What makes something OP (Sharpened Trait)?

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2016

It is a genuine question that sometimes gets lost in the rage on the forums. RD is OP, Stam is OP, NBs are OP, your mom is OP, etc. But what makes something OP? To me, things start to smell over powered when there is no meaningful choice or trade off when compared to another option. We are currently there with weapon traits. I would never expect to have perfect balance with 9 weapon traits, but I do think that all should be useful in their own way. For most people, what they want out of a weapon trait is to do damage. Let's face it, most people play video games because they like to explode things.

Right now, there are essentially 3 weapon traits designed around damage (certainly others can affect damage as well): Sharpened, Precise, Nirnhoned. For a good long while, if someone asked which of these traits was best, the answer would be: "It depends on what your are doing." That was a good state of things. People could run Nirnhoned to max out their spell damage, precise to maximize raid DPS, Sharpened to deal with tanky players in PVP or solo PVE content, etc. It made sense. You could make arguments about different traits being better for different content, and ALL were useful in their own way.

This is no longer the case. Other than attacking a shield stacking sorc in PVP, where nirn is probably better, Sharpened is simply the best trait across the board. People want it for trials, they want it for Solo PVE, they want in for 99% of PVP. There is no meaningful choice or tradeoff. One trait is simply the best all the time, every where, across the board. IMO, that is a bad state of things.

I am sure some math wizards will come in here and make an argument that precise can be better in this hypothetical Debuff scenario on paper where you completely mitigate a bosses armor in a perfect raid environment, but it's not real life. The best DPS in the best Raidgroups are all running sharpened if they can because it simply does more damage. In PVP its not even a debate. Everyone runs impen, so precise is worthless. For solo content like VMA, again sharpened is just better. My precise VMA staff is collecting dust because a crafted sharpened staff is just more damage. I hope this gets looked at sooner rather than later and we can bring some balance back to the force.

TLDR: We need to buff Precise and Nirn and or (I hate this word) nerf Sharpened.

TequilaFire · September 2016

Or how about accept what the developers intend?
Strange concept I know. lol

Khaos_Bane · September 2016

Killing a streamer in PvP with a skill makes it OP.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2016

TequilaFire wrote: »

Or how about accept what the developers intend?
Strange concept I know. lol

WTF does that even mean? By that logic, nothing is wrong ever. We shouldn't discuss anything because everything is working as intended. We should probably just shut the forums down today...

brandonv516 · September 2016

The other weapon traits are just there for research purposes!

Defending can be useful, especially with a DW or S&B bar on a heavy armor build.

Infused works well with a weapon/spell damage enchant as it increases it by another 100 I think (right?)

Training is for leveling to 50.

I'm sure someone can come up with some math whether powered beats sharpened or vise versa for heals.

Sharpened is the money maker though!

TequilaFire · September 2016

At the same time we have gotten spoiled by complaining about everything we disagree with.
Once upon a time you bought a game and played by the designed rules.
Give the devs some credit that they know why they do things in most cases as it cost them time and money to do so.
But everyone is entitled to their opinion so i respect yours also.

WhiteMage · September 2016

Defending is an excellent defensive-back-bar trait almost solely because sharpened is so good as an offensive one. ALL my characters that use a resto back-bar have defending on it because it negates the effect of sharpened, which is a huge boon if you are already on the defensive.

Ofc, this is a PvP perspective.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2016

WhiteMage wrote: »

Defending is an excellent defensive-back-bar trait almost solely because sharpened is so good as an offensive one. ALL my characters that use a resto back-bar have defending on it because it negates the effect of sharpened, which is a huge boon if you are already on the defensive.

Ofc, this is a PvP perspective.

Defending is of course a viable trait, especially in PVP. It does it's job very well. Decisive is also a great trait in trials for healers and tanks, but a DPS would never run it. The point I am making is that of the three main traits specifically geared around boosting damage, there is no trade off. That has not always been the case, and IMO, they took sharpened a little too far when the reworked it.

LZH · September 2016

Agreed. A lot of people seem to think that sharpened is a 10.32% DPS increase but that isn't how it operates. It SHREDS 10.32% of the enemies armor. The DPS increase you get from it will vary based on the other resistance debuffs being applied and the starting resistance of the monster in question.

