Revert the Azureblight Nerf

Theist_VII

Aldoss wrote: »

More tone deaf changes from the combat team.

Have you been watching the Templar “tank” changes that the class has been receiving over the course of the last year or so?

baconaura

The damage scaling only applying to monsters would have been good enough, and addressed the battleground concerns. why nerf the base damage so much?

The damage scaling needs to be reverted, its too heavy of a nerf across the board, and even at capped targets, there is no "slight buff", it merely matches what the old set's damage was doing with 1 less target. Its from 69% to 14% damage reduction when matching the 6 target cap currently. and at 7 target, it only matches current set.

Here are the calculations on damage based on targets hit with the blight.



Noone was complaining about this set in pve. if anything, maybe buff other aoe sets like aegis caller, or the other hundreds of dead sets that arent being used today..

allan0n

Plaguebreak is NOT enough to counter ballgroups in Cyrodiil! 2-4 azureblights, plague, siege, pulls and 30+ people are the ONLY way to counter well built ballgroups, but it was seemingly rare to find a few people in a faction zerg who were even willing to slot this set. I cannot believe you guys would even consider this.

Twohothardware

As OP suggested, if the devs think Plaguebreak is the answer to these ball groups in PvP it's evident none of them play PvP. The heal stacking of ball groups significantly outperforms any damage from the current Plaguebreak set.

acastanza_ESO

Twohothardware wrote: »

As OP suggested, if the devs think Plaguebreak is the answer to these ball groups in PvP it's evident none of them play PvP. The heal stacking of ball groups significantly outperforms any damage from the current Plaguebreak set.

Heal stacking pre-scribing was enough to outheal plaguebreak. Combined with the absurdly massive shield stacks that scribing has given them the suggestion that Plaguebreak provides any "boom" at all let alone a "big boom" is outright laughable. The only use Plaguebreak has is by ballgroups as extra damage on top of VD for their pug farming. Absolutely disgusting short-shortsightedness by ZOS.

baconaura

I cant comment on openworld cyrodill, since im not in there much. I'm mostly in endgame pve content, and occasionally in bg.

But my thoughts are just turn off damage scaling for battlegrounds, or as someone suggested reduce the effectiveness of shield stacking, cap all shields when under effect of battle spirit, to like 55% of your health like how most of the arcanist personal shields are capped. and if there are less people, or you are playing solo, you can make a build that allows you to go above the 55% cap.

for PVE, there is just so much large groups of damage sponge trash these days, that we are incentivized to use sets like this, especially if we are not arcanists with a big cleaving beam. there was no reason to nerf it for pve, its not like it was overtuned for boss fights. At 1 target its almost a 70% damage reduction, 2 targets, a 50% damage reduction. a common scenario of maybe 2 adds stacked on a boss, i think 36% nerf is still way too much.

like take for example running the arcane knot in vLC. Its a mix of heavy damage sponge trash where azureblight is useful. but there are also a couple parts of that part where we are only targeting 1 add or boss, and this resulting in a 70% dmg loss is too much a damage loss that this set might not be considered anymore.

If you let the damage scaling work like it does currently, where it starts scaling on 1 target, then the damage nerf isnt as bad, but i feel it shouldnt really be changed for pve, as its not really being abused for bosses, where its 1-3 targets(and currently the nerfs to 1-3 targets is too heavy)



the way it is going, this will just end up being another unused set in the growing pile of useless sets. that isnt useful for either pvp or pve. please reconsider this change.

tsaescishoeshiner

I think it's good to make this a PvE-only set, since it causes problems for non–ball groups and in battlegrounds on PTS.

But the current anti–ball group sets should be buffed to make up for it.

acastanza_ESO

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

I think it's good to make this a PvE-only set, since it causes problems for non–ball groups and in battlegrounds on PTS.

But the current anti–ball group sets should be buffed to make up for it.

The problems for non-ballgroups in BGs could have been fully addressed by adjusting the scaling curve. Deleting the set from PVP entirely because ballgroups cried that they were able to die again is disgusting and insulting to the vast majority of the playerbase.

YandereGirlfriend

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

I think it's good to make this a PvE-only set, since it causes problems for non–ball groups and in battlegrounds on PTS.

