Nerfing Willpower/Agility/Endurance --> Diversity

blabafat · July 2016

Before the rest of this post is read, it's very safe to assume that I am speaking from a PvP standpoint because this thread is in the Alliance War...

Willpower, Endurance, and Agility - Jewelry/Weapon sets that give an absurd amount of stats in comparison to other sets.

In general, a max stat bonus for magicka/stam gives ~950 and health is ~1060. A spell/weapon damage bonus is 129. Regen bonuses are also 129.

Willpower/Agility give ~1400 magicka/stam and ~180 spell/weapon damage. Endurance gives ~1500 health and ~180 stamina regen.

As you can see, the gap between the stats is very significant (hence why these sets are so popular and common). It's almost a 50% decrease in stats from Willpower/Endurance/Agility to every other set. I always thought these sets (and the large increase in damage for upgrading a weapon to legendary) were introduced in Update 7 to compensate for the 50% Damage reduction in PvP (Battle Spirit). Assuming that's the case, there is no need for these sets to be far superior than the others anymore because damage is fine, and it would remain fine if these sets were leveled with every other.

By having a set that is 50% more effective (stats wise), diversity is diminished. Of course, I am not saying that literally everyone runs this set, but a vast majority of players do. There are viable alternatives, but there could be more if Willpower/Endurance/Agility were not so strong. Changing Battle Spirit to reduce damage and shields by 50% eliminated variety by itself (for example, Whitestrakes is - for the most part - useless). Adding new sets that are now staples for most builds only worsens the issue. Again, I am completely aware of the fact that not every individual in the game is running these sets.

ZoS adds new gear sets every major update. None of them are more used than the 3 sets mentioned. Popularity is not a bad thing, but discouraging variety is. That is exactly what these sets do. Dropping them is such a significant loss in damage, max stats, and/or regen (endurance). It's so significant that some players don't even consider other sets.

For a long time, old sets remained at CP/VR 120/12 or 140/14. Fortunately, that is now changing. This patch has brought back some old PvP sets, and the next will bring back old PvE sets. This is a step in the right direction. However, again, though this is great news to some, it's also just a reminder that a lot of these new sets might/won't be up to par with Willpower/Endurance/Agility.

This is just a suggestion. Please feel free to constructively criticize the suggestion.

Jules · July 2016

MY BOY B FAT

Zeuq · July 2016

Jules wrote: »

MY BOY B FAT

Wow stealing my lines....

KisoValley · July 2016

Agree to an extent, jewellery does however feel unique to me and I'm not sure how I'd feel about that changing, but maybe that's because I'm just so used to those 3 sets in which case it's bad.

bebynnag · July 2016

instead of reducing willpower/agility/endurance, why not increase all other sets

this will make all of my characters (regardless of what they wear) very very very happy

Zheg · July 2016

What specifically would you want done to them? Yes, it seems you want to drops the values, but to be equal to regular bonuses, or somehwere between regular and where they are now?

Most of the time you drop these sets if youre trying to stack two 5piece bonuses on the same bar and cannot do it with weapons (staff/bow/GS). Its a choice between loss in raw stats or utility from a 5 piece. Those are good tradeoffs to make. Another option for diversity is to just make the 5 piece set utility more valuable so the decision to drop willpower and the like is a harder one.

blabafat · July 2016

puffytheslayer wrote: »

instead of reducing willpower/agility/endurance, why not increase all other sets

this will make all of my characters (regardless of what they wear) very very very happy

That's also a very reasonable solution. I didn't include that suggestion in the post, but I had it on my mind.

Though, in my opinion, I think the last thing that needs to be done is buffing stats. Damage is perfectly fine, and as I stated in this post, it will remain fine even if the three sets were tuned down. During Update 6, ZoS buffed food by roughly 30%. This increased damage. As people got more CP, their damage was increased. Then ZoS decided to make battle spirit reduce damage by 50%.

blabafat · July 2016

Zheg wrote: »

What specifically would you want done to them? Yes, it seems you want to drops the values, but to be equal to regular bonuses, or somehwere between regular and where they are now?

