Tyagar wrote: »

I want to share with you my feelings and thoughts about the Morrowind PTS Patch Notes - in particular about the implications they will have on the Stamina Nightblade in PvE.

To tell you my conclusion from the start: I may quit the game when the patch goes online in June. Even after the initial shock settled down, I am still thinking this way. It is not the general change of paradigm to more focus on resource management. Yes, this may hit player performance quite hard; but I understand that there is a general philosophy behind these changes and I would be willing to test for myself how these feel in practice before making any judgment. I am also open to the possibility that in the long term this change will be for the better of the game combat mechanics as a whole, or that you will further adjust the announced changes in the future.

That being said, the already available feedback from PTS strongly indicates that these changes will indeed make the game to take a significant turn for the worse. As Gilliam the Rogue has shown in this very informative video, even with 7 pieces of medium armor, 100 points in Mooncalf, 3 Stamina cost reduction runes, 5 pieces of Vicious Ophidian (now about the strongest set for Stamina resource management in the game) and potion use it is not possible to sustain resources in solo play anymore. And there is not that much more you can still do to improve here – a second set for resource management, drinks over food, and Stamina drain enchants on weapons. But if you literally have to use every equipment/enchant/cp/skill/potion choice at your disposal for resource management in order to (maybe) be able to sustain solo, then this clearly indicates to me that the new system is broken. For this reason it is also a mystery to me how the new system should encourage more build diversity (from what I understand, this is claimed to be one of the goals that ZOS wants to achieve with these changes). Yes, one more thing you can do is relying on heavy attacks, and probably many people will thus go for heavy attack builds after the patch goes live, but likely this will reduce build diversity even further (and make the whole fighting experience much more slow paced, and thus potentially less enjoyable).

But: This is goes only for the global changes that will affect everyone (more or less) equally, like removal/nerf of cp passives or nerf of armor passives (I don't understand why light/medium armor needed a nerf, but okay). However, the individual class/race-related rebalancing is ridiculous in SO many ways.

My main char is a Redguard StamBlade (okayish right now, but definitely not the strongest among builds), and in order to explain my point I want to compare how the changes of the next patch will affect this build in comparison to say a Dunmer MagSorc (already about the strongest in the game dps-wise). There would be many more places in the patch notes to comment about, but let's limit our focus to a manageable scope. First the MagSorc:

1. Dark Exchange: This ability and its morphs now have 0.2 seconds of animation blending time at the end of their cast. This is a small nerf. (Acutally I am not aware of many (PvE-)builds that use Dark Exchange, so in reality it will probably be no nerf at all to many people, but let the arguments work in your favor ZOS and let's pretend that this is actually a nerf.)
2. Minor Magickasteal: Reduced the amount of Magicka this debuff restores to the attacker to 300 Magicka from 400 Magicka. A 25% nerf.

And that's already all for the MagSorc. Now for the StamBlade:

