HoN's 2017 Build, Sets, & Skill Issues + Suggestions

HeroOfNone · January 2018

Hello Min/Maxers!

I'm here to talk about builds, sets, and skills issues in 2017 which span both PVE and PVP. This list is based on my own experiences and tempered with discussions with others, it is in no way a complete list. Many of the suggestions are also brain storming suggestions, they still require balancing and it would not be good without proper counter play.

Now, let's look into some of the issues

Builds, Sets, and Skill issues

Animation canceling is still not integrated very well into ESO. There are no tutorials or indicators telling players they should do it and it behaves differently between PC to console.
Builds have become stagnant and unchanging for several DLC. Players have little reason to look for new gear when we keep trying to make sure the best in slot stays the best.
There is a very large gap in good "meta" builds and other unused sets, making certain sets useless and not even used for progression.
The heavy attack DPS builds are "boring" in most player opinions, requiring constant heavy attacks canceled with abilities.
Few builds have class in debuff removal, especially in stamina builds. This makes groups reliant on Templars, wardens, or purge abilities from PVP
Stats like magicka and stamina feed into both damage and resources giving them double value. This makes certain sets and abilities higher than others since they raise both while raising just one stat. This issue is compounded when the only limiting factor to DPS is how much resources you have.
AOE caps for damage & heals are confusing and frustrating when facing large groups. In pvp players have noted that they heal the wrong target, hit someone further than those near by, and other behavoir.
Heavy armor is performing so well that additional mitigation isn't required. This trivializes medium armor and many sets that give resistances.
Damage shields negate all crit's and penetration & offer no specific counter play outside of niche sets. This is especially for abilities like healing ward that both protect and heal based on the health lost, making it a one ability rescue for PVP.
Block builds are still a constant source of complaints. Even with several of the changes there are few builds that work directly against it as it reduces damage, stops crits, stops CC, and still allows players to cast abilities
Dark Cloak has had off & on issues working properly or over performing inside PVP. Currently it is a Nightblade only ability it has no effective counterplay other than detection pots and constant DOTs. By contrast it works as counter play to countless other abilities. It's issues are also compounded with line of sight and lag. This year it has also been found to be exploitative; being used to escape fights, swap sets to proc buffs, and then come right back in before others have had time to recover.
The bow is still considered weak for DPS for PVE, most abilities only used on the back bar for buffs. This is different than destruction staffs, which are still effective long and medium range.
Most base classes lack a straight forward burst and sustain abilities like the warden skill trees. The delay built into the warden's class abilities lend itself well to PVP, a synergy most other classes don't have.
Item naming is inconsistent, many set names come before or after the type of armor
Uncapped stats have resulted in high damage builds with good defenses that standard players have difficulty fighting in PVP or matching in PVE. This continues to lead to power creep each time the CP cap is raised.