Most of the time you drop these sets if youre trying to stack two 5piece bonuses on the same bar and cannot do it with weapons (staff/bow/GS). Its a choice between loss in raw stats or utility from a 5 piece. Those are good tradeoffs to make. Another option for diversity is to just make the 5 piece set utility more valuable so the decision to drop willpower and the like is a harder one.

In response to your question

Currently it's a 50% increase in stats from regular bonuses to those of the sets. That's too big. I'd prefer them being equal to regular bonuses. However, maybe keeping a small increase is necessary in order to maintain usefulness, but it should be a maximum of 20%. Even if these sets were completely equal, I don't think they'd not be viable. They are perfect for pairing with undaunted sets and a 5PC body.

I agree with your second paragraph. Your suggestion is definitely a worthy fix, just like that of @puffytheslayer

Lucky28 · July 2016

Don't really think they need to be nerfed. if you want more diversity, Jewelry crafting would be a much better option.

Personally, i'd get rid of Willpower in a heart beat if i could run 5 kags and 5 Alchemist.

Zheg · July 2016

blabafat wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

What specifically would you want done to them? Yes, it seems you want to drops the values, but to be equal to regular bonuses, or somehwere between regular and where they are now?

Most of the time you drop these sets if youre trying to stack two 5piece bonuses on the same bar and cannot do it with weapons (staff/bow/GS). Its a choice between loss in raw stats or utility from a 5 piece. Those are good tradeoffs to make. Another option for diversity is to just make the 5 piece set utility more valuable so the decision to drop willpower and the like is a harder one.

In response to your question

Currently it's a 50% increase in stats from regular bonuses to those of the sets. That's too big. I'd prefer them being equal to regular bonuses. However, maybe keeping a small increase is necessary in order to maintain usefulness, but it should be a maximum of 20%. Even if these sets were completely equal, I don't think they'd not be viable. They are perfect for pairing with undaunted sets and a 5PC body.

I agree with your second paragraph. Your suggestion is definitely a worthy fix, just like that of @puffytheslayer

There are so many jewelery options as of the last few patches and the one on pts thst i dont think you could get away with making them equal to regular buffs. Maybe endurance would be the only unique one. You can hit the 2 and 3 piece bonus easily.

bebynnag · July 2016

blabafat wrote: »

puffytheslayer wrote: »

instead of reducing willpower/agility/endurance, why not increase all other sets

this will make all of my characters (regardless of what they wear) very very very happy

That's also a very reasonable solution. I didn't include that suggestion in the post, but I had it on my mind.

Though, in my opinion, I think the last thing that needs to be done is buffing stats. Damage is perfectly fine, and as I stated in this post, it will remain fine even if the three sets were tuned down. During Update 6, ZoS buffed food by roughly 30%. This increased damage. As people got more CP, their damage was increased. Then ZoS decided to make battle spirit reduce damage by 50%.

my reasoning is that buffing the damage or recovery will help the masses (those new to the game & those like me who are great in theory but in reality kinda suckl... i hope theres others like me atleast. LOL), yes it will make the OP even more OP, but they are few in number. the masses will perform better against them; stand a better chance, stay alive for long enough to learn what we need to improve.

bebynnag · July 2016

Lucky28 wrote: »

Don't really think they need to be nerfed. if you want more diversity, Jewelry crafting would be a much better option.

Personally, i'd get rid of Willpower in a heart beat if i could run 5 kags and 5 Alchemist.

jewely crafting is my dream.... my dream also includes jewelry improvement,

SubtleHate · July 2016

The solution to your problem is to uninstall and play single player games until something that doesn't suck comes out.

No but seriously, don't nerf those three sets for the sake of diversity. Buff the other jewelry sets.