1. Stamina abilities will be universally 5% more expansive. (Actually, relative to the current situation the cost increase will be more like 6.25% - 0.85/0.8 = 1.0625 - but let the numbers work in your favor and let's pretend it is only 5% increase.) Why? Seriously, I really would appreciate if there would be any explanation for this change.
2. Siphoning Attacks (or now Leeching Strikes with the new morph assignment) has the 10% chance for Stamina regeneration on direct damage attacks removed. Wow… When first hearing about the planned changes to cost reduction/regeneration some time ago, I was somewhat optimistic that StamBlade would maybe receive an implicit (and needed) buff due to the fact that they would not be hit as hard by these thanks to Siphoning attacks, and therefore could afford to keep more gear/enchants/CP invested towards damage in comparison to other classes. Not the case obviously. In fact, now it will be NO regeneration at all anymore in AoE situations… That also makes the (at first glance interesting) change towards health regeneration on attacks pretty much useless because this will occur only on light/heavy attacks, and the survivability issues of Nightblades - which were claimed to be existent and responsible for this change in the patch notes, I agree only very partially with that - are not a matter in single-target fights but in AoE situation (either we die because of 1-shot mechanic or because we cannot make up for to much pressure in AoE situations). I mean, I really want to stress that point: We do NOT need health regeneration in single-target fights. And even if you want it for some reason there is the Flurry morph Bloodthirst. For AoE fights on the other hand Leeching Strikes will just do no good. I CAN keep staying in the middle of an AoE-pull to weave light attacks in my Steel Tornado – or I just circle the mobs while doing Steel Tornado thereby avoiding some of the hits I would have otherwise taken. It is not hard to do the math to see why even under reasonable assumptions the second approach will offer more survivability in comparison to the impact of Leeching Strikes. Conclusion: We just do not need health regeneration on light/heavy attacks, and in situations were we would have needed (or at least welcomed) it, we do not receive anything from the new changes. I would somewhat have preferred if you would just have destroyed Siphoning Attacks as you did (more explanations below) without “compensating” it with something nobody needs, and, as far as I know, nobody has asked for; the implications would have been 90% the same and at least that would have been honest.
3. Siphoning Attacks (or now Leeching Strikes with the new morph assignment) now gives back 384 Stamina on light/heavy attacks down from 1090. Wow again... 65% reduction on top of the removal of the 10% chance on direct damage. Together with the change of Leeching Strikes into a Stamina ability (see below) this means this skill now will be almost completely useless outside pure single-target fights – for single-target it is obviously still MASSIVELY nerfed – because in AoE situations you will struggle to just get back the initial Stamina cost for activating this skill from the bonus it offers. Comparing this with the Minor Magickasteal debuff, which, first, you do not even have to provide yourself necessarily, since it is a debuff you can just benefit from for free if someone else applied it, and second, which gives you back 300 Magicka on EVERY attack once a second, the Stamina gain of 384 on light/heavy attack seems ridiculous. (Why is there no Minor Staminasteal debuff in the game btw?) And apart from this immediate comparison: You have to be aware that Siphoning Attacks, surely strong before when considered as stand-alone skill, used to be one of the main reasons why StamBlade was still at least remotely competitive with other classes in endgame. This will not be the case anymore.
4. Siphoning Attacks (or now Leeching Strikes with the new morph assignment) will change into a Stamina ability. This is one of the changes that annoys me the most. Because I do not get the logic behind this change AT ALL. Previously also Relentless Focus was changed from a Magicka to a Stamina ability. With the announced change to Siphoning Attacks, the Magicka pool will finally be completely useless for Stamina Nighbtlade. An in general: What is the idea on changing all Stamina related buffs to stamina abilities? If you do the corresponding thing with buffs for Magicka users, well okay, you still need Stamina for sprint/block/dodge role/break free, but if you do it with buffs for Stamina users then the Magicka pool is just rendered – I really want to stress that again – COMPLETELY useless. I think this is a really bad change. The 5sec longer duration comes not even close to making up for any of this.
   I was thinking the other day how the meeting, at which the Zenimax Developers decided the changes on Siphoning Strikes, might have gone. On a not completely serious side note, here is how I imagined it: "Esteemed colleagues, let us now proceed to the vote on whether we implement these changes as discussed. Yes, the Power Surge/Boundless Storm combo gives a 50% chance to gain 2500 healing on every hit (or whatever your critical rating may be). And yes it also deals decent damage and gives 5 mayor buffs, but let us not get lost in silly details here. I strongly advise though that we do not allow the 10% chance to restore 1500 health on only direct damage hits for the new Leeching Strikes ability - which could easily amount to almost a striking 10% of our beloved Sorcerers power! - after we so successfully have stripped that skill of all of its prior significance. I admit that this may be not COMPLETELY correct with respect to class balancing. But you all know that we are playing Magicka Sorcs ourselves, and same as me I know that also you are tired of all these pesky players still trying to compete with us. We finally have to put an end to this. This time we need to crush their moral for good, once and for all! Who is with me, my fellow Sorcerer companions?"
5. Redguard Passive Adrenaline Rush now restores Stamina based on character level instead of Max Stamina (this will be a buff if your maximum resource is below 15,840 and a nerf if it is above; meaning it will be a huge a nerf!). M… I can accept the idea that this passive is revised in the process of the general changes to resource management. It would have already been implicitly nerfed though due to the fact that in the future people will probably have lower Max Stamina because food may change to Dubious Camoran Throne or something in favor of more Stamina regeneration (~3.5k less Stamina for my build if I also make up for the lost Health), and maybe also Health will have to be higher in order to counter changes to CP passives (hard to estimate impact on Stamina at the moment). However, you decided to add an actual nerf on top. Well... For this change, I am not claiming that it is all wrong by itself, and I see that the general procedure is consistent with other changes that you implemented, but I do not agree with the precise balancing you chose. Anyway, I obviously have to add it to my list of nerfs.
6. Volley and its morphs become approximately 30% more expensive.
7. Twin Slashes and its morphs become approximately 60% more expensive. (Btw, are there any reasons for these cost increases that you want to share with us?)
8. Vigor and its morphs become approximately 30% more expensive. Really…? It is the only universally accessible self-heal for stamina users. And what is really annoying to me is the reason you provide for the change (at least this time there is a reason announced, I should be happy I guess): it is to cheap as a group heal. You may have a point. But then please lower the heal which my allies receive instead of making this skill universally more expensive. To me this is another prime example on how balancing gets constantly messed up in this game. You (=ZOS) identify a problem (Vigor to cheap as group heal), but when you try to solve the problem you seemingly do not think about the consequences and thus create another problem somewhere else (Vigor nerfed as single-target heal, which it should be not). Remeber, most Stamina users do not have shields, Vigor is important to us. (Yes, the StamBlade has some other sources of self-heal like Twin Slashes, or Bloodthirst or the new Leeching Strike skill – but all of these depend on the fact that you engage in single-target fight; which you do not want to do if the situation is genuinely AoE, or where you do not need much self-heal, if it actually is a single-target fight.) The possibilities of making up for the cost increase by more “tactical” usage of the skill are also highly limited, since Vigor is a HoT and no emergency heal skill, and the only self-heal outside single-target fights, so if I use it when I am already to low on health it likely will be to late to save me (try saving vigor in like 5th arena of vMA for when you are at 30% max Health for example, good luck; it is possible, but it is a gamble).