But the current anti–ball group sets should be buffed to make up for it.

The problems for non-ballgroups in BGs could have been fully addressed by adjusting the scaling curve. Deleting the set from PVP entirely because ballgroups cried that they were able to die again is disgusting and insulting to the vast majority of the playerbase.

Upcoming 8v8 BGs would like a word with you.

If you don't think that Azureblight would be the oppressive meta in those then you haven't thought it through.

BetweenMidgets

Twohothardware wrote: »

As OP suggested, if the devs think Plaguebreak is the answer to these ball groups in PvP it's evident none of them play PvP. The heal stacking of ball groups significantly outperforms any damage from the current Plaguebreak set.

To be fair, we've all known this for a LONG time.
From what I've seen, shield stacking is WAY more of a problem. I saw some guys video on Youtube where their ballgroup was like 2 DPS and the rest were basically barriers or arcanists. Legit a barrier was going off every 5-10 seconds!

acastanza_ESO

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

I think it's good to make this a PvE-only set, since it causes problems for non–ball groups and in battlegrounds on PTS.

But the current anti–ball group sets should be buffed to make up for it.

The problems for non-ballgroups in BGs could have been fully addressed by adjusting the scaling curve. Deleting the set from PVP entirely because ballgroups cried that they were able to die again is disgusting and insulting to the vast majority of the playerbase.

Upcoming 8v8 BGs would like a word with you.

If you don't think that Azureblight would be the oppressive meta in those then you haven't thought it through.

You mean the BGs that aren't ranked in any way, don't have any MMR, or leaderboard, and are purely casual? Oh yeah, people are definitely going to bother coordinating sets for that so that there's enough blight to make an impact, that's totally something people are going to bother with for that game mode.

We get it, you're glad your ballgroup won't have any meaninful counterplay anymore, no need to make up other reasons why "um actually this change is good". It isn't for anyone other than you.

kookie

Pugs Could Kill Ballgroups Before Blight. Pugs Could Kill Ballgroups Before Blight. Pugs Could Kill Ballgroups Before Blight.

acastanza_ESO

kookie wrote: »

Pugs Could Kill Ballgroups Before Blight. Pugs Could Kill Ballgroups Before Blight. Pugs Could Kill Ballgroups Before Blight.

Lmao no. And especially not since scribing gave Ballgroups constant 60k+ shields.

acastanza_ESO

BetweenMidgets wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

As OP suggested, if the devs think Plaguebreak is the answer to these ball groups in PvP it's evident none of them play PvP. The heal stacking of ball groups significantly outperforms any damage from the current Plaguebreak set.

To be fair, we've all known this for a LONG time.
From what I've seen, shield stacking is WAY more of a problem. I saw some guys video on Youtube where their ballgroup was like 2 DPS and the rest were basically barriers or arcanists. Legit a barrier was going off every 5-10 seconds!

Yes, that's exactly the kind of abusive and disgusting gameplay that we need counters for, and balance changes to address. The exact thing that deleting azureblight like the devs are doing now is going to remove the only counterplay for.

Major_Toughness

Had a 9-man group using Azureblight against us (5) in Cyrodiil today and the highest it hit was just under 8k. Average hit was 4-4.5k depending on fight.

This set is not good against 4-man groups as it is. It is only good against large groups and zergs, which is fine in my opinion.

Not only because it requires being coordinated and building around it, sacrificing a set on every players who uses it, but because it is the only counter to them.

I understand the rest of the changes being good for the set in PvE, reducing the amount of encounters it may be BIS for, but the change to remove the set from PvP is disastrous.

tsaescishoeshiner

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

I think it's good to make this a PvE-only set, since it causes problems for non–ball groups and in battlegrounds on PTS.

But the current anti–ball group sets should be buffed to make up for it.

The problems for non-ballgroups in BGs could have been fully addressed by adjusting the scaling curve. Deleting the set from PVP entirely because ballgroups cried that they were able to die again is disgusting and insulting to the vast majority of the playerbase.

Upcoming 8v8 BGs would like a word with you.