Astanphaeus · July 2016

Lucky28 wrote: »

Don't really think they need to be nerfed. if you want more diversity, Jewelry crafting would be a much better option.

Personally, i'd get rid of Willpower in a heart beat if i could run 5 kags and 5 Alchemist.

I would say that they would need to be nerfed slightly if jewelry crafting were introduced, but just so that their current purple stats became their gold stats. But yeah, giving us jewelry crafting would do the most to increase diversity.

KenaPKK · July 2016

/lurking to see what ideas form here

The raw stats versus another 5pc + Undaunted trade off has been mentioned.

We have some powerful 5pc sets with jewelry right now, and we're getting more with the next expansion. My gut tells me they will compete strongly, but only time and testing will tell.

Also let's look back to IC's release and the introduction of v16. These 3pc sets played a key role in increasing damage from v14 to v16 characters, along with the jumps in jewelry damage glyph size and passive damage obtained from upgrading your weapons to gold. Maelstrom weapons came out since then, and we did just get big buffs to crafted weapon glyphs to go with them. Do we need the 3pc sets anymore at all? Could their 3pc bonuses be replaced with utility effects? Thoughts?

KenaPKK · July 2016

Astanphaeus wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Don't really think they need to be nerfed. if you want more diversity, Jewelry crafting would be a much better option.

Personally, i'd get rid of Willpower in a heart beat if i could run 5 kags and 5 Alchemist.

I would say that they would need to be nerfed slightly if jewelry crafting were introduced, but just so that their current purple stats became their gold stats. But yeah, giving us jewelry crafting would do the most to increase diversity.

The stat difference between purple and gold, and even blue and gold, jewelry is reeeeeeally small. It's enchanting them with gold cp160 glyphs that matters most.

blabafat · July 2016

@KenaPKK

I literally wrote several sentences about the possible reason for these sets being introduced, along with VR16 - compensation for battle spirit

I deleted it because I didn't have any reasoning behind how it affected PvE

To answer your question, we really don't need the 3PC sets giving the stats they currently are

Roechacca · July 2016

A nerf in PvP is still a nerf in PvE no matter where you post it. So no thanks.

Leandor · July 2016

@Zheg has it right, in my opinion. Especially with the newer sets and their possibilities for much more creative builds, I feel that losing the stat advantage of willpower/agility/endurance will completely eliminate their viability.

lolo_01b16_ESO · July 2016

I personally don't think it's needed. I don't know many people who still use willpower in pvp, most are using transmutation, fasalla, vicious death, viper or skirmisher.

sluice · July 2016

I'm all for diversity and wished there was more alternative to the typical builds right now.
Some things are almost inevitable, such as going with Agility or Willpower...

True, there are more and more interesting 5 pieces sets.
So much that running with two complete 5 pieces set as never been this tempting.

But 3x agility/endurance/willpower is so good...
Nothing beats going with one of those 3 pieces with a monster set.

Here's an idea: "how about having more sets with different size?"
I'm talking more 3 pieces set (Not only jewelry!).
And why not some 4 pieces set? 7 pieces set? 9 pieces sets? etc.

Or having really strong 5 pieces set (like the Lich), that forces you to either use the monster set slots and/or jewelry slots.

svartorn · July 2016

I'd love to see some larger sets.

zyk · July 2016

I do not believe the IC jewellery/weapon sets are OP or limit diversity. I think they promote diversity by breaking the 5+5+2/1 bonus paradigm that existed before.

If these sets had only standard bonuses, builds with two 5 piece bonuses would become the norm again and most would be cookie-cutter.

I think the enhanced bonuses are fair because the sets lack a powerful 5 piece bonus. While each of the bonuses is stronger than normal, they are still less useful than most 5 piece bonuses. This enables a greater array of combinations in my opinion.

In 2.4, I have found a lot of combinations where 5+5+2/1 is the superior option for the task at hand, but it's always close. I feel this is balanced. But it depends on one's chosen play style. It tends to be a choice between raw stats vs a powerful situational bonus.