I decided not to add Caltrops to the list. It IS a nerf for AoE situations (I think a substantial one actually, here is the math:

Let's start by looking at resource per dps balancing after the patch and before the patch: 2 Caltrops now will cost the same as 1 Caltrops before; comparing these cases we will have 24sec uptime with 175% damage instead of 30sec uptime before with 100% damage, so this is in principal a damage increase of 20% (since 1.75*24/30=1.2). BUT, first you have to take into account the necessity for a second cast during which time you cannot pull off dmg from other sources. Seeing that e.g. 1 hit of Stell Tornado will do about 20%-45% of the Caltrops total damage depending on remaining mob health (these numbers will become even higher if enemies die during the 12sec uptime of Caltrops; think about it) this means that the seeming damage increase you suspect when looking at Caltrops alone will be much smaller at best or most likely even a damage DECREASE if Caltrops is used as part of your rotation. And second, notice that the effected area of Caltrops will be shrinked by a striking 55.6%; area depends on radius squared so 8²/12²=0.444 means that the new area is only 44.4% of the old one. Even if we neglect the impact of the second cast time and assume the full 20% damage increase, and even if we make mild assumptions on the impact of the reduced area, like assuming that in average the shrinking of the affected area will result in 80% of the mobs being affected in comparison to before, this will already be a nerf – 1.2*0.8 = 0.96 < 1. And really, the impact of the second cast time in you rotation will be noticeable and it is not contained in the number 0.96 yet. If you choose more (not the most) pessimistic numbers, like same damage contribution to your rotation as before and only 70% of the mobs being affected then you obtain 1*0.7=0.7 which corresponds to a decrease in damage of 30%. I am not claiming that you will always loose 30% of the damage, but I AM claiming that the actual damage impact IN AVERAGE should be at least between the 4% damage decrease and the 30% damage decrease of the above two scenarios. Make a guess on what actually happens based on these numbers.

