Not to sure about the other two but the artful dodger one seems very apealing.

SleepyTroll wrote: »

Not to sure about the other two but the artful dodger one seems very apealing.

the 5pc bonus is cool, but that 3 and 4 will never happen. It just makes stam users go for that instead of sheer venom.

I like the ideas behind these sets, i'll be honest that when I look for sets its the 5th trait that I aim for. I also feel these sets would help in some situations, but like ZOS's other attempts to combat zerging I feel the aoe reduction and healer speed/healing buff would help them a lot as well. Perhaps a set that radiated damage based on # of hits, that could also front load a lot more damage if the wearer was quickly killed could help.

Legedric wrote: »

Sure, 2 of the three sets favor zergs, why not, we all love zergs, right?

Artful Dodger:
Instead of a Steal Tornado train they will just run a train using this armor and pump out heavy single target damage on smaller enemy groups being 40% immune to incoming Aoe? No thanks...

Secunda's Wonder:
It is already hard enough to take down dedicated healers within a larger group and now AoE hits should also buff those tough nuts? How about no?

Sorry, I don't want to be rude but that's how I read the 5 piece bonuses there and that's what I would current players expect to use them for.

Don't agree about the artful dodger one, lag trains will never switch to single target dps, that would completely ruin their playstyle. Plus they would actually realize that they don't have the coordination they seem to think they possess when they have to call for specific targets.
Having 12 people focus on one guy is a waste of ressource, you'd have to divide your lag train into smaller groups, each going for different targets so as to not waste time/dps, things that lag trains are completely incapable of.

tinythinker wrote: »

Just a quick thought, feel free to tell me why these wouldn't be helpful/useful in Cyrodiil. I'm sure the numbers need tweaking an the names are stupid but it's the idea behind the 5 piece bonuses I am putting out for review/reaction.

Aetherial Spark (heavy armor)
2 pc Max Health
3 pc Physical Resist
4 pc Spell Resist
5 pc Grants the wearer a 10% chance per DoT or HoT tick to score a double critical hit.

Concept: Give tankier characters a chance to do more with their "over time" effects in the new reduced damage/healing environment, but not so much that everyone just sits around in heavy armor maxing out health.

I like the concept of the hot/dot set but I feel like the chance is kinda low considering how weak dots are already and how quickly they are purged. I'd begin to feel more comfortable about it if it was in 20% range, 30% and I'm drooling. The hots are going to make rapid regen really nice.

I run a heavy armor build and the things I need most are more spell damage and magicka sustain. So I would prefer the first 3 bonuses to be recovery and spell damage.

As a magicka DK if this were in the game with the above conditions I'd be buying it right now.

Legedric wrote: »

Sure, 2 of the three sets favor zergs, why not, we all love zergs, right?

Artful Dodger:
Instead of a Steal Tornado train they will just run a train using this armor and pump out heavy single target damage on smaller enemy groups being 40% immune to incoming Aoe? No thanks...

Etaniel wrote: »

Don't agree about the artful dodger one, lag trains will never switch to single target dps, that would completely ruin their playstyle. Plus they would actually realize that they don't have the coordination they seem to think they possess when they have to call for specific targets.
Having 12 people focus on one guy is a waste of ressource, you'd have to divide your lag train into smaller groups, each going for different targets so as to not waste time/dps, things that lag trains are completely incapable of.

Legedric wrote: »

Well Etaniel, I am not only talking about lag trains but more like just large groups, especially coordinated ones which are able to keep themselves up at all time picking one target after another while being 40% untouched from AoE.

No offense taken Legedric, I asked for people to pick apart the suggestions.

The Artful Dodger set isn't about making groups smaller it's about group AoE spamming. I can come up with other things to encourage smaller groups. Like having real scaling for Prox Det (harmless if it hits 1-2 players, mass causalities if it hits more than 10 at once) that many of us have asked for. Even with this gear set it would still do serious damage to blobs. Or this nasty ability in which each hit is an individual, not AoE, effect (the numbers were scaled pre-1.6 so think BIGGER). Or having Caltrops scale with players in area of effect (say an extra 2% per person over 2 or 3 so hitting 10 people would snare for 84% to 86%) and having oil cats scale their snare the same way (and have the snare be unpurgeable). I can also suggest 5 pc set bonuses to help encourage smaller groups.

Rather, as Etaniel suggests, the idea is the confound lag trains who just spam the same one or two AoE abilities over and over and stack on crown and roll over everything as a giant blob. If a group using Artful Dodger and other sets broke up into two to three squads or spread out around the lag blob, it might force the blob itself to break up spread out and use single target skills. The blob still has a size advantage, sure, but they would have to have smarter, more spontaneous responses.

