The benefit to vMA weapons is that they have no internal cooldown that I'm aware of compared to other weapon enchantments. This means that the damage from light attacks from a staff will apply for every single light, medium, and heavy attack compared to 2k or so shock that applies every 3-5 seconds.

It all depends on the situation and the build you want to use.
For a 2h uppercut build a regular weapon will now probably be at least equal to a vMA 2h, but a DW DoT build will still require those vMA daggers/axes.
Likewise a staff build for PvP will mostly not use WoE, so a regualr staff might be better here, but if you go to PvE land you definetly need that DPS from the maelstrom staff.

Id say S+B builds will most likely benefit most from these changes, since their vMA weapon is so ***, and they gain full benefit from regular enchantments.

That said vMA weapons are great for using Poisons, since their stat boost is not disabled by their use.

vMSA weapons are by far still superior, the only one which could use some love is the tank weapon

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Poor PvP players.

Funny thing is, I'm actively involved in pve to the point where most would consider me a "pver", and my concern arises from not only pvp, but pve, where weapons such as the daggers/axes cannot even be considered if your build does not run flurry to buff DoTs. The two hander is 100% useless in pve, not that stamina builds run two-handers for optimal dps set ups anyways. These are supposed to be the top tier of weapons in the game, I would prefer if two crafted daggers didn't out parse maelstrom ones just because my class doesn't utilize flurry.

acw37162 wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Poor PvP players.

Funny thing is, I'm actively involved in pve to the point where most would consider me a "pver", and my concern arises from not only pvp, but pve, where weapons such as the daggers/axes cannot even be considered if your build does not run flurry to buff DoTs. The two hander is 100% useless in pve, not that stamina builds run two-handers for optimal dps set ups anyways. These are supposed to be the top tier of weapons in the game, I would prefer if two crafted daggers didn't out parse maelstrom ones just because my class doesn't utilize flurry.

2H is the best weapon set in the game.

Daggers can be run for any build running s high crit build.

Axes are great for bleed builds.

DW can still effectively run without flurry if you wanted to daggers, slashes, and tornado are good to excellent skills.

The VMA weapons are still best slot, PVP players will favor crafted weapons for poison effect over the new enchants.

Then again I've read about a thousand messages from PVP players who don't want to PVE so at least a portion of that community should be happy.

Quite honestly I'm not sure you gave put a lot of thought into your argument.

So lets start with the two hander, you argue that it is the best weapon in the game, and since you state that pvpers will be using non vma based weapons, in what way does this weapon benefit pve? Even in pvp, this DoT is turned to dust after mitigation and CP, and nobody, lol, nobody uses this ability in pve. Not even in vma, where a gap closer might be seen as a time saver and useful mobility tool, because people with competitive vma builds don't rely on two handed dps to get competitive scores. In what way does this make it the most valuable two hander in the game? The only place it even finds a use is in pvp, with the enchantment replaced with a poison. In PvE, other weapons such as leki's or NG/HR 2 piece will easily outshine the wpdmg gain from the vma daggers/axes for classes like stamina nb that do not use flurry. Yes, the enchantments have a cd, but between the uptime and the two piece bonus you will be gaining more net dps from craftable daggers!
I don't think you put a lot of thought into your argument if you think that vma daggers will be better than these alternatives for set-ups not using flurry. Steel tornado, twin slashes, are great skills, you're right, but they are better with non-vma daggers than with vma daggers. They should at least be equal.

Valrien wrote: »

The benefit to vMA weapons is that they have no internal cooldown that I'm aware of compared to other weapon enchantments. This means that the damage from light attacks from a staff will apply for every single light, medium, and heavy attack compared to 2k or so shock that applies every 3-5 seconds.

Also to clarify, I am mainly talking about the one-handed weapons found in VMA (snb/dw), that can be replaced easily with a two-piece set. I am aware of what all these weapons do and how they benefit dps rotations, my concern is that they fall short in areas where these abilities lose viability whether it be pvp or classes that do not utilize the abilities buffed by the weapon.

Where I bolded shock, I again, am not referring to these enchantments, I mean specifically the enchantment that buffs wpd and spd.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Poor PvP players.

Funny thing is, I'm actively involved in pve to the point where most would consider me a "pver", and my concern arises from not only pvp, but pve, where weapons such as the daggers/axes cannot even be considered if your build does not run flurry to buff DoTs. The two hander is 100% useless in pve, not that stamina builds run two-handers for optimal dps set ups anyways. These are supposed to be the top tier of weapons in the game, I would prefer if two crafted daggers didn't out parse maelstrom ones just because my class doesn't utilize flurry.

In general I do not have a problem when certain weapons are better is some game situations but not in others. As long as the weapon is desirable - and fun - to use in a common instance, then it's all good. In fact, I would prefer there not to be an obvious best-in-slot do everything weapon for every combat situation a player might be in. That kills build and play diversity and puts too much pressure to acquire the "must have" weapon.

Maelstrom two-handed weapons are very good in PvP so I don't see it as a big deal that merely "good" as opposed to the min-max best in a trial (it is not 100% useless in PvE ... in fact, the manner in which say Frengrush played vMA, it suited his style very well and he posted high scores so it's difficult to argue he was somehow "wrong.")

As long as the Maelstrom weapons are desirable and arguably the best is specific areas, then that is good enough IMHO. All the weapons pretty much meet the standard except the one-handed sword/mace (the damage bonus tooltip is deceiving, that applies to the heavy attack) and the Shield (it has zero bonus whatsoever).

In regard to fengrush and vma, yes I have seen the way he runs it, and I can confirm that a player using dual wield and bow will pull a better time if ran correctly. I say this from personal experience, as I have placed scores on multiple classes that all range from 540-562k. Two handed builds are significantly weaker in terms of dps in vma. In favor of the opposing argument, I would have to say that you are not wrong that these weapons should only shine in some areas, I just believe that they should also be nearly equal to alternatives in terms of raw damage dealt.

lolo_01b16_ESO wrote: »

I'm happy that msa weapons won't be as outstanding as before. It was a stupid idea in the first place, to lock the most powerful weapons in a multiplayer game behind annoying solo content.

Crafting is any less solo than maelstrom? I am not talking about the weapons found in group content, which are all worse, I am specifically referring to the disparity between say, two hundings daggers out performing vma daggers in a build that does not use flurry. If you cannot obtain these items, or you find it difficult, I would kindly ask you to refrain from expressing that bias here, simply because the discussion isn't "maelstrom weapons are too hard to get so make the easy stuff just as good or better vs VMA weapons are the hardest to get so they should be the best", instead it is more "Vma weapons should only be viable when used with their correlating ability vs VMA weapons should be also equally viable when not using their correlating ability".