class that kills me more than a third (34.35%) of the time is nightblade meanwhile necros not even 2% of the times and well, templars just because of the op radiant oppression, if not they couldn't kill anything because jabs is a wet noodle.

The difference between classes is abysmal.



Don't think is because i dont know how to play against nb because I have 33k resistances and more than 50% crit resistance and merciless resolve hits me around 10k each time if I am not blocking

That said, ZOS, if you are gonna add more content to PvP in Q4, just fix your game first.

There are more nightblades in Cyrodiil, so you will meet more of them. Playing Necromancer in Cyrodiil is only for brave souls.
If you were able to record how many were vampires and mortals on the above sample you would have written

"the class that kills me over 99% are vampires"

Durham

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Durham wrote: »

NB and Sorcs are the most common classes in PVP if you do not see that then you do not PVP. People play the most effective classes not the least effective. DK is a strong 3rd option atm. (Arcanist still to new IMO)

All you have to do is look at the top 100 per class and look at the minimum AP to get into the top 100 and you quickly see the most popular classes.

I actually have hard data here. Sorc is roughly tied with DK with Warden only a hair behind.

I created a new character at the beginning of U40 and have played almost 6 nights a week in Blackreach (or during mayhem side campaigns).

I parsed my killcounter data through last night for this new character, and computed unique characters. So this will encompass all characters that either I killed or killed me and each character is only being counted once.
The data totals 2650 unique encountered characters.

Keep in mind that the sorc numbers are boosted by all the new and returning sorcs from the last two nights.



You can clearly see that NB is still head-and-shoulders more popular than any other class. Sorc and DK are roughly tied for second. Then Warden at a clear third. Templar 4th. Arcanist 5th (this data should be outside the initial spike in Arcanist FotM on release popularity), and Necro dead last by a massive margin.

Awsome data!

Mine looks similar except DKs are a clear 3rd and Wardens/Templar are a clear 4th/5th I have seen Templars catch up to Wardens in the last month. Necro's are way back!

acastanza_ESO

Zabagad wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I actually have hard data here. Sorc is roughly tied with DK with Warden only a hair behind.

I created a new character at the beginning of U40 and have played almost 6 nights a week in Blackreach (or during mayhem side campaigns).

I parsed my killcounter data through last night for this new character, and computed unique characters. So this will encompass all characters that either I killed or killed me and each character is only being counted once.
The data totals 2650 unique encountered characters.

Sorry to tell you, that this are not really "hard data". (But they look nice - good presentation)

First of all - I like that you at least look for unique encounters - that's much better then most ppl do when they look on kills/death only. This helps a lot to go arround many of cons of killcounter.

Because Killcounter has many cons - The biggest problem is that only killings are included.
Every stalemate fight - every succesful escape (cloak/streak) is not inside.
And ofc a high risk high reward class like NB will always be overpresented then a turtle class.
Just as an example - IF sorc were unkillable now - you would not see them...
And playing during MYM and counting kills only is bad on it's own, bc you will kill many PvEers much easier then PvPers and this makes kill based data even worse.
Then - it's only your playstyle and your class (and data from different build/class/playstyle could look different) - but as I said before - at least your way to look for unique occ is leveling out some cons...
I guess the data would be even better, if you only count unique player who are killed/killt you minimum X times. This would at least even out some more PvE player which only play for tier1-3.


Btw: I would recomment to cp/mv killcounter.lua in the "SavedVariables" folder to get fresh U41 data over time, bc U41 is a major change in my opinion...
And thats another problem of killcounter to get fresh data over time and not get only a mean from the hole duration.
As said - MYM included is anyway not the best time to get the "real" data - whatever the "real" data is

But here is the biggest issue, why your data is only a very narrow view and maximum "hard data" for "Blackreach PC/??".
(sitenote: Would be interesting where you play! I assumed you play NA - but from my data I would guess you have to play EU, because my data show a too different picture for blackreach....? But It would fit quite good for EU.)

I analyze the data since U35 with different ways (before I used only killcounter) of "Top100 data" and I do this for both CP campaigns on EU and NA. (I would like to see consoles too, but unfortunately....)
And over the time since U35 I could see so many differences between the campaigns and their population.
It is quite astonishing how different the campaigns and platforms are in relation to the population.

So - again - I like your way and the presentation and it's much better then just a random guess or whatever.
But it's an overestimation to think that this is the truth and that would be hard data for statements like:
"Sorc is roughly tied with DK with Warden only a hair behind."
From my data sorc is already (that means U40, bc I need time to get U41 data - minimum 3 month for a samplesize I trust)
more played then DKs. But - it doesn't matter if my data are better then yours or vice versa!

I agree on "You can clearly see that NB is still head-and-shoulders more popular than any other class" - I don't know if this will change enough with U41 to get sorc on top - but I doubt it. The advantage is to huge in my opinion and NB got nice buffs too.

Some really good points here. It is actually Blackreach on PCNA. One caveat I missed that you also didn't mention is that my guild only plays AD so this would be better framed as a representation of the composition of EP+DC. If you fight against AD that may be contributing to a difference in the class composition.

That said, my guild leaves no survivors and doesn't run away so I would argue that it is a reasonably accurate composition of those enemy factions for that timespan.
The point about Mayhem is well taken. I hadn't actually been intending to do this comparison, it was pure coincidence that I started a new character with a fresh KillCounter when I did.

