Diminishing Returns

Anazasi · October 2017

Over the last few weeks, especially in PVP, several players have made comments about build stats such as penetration, damage numbers, max stat pools and so on. It has always been a known fact that even though there are no caps in game anymore the concept of diminishing returns still exists. We see it in CP very easily, but we don't know if it exists in other areas. Most recently, I have noticed and discussed with other players the "sweet spot" on penetration. It would seem that somewhere the effectiveness of this stat is around 8-10k at least it "feels" strongest in that range. Could this be real based on the unknown effects of diminishing returns? We have heard from other well known players also that 3k spell damage seems to be best or at least their ideal damage spot. Is this an effect of diminishing returns as well? I realize this is more of a cause and effect relationship, and to my knowledge no one has done any testing to prove this one way or the other; so I decided to post here in hopes that someone or a group of someone's could ponder this and perhaps expound on it further. I also would love to here from @ZOS_JessicaFolsom on the game mechanics regarding the role diminishing returns plays in PVP. Even if @ZOS_GinaBruno could confirm that diminishing returns effects those primary stats it would help all of us perform better. I understand the "power creep" that has plagued the game over the years and I am a firm believer in the current "health creep" taking place now. I just want the developers to shed some light on the mysteries of the mechanics so we can all build better builds.

idk · October 2017

It has been very well known in other areas. Penetration being one major area that is well known and is mentioned in these forums from time to time.

I do not have the exact numbers, and someone correct me if this is off, but I believe it is 18k resist in PvE. PvP it will vary considerably based on armor and CP. Magicka get an automatic boost to their penetration if wearing 5pc LA. Stam have the most sets to reduce the armor value of the target. I am sure others have the information they can just Cut and Paste.

Getting close to the resistance value, at some point, other stats provide more. BTW, I would not expect Zos to reply to this, especially since it was players that figured this out/confirmed it. This is the type of information that usually, and best, comes from our theorycrafters and those who take the time to test things.

EDIT: with penetration it is diminishing returns only because there is only so much resistance.

Turelus · October 2017

From my understanding there are no diminished returns any more since soft-caps went. The caps now are simply what you can achieve via the numbers you stack.

With armour capped at 50% mitigation but not value (excess armour just protects against de-buffs)

Isn't the reason people stop at some levels because that's the point where any more added would be wasted. Boss monsters only have a set level of resistance for example and PvP players having average levels of defences based on gear/build.

IxSTALKERxI · October 2017

Turelus wrote: »

From my understanding there are no diminished returns any more since soft-caps went. The caps now are simply what you can achieve via the numbers you stack.

With armour capped at 50% mitigation but not value (excess armour just protects against de-buffs)

Isn't the reason people stop at some levels because that's the point where any more added would be wasted. Boss monsters only have a set level of resistance for example and PvP players having average levels of defences based on gear/build.

^This.

Sunburnt_Penguin · October 2017

Diminishing returns is everywhere in ESO because of X% being additive.

For example: if you consider 5pc Medium vs 5pc Heavy builds both with bases (before X%s) of 1200 Stam and 800 Health recovery considering using 5pc Willow’s Path over Hunding’s.

The Medium build has +20% from Wind Walker which gives 240 additional recovery, equalling 1440. The +15% from Willow’s would only boost the 1200, not the 1440, giving 180 additional recovery which in real terms is a +12.5% increase to what it previously had.

If the Heavy build was going to use Willow’s then it would get the same 180 additional recovery to equal 1380 which is a 15% increase.

Then conversely, the Medium build would get +15% Health recovery whereas the Heavy build who already gets +20% from Consitution would only get +12.5% in real terms.

The same effect occurs with CPs, passives, actives etc for all other +% bonuses, incl. damage done.

If you consider an Orc vs Redguard StamNB who are considering using Relentless Focus just for Minor Berserk (not the Bow proc): the Orc has two options:
1. Forgo this ability for something else because of their +5% melee damage done racial passive
2. Keep this ability but reduce the combined +% of Mighty and Master at Arms by X%, putting these in to Penetration or Crit Damage.

casparian · October 2017

Turelus wrote: »

From my understanding there are no diminished returns any more since soft-caps went. The caps now are simply what you can achieve via the numbers you stack.

With armour capped at 50% mitigation but not value (excess armour just protects against de-buffs)

Isn't the reason people stop at some levels because that's the point where any more added would be wasted. Boss monsters only have a set level of resistance for example and PvP players having average levels of defences based on gear/build.

Let's make a distinction between two different senses of the term "diminishing returns".

On the one hand, that term can refer to a "the more you put in, the less you get out" situation. This is the case with Champion Points: the more points you dedicate, the less return you get from each point. (For instance, a zero points dedicated to Mighty you only have to put in four points to gain a 1% damage increase, but at 49 points dedicated, you have to put in 7 points to add 1% to your Mighty bonus.)

