Confused about the purpose of Proximity Detonation.

Armitas · August 2015

This skill was supposed to be an anti zerg skill, however the current change to the skill makes it a little confusing. Making it an instacast skill makes it even easier to use as a zerg ball mechanic. Currently you have to drop dps or pull out to safely to cast it, now you can just cycle it regularly and without consequence. The timer doesn't matter, it's the concurrent spike damage that makes it powerful. This is now even less useful as a anti zerg mechanic while becoming more useful as a zerg mechanic.

What if we reverse the way it works. Instead of increasing damage based on how many players it hits, what if it decreases damage based on how many players it applies too. For example. A player casts prox det and everyone in range but the caster gets a proxdet set on them. The more players that get the prox det on them, the less damage it will do. So if a raid of 24 people cast prox det it will be so diluted that it would be worthless. But a group of 4 people casting prox dets will do a lot more damage because it can only apply to 3 of the players in the 4 man group. In short proxdet damage decreases the more players it applies too, and it doesn't apply to the caster. I would give it a 1 second cast time as well.

When I say the damage is diluted I don't mean that there is a total damage number that is divided by the players. What I mean is each person with proxdet on them has a base amount of damage that they will do, and when the Proxdet blows that damage will be debuffed based on how many players were given proxdet at the time of the cast.

olsborg · August 2015

I wholeheartedly agree with this post. You see zergsblobs running around now spamming *** as usual, but they also always have prox detonation up. Its quite ironic.

Thecapeo · August 2015

I think the morph itself is dumb. Being able to put it on yourself was always going to help zergs more.

Iggybot · August 2015

I disagree. I think the 8 second timer will make it more of a giant "avoid me" for zergs trains and will encourage everyone to scatter. It will be more effective against tightly knit groups. Anyone with half a brain should be able to get out of the way.

Joy_Division · August 2015

This skill should have never made it out of 1.6 Beta. Everyone told ZoS it was a poorly designed skill whose effects were counterproductive to its designed purpose.

It currently is an awesome single target assassination skill, one that contributes to the insta-kill environment that has been heavily criticized, and has made the zerg juggernaut it was intended to fight that much stronger. That ZoS has not changed it's design is a strong indication that the combat team either does not play on Live or does not care.

Proximity detonation now has zero drawback with it so there is no risk for using this spell. Every 8 seconds every single magicka build in an 24 man raid will cast this and melt all the poor souls who get its way.

If ZoS really wants this skill to be a zerg-buster, which when evaluating all the changes in the game since the removal of "ground-oils" is something I highly doubt is a genuine goal, than they need to completely redesign the skill. A high single target and inadequately scaling multi-target is exactly the opposite of what it should be if it is supposed to be a "zerg-buster." The range version should not have a 2 second cast time (try casting this against a zerg and see what happens), the spell should do minimal damage, but scale appreciably so damage and some sort of debuffs are applied to those who stayed within the area of effect. The proximity morph should replicate the functionality of "ground-oils," a controversial tool (some) people disliked for their immersion or whatever, but was a proven zerg-buster.

WillhelmBlack · August 2015

Templar's Unstable Core skill was the only real anti-Zerg skill but they just nerfed that. It can only be put on 1 target at a time now. GJ ZOS!

Armitas · August 2015

Iggybot wrote: »

I disagree. I think the 8 second timer will make it more of a giant "avoid me" for zergs trains and will encourage everyone to scatter. It will be more effective against tightly knit groups. Anyone with half a brain should be able to get out of the way.

I think with the Dodge roll nerf, talons and bombard will be spammed hardcore. Couple that with the block nerf and mobility will be rough on stamina. It's also easier to avoid on live because once you see it its about time to bail. With the increased time on it it will also become more difficult to determine when it will explode, and if there are any non concurrent proxdets you wont know when to avoid.

Joy_Division · August 2015

Iggybot wrote: »

I disagree. I think the 8 second timer will make it more of a giant "avoid me" for zergs trains and will encourage everyone to scatter. It will be more effective against tightly knit groups. Anyone with half a brain should be able to get out of the way.

I can 100% guarantee you that your self proximity bomb will not dissuade zerg trains from running over you.

Sallington · August 2015

Remove the skill completely. Bring back ground oils. Boom goes the dynamite.

Ishammael · August 2015

Sallington wrote: »

Remove the skill completely. Bring back ground oils. Boom goes the dynamite.

Now this I can get behind. Also, un-purgeable oil catapults!

Otherwise, make Proxy det scale inversely proportional to the number of friends around you and proportional to the number of enemies hit. i.e. damage goes down if you cast in a group of friends and goes up if you hit a lot of enemies. The down-scale of damage w/ nearby friends should be stronger than the upscale of enemies.

Sallington · August 2015

Ishammael wrote: »

Sallington wrote: »

Remove the skill completely. Bring back ground oils. Boom goes the dynamite.

Now this I can get behind. Also, un-purgeable oil catapults!

Otherwise, make Proxy det scale inversely proportional to the number of friends around you and proportional to the number of enemies hit. i.e. damage goes down if you cast in a group of friends and goes up if you hit a lot of enemies. The down-scale of damage w/ nearby friends should be stronger than the upscale of enemies.

The ideas on how to scale Proxy Det are usually pretty good, and make a lot of sense, but I have to speak against giving the server more calculations to handle. That's one of the main reasons I am against all types of AOE caps. If you are inside the AOE you get hit, if you are outside of the AOE you don't. It seems like a much easier calculation then what's in place and lagging the servers now.

david.haypreub18_ESO · August 2015

This skill has to be the one of the greatest failures of design in the entire game. Instead of stopping the Zerg, it puts it on steroids.