Here is the exact same dataset after some pruining to remove low-encounter characters. The first chart removes anyone that I didn't either die to two or more times, or kill two or more times (1237 characters, so over half the first data set - 1413 characters - were excluded), the second uses the same death filter but is a much stricter kill filter in that they must've been killed 5 or more times. This strict dataset is only 316 characters (honestly a pretty bleak picture of the EP/DC player population in BR). Overall however, the class mix is very similar except for Sorcerer. In both cases the number of Sorcerers is substantially reduced, this is likely a combination of effects (the buff bringing in new sorcerers who haven't been encountered enough to count here, and previous sorcerers coming in once and not returning since the class was underperforming). The other things of note are that Warden and DK ever so slightly trade places with wardens pulling ahead (players who PVP more might slightly prefer wardens over DKs, but not by much), and Arcanist closing the gap with Templar (particularly among the frequent fliers).



I actually do have a better way to collect this data going forward. Miat's PVP Alerts creates a database of characters that you encounter in Cyrodiil, it logs from both your reticle as well as the KillFeed. As it turns out, I'm the new maintainer for Miat's PvP Alerts and in the version on Minion I updated that player database creation function to include a last-seen datestamp. I did need to set it up to backfill the databse with the date you install the update for compatibility, but going forward it should be possible to query out a much more accurate representation of the class composition by parsing this data.

Edit: Okay, so I wrote a script to parse out the encounters from Miat's PlayerDatabase to get a quick peek at how the data is shaking out for U41 so far:


If you want to try this on your Miat's Database here is the Python code:

import luadata
pvpdatafile=open('PvpAlerts.lua','r') #The Path To Your PvpAlerts SavedVariables
pvpdata=pvpdatafile.read()
pvpdatadict=luadata.unserialize(pvpdata)
pvpplayerdb=pvpdatadict


filter_value = 1710144000 #Last Seen UnixTimestamp for U41 Release
unit_class_counts = {}

# Iterate over each character's data
for character_data in pvpplayerdb.values():
last_seen = character_data.get('lastSeen', 0)
if last_seen > filter_value:
unit_class = character_data.get('unitClass')
if unit_class is not None:
unit_class_counts[unit_class] = unit_class_counts.get(unit_class, 0) + 1

# 1 = Dragonknight, 2 = Sorcerer, 3 = Nightblade, 4 = Warden, 5 = Necromancer, 6 = Templar, 117 = Arcanist
print("Aggregated Data:", unit_class_counts)

Zabagad

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Some really good points here. It is actually Blackreach on PCNA. One caveat I missed that you also didn't mention is that my guild only plays AD so this would be better framed as a representation of the composition of EP+DC. If you fight against AD that may be contributing to a difference in the class composition.

That said, my guild leaves no survivors and doesn't run away so I would argue that it is a reasonably accurate composition of those enemy factions for that timespan.
The point about Mayhem is well taken. I hadn't actually been intending to do this comparison, it was pure coincidence that I started a new character with a fresh KillCounter when I did.

First of all - ty for your answer - I really like how you do your work and handled my input/criticism.
I wasn't expecting a good exchange of arguments!
And I really like your "leaves no survivors"
But overall - to make it short: You can see how much the values shift with different conditions and that they don't look like your initial chart. Sure some points are true for all like NB>.....>Necro

One other point is still: "What is the real population?" Is a PvEer who only playes for tier1-3 somebody we should count or not?
This point will be still in question - even for the next part: Miat's.

And as I said - only Kills and only Blackreach PC/NA and during MYM.
But as far as I understand - you agree on that and even increased it to AD

And btw - with my way to use Top100 values I did for 3 month the Top100 of each alliance (and I tried a lot of other ways like Top101-200 and so on) and there is for sure a difference between alliance and class population.
This is maybe a reason why your killcounter data differ so much to my data and you see less Sorcs then I do for Blackreach PC/NA? (I come back to that later)
Best guess I had for that difference between class and alliance - many people play(ed) without any race any alliance and so for example AD has more Sorcs because they play(ed) Altmer? I don't know if this makes sence? But that's overall not important any longer, because of:

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I actually do have a better way to collect this data going forward. Miat's PVP Alerts creates a database of characters that you encounter in Cyrodiil, it logs from both your reticle as well as the KillFeed. As it turns out, I'm the new maintainer for Miat's PvP Alerts and in the version on Minion I updated that player database creation function to include a last-seen datestamp. I did need to set it up to backfill the databse with the date you install the update for compatibility, but going forward it should be possible to query out a much more accurate representation of the class composition by parsing this data.

Wow - that is by far the best data I could imagine.
And gratz and thank you for maintaining Miat's
Btw: the results of your U41 picture are matching my expectations (which should never be the "goal") - but it's good to see that!

But that's still only Blackreach PC/NA/AD - and btw your group playstyle (but over some time I would assume that with this way playstyle doesn't matter much any longer)
I assume Miat's is counting own alliance too? If not we still have an issue, but I guess Miat's does.
So that would be a perfect way to get the best data for Blackreach PC/NA.
(Except that we will count any tier1-3 player - which are not counted in my data)

So I like to use that on my own for PC/EU/Gray - but 1) I don't know where and how to run that code? and 2) I don't play enough.
At the end it would be the best if you could implement that in Miat's as a function - I don't know if that is possible and how much time that would need?
Then we "only" need 4 people (EU/NA * Black/Grey) and a way to get a mean and all that stuff... I don't know if somebody wants to do all that work

But again - that way is by far the best and most reliable way I can imagine for each campaign!

Just for my personal interests and to get a better feeling how good/wrong my way is I would really like to see another chart from your Miat's data for the same timespawn as your initial Killcounter-U40-chart.
Because I saw with my way for U40 Blackreach PC/NA more Sorcs then DKs...

And just to give you some insights of my data - this is what I got since U35:

(but unfortunately with my method I need another 3 month to get U41 data which have enough samplesize - your method is much much faster and that's another plus for that way)

ProudMary

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Why are you not blocking bow procs if you claim you know how to play against NB's?

Because the NB's are shooting from stealth....but you already knew that.