On the other hand, the term can refer to a point at which it becomes inefficient to continue boosting a particular stat at the expense of another. I only have some finite amount of resources (set choices, point allocations, Mundus choice, etc.) I can dedicate to increasing my penetration, spell damage, max magicka, crit, etc., meaning that choosing to boost one stat is choosing not to boost another. If our goal is to boost the total overall damage we're capable of doing, then we have to ask whether all boostable stats increase this total equally. One thing that's clear is that, at some point, the answer becomes Definitely No. If my spell crit is already at 60% but my spell damage is low, I'm going to increase my overall potential damage by only a small amount if I increase my spell crit, but by a large amount if I increase my spell damage. This is the sense in which there is a diminishing return on penetration in PVP: once you hit a certain amount of penetration, it is (typically) more efficient to boost other damage sources instead of adding more pen.

Minno · October 2017

casparian wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

From my understanding there are no diminished returns any more since soft-caps went. The caps now are simply what you can achieve via the numbers you stack.

With armour capped at 50% mitigation but not value (excess armour just protects against de-buffs)

Isn't the reason people stop at some levels because that's the point where any more added would be wasted. Boss monsters only have a set level of resistance for example and PvP players having average levels of defences based on gear/build.

Let's make a distinction between two different senses of the term "diminishing returns".

On the one hand, that term can refer to a "the more you put in, the less you get out" situation. This is the case with Champion Points: the more points you dedicate, the less return you get from each point. (For instance, a zero points dedicated to Mighty you only have to put in four points to gain a 1% damage increase, but at 49 points dedicated, you have to put in 7 points to add 1% to your Mighty bonus.)

On the other hand, the term can refer to a point at which it becomes inefficient to continue boosting a particular stat at the expense of another. I only have some finite amount of resources (set choices, point allocations, Mundus choice, etc.) I can dedicate to increasing my penetration, spell damage, max magicka, crit, etc., meaning that choosing to boost one stat is choosing not to boost another. If our goal is to boost the total overall damage we're capable of doing, then we have to ask whether all boostable stats increase this total equally. One thing that's clear is that, at some point, the answer becomes Definitely No. If my spell crit is already at 60% but my spell damage is low, I'm going to increase my overall potential damage by only a small amount if I increase my spell crit, but by a large amount if I increase my spell damage. This is the sense in which there is a diminishing return on penetration in PVP: once you hit a certain amount of penetration, it is (typically) more efficient to boost other damage sources instead of adding more pen.

I call that philosophy "minimum requirements". Technically they are soft caps on stats. For example, most players feel a DMG boost if they increased from 32% CC to 45% CC. But sometimes it would require you to lose out on sharp/infused traits to use percise in order to stack higher than 45% crit chance.

Once you hit this ceiling, you move on to other stats. You can still boost stats, but that depends on everyone else. For example if everyone is high resist, you can go for extra penetration, at cost of maybe some crit.

But it's different from diminishing returns which tells us the more you boost the less effective your output is. Like CP, which you mentioned, at some point it's a waste of points to go from 14% to 15% on some stars but if my Regen is low even going from 13%-14% might be a waste with the way percentages work on smaller amounts.

But anyway I agree, the two are different concepts.

asneakybanana · October 2017

Anazasi wrote: »

Over the last few weeks, especially in PVP, several players have made comments about build stats such as penetration, damage numbers, max stat pools and so on. It has always been a known fact that even though there are no caps in game anymore the concept of diminishing returns still exists. We see it in CP very easily, but we don't know if it exists in other areas. Most recently, I have noticed and discussed with other players the "sweet spot" on penetration. It would seem that somewhere the effectiveness of this stat is around 8-10k at least it "feels" strongest in that range. Could this be real based on the unknown effects of diminishing returns? We have heard from other well known players also that 3k spell damage seems to be best or at least their ideal damage spot. Is this an effect of diminishing returns as well? I realize this is more of a cause and effect relationship, and to my knowledge no one has done any testing to prove this one way or the other; so I decided to post here in hopes that someone or a group of someone's could ponder this and perhaps expound on it further. I also would love to here from @ZOS_JessicaFolsom on the game mechanics regarding the role diminishing returns plays in PVP. Even if @ZOS_GinaBruno could confirm that diminishing returns effects those primary stats it would help all of us perform better. I understand the "power creep" that has plagued the game over the years and I am a firm believer in the current "health creep" taking place now. I just want the developers to shed some light on the mysteries of the mechanics so we can all build better builds.

There are no diminishing returns other than the fact that adding 100 more spell damage when you have 1000 spell damage is going to be a much higher % increase than adding 100 spell damage when you're sitting at 4000. As for penetration the 'sweet spot' as you call it off 10k is because many light armor users only have 10-11k spell resist when they do not have major spell resist buff so there is technically a cap on how effective spell pen is and any pen over the targets resistance level is wasted. Same thing goes for crit resist, enemies will only have so much crit hit damage and once you're crit resist goes above that then it's wasted as you cannot make their crits do less damage.