Bosses have around 18k resistance which at 500 points of resistance per 1% mitigation blocks 36% of incoming damage. Sharpened removes 5160 resistance, or 10.32% of the mobs resistance. So basically before sharpened you were doing (100-36)% = 64% of tooltip damage and after sharpened you are doing (64+10.32)% = 74.32% of tooltip damage, 74.32/60 = A WHOPPING 16.1% DPS increase.

Now obviously, this situation is really only realistic when you are playing solo on either a stamsorc, or a stamplar (as magicka classes have extra penetration and stamNB and stamDK have sources of major fracture).

But lets look at a more realistic situation - a veteran trial that isn't highly organized (basically 12 players that don't frequently play together get together for a vet trial).

The group sources of penetration will likely be Major fracture (from the tank), Nightmother's gaze (2.5k penetration), minor fracture (probably coming from somewhere) for stamina classes and Major breach, minor breach, as well as the base 4k penetration that magicka classes have access to.

Now when we are looking at these two situations you can see that the stamina penetration will add up to around 5200+1320+2500 = 9020 - meaning that the boss that had 18k resistance before sharpened was applied in the last scenario now only has 8980 resistance (17.96% damage mitigation). After applying sharpened in this scenario you will see that it results in a (100-7.64)/(100-17.96) = 12.5% DPS increase - still a huge damage increase. Magicka users will see a lower amount but only very slightly. The total penetration for magicka users will be roughly 3960+5200+1320 = 10480 - so the 18k resistance boss will have 7520 before sharpened is applied. Magicka users in this scenario will see a 12.1% DPS increase.

Basically, unless you are overpenetrating (a fairly rare situation) sharpened will provide at minimum an 11.5% increase in DPS (100/89.68). Sharpened can actually give 20.6% DPS increase if you attack a max armor (25k) resist enemy with sharpened being your only source of penetration.

ALL OF THE ABOVE CALCULATIONS DO NOT SHOW THE BASE 100 PENETRATION THAT EVERYONE HAS (I'M TOO LAZY TO GO BACK AND CHANGE IT BUT IT WILL HARDLY CHANGE ANY OF THE FINAL NUMBERS). THEY ALSO DON'T CONSIDER POINTS INTO ELEMENTAL EROSION OR PIERCING BUT AGAIN, THE FINAL NUMBERS WILL NOT CHANGE BY A TON. SHARPENED STILL OP.

Nirnhoned and Precise usually only amount to 3-5% DPS increases.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · September 2016

It's only OP when someone complains about it (usually a L2P issue), otherwise it is working as intended.

Armitas · September 2016

TequilaFire wrote: »

Or how about accept what the developers intend?
Strange concept I know. lol

Indeed very strange. They are in no capacity to be right all of the time so why should we be silent if we believe they are wrong. They ask for feedback and activley search for it so why not give it? Stand up for what you believe in.

NordSwordnBoard · September 2016

I agree. The rarity of nirnhoned is misleading for what it accomplishes compared to sharpened. Unfortunately, buffing the other two may make an even larger gap between the damage triumvirate and the other traits.

I think I'm asking for a nerf to something I use and it feels weird.

timidobserver · September 2016

Determining whether something is OP, without being bias, is actually complicated without access to game stats. It's alot easier for PvE than PvP. I wish that ZOS would make certain game stats open to be queried by the playerbase. It would be awesome to be able to see a chart showing how many people use various traits.

I agree with you that Sharpened may be overperforming, OR OTHER THINGS MAY BE UNDERPERFORMING, because it is almost always a dps loss in PvE to use any trait other than sharpened atm.

It is kind of a shame because ESO has so much variety, but 90% of it is worthless. Tons of worthless gear sets, traits, skills, ect.

Prof_Bawbag · September 2016

So many things get nerf'd that what you end up with is a bunch of skills or traits that are nothing but hollow shells of their former selves. The skills that used to be rubbish or a bit meh and get left alone, then appear to be OP compared to the previous skills that have been nerf'd to death. We all then complain that we can't kill or defend against anything with our blunted cardboard weapons and our wet paper bag armours respectively. Same *** happen with Diablo 3. Half the skills in that game are rubbish now, with 2 or 3 good ones and the rest average at best.