If you don't think that Azureblight would be the oppressive meta in those then you haven't thought it through.

You mean the BGs that aren't ranked in any way, don't have any MMR, or leaderboard, and are purely casual? Oh yeah, people are definitely going to bother coordinating sets for that so that there's enough blight to make an impact, that's totally something people are going to bother with for that game mode.

We get it, you're glad your ballgroup won't have any meaninful counterplay anymore, no need to make up other reasons why "um actually this change is good". It isn't for anyone other than you.

People were already using it on PTS to make the battlegrounds pretty oppressive, since everyone tends to wind up crowded together in 8v8. There's reasons for people to support the change other than being in a ballgroup themselves.

I've also never seen a ballgroup wipe or be slowed down by Azureblight (not saying it doesn't happen), but I've seen them use it (on me) for sure. In any case, hopefully we get more anti-ballgroup set buffs, because it would make Cyrodiil a bit more enjoyable.

RaidingTraiding

IncultaWolf wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Amazing change - preserves its utility in PvE while reigning-in the most overperforming set in the history of Cyrodiil.

You play in a ball group, so I see why you're happy this is being removed. Azureblight was the only counter to that.

Wait is that true?

Yeah, they play on DC, I recognize the @ name several times in-game on PCNA.

Can confirm this. It was one of the few counters to their shield stacking group. Running around 7 healers, most in Arkasis with 3 potion cool down glyphs, spamming barriers every few seconds on top of arcanist shield and scribing shield spam. 40k hp with a perma 40k damage shield sometimes even without a barrier up.

I mean sure azureblight might have been overtuned, but it was a great counter to ball groups stacking so many shields, which is even more of an issue than hot stacking. Not sure why shield stacking isn't more of an issue in nerf ball group threads. Like others have said, azureblight should have had the scaling adjusted better instead of just outright nerfing yet another set into complete uselessness.

acastanza_ESO

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Amazing change - preserves its utility in PvE while reigning-in the most overperforming set in the history of Cyrodiil.

You play in a ball group, so I see why you're happy this is being removed. Azureblight was the only counter to that.

Wait is that true?

Yeah, they play on DC, I recognize the @ name several times in-game on PCNA.

Can confirm this. It was one of the few counters to their shield stacking group. Running around 7 healers, most in Arkasis with 3 potion cool down glyphs, spamming barriers every few seconds on top of arcanist shield and scribing shield spam. 40k hp with a perma 40k damage shield sometimes even without a barrier up.

I mean sure azureblight might have been overtuned, but it was a great counter to ball groups stacking so many shields, which is even more of an issue than hot stacking. Not sure why shield stacking isn't more of an issue in nerf ball group threads. Like others have said, azureblight should have had the scaling adjusted better instead of just outright nerfing yet another set into complete uselessness.

The shield stacking is a newer issue that was really only enabled to the current abusive extend by Scribing. But yeah, that group is by far one of the most egregious I've seen. Truly abusive gameplay.

System_Data

I think it's good that the devteam is making use of the "Monsters Only" and "Players Only". This will make future balance tweaks more pinpoint. The problem is that Plaguebreak doesn't measure up to the capabilities of Azureblight.

It would be highly appreciated if the devteam can take another look at Plaguebreak, maybe tweak its numbers and/or functionality to better match what Azureblight provided. Perhaps add Major Defile to the set and/or change its damage type to Oblivion damage and still retain the disease proc, just some ideas that could improve the set.

Maybe the devteam could implement a new cyrodiil weapon, a flamethrower, where the intensity of the fire increases as players are grouped within a certain range. I think that could add some fun and variety/spice, or perhaps i just want to see cyrodiil set on fire.

RaidingTraiding

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Amazing change - preserves its utility in PvE while reigning-in the most overperforming set in the history of Cyrodiil.

You play in a ball group, so I see why you're happy this is being removed. Azureblight was the only counter to that.

Wait is that true?

Yeah, they play on DC, I recognize the @ name several times in-game on PCNA.

Can confirm this. It was one of the few counters to their shield stacking group. Running around 7 healers, most in Arkasis with 3 potion cool down glyphs, spamming barriers every few seconds on top of arcanist shield and scribing shield spam. 40k hp with a perma 40k damage shield sometimes even without a barrier up.