This skill needs a complete redesign. Why is it that everyone apart from ZOS can see this?

Anazasi · August 2015

I agree Proxy is terrible it works to the advantage of zergs instead of decimating them. They were far better off with the increased damage from siege on players then the unfortunate design of this ability. We all can agree when 1.6 came out siege was deadly and players scattered so fast when this was used. yes it was a pain to be on the receiving side of an offensive keep take. But was the attackers fault or the foresight of the defenders. If attackers used fire trebs on the walls as effective as the defenders did it would have worked itself out. Bring back stronger siege and the zerg trains will scatter.

Yuke · August 2015

yep, this change reduces the skill to absurdity

TBois · August 2015

Yeah it definitely isn't effective at what it seemingly was designed for. I think if ZOS really wanted to spread people out they would give a cap to purge and barrier.

Mr_Nobody · August 2015

#Remove/Rework Purge = no zerg blobbing.

Iyas · August 2015

Mr_Nobody wrote: »

#Remove/Rework Purge = no zerg blobbing.

agree

cschwingeb14_ESO · August 2015

Not just purge, but all support skills with a >6 target cap. Vigor, purge, barrier. It is to easy for the big blobs to heal up or shrug off just about everything, while still moving at full speed

Just because it's an alliance war skill (or even an ult) doesn't mean it needs to affect 12 (12+?) people

Siege should be the only uncapped effect, and I'd take Vigor down to self+2 others

xylena · August 2015

siege and keep npcs were great anti-zerg mechanics prior to 1.6 but now keep npcs are a sad joke and purge spam completely nullifies most siege damage

the irony of magicka detonation is that it's mostly used for burst killing single targets, not against zergs

nerf/rework purge, and make siege damage increase based on the number of targets hit... zerging won't stop until blobbing your entire raid on a flag is guaranteed to get you wiped in seconds

Xeven · August 2015

Defensive siege weapons in your standard keep fight are way way too slow. Anyone with a pulse can avoid seige damage, even while distracted by ground defenders.

For seige to be an effective antipersonnel weapon, the projectile speed must be at least doubled.

asneakybanana · August 2015

This patch encourages zerging more than any other patch in the game IMO. Currently in live with a max damage a single player can dive into a zerg and expect to get a kill and if not at least cause them to burn a barrier. A small group running high damage builds could take out a pretty good portion of the zerg. Now with the damage reduction single players will fund it next to impossible to kill a player out of the zerg by themselves and small groups will only be able to get a couple. And now you say but the zerg is getting reduced damage too. But what difference does it make if the zerg kills you in 2 or 2.5s and now almost all escape mechanics have been nerfed. On live mist requires tabtarget to single target the player but on the pts it does not. On live a player can dodge roll repeatedly and get away while on the pts you can not. Proxy is just another skill zos has given to the zerg allowing them to not even have to target you to burst you down.

SeptimusDova · August 2015

@Xeven
Projectile speed and rate of fire could both be increased. Proxy det was a failure. And stubborn pride is why it has not been removed.

If anything, the changes coming to live will double the zergs or at least double the size of the zergs.

Derra · August 2015

The real killer abilities for zergs are purge/barrier/maneuvers though. That´s the backbone of the blob and zenimax should finally break if by gutting those abilities with target caps of 6 in cyrodiil. That or a total rework.

Also healing should break maneuvers.

Xeven · August 2015

Derra wrote: »

Also healing should break maneuvers.

Brilliant!

k2blader · August 2015

Sallington wrote: »

Remove the skill completely. Bring back ground oils. Boom goes the dynamite.

Agree as long as the red circles display properly.

RoamingRiverElk · August 2015

So many great things have been said here in this thread.

Magicka detonation needs to be seriously changed so that it Really does scale a lot when it hits more than six people.

Purge mustn't be allowed to affect so many people at the same time, nor barrier. Six people at max. Even that is still a lot.

It is indeed mindboggling that change after change, ZOS favors zergs more and more over small groups.

Armitas · August 2015

Great. Like the 28% damage reduction is going to matter when 24 people can effortlessly cycle a prox det and hit you with 24 concurrent detonations.

Miwerton · August 2015

The ZOS combat team begins more and more to look like like an adolescent child, proclaiming that everything it does is awesome, and ignoring backlash and critisism. As well as not having the oh so usefull thing called selfcritisism, where you stop to think your actions trough, and dwell upon that you may indeed be wrong about your choices.

Mojmir · August 2015

Easy fix,make it affect your own alliance as well: p

F7sus4 · September 2015

Miwerton wrote: »

The ZOS combat team begins more and more to look like like an adolescent child, proclaiming that everything it does is awesome, and ignoring backlash and critisism. As well as not having the oh so usefull thing called selfcritisism, where you stop to think your actions trough, and dwell upon that you may indeed be wrong about your choices.

Pretty much, but on the other side if the skill was significantly underpowered, people would complain that AvA level 7 skill should be good. Once it is, they complain about it being too good - in a proper hands. But in this case, looks like a design fail. However, it's actually still funny to drop "the wrong" Detonation morph on 1 random person in a zerg than Dark Cloak away and see how they flee around from that guy.

Septimus_Magna · September 2015

The damage should scale up to at least 24 players, 5% per player hit to maximum of 120% damage increase. The solution is so simple, I really dont understand why ZOS is so afraid of scaling damage up against huge numbers of players. Big groups already have tons of benefits with targeting/heals/buffs/purges, give them huge disadvantages as well to balance it out.