So yeah, those traits aren't OP, they're merely better than the other ones. Nerf the good remaining ones and we'll be left with nothing. Never understood why it's better to nerf most things than to just bring other stuff up to scratch.

redspecter23 · September 2016

The devs need to create situations where other traits are useful as well as balance traits against eachother. What they have now is a horrible situation that never should have happened.

Step 1
Create mobs and bosses that have very low resistances so that you can reach penetration cap easily. Not all mobs and bosses, but enough that you may find some traits useful in these situations. If there were to be an across the board decline in resistance then sharpened could be lowered as well so it's not so massively ahead of the other traits.

Step 2
Add other sources of penetration so that the reliance on the weapon slot is reduced and other options become viable. If there were a group buff that added sharpened to all party members similar to Igneous Weapons then you open up design space and relieve the necessity of sharpened all the time. Add multiple sources of the buff that sharpened provides so that you don't NEED a sharpened weapon and can actually use the others.

Step 3
Give players real reasons to want to run "bad traits". We don't actually need traits that are horrible and I'm not sure why the devs feel we do. Is decisive underperforming? Buff the crap out of it and see what happens for an update. Nobody using infused? Buff it!

Step 4
Keep an eye on everything and mix it up from update to update. The last trait overhaul was a huge blunder basically shifting the reliance on Nirnhoned to an even more OP version with Sharpened. Not sure who was in charge of the maths on that, but maybe try a different person next time.

DHale · September 2016

Bad players are the cause of op. Good players.... Well they adapt to things and will change their build or class or play style to suit good and bad game changes.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2016

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

I agree. The rarity of nirnhoned is misleading for what it accomplishes compared to sharpened. Unfortunately, buffing the other two may make an even larger gap between the damage triumvirate and the other traits.

I think I'm asking for a nerf to something I use and it feels weird.

I know exactly what you mean. I hate to say nerf anything, and I certainly use sharpened weapons. I think what compounds my frustration is that I have perfectly good precise and nirnhoned weapons that just collect dust. At this point, I should simply Decon my precise VMA staff. It is not worth using in any scenario I can think of.

IMO, I would like to get to a place, where Precise is best in an organized raid (other people doing the penetrating, sounds dirty), Sharpened would be the best while soloing or PVP, Nirn would be kind of a jack of all trades, and perhaps BIS for any build trying to Min/max spell or weapon damage for whatever reason.

I think it would be interesting if they changed Nirn so it is a multiplier for total spell/weapon damage, change precise so it buffs crit damage (like shadow), and perhaps tone down sharpened just a hair. And that leads to another huge point.

Wouldnt it be great if ZOS addressed balance issues by small incremental changes rather than major overhauls every 3-6 month?

Totalitarian · September 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

At this point, I should simply Decon my precise VMA staff. It is not worth using in any scenario I can think of.

It wouldn't surprise me if people deconned Sharpened vMA weapons before the buff to them.

Hold onto Precise in case it gets a buff and gets to be BiS again.

FriedEggSandwich · September 2016

Sharpened is kind of necessary in pvp atm I feel. I have 38k magicka, 3k spell damage buffed, 3k spell pen from cp, 5k spell pen from sharpened, however much spell pen from 5 light armour, max cp and I still can't do any damage. I don't see the point of trying to stack magicka any more than I have as I don't have mettle, toggles are a hindrance, and doing so would leave me with less defense and only slightly increase my tootip damage, which wouldn't help anyway cos healing. So sharpened might be op in the respect that it's the go-to trait, but I wouldn't want to see it nerfed without some other changes.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2016

Totalitarian wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

At this point, I should simply Decon my precise VMA staff. It is not worth using in any scenario I can think of.

It wouldn't surprise me if people deconned Sharpened vMA weapons before the buff to them.

Hold onto Precise in case it gets a buff and gets to be BiS again.

Ha! If you knew me, you would know its an empty threat. I should probably go on the show hoarders. I have one character that simply holds all my VMA weapons, most of which are 100% useless.

Precise VMA staff was BIS for like 6 months in trials. During the same time, Sharpened VMA staff was BIS for PVP, VMA, and most 4-man stuff. I hope we get back to something similar.

Totalitarian · September 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Totalitarian wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

At this point, I should simply Decon my precise VMA staff. It is not worth using in any scenario I can think of.

It wouldn't surprise me if people deconned Sharpened vMA weapons before the buff to them.

Hold onto Precise in case it gets a buff and gets to be BiS again.