I mean sure azureblight might have been overtuned, but it was a great counter to ball groups stacking so many shields, which is even more of an issue than hot stacking. Not sure why shield stacking isn't more of an issue in nerf ball group threads. Like others have said, azureblight should have had the scaling adjusted better instead of just outright nerfing yet another set into complete uselessness.

The shield stacking is a newer issue that was really only enabled to the current abusive extend by Scribing. But yeah, that group is by far one of the most egregious I've seen. Truly abusive gameplay.

I actually started seeing it when arcanist was first introduced (same group imagine that), it wasn't as widespread back then but when scribing came out it really started getting out of hand with more groups adopting that playstyle as well. It was also nerfed a bit when gibbering shield was nerfed which was before scribing came out iirc. But to me it seems like ZOS recognized the problem when they nerfed gibbering shield but went ahead and added scribing shields anyway. Well we all know why new stuff is overtuned when it's first released.

BardInSolitude

Disclaimer: I'm not impartial - no one is. I'm a ball group GM, of course I view this change as overwhelmingly positive from my own perspective. Still, I believe that Azureblight was overtuned to the point where it was not just unreasonably good at being a ball group buster, but also good against small scale groups and zergs, too.

Look, complaints about ball groups aren't all entirely unreasonable, but there's no single set that makes ball groups work; you need a combination of many mechanics to get a good ball group out there. Now, perhaps shields are too strong, or healing stacks too much, or VD does too much damage, or stacks are too neat - but you need all those things in tandem to make an impact in Cyro. Conversly, AB is just one set and it is able to have nearly as much influence as an array of mechanics, and that just doesn't seem reasonable. Hell, you have logs that are entirely dominated by AB damage, to the point that they shadow countersiege damage, which have traditionally topped Cyro logs. And it's not just an issue of AB users being able to wipe ball groups - good ol' NB VD bombers could wipe them, too, but they were also incredibly fragile, yet AB users are both able to dish out incredible amounts of damage and are fairly survivable, so this playstyle is clearly overtuned.

All in all, perhaps 60% is too much of a nerf, but a significant nerf was necessary in my opinion.

acastanza_ESO

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Disclaimer: I'm not impartial - no one is. I'm a ball group GM, of course I view this change as overwhelmingly positive from my own perspective. Still, I believe that Azureblight was overtuned to the point where it was not just unreasonably good at being a ball group buster, but also good against small scale groups and zergs, too.

Look, complaints about ball groups aren't all entirely unreasonable, but there's no single set that makes ball groups work; you need a combination of many mechanics to get a good ball group out there. Now, perhaps shields are too strong, or healing stacks too much, or VD does too much damage, or stacks are too neat - but you need all those things in tandem to make an impact in Cyro. Conversly, AB is just one set and it is able to have nearly as much influence as an array of mechanics, and that just doesn't seem reasonable. Hell, you have logs that are entirely dominated by AB damage, to the point that they shadow countersiege damage, which have traditionally topped Cyro logs. And it's not just an issue of AB users being able to wipe ball groups - good ol' NB VD bombers could wipe them, too, but they were also incredibly fragile, yet AB users are both able to dish out incredible amounts of damage and are fairly survivable, so this playstyle is clearly overtuned.

All in all, perhaps 60% is too much of a nerf, but a significant nerf was necessary in my opinion.

You're not reading the patch notes, it's not a 60% nerf, it's a complete deletion from PVP as now the damage scaling will only affect monsters.

Saying that a VD nightblade can wipe a ballgroup is absolutely farcical. Maybe if you're standing unbuffed on a flag while alt tabbed.

Azureblight was absolutely not overtuned against Ballgrpups, you run 8ish healers, 8ish people in Blight dealt similar amounts of damage to the disgusting shield spam that those healers could put out. That's called being a counter.
And the counterplay to it was to simply spread out. Dying to it was only a L2P issue.

But you said it yourself in your first paragraph, you're a ballgrouper, so....

Morvan

Zergs must be happy now.