It seems to me that some players are frustrated because they'd like to enjoy more 5 piece bonuses without feeling like they are sacrificing other stats. I think that sacrifice is balance.

Astanphaeus · July 2016

KenaPKK wrote: »

Astanphaeus wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Don't really think they need to be nerfed. if you want more diversity, Jewelry crafting would be a much better option.

Personally, i'd get rid of Willpower in a heart beat if i could run 5 kags and 5 Alchemist.

I would say that they would need to be nerfed slightly if jewelry crafting were introduced, but just so that their current purple stats became their gold stats. But yeah, giving us jewelry crafting would do the most to increase diversity.

The stat difference between purple and gold, and even blue and gold, jewelry is reeeeeeally small. It's enchanting them with gold cp160 glyphs that matters most.

I'm not really sure where the being able to enchant them with gold cp160 glyphs comes in since that can already happen. But so what if the stat difference between purple and gold is small, those small differences can have an impact. It would be a very small nerf, but I still believe it would be a necessary very small nerf.

PrinceFabious · July 2016

Someone doesnt have enough gold for robust agility rings haha

Ishammael · July 2016

Strangely, I actually disagree with Blab on this one.

If you consider that a 3-pc set loses the opportunity for a 5-pc bonus, I think they are appropriately scaled. If you run 5/5/2 you get a total of 10 set bonuses. If you run 5/2/3/2(monster) you get a total of 10 set bonuses.

Five-bonus sets should NOT be buffed at all.

EDIT: Other 3-pc sets should be buffed accordingly (potentate, etc.) for more variety.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · July 2016

Removing the champion system = Diversity. What does gear matter anymore when you have 25% of anything you want in damage, regen and defense? Any set that gave you 25% more regen/damage would be considered OP. So why isn't it OP when its the champ system and you don't even have to make any sacrifices in gearing to get it?

Gear does NOT need to be nerfed anymore. The crapeon system killed PvP and is responsible for most of the gear and skill nerfs.

svartorn · July 2016

Nah, Champion system is awesome and allows for much more build diversity to supplement gear.

loki547 · July 2016

Sabre was not running any Agility pieces when he beat everyone (Blab included) in the Legend duelling tourney. Just food for thought.

GreenSoup2HoT · July 2016

Since were talking about PvP here, i won't mention how Maelstrom Weapons are BIS for pve dps and ruining diversity there.

In pvp however, i don't think these jewelry sets are ruining diversity. In my opinion, whats ruining diversity is how limited are choices of gear is. There are ton's of crafted sets yet barely any of them are being utilized. There are ton's of sets that are just terrible because some sets are easily over-performing (talking about the 5 piece sets here). How many old sets are getting introduced and still suck? Ton's!

I'd instead try and advocate for sets to be balanced (talking about the crappy 5 piece sets here again). How often do we get Incremental Patches increasing or decreasing gear sets? I could count on my hands pretty much all the sets being utilized in pvp...

Instead of trying to nerf agility/endurance/willpower.. why don't you start making a list of changes to sets to make them viable and WORTH picking over them. I know you are a good pvper and have the knowledge to do so... SO DO IT. Then we will support you with are own advice and criticisms.

Nerfing these jewelry sets won't change a thing. I would just replace them with a 5 piece set with good 2/3 set bonuses.

You could also advocate for some 1/4/6/8/9/12 piece sets. Something different that hasn't been done before. I'd love to see more sets that just give you 1 piece bonuses. For instance a special helmet called "Seeker" giving you more detection radius. Something different to spice up theory crafting. Imagine a unique pair of boots that gave you extra sprint speed. Simple things like this that can go a long way.

Talyena · July 2016

Jewelry sets 66% of the items give you a bonus
Armor sets 80% of the items give you a bonus
Helm sets 100% of the items give you a bonus

I think if they want diversity they should have more two and three piece sets.