Ha! If you knew me, you would know its an empty threat. I should probably go on the show hoarders.

One time I collected like 2k of the trash pots you get from bosses. I like to hold onto them, but between having about 50 recipies that I probably already know, and gear piling up in my bank, I had to give some of those pots away/put them in guild bank.

I think I'm currently sitting on about 400 each of trash magicka and stamina pot, and I barely go through them. They just sit there until someone random asks if I have any to spare, or I need bank room, so I transfer them to guild bank.

idk · September 2016

@Oreyn_Bearclaw

All weapon traits are useful. Some more than others.

Before the trait changes the choices were similar in number but varries V
1. Nirn for magika and maybe 50/50 healing.
2. Sharpened for stam
3. Defending for tanking.
4. Precise for full healing.

After the changes to traits.
1. Sharpened for dps and maybe did 50/50 healing and there is a point precise
2. Precise maybe for healing
3. Powered maybe for healing
4. Decisive maybe for tanking if the tank is really going for high ult gain
5. Defending another tank choice
6. Insured - anyone in group running crushed enchant but maybe better for tank if this is a groups choice.

So, in the end there are more choices now than before that have decent benefits, just really one for damage dealers. Overall the changes were good.

TequilaFire · September 2016

Armitas wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

Or how about accept what the developers intend?
Strange concept I know. lol

Indeed very strange. They are in no capacity to be right all of the time so why should we be silent if we believe they are wrong. They ask for feedback and activley search for it so why not give it? Stand up for what you believe in.

Well in a way I am standing up for what I believe in.
I use sharpened when I need penetration say on my front bar sword, but when I need crits say like on my restro staff for healing I use precise.
I really don't see where the problem lies other than useless traits like training and prosperous dropping as game loot.
Or is this a complaint against sharpened in PvP by glass canon high damage builds?

caperon · September 2016

I think the main reason of the trait changes was this:

Pollute vMa drops with all traits, make sharpened A LOT stronger, nerf sharpened drop to the oblivion so we farm vMa till the end of days.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2016

caperon wrote: »

I think the main reason of the trait changes was this:

Pollute vMa drops with all traits, make sharpened A LOT stronger, nerf sharpened drop to the oblivion so we farm vMa till the end of days.

Unfortunately, I dont think you are far off. Shame...

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw

All weapon traits are useful. Some more than others.

Before the trait changes the choices were similar in number but varries V
1. Nirn for magika and maybe 50/50 healing.
2. Sharpened for stam
3. Defending for tanking.
4. Precise for full healing.

After the changes to traits.
1. Sharpened for dps and maybe did 50/50 healing and there is a point precise
2. Precise maybe for healing
3. Powered maybe for healing
4. Decisive maybe for tanking if the tank is really going for high ult gain
5. Defending another tank choice
6. Insured - anyone in group running crushed enchant but maybe better for tank if this is a groups choice.

So, in the end there are more choices now than before that have decent benefits, just really one for damage dealers. Overall the changes were good.

Precise was the best PVE DPS before the change in a proper raid. I am not saying there arent other useful traits, what I am saying is that any meaningful choice regarding what to use for DPS has been eliminated. When there is no meaningful choice, chances are because the one good choice is OP.

In other words, DPS went from 3 choices to 1 choice, and support roles went from 1 choice to perhaps 2 (but really only one, just a different one).

For competitive PVE stuff, tanks have a choice between decisive and defending, healers have a choice between decisive and precise. That's pretty much it. Powered is trash, and sharpened does nothing to help a healer. The reality is that decisive is BIS because support roles are first and foremost Aggressive Warhorn Machines in all group content.

For competitive PVP, the only two traits I believe are viable are Sharpened (offense) and Defending (Defense). If you want to go for damage, again, there is no meaningful choice.

idk · September 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

caperon wrote: »

I think the main reason of the trait changes was this:

Pollute vMa drops with all traits, make sharpened A LOT stronger, nerf sharpened drop to the oblivion so we farm vMa till the end of days.

Unfortunately, I dont think you are far off. Shame...

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw

All weapon traits are useful. Some more than others.

Before the trait changes the choices were similar in number but varries V
1. Nirn for magika and maybe 50/50 healing.
2. Sharpened for stam
3. Defending for tanking.
4. Precise for full healing.

