Suggestion: move Master-At-Arms to the Ritual CP-tree

Dantaria · May 2017

After some wiggle-waggling at PTS with my magsorc, I noticed a rather impactful drawback of the new CP system for mag-characters. That drawback being the sum of diminishing return and Exploiter passive.

I'll just quote myself from another thread

Okay, guys. Here comes some science

Setup: 5 Julianos + 4 IA + 2 Ilambris. All golden. Full Spell Damage enchantment.

Exploiter passive (75 into Thaumaturgy), Live DPS: http://imgur.com/G133zv2. Solid 28k DPS. Nice? Nice!

Now. Let's go to PTS.

Assuming that setup doesn't change.

1) First option, nothing changes: Exploiter passive, what's left goes to Elfborn and Elemental Expert.
15 Elfborn, 42 Elemental Expert: http://imgur.com/a/voaPm
http://imgur.com/a/Jwhd7
75 Thaumaturgy: http://imgur.com/a/DHmHM

Result: http://imgur.com/a/lj5pP

As I said. -4k DPS.

2) Second option, let's try Master-At-Arms. And Fire blockade:
25 Elfborn, 42 Elemental Expert: http://imgur.com/a/nRtsz
55 Master-At-Arms: http://imgur.com/a/rJEIU
10 Thaumaturgy: http://imgur.com/a/uaO5O

Result: http://imgur.com/a/RCZlz

21k. -7k DPS.

So let me repeat myself: EXPLOITER STILL ROCKS.

The best result I managed to achieve on Target Skeleton was still with using Blockade of Storms and Exploiter passive. The problem with it is that they changed the impact of CP. Thaumaturgy in total makes your DoTs stronger on 25%. You make it to 23% already on 40 points. Everything else is a huge waste. However. You need 75 in that tree for Exploiter. 35CP - into nothing. Because if you're magsorc your only choice in that tree is Thaumaturgy.

<...>

As a result you now need even more CPs. Because you now have more stars which require 35+ CPs. And that's only if Exploiter will underperform, which is, for now, doubtful.

For Exploiter to underperform you need your whole raid to go into HA builds. I don't see it now. As I said, HA underperforms. This strategy is bad. HA still remains the last resort.

***

TL;DR: Exploiter still is a very strong passive. A "must have" passive if we talk about Trial-group setup.

DD stamchars have that passive naturally through Mighty and Precise Strikes. But DD magchars really have only one star that benefits them: Thaumaturgy.

And here comes the problem: diminishing return makes putting 75 points into Thaumaturgy a huge sacrifice. We're talking about 30-35 magCPs or 90-105 CPs wasted. Which doesn't help with "making the gap between low-CP and maxed-out chars" at all.

Imo, it would help magchars a lot, if you moved Master-At-Arms star into Ritual constellation. Or, truly, any star that somehow benefits mag damage.

Putting 75 point in Thaumaturgy is rather tough on not-maxed-out char on Live. But on PTS? It feels crippling.

acw37162 · May 2017

I suggested as such in the first week of PTS and the thread never got any traction.

An easier fix is change the butcher passive and the exploiter passive.

This pushes both magica and stamina to invest into the middle tree which is the most neglected.

acw37162 acw37162
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Swap the places of The Butcher and Exploiter passive.

The Ritual is primary a stamina based tree and the Butcher passive fit better in he context of stamina and roll dodging.

The Atronach is primarily a magical tree.

The apprentice is a mixed bad with options for stamina and magica.

It makes since for exploiter to be in this tree where both playstyles gain similar benefits to attain the passive. Also, as it stands with 75 points required in the Ritual tree, leaving magica with the only option of spending 75 points in thamaturge to get any benefit and with diminishing returns being more pronounced this is an ugly choice.

Moving exploiter to the Apprentice gives magica and stamina builds choice of how to spend 75 points to get this passive.

Also thamturge should be exchanged with physical weapons expert and the healing bonus should be change places with staff expert.

This invites both parties to invest in the Appreentice with plenty of choices, moves thamaturge to a place more accessible to magica builds, and aligns the stamina and magica constellations fairly equally.

Zarrakon · May 2017

I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing (even as a main magicka sorcerer). The whole constellation with thaumaturge in it (really, even thaumaturge itself) just seemed to be stamina-centric. If magicka characters find some use for it, that's great, but I think it's also fine to punish them a little for it. I'll take my wards, the stamina characters can have their ~30 unwasted CP.

IxSTALKERxI · May 2017

It's current location finally makes it viable for players to use the tactician passive.

SodanTok · May 2017

And replace it with what? Physical crits, physical penetration or physical damage that are in physical oriented tree as mag ones are in mag tree?

I guess what are you looking for is to move Exploiter to middle (Atronach) tree.

It would even make sense with to be in same tree as Tactician

Dantaria · May 2017

acw37162 wrote: »

I suggested as such in the first week of PTS and the thread never got any traction.

An easier fix is change the butcher passive and the exploiter passive.

This pushes both magica and stamina to invest into the middle tree which is the most neglected.

sodantokb16_ESO wrote: »

I guess what are you looking for is to move Exploiter to middle (Atronach) tree.

It would even make sense with to be in same tree as Tactician

Yeah, that would also work

Personally I would be content with pretty much any improvement to the current "waste your CPs" situation.

Izaki · May 2017

Heavy attacks take off the off-balance effect, and because we can't sustain otherwise, the off-balance uptime will be terrible. So its worth to put more points in Staff Expert..

Dantaria · May 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Heavy attacks take off the off-balance effect, and because we can't sustain otherwise, the off-balance uptime will be terrible. So its worth to put more points in Staff Expert..

My testing shows otherwise

Staff-Expert 0, Heavy-attacks: http://imgur.com/a/VjbV5
Staff Expert 40, Heavy-attacks: http://imgur.com/a/GFCcY

It's not worth it. Yes, you do HA more often now. But with maxed-out Tenacity and Potions on CD - it's far from HAs only. And HAs only builds (as in: throw some DoTs and HA all day) are not viable. They don't make any sense.

1) The dmg is too low. 2) It's absolutely not needed: with Tenacity you'll be sitting on 100% magicka. So HA-build = 100% magicka and no dmg. It's useless and meaningless.

Here, I'll post it again: http://imgur.com/a/lj5pP

My best PTS result. It's still -4k from my live numbers. But it's the best. HAs do not come even close.

From where I stand, people will more probably spam LAs with only occasional HA until potion comes from cooldown.

Didaco · May 2017

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

It's current location finally makes it viable for players to use the tactician passive.

So much this.
I've been waiting for something useful in that constellation to unlock that passive, I want to try it on my Hybrid DK with Power Lash