Sharpened/Defending Nerf Is Too Much

pieratsos · August 2017

Diminish wrote: »

Brutusmax1mus wrote: »

It took a 50% nerf and a buff to other traits to bring it in line. It was massively outperforming the other traits. Gj zos.

And it should (or something should)... If there is not anything that clearly outshines the rest then they might as well ditch traits all together. We can have a few select weapons like sword, staff, maul, etc. There is a time where balance = everything is the same; not fun if you ask me.

Ok buddy. When you do hundreds of vMA runs and u still dont get what u want come tell us again how fun it is.

Beardimus · August 2017

ArchMikem wrote: »

The problem is BiS exists in the first place. Everything should give you the opportunity to succeed, no matter the playstyle.

And I think this patch is the closest that's been to happening in a while, granted there are only a few handful of combos, but hey that's way better state than PvE has been For a while.

People that moan are those that followed the easy to follow meta / BIS / la La la and had a easy to find setup.

Now EVEN streamers are saying there is no clear Meta as it's situational and BOOOOOM people lose their mind. They want to be told.

But yes back to your quote. I think this is step 1a d hopefully next update other patches are buffed to come into the picture as well (BUT content will need to get harder otherwise its all too easy)

alainjbrennanb16_ESO · August 2017

i see your point but they did need a nerf not really for pve but for pvp, as now what you find is 4-10 peeps on 1 person, killing them really quick, or you have a dk standing them with 20 on them not taking any damage, or someone like me, running in on a train with eye of flame, detination and vicious death killing most of them, which is why it was need for pvp, but they could have found some way around nerfing it for pve, but this is zos after all ;p

Doctordarkspawn · August 2017

pieratsos wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Bouldercleave wrote: »

Malic wrote: »

The problem is one that has plagued this MMO for years and is embodied to a great deal by its community. Point if view is a fantastic corollary.

The point of view that nothing needs to be nerfed but rather other things need to be buffed to compensate is the mindset that gets shouted down regularly. In essence, if you repeat the same behaviors (nerfing) and expect a different result youre an idiot.

How about next patch, where ZOS re does everything and negates players months of grinding they simply "buff" items that are lagging.

What an out of the box way of thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVPdyYeaQU

Because that creates an unsustainable power creep which is even harder and more painful to fix.

Explain how.

I allways see people go on about powercreep, but actually explain it. Explain in depth what would happen @Bouldercleave

Because when something is overperforming you nerf it to become balanced. You dont buff everything else to make them all overperforming. Its common sense that you are going to create huge problems to the game when everything is OP.

Here's the thing.

I used to play a game called Champions online, where everything was OP in it's own way. Objectively. Some damage specs could put out an insane ammount of damage, some tank builds could become nigh invincible. And with sub, you could mix and match and choose what you wanted. Yet the game survived up to a point and then declined. Why?

Short version: No new content. Or sparse new content.

Powercreep isn't a problem, even CO"s PVP scene survived mostly intact through years of near-broken powersets that people eventually learned to counter. The problem is keeping people interested and allways has been. Especially in games like that, mostly power based, and games like this, in which 90% of the gearsets are absolutely useless.

...Also, the irony of people whining about how power creep is a problem despite people going 'should the DLC stuff be so powerfull?" is met with vitriol and hate. You people just cant be pleased.

No need to talk about other games. You are playing ESO. You want an example. Proc sets. Dealing unavoidable very high dmg with the click of a button. And your solution is buff everything else to match proc set strength. Sound logical right? All the sets would be balanced after all. What could possibly go wrong? Well everyone is oneshotting everyone by pressing one button. Thats whats wrong. Like i said when everything is OP its common sense that its going to break the game.

"No need to talk about other games"

Let me stop you right there and say if you cannot understand why other games are being used as an example as far as differences in design structure, the effects of that structure on power creep, you should not be participating in the discussion, period.

Second. My solution is -not- to buff everything else to Proc Set Strength. Dont put words in my mouth based on your misconceptions. My solutions if I had the power would be the following:

1. Create a new tallent tree system that gradually levels up after it's selected based on PVE role alone. Support, Tank, Magicka DPS, and Stamina DPS. Scrap the Champion system, replace it with this. This will give each class an identity, while still maintaining they're ability to actually -function-, and opening up build opportunity based on each spec. (As well as identity at any given roll. Dragon-knight tank? The traditional. Sorc-based tank? Possibly alot of reflect damage. Nightblade tank? Saptank taken to it's logical extreme. Templar tank? Cross between Nightblade and Dragon-knight, with some group support and self healing.)

