AfkNinja wrote: »

They will never bring back soft caps though, cause that would be admitting they don goofed.

They do that every major patch in which they overhauled the system. For example, they realized they couldn't balance without stat caps and introduced the buff system. And then they introduced exceptions to the buff system...

Can we get 420 Spell Power with a damage shield though? It would be nice to have ONE crazy good damage set, stamina has many to choose from.

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Softcaps.

Back in the legendary times of launch softcaps were the thing you met on almost every build and slightly pushed for specific rolls. It was more ballanced than what we have now, and more ballanced PVE side too where the bosses were designed with the softcaps in mind, meaning you had to pay attention to mechanics.

Softcaps were good. I wish they'd come home.

Back at those early days, we also didn't have nearly as many set bonuses as we do now. Many sets gave 1 bonus at 2 and the second at 5 pieces. Nor did we have Monster sets or even Master weapons of any kind. We can stack tons more stats than we used to. And there is a great difference in the quality of the different options available. Lot of them are behind hideous RNG grinds. Some get lucky and get the best stuff with few attempts, while others grind the same content hundreds of times without getting what they need. And some people just have more time to spend grinding than others. This leads to a marked difference in the quality of gear available to different players. Adding CP to this mix, just makes the problem even worse. Each CP gives a small percentage buff to your base stats. Thus the more you have stacked, the more you will gain.

So in a nutshell - the way things are now, is that there is a large difference in the power of characters of similar level/rank/CP number, and this makes it really difficult to balance stuff properly. There are just too many variables involved. And the fact that the whole game runs mostly on multiplicative things instead of additive, means that if you stack stuff correctly, and apply the right multiplicative buffs, you can place yourself incredible far above the curve.

The original mechanics of the game were based on the idea that everyone would use magicka based class skills and supplement it with few weapon based stamina skills. The way magicka and stamina work in the game, and the way the different passives and skills are set up, are all based on this assumption. The main source of your characters power was their level and the accompanying Attribute Points. There was a limited amount of extra power available from gear, and there were definite ceilings on stat stacking so that people would not stray from the curve too much.

But one by one, they removed all those limitations. With each update they added more options for stacking stats, and also introduced ever more powerful ways to do so (i.e. better and more powerful gear sets) . And they did this while ignoring the underlying structure that assumed hybrid builds. Any issue that broke too far ahead was fixed with an ad hoc solution instead of trying to mold the baseline mechanics to fit the new, unlimited one stat stacking favoring game play that was emerging.

The end result of all this, is that Stamina builds have benefited lot more from the removal of stat caps than Magicka. There are lot of legacy artifacts in the way things are set up, that hark to the era when everyone ran hybrid builds. Remember when staffs used weapon damage for light and heavy attacks? The skills of staffs (and most class skills) used spell damage, but weapon attacks and weapon skills scaled from Stamina and used weapon damage. So a build that utilized non staff based Weapon skills had to buff weapon damage in addition to Spell damage, while a build using only Class skills could mostly ignore weapon damage. Thus it is easier to stack weapon damage than it is to stack spell damage. For similar reasons there are many more options to regain stamina than to regain magicka. In the soft cap world, you only had a certain amount of stamina available, so you needed more ways to regain it if you were also gonna use it for attacking in addition to using it for roll dodges and break frees..

With each update they have tried to iron out these discrepancies and make both Stamina and Magicka based builds viable, and seemingly equal, but the underlying fact remains, that a Stamina build can safely ignore Magicka while the reverse is not true. So trying to balance these two approaches is mostly doomed to fail.

Frankly I'm happy I don't work at ZOS and don't have to deal with the utter garbage that the mechanics of this game have evolved into. Fixing this jumble of mess is such an enormous task that the game will likely die long before it is accomplished.

Xeven wrote: »

For reference all screenshots were taken with 30k stam/mag and 3k spell/weapon damage. Check it out. It's kind of awesome.

Also, I have seen tooltip numbers show higher before I spend the skill point than after I spend the skill point.

Your screenshots are all from before the ability is actually purchased. Can you show them after you spent the point?

There will never be 'balance' because it is an entirely subjective determination. Sheesh, there is even a subjective opinion on whether it is a better choice to use night mother gaze or hunding rage, and half of those sets are identical!