, on the other hand it is potentially a buff for single-target situations (IF you can afford the increased resource cost required for full uptime in the new resource management system; also you have to count in the damage loss resulting from the necessity to recast this ability in much higher frequency). In reality I'm pretty sure this will amount to an overall nerf, but exact numbers are admittedly hard to estimate. Also 12 second duration does not fit well to the already complicated buff rotation of the StamBlade, and the fact that Caltrops can now stack and will snare more often - due to more uses and therefore more applications of the initial snare - will probably be a nightmare for people doing PvP (it is already completely clear now that we will see further changes to this ability precisely for this reason), but as before, let the arguments be in your favor ZOS and let us therefore not add Caltrops to the list of nerfs (I really am trying to take your side as much possible, I hope you appreciate it).

So let us now compare the lists for MagSorc and StamBlade… Notice any difference? And it is not only about the number of points (2 to 8), but also about the scope of their implications. Listing Dark Exchange changes at all is already an act of politeness and diligence (compare it with how I treated Caltrops), whereas the changes to Siphoning Strikes are game-changing.

And remember, we are starting from the point where MagSorc is already about the strongest build around. Yes, maybe my particular build was hit particularly hard. Maybe some other people are Khajiit instead of Redguard or they do not use Twin Slashes or something else. But this does not change the fact that overall StamBlade got another huge nerf. In comparison to MagSorc of course - not necessarily to StamDK or StamTemplar because they also got hit fairly hard (I mean, why play a Templar Healer anymore?); other people can tell better about the details of that than me. The overall moral of this patch is undeniably this, however:

You strongly nerfed Stamina users over Magicka users AGAIN. And in particular you strongly nerfed Stamina Nightblade AGAIN.

And again, and again, and again... It is not the first time. Or even the second. And THIS is actually the reason why I may quit the game after the next patch (I DEFINITELY will stop playing my StamBlade for anything except for completely casual activities; this is my main char I played for 1.5 years now, so you might understand why I am a little bit pissed and why I am thinking about quitting the game as a whole). I completely lost all hope that ZOS will ever get the balancing between classes right. Not to speak of the new Warden class which - on purpose? - will make the balancing even worse (I mean, everybody who understands the game already knows for a fact that you will significantly nerf the Warden 1-3month after release ZOS, and I cannot help but assuming that you willingly accept the disappointments this will cause with some people in the future, just in order to make your new product more attractive for a short time now so people spend the money). Not to speak of the fact that some long ongoing issues like broken Dungeon Finder are not even mentioned at all in the patch notes (I do not care that much personally, but seriously, how difficult can it be to fix that?). I do not even dare to start a discussion about the rng of item drops in this game (e.g., there is already only limited incentive to do vMA because of the rng - with PvE players now crippled I wonder how many people will still take the effort do it)...

Just to much disappointment that has build up over the time and with every new patch already. With the next one it really will be enough for me. It was a fun time though, RIP Stamina Nightblade:)

P.S. I thought about giving some feedback to you ZOS concerning what I think should be done differently. Like at least leaving Leeching Strikes with the 10% chance to give back resources on direct damage attacks, which would only “buff” Nightblade and leave them at least a little bit room to breathe. Like, nerfing Vigor group heal capability while leaving it the same for self-heal. But you see, I really find it hard to gather the motivation for that. Because what is the best possible outcome? That you listen to these suggestions and only nerf StamBlade strongly instead of super strongly? I am also over the point where I can still say “well, this patch Nightblade got hit a little bit harder, but maybe in the next patch or the one after that, it is our turn to receive a small advantage”. Because this is what I already thought for such a long time now. You (will have) hit the whole class so strongly over time, that some infinitesimal changes for the better are not enough anymore to keep it even remotely competitive. You just have already gone in the wrong direction for to long a time (constantly ignoring player feedback which pointed you out to this very fact along the way). If you do not start to give ANY signal at all that you at least have heard these long-ongoing concerns, I am not even claiming yet that you need to agree with them, then I just see no point why I or anybody else should invest time in order to discuss with you about changes to a class that in reality you have already abandoned a long time ago.