Suggestions for Builds, Sets, & Skills

Revisit animation canceling when redoing skill animations. Things should flow better and have more indicators given in when you can speed a skill up. In addition there should be certain skills that can’t be canceled easily to keep things consistent between PC and console.
Increase the gear cap from CP 160 to a CP 180 or higher. This is expected power creep and reason to grind gear up again. This can also be used to sunset older sets without complaints, like the debate of VMA weapons getting a nerf when Asylum weapons came out.
Rework the base class abilities.
- For all classes: rework the trees to have clear defined sustained DPS and burst DPS skills for PVE and PVP, along with lines for tanking and healing. Structure it similar to the model you made with the wardens
- For Debuff removal, tweak Templars & Wardens debuff removal to remove DOT damage, but not all debuffs. For other classes allow them a unique debuff removal for that class, where one could remove snares, another remove poisons, others remove offbalance, etc. Purge would be the over all removal ability
- For Nightblade cloak, rework dark cloak with two morphs, one to cloak and remove all effects of the nightblade (removing them from the fight) & another to cloak/deaggro mobs on another player (supportive PVE).
Remove the AOE caps, limit group size in PVP to 4 to 5 people, and limit support abilities to only those in your group. This should lead to less confusion on who you’re hitting while not allowing a small number of healers to heal large sized groups. It would also help discourage large mega groups consisting of mostly one role. Note: this is a PVP change, PVE you'd still be allowed to make groups up to 12+
Rework heavy attacks, giving reduction to ability costs on certain abilities or ways to speed up the speed of the swing for certain classes abilities. The heavy attack meta needs more uniqueness to get folks interested.
Reduce the amount of spell resistance given through base armor, heavy armor resolve passive, and the DK spell scale passive. This would give counterplay to hard hitting tanks for PVP unless they build specifically for protection through Champion points or different sets, thus reducing other abilities. This would also add difficulty to some of the current PVE fights unless Tanks put more consideration into their builds.
Reduce the amount of damage given from raw Stamina and Magicka by 33% to 50%. Players are currently getting too much benefit from these raw states and in a game where there are no cool downs, that means more spamming of abilities with less need to worry about sustain. By reducing the damage given by these raw stats you should see builds shift in deciding whether if wants to be able to do more abilities or to do more damage with those abilities. For higher levels it also means less about hitting hard, but being able to use more abilities between heavy attacks.
Create abilities specifically made to increase damage on damage shields and blocking targets. This would give counter play to these abilities that could be slotted for the situation or kept on the bar as a backup for when you run into something. This may also give new uses for previously unused abilities.
Remove the stun element from stealth ranged attacks and add stun to any melee range abilities, then adjust damage values on bow. This is a balancing change to try and raise bow to where it once was and improve melee magicka abilities that manage to get into melee range without getting detected. One of the reasons I think bow suffered such a nerf was it was doing too much damage from stealth. Many were getting one shot in PVP without any risk to the sniper. Now with the reduction of damage boosting skills affecting stealth hits and this change, there would be less reason to continue on nerfing it's damage.
Rework mages light and flare to give longer detection, faster animations to use, and larger ranges. Both skills are not living up to the snuff of an effective anti-stealth skill, especially with the way that nightblade is setup.
Add a separate CP tree for PVP. I’ve suggested it before, but the current CP system has huge power creep issues and doesn’t promote progression in PVP, only PVE. A separate tree, fueled by AP, will give specific progression and note muddle in the PVE passives.
Institute softcaps into PVP through the battlespirit buff. Giving “uncapped stats” has lead to monster mitigation followed by monster burst damage & healing. Introducing softcaps again should allow a balance to be reached where any build is killable by another if you reach cap, but only if you’re skilled enough. It will also promote the use of certain sets that aren’t used because their 5 set bonus is useless when you have unmitigated stats. Doing this through the battlespirit buff also means you won’t see it affect PVE as much, and balancing between the two can be kept separate.

That's all from me right now. Some of these suggestions conflict, but this is a brainstorming session, support one or the other, or make your own suggestions. As with any ideas posted, these do require balance, but I just hope to see the main issue is addressed.

Thanks for reading and happy New Year!

(Sorry for the typos, poor grammer, and bleh formatting ahead of time, I will edit corrections as I get a chance)

Ragnarock41 · January 2018

I don't want to be rude but I think you should stick to roleplaying.

only half of these changes would be enough to make %75 of the community to leave PvP.

now don't get me wrong, change is a good thing. stale MMO is dead MMO.
But bad changes that get implemented fast also means dead MMO, and It would also means none of those players will give those devs a second chance.

Edit: actually with cp 180 pve community would probably quit too.

I'm a theory crafter myself,I do have majority of the sets in the game and NO WAY IN HELL, Im farming all those stuff again because some carebear wanted to feel ''progress''.

Phaedrathallassa · January 2018

Once again I'm very glad that ZOS ignores all of Hero of None's posts. These ideas range from "would utterly trash the community and kill the game" to "pointless or just make things more complex and difficult for new players without actually changing anything for experienced ones."

Many of his complaints are not actually problems, which he would know if he actually paid attention to what the community is talking about, but more notably, his solutions do not solve his complaints.

Minno · January 2018

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

I don't want to be rude but I think you should stick to roleplaying.

only half of these changes would be enough to make %75 of the community to leave PvP.

now don't get me wrong, change is a good thing. stale MMO is dead MMO.
But bad changes that get implemented fast also means dead MMO, and It would also means none of those players will give those devs a second chance.

Edit: actually with cp 180 pve community would probably quit too.

I'm a theory crafter myself,I do have majority of the sets in the game and NO WAY IN HELL, Im farming all those stuff again because some carebear wanted to feel ''progress''.

I think he mentioned that idea to give a clear reason why certain sets are better than others. This way players know the cp180 are current and cp160 is older.

jakeedmundson · January 2018

HeroOfNone wrote: »

[*]Increase the gear cap from CP 160 to a CP 180 or higher. This is expected power creep and reason to grind gear up again. This can also be used to sunset older sets without complaints, like the debate of VMA weapons getting a nerf when Asylum weapons came out.

Pass.

The day this happens is 100%, no hesitation, my last day on ESO. Characters deleted, game uninstalled, no - you can't have my stuff - it's being erased.