After the changes to traits.
1. Sharpened for dps and maybe did 50/50 healing and there is a point precise
2. Precise maybe for healing
3. Powered maybe for healing
4. Decisive maybe for tanking if the tank is really going for high ult gain
5. Defending another tank choice
6. Insured - anyone in group running crushed enchant but maybe better for tank if this is a groups choice.

So, in the end there are more choices now than before that have decent benefits, just really one for damage dealers. Overall the changes were good.

Precise was the best PVE DPS before the change in a proper raid. I am not saying there arent other useful traits, what I am saying is that any meaningful choice regarding what to use for DPS has been eliminated. When there is no meaningful choice, chances are because the one good choice is OP.

In other words, DPS went from 3 choices to 1 choice, and support roles went from 1 choice to perhaps 2 (but really only one, just a different one).

For competitive PVE stuff, tanks have a choice between decisive and defending, healers have a choice between decisive and precise. That's pretty much it. Powered is trash, and sharpened does nothing to help a healer. The reality is that decisive is BIS because support roles are first and foremost Aggressive Warhorn Machines in all group content.

For competitive PVP, the only two traits I believe are viable are Sharpened (offense) and Defending (Defense). If you want to go for damage, again, there is no meaningful choice.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw

Precise was only superior when enough debufs were put out. At that, the debufs had to be consistently on the boss and the difference was not great. Nirn was a solid choice for magika dps and sharpened for stam.

This is still the case today. Looking at Nos' numbers precise still slightly outperforms for magika sharpened when alkosh is up and probably more so with stam when more debuffs are up which is likely the case with a well organized group.

Minute_Waltz · September 2016

With next patch 5pc nmg/sunder (available in jewellries) on a DD and alkosh (easier to obtain) on a tank, sharpened will be next to useless in organised raids, in fact you can even argue decisive would be a better trait.

Actually_Goku · September 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

It is a genuine question that sometimes gets lost in the rage on the forums. RD is OP, Stam is OP, NBs are OP, your mom is OP, etc. But what makes something OP? To me, things start to smell over powered when there is no meaningful choice or trade off when compared to another option. We are currently there with weapon traits. I would never expect to have perfect balance with 9 weapon traits, but I do think that all should be useful in their own way. For most people, what they want out of a weapon trait is to do damage. Let's face it, most people play video games because they like to explode things.

Right now, there are essentially 3 weapon traits designed around damage (certainly others can affect damage as well): Sharpened, Precise, Nirnhoned. For a good long while, if someone asked which of these traits was best, the answer would be: "It depends on what your are doing." That was a good state of things. People could run Nirnhoned to max out their spell damage, precise to maximize raid DPS, Sharpened to deal with tanky players in PVP or solo PVE content, etc. It made sense. You could make arguments about different traits being better for different content, and ALL were useful in their own way.

This is no longer the case. Other than attacking a shield stacking sorc in PVP, where nirn is probably better, Sharpened is simply the best trait across the board. People want it for trials, they want it for Solo PVE, they want in for 99% of PVP. There is no meaningful choice or tradeoff. One trait is simply the best all the time, every where, across the board. IMO, that is a bad state of things.

I am sure some math wizards will come in here and make an argument that precise can be better in this hypothetical Debuff scenario on paper where you completely mitigate a bosses armor in a perfect raid environment, but it's not real life. The best DPS in the best Raidgroups are all running sharpened if they can because it simply does more damage. In PVP its not even a debate. Everyone runs impen, so precise is worthless. For solo content like VMA, again sharpened is just better. My precise VMA staff is collecting dust because a crafted sharpened staff is just more damage. I hope this gets looked at sooner rather than later and we can bring some balance back to the force.

TLDR: We need to buff Precise and Nirn and or (I hate this word) nerf Sharpened.

I think precise and nirnhoned do need slight buffs.

However, as you correctly pointed out, Nirnhoned is still the go-to trait for shield-stacks and IMO magicka builds full stop.

Precise is still useful, obviously people still want crit damage and some still build for it, however with everyone using Impen and heavy armor, Sharpened is just a safer bet, for the flat damage increase rather than the crit chance on a target who doesn't get hit for a whole lot on crits anyway.