BardInSolitude

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

You're not reading the patch notes, it's not a 60% nerf, it's a complete deletion from PVP as now the damage scaling will only affect monsters.

Sure, and perhaps that's harsh, but it doesn't change the point that it was overtuned to begin with.

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Saying that a VD nightblade can wipe a ballgroup is absolutely farcical. Maybe if you're standing unbuffed on a flag while alt tabbed.

They can't now, but they used to many years back. They were the equivalent ball group and zerg buster.

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

But you said it yourself in your first paragraph, you're a ballgrouper, so....

Right, and you're not, so I could call out your bias, too. That kind of attitude isn't conducive to productive discourse, though, is it?

Sluggy

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

...
You mean the BGs that aren't ranked in any way, don't have any MMR, or leaderboard, and are purely casual? Oh yeah, people are definitely going to bother coordinating sets for that so that there's enough blight to make an impact, that's totally something people are going to bother with for that game mode.
...

Mmmmm, let's be honest here: Once the novelty wears off in a month or so, BGs will be so devoid of players that the only way people will get a match is by choosing the queue that is fastest. Which will be the casual one. No one cares about rankings (even less so in a completely non-functional MMR system). They just want fights and they want them now.

I agree the nerf was completely unwarranted but who really is surprised? ZoS has actively encouraged ballgroup play for ten years straight. They don't want to get rid of it. They want to promote it. They always have.

BahometZ

Such a shame that devs can only balance with a hammer. I'm just going to wait for scribe-assisted shield stacking to be nerfed once enough copies of Gold Road have been sold. Happens to every new toy.

coop500

I don't PvP and was only curious about this set from a PVE standpoint, but I just want to say...
*Can we PLEASE stop using the term 'abusive' for a video game playstyle?*

That is a heavy word to be throwing around just because you don't approve of the method of PVPing.

Aldoss

Theist_VII wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

More tone deaf changes from the combat team.

Have you been watching the Templar “tank” changes that the class has been receiving over the course of the last year or so?

I've been paying attention to ALL of it since U35 when I cancelled my ESO+ sub and stopped buying chapters. Haven't given ZOS a dime since then and I participate in this forum to actively give them feedback from a demographic of players that loves this game and wants to see it succeed and would be more than willing to open my wallet again for it.

My wife and I spent hundreds of dollars each year on this game. I fear that I'll never open the wallet again with the current combat team.

Sluggy wrote: »

No one cares about rankings (even less so in a completely non-functional MMR system). They just want fights and they want them now.

This is just untrue. People get OBSESSED with made up numbers that compare them against other people. Your second qualifier of a "non-functional MMR system" is the entire unified sentiment in these forums since day 1 of PTS. The moment there is a semblance of a semi-equitable way of ranking players, the ego's come back and they will participate in the mode.

I was once in 3 separate BG oriented guilds. All but 1 of those are disbanded from lack of interest because BGs have all but been neglected by ZOS up until this patch. One guild had several hundred active players that would have LOVED the opportunity to bicker with each other and compare the size of their digital scores.

The MMR system is the one thing that is going to make whole thing flop and become a self-fulfilling prophecy and we're hoping to god that ZOS finally gets its act together and realizes that before it's too late.

Antrox41

Finally, no more 20 man zergs all spamming blight.

MidniteOwl1913

baconaura wrote: »

The damage scaling only applying to monsters would have been good enough, and addressed the battleground concerns. why nerf the base damage so much?

The damage scaling needs to be reverted, its too heavy of a nerf across the board, and even at capped targets, there is no "slight buff", it merely matches what the old set's damage was doing with 1 less target. Its from 69% to 14% damage reduction when matching the 6 target cap currently. and at 7 target, it only matches current set.

Here are the calculations on damage based on targets hit with the blight.



Noone was complaining about this set in pve. if anything, maybe buff other aoe sets like aegis caller, or the other hundreds of dead sets that arent being used today..

I've used this set for years, it's a good set for general PVE play. All of sudden PVP starts complaining and now it get a nerf! To be clear this high reduction in base damage will hurt it's utility in most situations. Why do I have to have adjust my builds because somebody somewhere in PVP decides a set that been around this long is suddenly OP?