It isn't about balance, because its more than comparing A to B. There's also a C and D. When was the last time anyone saw a set of balance scales with 4 trays? And it doesn't stop there, each of the A B C D goes mag or stam, so who the heck thinks it is at all possible to "balance" a stam sorc against a mag blade against a stam dk? Then it breaks down even further, is it possible to balance stam sorc focusing on tank with mag blade focusing on tank with stam dk focusing on dps? No, it's not possible, because it is entirely too subjective.

"Balance" is not the right word, and using it provokes people into dead end thinking. This thread started with dead end thinking, as if it is possible to balance a stam dunmer dk dps against a mag breton templar healer.

What we want is complEmentary design. Each of the various options being different, each distinctive in its own way, able to coordinate strengths to function together in harmony in the cooperative areas and take advantage of the others weaknesses in competitive areas.

Rock Paper Scissors for example. Are they 'balanced'? NO. But they complement each other.

Some people get cranky when Templars act as artillery support, doing heals and executes from the second line, failing to realize that what is happening is complementary teamwork - sorta like rock and scissors teaming up to shred the individuals that are trying to be paragons of individuality. It quickly gets complicated if you drag in details, but in general the clump of people that work as a team will wreck larger clumps that act like they are running solo.

Give up on 'balance' because it never truly existed nor is it even possible in such a multi-part subjective system.

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Xeven wrote: »

You are comparing an ability that is meant to provide a smaller healing tick over a longer period of time. And it costs less than Vigor.

Furthermore, that tooltip for Mutagen is awfully low. A well-spec'ed magicka character should have much more.

code65536 wrote: »

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Xeven wrote: »

You are comparing an ability that is meant to provide a smaller healing tick over a longer period of time. And it costs less than Vigor.

Furthermore, that tooltip for Mutagen is awfully low. A well-spec'ed magicka character should have much more.

All examples were given with 30k stam/mag and 3k spell/weapon power. In fact, that favors stamina in the comparison, because weapon damage is usually much higher, not so much for spell power.

Xeven wrote: »

Forgot to highlight the cooldown of 10 sec.

Xeven wrote: »

I'm just getting warmed up. Check this s*** out. These are absolute game changers for all stamina characters.




Here is the new meta:

Bow Heavy >> Poison Inject >> Crit Rush >> Dawnbreaker >> Maul Heavy >> Executioner

GG. Goodnight. Get your macros ready.

Magicka has nothing even REMOTELY comparable.

Edit for obligatory:

Looking at your comparisons has me estatic your not employee of the company.

Xeven wrote: »

I'm just getting warmed up. Check this s*** out. These are absolute game changers for all stamina characters.




Here is the new meta:

Bow Heavy >> Poison Inject >> Crit Rush >> Dawnbreaker >> Maul Heavy >> Executioner

GG. Goodnight. Get your macros ready.

Magicka has nothing even REMOTELY comparable.

Edit for obligatory:

yep , PVP imbalance is there. But PVErs suffered for two years with the same dress an stick spec because ZOS refused to address stamina weakness because it would ruin the balance of Wheelers favorite spec.

Carbonised wrote: »

Bows and poison injection are already shredding everything in pvp as it is, but hey, I have my *** crushing shock to spam haven't I. Let's hope the enemy does not move so I can take him down with about 10-12 crushing shocks, and let's hope I don't run out of magicka due to the insane cost for horrible damage

And twohanders are already wrecking balling everything in melee, but hey, let me get my 6k shield that lasts for 6 seconds up, and maybe if I spam Mutagen and Healing springs until my magicka runs out, there's a chance he won't get me down within the first 5-6 seconds or so.

This is pretty much the case and I've been feeling the same. I swapped over to stamina again and then back to magic this week just to check what I'd been saying is still the case and yup, my stamina build (in LESS ranking armour and glyphs) wrecks people.

Xeven wrote: »

You unlocked Regeneration after using a resto staff for 20 seconds.

Unless you are a really good player, you unlock Vigor after doing PVP for 10 hours.

You also forgot to draw a box around the Mutagen effect. "If you or your allies are low on health, the heal over time is consumed to heal immediately and remove harmful effect". Which is an instant 5k heal.