I don't think that Sharpened needs a nerf, because I fully believe that people using Sharpened is a result of the Stam and heavy Armor/impen meta.

leepalmer95 · September 2016

Actually_Goku wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

It is a genuine question that sometimes gets lost in the rage on the forums. RD is OP, Stam is OP, NBs are OP, your mom is OP, etc. But what makes something OP? To me, things start to smell over powered when there is no meaningful choice or trade off when compared to another option. We are currently there with weapon traits. I would never expect to have perfect balance with 9 weapon traits, but I do think that all should be useful in their own way. For most people, what they want out of a weapon trait is to do damage. Let's face it, most people play video games because they like to explode things.

Right now, there are essentially 3 weapon traits designed around damage (certainly others can affect damage as well): Sharpened, Precise, Nirnhoned. For a good long while, if someone asked which of these traits was best, the answer would be: "It depends on what your are doing." That was a good state of things. People could run Nirnhoned to max out their spell damage, precise to maximize raid DPS, Sharpened to deal with tanky players in PVP or solo PVE content, etc. It made sense. You could make arguments about different traits being better for different content, and ALL were useful in their own way.

This is no longer the case. Other than attacking a shield stacking sorc in PVP, where nirn is probably better, Sharpened is simply the best trait across the board. People want it for trials, they want it for Solo PVE, they want in for 99% of PVP. There is no meaningful choice or tradeoff. One trait is simply the best all the time, every where, across the board. IMO, that is a bad state of things.

I am sure some math wizards will come in here and make an argument that precise can be better in this hypothetical Debuff scenario on paper where you completely mitigate a bosses armor in a perfect raid environment, but it's not real life. The best DPS in the best Raidgroups are all running sharpened if they can because it simply does more damage. In PVP its not even a debate. Everyone runs impen, so precise is worthless. For solo content like VMA, again sharpened is just better. My precise VMA staff is collecting dust because a crafted sharpened staff is just more damage. I hope this gets looked at sooner rather than later and we can bring some balance back to the force.

TLDR: We need to buff Precise and Nirn and or (I hate this word) nerf Sharpened.

I think precise and nirnhoned do need slight buffs.

However, as you correctly pointed out, Nirnhoned is still the go-to trait for shield-stacks and IMO magicka builds full stop.

Precise is still useful, obviously people still want crit damage and some still build for it, however with everyone using Impen and heavy armor, Sharpened is just a safer bet, for the flat damage increase rather than the crit chance on a target who doesn't get hit for a whole lot on crits anyway.

I don't think that Sharpened needs a nerf, because I fully believe that people using Sharpened is a result of the Stam and heavy Armor/impen meta.

I'd still prefer a sharp when attacking a shield stacker.

Your not gonna kill them by being able to do slightly more dmg to their shield, i prefer to be able to burst them.

KingYogi415 · September 2016

I read the word nerf.

Rabble Rabble Rabble!!!

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2016

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

caperon wrote: »

I think the main reason of the trait changes was this:

Pollute vMa drops with all traits, make sharpened A LOT stronger, nerf sharpened drop to the oblivion so we farm vMa till the end of days.

Unfortunately, I dont think you are far off. Shame...

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw

All weapon traits are useful. Some more than others.

Before the trait changes the choices were similar in number but varries V
1. Nirn for magika and maybe 50/50 healing.
2. Sharpened for stam
3. Defending for tanking.
4. Precise for full healing.

After the changes to traits.
1. Sharpened for dps and maybe did 50/50 healing and there is a point precise
2. Precise maybe for healing
3. Powered maybe for healing
4. Decisive maybe for tanking if the tank is really going for high ult gain
5. Defending another tank choice
6. Insured - anyone in group running crushed enchant but maybe better for tank if this is a groups choice.

So, in the end there are more choices now than before that have decent benefits, just really one for damage dealers. Overall the changes were good.

Precise was the best PVE DPS before the change in a proper raid. I am not saying there arent other useful traits, what I am saying is that any meaningful choice regarding what to use for DPS has been eliminated. When there is no meaningful choice, chances are because the one good choice is OP.

In other words, DPS went from 3 choices to 1 choice, and support roles went from 1 choice to perhaps 2 (but really only one, just a different one).

For competitive PVE stuff, tanks have a choice between decisive and defending, healers have a choice between decisive and precise. That's pretty much it. Powered is trash, and sharpened does nothing to help a healer. The reality is that decisive is BIS because support roles are first and foremost Aggressive Warhorn Machines in all group content.