The beauty of implimenting this -now-, is that you can fit the needs of the current PVP situatiion, and could likely keep gear where it is. New gear does not need to be implimented, thus power creep is not created, if the focus of your system is the skills relation to the tallent tree's, and the gear used in tandem with these. No new gear tiers, need to be implimented, when the focus is on the sets. And it has been,

2. Impliment two new difficulties, and revamp the difficulty system.

That, would be my solution. Will it happen? No, it'd likely be too much work for the dev team to justify, in addition to them likely not wanting to rock the boat, making so many radical changes so quickly. But, that would be my proposed solution to fixing the current situation.

code65536 · August 2017

@Doctordarkspawn The Defending nerf is done for a simple reason: That trait has always been a mirror image of Sharpened. When Sharpened was 14% penetration, Defending was 14% resistance. When Sharpened was 5K penetration, Defending was 5K resistance. They've always been mirror image counterparts, and it made sense to maintain that.

Both Defending and Sharpened were buffed sky-high a year ago. Instead of seeing these as nerfs, I see these as a rollback of the massive buffs of last year.

And finally, in PvE, Defending was really a trait for healers, not for tanks. Too many people overestimate the usefulness of Resistance in PvE tanking. Hitting the cap was never needed and made very little difference in actual gameplay. Even when the value of Defending was high, many tanks would still prefer Decisive or Infused over Defending.

leepalmer95 · August 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

You make it sound like vma weapons are usless. Like many have pointed out the dps difference between traits are slim to none. There will always be something that's at least 0.000001% better.

Certain traits perform better in different situations. But everything is on par now. Sharpened just isn't be all end all.

Chill.

Keep using you vma weapons they're still good.

I defy you to tell me how Defending was overperforming. Given armor is negledgeable in PVP given it's all burst damage, the only people using it would be tanks who you dont target first anyway.

Explain to be why defending needed nerfed.

Defending was the best back bar trait for pvp period.

Provided the best defensive bonuses for both magicka and stamina builds.

pieratsos · August 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Bouldercleave wrote: »

Malic wrote: »

The problem is one that has plagued this MMO for years and is embodied to a great deal by its community. Point if view is a fantastic corollary.

The point of view that nothing needs to be nerfed but rather other things need to be buffed to compensate is the mindset that gets shouted down regularly. In essence, if you repeat the same behaviors (nerfing) and expect a different result youre an idiot.

How about next patch, where ZOS re does everything and negates players months of grinding they simply "buff" items that are lagging.

What an out of the box way of thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVPdyYeaQU

Because that creates an unsustainable power creep which is even harder and more painful to fix.

Explain how.

I allways see people go on about powercreep, but actually explain it. Explain in depth what would happen @Bouldercleave

Because when something is overperforming you nerf it to become balanced. You dont buff everything else to make them all overperforming. Its common sense that you are going to create huge problems to the game when everything is OP.

Here's the thing.

I used to play a game called Champions online, where everything was OP in it's own way. Objectively. Some damage specs could put out an insane ammount of damage, some tank builds could become nigh invincible. And with sub, you could mix and match and choose what you wanted. Yet the game survived up to a point and then declined. Why?

Short version: No new content. Or sparse new content.

Powercreep isn't a problem, even CO"s PVP scene survived mostly intact through years of near-broken powersets that people eventually learned to counter. The problem is keeping people interested and allways has been. Especially in games like that, mostly power based, and games like this, in which 90% of the gearsets are absolutely useless.

...Also, the irony of people whining about how power creep is a problem despite people going 'should the DLC stuff be so powerfull?" is met with vitriol and hate. You people just cant be pleased.

No need to talk about other games. You are playing ESO. You want an example. Proc sets. Dealing unavoidable very high dmg with the click of a button. And your solution is buff everything else to match proc set strength. Sound logical right? All the sets would be balanced after all. What could possibly go wrong? Well everyone is oneshotting everyone by pressing one button. Thats whats wrong. Like i said when everything is OP its common sense that its going to break the game.

"No need to talk about other games"

Let me stop you right there and say if you cannot understand why other games are being used as an example as far as differences in design structure, the effects of that structure on power creep, you should not be participating in the discussion, period.