It is a way to give players a choice rather than just having the basic rules changed back and forth by altering things like AoE caps. I am not sure I can see a zerg willing to all work to acquire this one set just so they can run around spamming single target attacks, and even if they do, that still beats the current lagapolooza. You do raise valid points, and any change will always lead to some new attempted advantage. No one set or ability can address every possible angle though, just lessen the worst aspects of the problematic behavior.

Legedric wrote: »

Secunda's Wonder:
It is already hard enough to take down dedicated healers within a larger group and now AoE hits should also buff those tough nuts? How about no?

The boost would only be after taking AoE damage, and would have a 30 second cool down. I can see why people might not like this, but your group needs to keep a healer up when facing a lagtastic pain train. If you are using Artful Dodger you aren't proccing the Secunda's Wonder set. If there is less AoE spam the single-target focus would naturally turn to healers anyway. In any event, I am open to suggestions for light armor users. I would like something that specifically scales with AoE damage taken, but I was writing this in between breaks in PvP action last night so I went with proccing off of AoE period.

CP5 wrote: »

I like the ideas behind these sets, i'll be honest that when I look for sets its the 5th trait that I aim for. I also feel these sets would help in some situations, but like ZOS's other attempts to combat zerging I feel the aoe reduction and healer speed/healing buff would help them a lot as well. Perhaps a set that radiated damage based on # of hits, that could also front load a lot more damage if the wearer was quickly killed could help.

Well, again, Artful Dodger isn't about group size but about mass AoE spam. I think it works for that concern. The tricky issue for anti-zerg effects as opposed to anti-AoE spam effects is that it can unintentionally lead to more zerging. I wouldn't mind having anti-zerging changes like those I mentioned earlier in this comment and the common denominator is scaling, so that if 10 people use something on me it doesn't do too much but if I, alone, use it on them it does a lot.

Radiating damage based on number of hits taken over x seconds is interesting, but often when an AoE spam blob rolls over you you don't last long. So to make it more effective maybe have it be a heavy armor set with the same kinds of 2pc to 4pc bonus as Aetherial Spark? Or better yet have it be craftable so even magicka shield users could benefit. Anyway, I thought about going in this general kind of direction (was thinking of damage taken per unit time rather than hits - I like your version better), but it does add more checks for the server. If it and the other sets/changes worked, though, there might be far fewer checks per microsecond in a small area anyway. So, in honor of your thoughtful suggestion, I give you...

Aetherial Explosion (craftable armor)
2 pc Max Health
3 pc Physical Resist
4 pc Spell Resist
5 pc Upon taking damage, a charge builds up for four seconds and explodes for 2000 damage to all targets within 6 meters. Each additional hit the wearer receives during the charge up increases the damage by 1500. Effect resets after the Aetherial Explosion.

Again, the numbers can be tweaked, but, if you ran into an AoE blob and got hit 8 times in 4 seconds you would do 14K damage. If the blog sticks together and keeps spamming, that's just more damage they take. Yet, in a smaller battle it would be easier to avoid a huge build up as well as avoid or escape the radius of effect. Just imagine 2-3 people with this set charging into the heart of a spamming blob, though. I'm sure this concept has flaws as well, but is it the kind of thing you had in mind?

Armitas wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

Just a quick thought, feel free to tell me why these wouldn't be helpful/useful in Cyrodiil. I'm sure the numbers need tweaking an the names are stupid but it's the idea behind the 5 piece bonuses I am putting out for review/reaction.

Aetherial Spark (heavy armor)
2 pc Max Health
3 pc Physical Resist
4 pc Spell Resist
5 pc Grants the wearer a 10% chance per DoT or HoT tick to score a double critical hit.

Concept: Give tankier characters a chance to do more with their "over time" effects in the new reduced damage/healing environment, but not so much that everyone just sits around in heavy armor maxing out health.

I like the concept of the hot/dot set but I feel like the chance is kinda low considering how weak dots are already and how quickly they are purged. I'd begin to feel more comfortable about it if it was in 20% range, 30% and I'm drooling. The hots are going to make rapid regen really nice.

I run a heavy armor build and the things I need most are more spell damage and magicka sustain. So I would prefer the first 3 bonuses to be recovery and spell damage.

As a magicka DK if this were in the game with the above conditions I'd be buying it right now.

IxskullzxI wrote: »

I would love to see a set tbat somehow boosted the effectiveness of dots. That would be a very nice set to have for my magicka dk. Maybe something that made dots always crit. Or gave increased spell damage while a dot was up.

I thought up this set a couple of weeks ago but forgot about it until I started having other ideas for armor sets, so I tossed it in. I made the numbers a little cautious but sure, you could up it to 20% chance. I was just thinking that some folks might have 2-3 DoTs up at once so even 10% would hit a good bit. It's my favorite of all the armor sets I suggested in the original post and also the extra one added in this comment.