HeroOfNone · January 2018

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

I don't want to be rude but I think you should stick to roleplaying.

only half of these changes would be enough to make %75 of the community to leave PvP.

now don't get me wrong, change is a good thing. stale MMO is dead MMO.
But bad changes that get implemented fast also means dead MMO, and It would also means none of those players will give those devs a second chance.

Edit: actually with cp 180 pve community would probably quit too.

I'm a theory crafter myself,I do have majority of the sets in the game and NO WAY IN HELL, Im farming all those stuff again because some carebear wanted to feel ''progress''.

Like I gave into the disclaimers, several of these ideas are brainstorming and require a bit more balance to be finalized, not to mention some conflict. As for the speed of the change, it wouldn't be immediate, but over the next few patches. Several of the suggestions are already hinted at coming:
- new crafting material was data mined back on PTS with morrowind
- there's been mention in ESO live they want to change class lines to reflect the warden line

As for progress, it is a likely way to add higher challenge to the next dlc without adding one shot mechanics or adding a required dps set that you'll have to farm for anyway.

HeroOfNone · January 2018

Phaedrathallassa wrote: »

Once again I'm very glad that ZOS ignores all of Hero of None's posts. These ideas range from "would utterly trash the community and kill the game" to "pointless or just make things more complex and difficult for new players without actually changing anything for experienced ones."

Many of his complaints are not actually problems, which he would know if he actually paid attention to what the community is talking about, but more notably, his solutions do not solve his complaints.

I 100% admit these are my issues I see that are solvable in the next year(limited to builds, sets, skills). There are a lot of community issues that are long standing problems that won't be solved. As for the suggestions, each address at least one of the issues suggested, though I did not organize it as a one to one problem/solution.

As for ZOS listening, I'm going to guess you'll see several of these addressed by years end, though likely in ways no one expected.

Yubarius · January 2018

jakeedmundson wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

[*]Increase the gear cap from CP 160 to a CP 180 or higher. This is expected power creep and reason to grind gear up again. This can also be used to sunset older sets without complaints, like the debate of VMA weapons getting a nerf when Asylum weapons came out.

Pass.

The day this happens is 100%, no hesitation, my last day on ESO. Characters deleted, game uninstalled, no - you can't have my stuff - it's being erased.

I promised one of my best friends about 8 months ago that if they ever, EVER raised gearcap without an ingame easily accessible way to upgrade old gear I would delete all of my items and characters and still stand by that. I'll even post it on the forums to prove it.

Tasear · January 2018

Okay having more ways to purge isn't a bad idea. The aoe healing cap would be nice to have increase, but then dps would be like we only need one of you... just like poor off tanks.

ak_pvp · January 2018

Heavy overperforming? Nah, not if you are mag. Light is so much better in that case. Idiots crying got blanket nerfs to constitution and wrath, which only hurt MDK/Mplar and not the stam meta builds. (which are actually balanced since they are out numbered builds)

It only seems to be overperforming because the sets are so much better than medium and dodge is ***.

Block; It has been nerfed enough. Just look to next patch ideas. No abilities that need affect them or shields, else we end up with shieldbreaker/bird in that they are hard to counter.

Cloak: Cloak is fine. Complete surpressal of dots and cloaking in a root is silly though. But it is broken far too easily, so it's a sacrifice. Don't change the ability.

Soft caps: No.

Cp 180: No. God no.

Reduce spell resistance: No.

Aoe cap removal: Sure, shouldn't exist anyway.

Group cap: No. Size wouldn't change anything, they would stick together. Ability cap would effectively quarantine groups and not allow for a more open coordination and make it harder to take keeps/help others.

Pvp cp tree: not with ap. Would ruin it for new pvpers.

Stam/mag scaling chnages: if it ain't broke don't fix. And if it does happen. Make spell/weapon damage stronger to compensate. Also I feel like this may be a nerf to magic builds because they traditionally get higher mag easier, whilst stamina builds get higher weapon damage.

leeux · January 2018

I'd leave the game for good if the gear cap is increased, sadly

I personally don't have the time, energy, interest or even guild support I had in the past to re grind ALL my gear again... that would leave me out of the game, facing hundreds of hours of playing catch up again, sadly.

And I believe that would be a heavy blow for most of the community that doesn't play the game in "serious" mode but still can participate due to having caught up with the requirements over time.

IDK, rising the gear cap sounds like something doable in principle, but knowing ZOS my opinion is that it would kill the game.

HeroOfNone · January 2018

sdadsa

Yubarius wrote: »

jakeedmundson wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

[*]Increase the gear cap from CP 160 to a CP 180 or higher. This is expected power creep and reason to grind gear up again. This can also be used to sunset older sets without complaints, like the debate of VMA weapons getting a nerf when Asylum weapons came out.