Second. My solution is -not- to buff everything else to Proc Set Strength. Dont put words in my mouth based on your misconceptions. My solutions if I had the power would be the following:

1. Create a new tallent tree system that gradually levels up after it's selected based on PVE role alone. Support, Tank, Magicka DPS, and Stamina DPS. Scrap the Champion system, replace it with this. This will give each class an identity, while still maintaining they're ability to actually -function-, and opening up build opportunity based on each spec. (As well as identity at any given roll. Dragon-knight tank? The traditional. Sorc-based tank? Possibly alot of reflect damage. Nightblade tank? Saptank taken to it's logical extreme. Templar tank? Cross between Nightblade and Dragon-knight, with some group support and self healing.)

The beauty of implimenting this -now-, is that you can fit the needs of the current PVP situatiion, and could likely keep gear where it is. New gear does not need to be implimented, thus power creep is not created, if the focus of your system is the skills relation to the tallent tree's, and the gear used in tandem with these. No new gear tiers, need to be implimented, when the focus is on the sets. And it has been,

2. Impliment two new difficulties, and revamp the difficulty system.

That, would be my solution. Will it happen? No, it'd likely be too much work for the dev team to justify, in addition to them likely not wanting to rock the boat, making so many radical changes so quickly. But, that would be my proposed solution to fixing the current situation.

You asked to clarify why would buffing everything else to match something that is OP is bad. I told you why its bad and i gave you a perfect example from this game so yeah no need to provide an example from a different game with a different design when u can have an example from this specific game we are talking about.

Now u are proposing a complete revamp to the game. Good, i dont disagree with the fact that the game needs major changes but thats not what this discussion is about. As far as im concerned you are the one who shouldnt be participating in this discussion. This discussion is about sharpened and defending and why they should absolutely be nerfed and not the other traits buffed to match their strength cause it can screw the game.

kromegas · August 2017

I wish we had two things
1. Separate champion point trees for pve and pvp. Make the skills different in each tree, and nerf the pvp champion trees. This will make pvp more balanced without effecting the pve diehards.
2. Allow us to have two gear slots. One for pve setup and another for pvp set up. This would make things much easier for doing both activities on our main.

NyassaV · August 2017

Personally I was looking for more of a 30-40% nerf and I would have been happy. 50% was way to much

Betsararie · August 2017

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

You make it sound like vma weapons are usless. Like many have pointed out the dps difference between traits are slim to none. There will always be something that's at least 0.000001% better.

Certain traits perform better in different situations. But everything is on par now. Sharpened just isn't be all end all.

Chill.

Keep using you vma weapons they're still good.

I defy you to tell me how Defending was overperforming. Given armor is negledgeable in PVP given it's all burst damage, the only people using it would be tanks who you dont target first anyway.

Explain to be why defending needed nerfed.

Defending was the best back bar trait for pvp period.

Provided the best defensive bonuses for both magicka and stamina builds.

I run defending resto on my backbar in PvP and it has saved me more times than I can count with my light armor build. Very effective, yes.

Broken or in need of a nerf? Absolutely not. Frankly really enjoyed playing defending back sharpened front.

It wasn't overperforming, but it performed well. I can think of plenty of things that are/were overperforming in PvP, and defending was not one of them.

It also added an element of strategy because if I needed to defend, it would be imperative for me to switch to the back bar, and start blocking if necessary along with making sure my other defenses were up. Not sure if it's even going to work after the nerf, haven't seen much testing on defending sadly.

Drakkdjinn · August 2017

If Morrowind changes didn't already eat into their dedicated player base, ZoS' stupid 3-years-too-late half-baked balance changes certainly will. Farming is not gameplay.

PlautisCarvain · August 2017

Spinner and spriggan are there for you

DocFrost72 · August 2017

Leandor wrote: »

Is everyone posting agreement aware that sharpened will still be the best trait on many builds and that the nerf actually makes it so that precise will be the same or a hair's breadth better with a little change in setups? That infused will not be more than a percent better? That we now actually have three (in pvp four) options that are all valid and workable?

I hate the complaint machine that is this forum.

^

Worst stone, worst weapon trait (of sharp, precise, infused) is 6% away from best trait and stone for your build.

Sounds good to me. Oh, I mean DAMN YOU ZOS! My damage is 30k instead of 31.8!