For competitive PVP, the only two traits I believe are viable are Sharpened (offense) and Defending (Defense). If you want to go for damage, again, there is no meaningful choice.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw

Precise was only superior when enough debufs were put out. At that, the debufs had to be consistently on the boss and the difference was not great. Nirn was a solid choice for magika dps and sharpened for stam.

This is still the case today. Looking at Nos' numbers precise still slightly outperforms for magika sharpened when alkosh is up and probably more so with stam when more debuffs are up which is likely the case with a well organized group.

That is what I mean by a proper raid. The problem is that now, even in a proper raid, sharp wins. As for Nos's numbers, I have no doubt that in current day, you can create a scenario on paper that makes Precise slightly outperform sharpened. I have seen the math. That being said, I dont think it is currently realistic to keep that scenario up enough of the time, which is why every DPS in the best raids still run sharpened if they can.

Actually_Goku wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

It is a genuine question that sometimes gets lost in the rage on the forums. RD is OP, Stam is OP, NBs are OP, your mom is OP, etc. But what makes something OP? To me, things start to smell over powered when there is no meaningful choice or trade off when compared to another option. We are currently there with weapon traits. I would never expect to have perfect balance with 9 weapon traits, but I do think that all should be useful in their own way. For most people, what they want out of a weapon trait is to do damage. Let's face it, most people play video games because they like to explode things.

Right now, there are essentially 3 weapon traits designed around damage (certainly others can affect damage as well): Sharpened, Precise, Nirnhoned. For a good long while, if someone asked which of these traits was best, the answer would be: "It depends on what your are doing." That was a good state of things. People could run Nirnhoned to max out their spell damage, precise to maximize raid DPS, Sharpened to deal with tanky players in PVP or solo PVE content, etc. It made sense. You could make arguments about different traits being better for different content, and ALL were useful in their own way.

This is no longer the case. Other than attacking a shield stacking sorc in PVP, where nirn is probably better, Sharpened is simply the best trait across the board. People want it for trials, they want it for Solo PVE, they want in for 99% of PVP. There is no meaningful choice or tradeoff. One trait is simply the best all the time, every where, across the board. IMO, that is a bad state of things.

I am sure some math wizards will come in here and make an argument that precise can be better in this hypothetical Debuff scenario on paper where you completely mitigate a bosses armor in a perfect raid environment, but it's not real life. The best DPS in the best Raidgroups are all running sharpened if they can because it simply does more damage. In PVP its not even a debate. Everyone runs impen, so precise is worthless. For solo content like VMA, again sharpened is just better. My precise VMA staff is collecting dust because a crafted sharpened staff is just more damage. I hope this gets looked at sooner rather than later and we can bring some balance back to the force.

TLDR: We need to buff Precise and Nirn and or (I hate this word) nerf Sharpened.

I think precise and nirnhoned do need slight buffs.

However, as you correctly pointed out, Nirnhoned is still the go-to trait for shield-stacks and IMO magicka builds full stop.

Precise is still useful, obviously people still want crit damage and some still build for it, however with everyone using Impen and heavy armor, Sharpened is just a safer bet, for the flat damage increase rather than the crit chance on a target who doesn't get hit for a whole lot on crits anyway.

I don't think that Sharpened needs a nerf, because I fully believe that people using Sharpened is a result of the Stam and heavy Armor/impen meta.

First part is true, last part is not. Also, its only true when the shields are up, so its a pretty niche build. Once you get the shields down, sharp is better to finish them off. In PVE, no magic DPS that knows anything is running nirn, ever. The small weapon/spell damage increase is nothing on sharpened, not even close. Even on something like a sorc running dual wield for overload build, sharpened is miles ahead of nirn or precise.

As for the heavy armor Impen meta, that is certainly one reason Sharp is virtually mandatory in PVP. In PVE, bosses armor ratings havent changed much to my knowledge and Sharp is mandatory there too. Or maybe its just OP...

KingYogi415 wrote: »

I read the word nerf.

Rabble Rabble Rabble!!!

Grats. Highly intelligent response. If you actually read my post, I suggested that we need to bring balance to these three traits. One way is certainly to nerf sharpened, but that is generally not my first choice. I would much rather buff the other two and only tone down sharpened if it is needed.