Pass.

The day this happens is 100%, no hesitation, my last day on ESO. Characters deleted, game uninstalled, no - you can't have my stuff - it's being erased.

I promised one of my best friends about 8 months ago that if they ever, EVER raised gearcap without an ingame easily accessible way to upgrade old gear I would delete all of my items and characters and still stand by that. I'll even post it on the forums to prove it.

Adding ways to upgrade the armor/weapons wouldn't be bad at this point. Given that Tamriel one equalized all sets they could easily make it so gear could be tempered again to raise to the level, given you have the materials to do so. this would also help with how gear becomes useless quickly leveling up below 50.

leeux wrote: »

I'd leave the game for good if the gear cap is increased, sadly I personally don't have the time, energy, interest or even guild support I had in the past to re grind ALL my gear again... that would leave me out of the game, facing hundreds of hours of playing catch up again, sadly.

And I believe that would be a heavy blow for most of the community that doesn't play the game in "serious" mode but still can participate due to having caught up with the requirements over time.

IDK, rising the gear cap sounds like something doable in principle, but knowing ZOS my opinion is that it would kill the game.

I'll expand a bit the CP180 suggestion a bit more with reasoning, though it’s still going to be unpopular with most.

DLC to expansion, we typically want to see some progression, ways to get more powerful. We also want to see the new fights get harder & more challenging. Raising the cap does both of these, but there are some alternatives that will also be troublesome:
- Introducing new sets that raise the damage meta: This is what we typically see with new DLC, but given the current DLC meta would be that makes things a pay to win situation, where you need the DLC. You also need to farm the new sets as well, being locked out of content and lowering the current BIS gear.
- Add a new item/stat to help with content: similar to how Guild Wars 2 introduced the agony system, adding a new item or state to withstand or add damage to particular dungeon. It wouldn’t change the base game so much, but requires you farm something out before being able to complete the DLC/expansion and if it needs to be crafted, would still require redoing most armor.
- Jewelry crafting inside a new DLC/Expansion: Something folks have been asking for a while, but consider the combinations that could be made with this, several dropped sets would be made useless as well. This may also not raise the bar up the challenge in PVE or the strength of builds.

Now, considering a few of the mitigating factors to having to get new gear compared to the last cap raise:
- We have transmutation, any gear you farmed hours for the right trait can now change in a few runs
- Party trading gives a higher chance that someone in your group can trade you a set you need
- material drops level to your character in any zone

Finally, we have an indication that ZOS has been considering this through datamining on the PTS server. Part of it for me is just getting this out of the way so we can work toward the next goal rather than drawing things out. At least with this response though hopefully another answer will be looked into or ZOS will introduce something else to reduce the amount of regearing (like the suggested upgrading armor).

Vapirko · January 2018

TLDR. But right off the bat you’re just spreading some misinformation and general incorrectness. Shields have a CP passive that counters them. That’s a direct counter and many people use it. Healing ward is aboit a 3.3k shield at 40k mag, hardly worth mentioning. The heal is great but it’s definitely not OP next to other healing methods. Getting the full benefit of healing ward is difficult and require you to be in a very precarious situation. The burst heal from rally is just as or more effective. Secondly, can people stop whining about cloak. And wtf are you talking about no direct counters? Detect pots, magelight, blade cloak, hurricane, jabs, caltrops, wall of elements, I mean the list goes on those are literally just a few and are all regularly used skills.

That’s as far as I got as it’s clear you have not much idea what you’re talking about.

deepseamk20b14_ESO · January 2018

The sets part is no different in any game in existence whether MMO or single player game, FPS, you name it. People WILL find what works best because there always something that DOES work best. Honestly if you look at many other MMO’s there endgame armor selection isn’t nearly as good as ESO. Also I disagree whole heartedly with the statement in general as there are way more than just one successful build out there. The fact is people are lazy and get their builds from YouTube lol. All my builds are my own and they easily compete and can surpass meta builds.

Not sure what differs or how much from PC to console as far as animation canceling but I’ve never understood the argument that’s it’s boring or should have a tutorial. I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to something letting new players know but there are the forums and youtube. Does everyone really need to be spoon fed that much? Plus is I hear constantly people complain how easy it is so why not remove it? A) it will never be removed and

how is pressing more buttons and timing thing correctly easier than hitting less buttons with no regard for timing?

I agree with a bunch of the other issues though. Your ideas are okay. Not best, but okay.

HoN's 2017 Build, Sets, &amp; Skill Issues + Suggestions

HoN's 2017 Build, Sets, & Skill Issues + Suggestions