Now with spell resist and physical resist there is an actual cap on how much mitigation you can receive, which is 50% and is about 33k resists that you get to 50%. However if you stack your resistance higher they still will not be totally wasted as if you were to be fighting someone with 10k penetration you could stack your resistance to 43k to counter the penetration and still receive the 50% mitigation from resists.

A great way to look at how adding more spell damage or penetration or magicka will effect your end damage is by using the build calculator here: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor

Anazasi · October 2017

Let me ask this perhaps someone can elaborate more on this situation. I'm in PVP, I have a 5 heavy build max mit 30k spell and physical with 3000k Crit resist and roughly 30k health. I should be able to mitigate 50% of all critical hits, 47% all physical and spell damage. How is it with the pvp buff that reduces all damage by 50% can i be 1 shot killed? Even if i don't block i am finding that more and more players are simply killing me with 1 hit.

this is a question that is not related to the topic but is a side effect of the issue. Yes Sneaky I know the difference between being group focused vs single strike from a bow or assassin and I am not referring to the stealth bomb variety. I am also aware of the players that use macro's to achieve the singular effect of multiple abilities hitting the target at the same time.

The nature of this is which i currently am not concerning myself with is of a defensive nature which of course we have all the tested data on mitigation to answer that. What we don't seem to have is a real answer to what ZOS calculates on output especially since, yesterday i began noticing with 4800wd and 14k physical pen 62% crit, attacking from stealth on a target not blocking was hitting (not dodged) doing little to no damage. I like to believe that the math is consistent but I'm at the point that even the math is flawed at some level. (and i do not want to believe that cheating exists even though it's an easy explanation.)

Minno · October 2017

Anazasi wrote: »

Let me ask this perhaps someone can elaborate more on this situation. I'm in PVP, I have a 5 heavy build max mit 30k spell and physical with 3000k Crit resist and roughly 30k health. I should be able to mitigate 50% of all critical hits, 47% all physical and spell damage. How is it with the pvp buff that reduces all damage by 50% can i be 1 shot killed? Even if i don't block i am finding that more and more players are simply killing me with 1 hit.

this is a question that is not related to the topic but is a side effect of the issue. Yes Sneaky I know the difference between being group focused vs single strike from a bow or assassin and I am not referring to the stealth bomb variety. I am also aware of the players that use macro's to achieve the singular effect of multiple abilities hitting the target at the same time.

The nature of this is which i currently am not concerning myself with is of a defensive nature which of course we have all the tested data on mitigation to answer that. What we don't seem to have is a real answer to what ZOS calculates on output especially since, yesterday i began noticing with 4800wd and 14k physical pen 62% crit, attacking from stealth on a target not blocking was hitting (not dodged) doing little to no damage. I like to believe that the math is consistent but I'm at the point that even the math is flawed at some level. (and i do not want to believe that cheating exists even though it's an easy explanation.)

https://jscalc.io/calc/fiasVNPSGsOdmsF6

Compare your armor values against the highest attack you can think of using the above calculator.
You'll find that the battle spirit buff is actually another form of mitigation which further reduces your total mitigation. (This explains why you feel you take on more DMG, despite having such high tooltips).

For crit, I made a quick calculation in another thread and determined that 3k is actually the minimum level you need to defend against crits (2500 actually let's 60% CD builds do similar extra DMG as 80% does to 4000 ). 3800-4000 resist protects better against 75% crit DMG builds and below. 5000 protects from 80% but requires impregnable set plus impen stacking.

If you have high resists, also keep in mind the calculator doesn't account for penetration easily. You have to calculate the resist after full debuffs.

You'll find that 26k resists are a good spot to land at, even after debuffs. After 26k, add crit resists. After crit resists, stack healing received.

For LA builds, I've found that you need 23% in ironclad and 12% in Hardy to receive similar total dmg mitigation as 26000 physical resist. Keep in mind bleeds ignore resists, so LA users that don't rely on resists function better against bleeds than your high resist build.

We can discuss this further in more detail! Paul's calculator really helps you understand how battlespirit functions.

asneakybanana · October 2017

@Anazasi are you being one hit by a single hit or killed by multiple attacks that land instantly or killed before you can react and regain control of your character? I find on my NB the highest I ever get hit in light armor is about 12k from a single attack and I find most gankers, unless they get a Selene or veli hit have a hard time getting me before I can react. This is with 27k health and probably so little physical resist that they totally penetrate it.