POps75p · August 2017

NO more nerf's, just treat pvp and pve as completely separate. PVP not CP and no processed sets, than you will never need to nerf anything. plus you will make it easy for new blood to join in on the fun

Arbit · August 2017

I find myself annoyed with the defending nerf, more because it felt like the only reason it was nerfed was because its tied to sharpened stats, and not because it was overpowered in any way. Defending was in a good place, but simply for uniformity with sharpened, it got nerfed. Id like to see them untied from each other, and treated separately.

Honghua · August 2017

Stupid heavy armor bias really.

Now heavy armor will be BIS instead, must have or go home ***.
Pathetic.
Why not buff the other traits to the point of sharpened strength tell me.
Powered could have get 10%, Decivise as well or others.
Now infused will be broken to the bone, making pvp even worse an unbalanced.
It got 2 buffs, 30% bonus dmg from 20% and 10% lower cooldown on enchant. Now you put legendary enchant into the weapon pure for dmg and use it with infused trait weapon, here you go, you get more damage than from sharpened now.
Not to mention you could mix up this trait with weapon damage enchantement, that wil lgrant you 226 spell and weapon damage almost all the time now.
What about those players who spend multiple hours to farm certain weapons? Is that fair to them that their pve will get worse?
This absolutely fked up, YES YOU CAN BALANCE but not in game where for anything you are using you have to spend a lot of time to obtain it. This is not fair at all, are they not right in the head or what.

AdicusDio · August 2017

Doing reductions in PvE, especially this late in the game's life cycle is beyond stupid; I suppose Zos' think tank thought it'd force more people to "group" for everything, which again is ignorant; pug dungeons are going to be a nightmare as anyone with no/low pen will be worthless in everything from mob to boss fights unless you have someone spamming destro ult every 10 sec. on every mob. FWIW, you can run 90%+ crit ratings NOW (I've 99% in Cyro with bonuses) and the higher average damage numbers DO NOT HELP WITH VET DUNGEONS or PVP. You people running around to switch to all prec./crit + 2 daggers are going to hate yourself in the morning as they don't work on anything higher than an overland wolf in the wild.

Doing countless reductions in PvP on TOP of the damage reductions to say stam nb already in effect, is grossly incompetent. If well-built tanks can already swim in slaughter fish water (like the outer river of IC) to reach areas no one else can, or have so much regen + whatever BS keeps them bunny hopping everywhere that 10+ full cp nb, etc. hammering on them and 20 minutes later they go down only because they want to blood spawn, won't be any easier assuming they were even running defending weapons to begin with. The real joke is their actual damage is already on par with everyone else and cheap attacks like Warden cliff birds are spammed semi-auto style while a bow build is lucky to get a snipe off before running as that has an actual cast time. A quick CC or knockdown, and couple attacks and anyone not running a shield is dead if they were too low on stam trying to damage them. How is that going to be more balanced with pen reductions? Answer is it won't.

For PvP, you don't need trial-defense tanks (even worse when there are more than one, especially when trial-level dps have our actual damaged mitigated by 50-90% and don't even get the sneak bonus anymore. Should have a cap vs. actual "nerfs".

10k damage caps.
20k resistance caps.
2k shield cap with 48sec cool downs. (shields that are NOT available to all classes; Annulment is a joke for everyone not magic-based running light and should be a last resort, not cast indefinitely and watch 90% of your attacks wasted on a regen shield instead of a player)
1500 BASE health, stam, and magic regen caps that can ONLY go higher with food/drink
30k health, stam, magic pool caps.

Those are numbers humbly grabbed from thin air FWIW, but think THAT would make the game more balanced in PvP IF everyone was on a more level playing field.

I think what I find the most demoralizing is seeing the damage the build *should* be doing negated by behind the scenes reductions added by patches and patches and more patches, BEFORE anything the enemy player is wearing, casting, etc. is even considered. I'm not an apologist. If it smells like a dead skunk cooking on the road, I won't say how great the odor is.

MLGProPlayer · August 2017

Drakkdjinn wrote: »

If Morrowind changes didn't already eat into their dedicated player base, ZoS' stupid 3-years-too-late half-baked balance changes certainly will. Farming is not gameplay.

Did you even read the patch notes? This patch is going to reduce farming, not increase it.

Now you can stop farming once you get any one of 3 traits on your weapons. Several gear combinations are providing comparable parses (included crafted sets). The game has never had more build diversity.