Anazasi · October 2017

asneakybanana wrote: »

@Anazasi are you being one hit by a single hit or killed by multiple attacks that land instantly or killed before you can react and regain control of your character? I find on my NB the highest I ever get hit in light armor is about 12k from a single attack and I find most gankers, unless they get a Selene or veli hit have a hard time getting me before I can react. This is with 27k health and probably so little physical resist that they totally penetrate it.

Yeah it's a macro user landing 2 hits at the same time. I can go from full health to dead in about a second on my DK. You all probably know of the select few that can achieve this and what I am trying to figure out is why can't I on my stam NB when i know i have the stats to perform the same way.

zyk · October 2017

You don't need to be a macro user to hit with multiple attacks within a second. It's possible for quick players to execute abilities as soon as GCDs expire. I can do this in most situations, especially for combos that I am practiced with, and I don't use macros. Macros alone cannot defeat the GCDs; they just make execution easier in some situations for some players.

Also, some abilities have travel time, some are on a timer, and this game is full of procs - including enchants.

The most common combo for something like this would probably be a ranged HA + gap close + LA + ability + weapon enchant proc + set proc.

Ghostbane · October 2017

zyk wrote: »

You don't need to be a macro user to hit with multiple attacks within a second. It's possible for quick players to execute abilities as soon as GCDs expire. I can do this in most situations, especially for combos that I am practiced with, and I don't use macros. Macros alone cannot defeat the GCDs; they just make execution easier in some situations for some players.

Also, some abilities have travel time, some are on a timer, and this game is full of procs - including enchants.

The most common combo for something like this would probably be a ranged HA + gap close + LA + ability + weapon enchant proc + set proc.

Also, the ultimate Onslaught ignores all your hard earned resists !

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · October 2017

Health increases in pvp aren't due to diminishing returns they are due to damage creep because of resource generation. The way people die now is burst not "running dry". This is why increasing health to survive this burst is strong. It's not about tanking or anything like that. Additionally the sacrifice to increase health is minimal due to health scaling.

Sacredx · October 2017

If you have the same stats and the same skill level to execute the spike then that leaves only one answer. You are not replicating the same combo. I would recommend getting a death recap addon so that you can see exactly step by step how you are getting killed. Then you should be able to clearly see what is going on and adjust your approach to suit, or better still find flaws and improve on it.

Subversus · October 2017

zyk wrote: »

You don't need to be a macro user to hit with multiple attacks within a second. It's possible for quick players to execute abilities as soon as GCDs expire. I can do this in most situations, especially for combos that I am practiced with, and I don't use macros. Macros alone cannot defeat the GCDs; they just make execution easier in some situations for some players.

Also, some abilities have travel time, some are on a timer, and this game is full of procs - including enchants.

The most common combo for something like this would probably be a ranged HA + gap close + LA + ability + weapon enchant proc + set proc.

Exactly. Some abilities have travel time and some are timed to land at the same time. To say that a macro user killed you because you got killed by 2 hits at the same time is not only a sign of personal incompetence but also of a lack of knowledge about game mechanics.

This game has a global cooldown for abilities; even if the macro is designed by Steve Jobs you still won't be able to fire 2 abilities at the same time.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · October 2017

Anazasi wrote: »

Let me ask this perhaps someone can elaborate more on this situation. I'm in PVP, I have a 5 heavy build max mit 30k spell and physical with 3000k Crit resist and roughly 30k health. I should be able to mitigate 50% of all critical hits, 47% all physical and spell damage. How is it with the pvp buff that reduces all damage by 50% can i be 1 shot killed? Even if i don't block i am finding that more and more players are simply killing me with 1 hit.

this is a question that is not related to the topic but is a side effect of the issue. Yes Sneaky I know the difference between being group focused vs single strike from a bow or assassin and I am not referring to the stealth bomb variety. I am also aware of the players that use macro's to achieve the singular effect of multiple abilities hitting the target at the same time.

The nature of this is which i currently am not concerning myself with is of a defensive nature which of course we have all the tested data on mitigation to answer that. What we don't seem to have is a real answer to what ZOS calculates on output especially since, yesterday i began noticing with 4800wd and 14k physical pen 62% crit, attacking from stealth on a target not blocking was hitting (not dodged) doing little to no damage. I like to believe that the math is consistent but I'm at the point that even the math is flawed at some level. (and i do not want to believe that cheating exists even though it's an easy explanation.)

Macro users can't do anything which the game doesn't allow manually they can just potentially do it more reliably.

The situation you are experiencing is likely not a 1 hit. As people have mentioned. There are also bugs which prevent damage from being visible at first (crit rush from stealth is one of them I think?) The player is not only still in via for a short time in which they can perform other abilities all this dmg will then show up at once for you but for them it looks normal.

Anazasi · October 2017

ROFL i just read the other post / thread about impen working in reverse and some one posted that mundas traits were acting incongruently with the past. I'm betting this was why it felt different after the patch on Monday...I wonder if ZOS fixed that little issue........