Emma_Overload wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Furcula wrote: »

Thoughts on this topic?

327 thoughts on the topic, which is coincidentally also the number of threads on the subject that already exist on the forum and no, most people still don't like the idea, no matter how many times the same question is repeated by the same 5 players over and over again.

Your comment is totally false. If you look at the poll at the top of THIS VERY THREAD, you will find that roughly 2/3 of 150 people voted YES to making this change.

and 2/3 of 50 from a narrow subset of a group draw by voluntary participation has no meaning whatsoever as far as relevance to what "most" think.

SirAndy wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Furcula wrote: »

Thoughts on this topic?

327 thoughts on the topic, which is coincidentally also the number of threads on the subject that already exist on the forum and no, most people still don't like the idea, no matter how many times the same question is repeated by the same 5 players over and over again.

Most? These polls are usually in support of the idea. I hope you dont consider yourself the most :P

That's only because *most* of the forum players are currently busy banging their heads against their keyboards instead of voting "NO" !

Seriously, this whole idea never had any traction. Might as well throw out any sort of character customization and go back to Quake 3.

Seems the idea has plenty of traction, it's just you that have no traction.

ToRelax wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

pauli133 wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Seriously, this whole idea never had any traction. Might as well throw out any sort of character customization and go back to Quake 3.

could you explain your reasoning? the idea of having set balance be independent of weapon class seems reasonable (regardless of whether that's 11 or 12 pieces for everyone to work with), and I don't see how it negatively impacts customization.

Dual wield has unique consequences (both negative and positive).
By taking away uniqueness and making everything the same (all weapons count as two pieces) you are *reducing* build diversity.

People want 2H to count as two so they can get the positive from dual wield (2 full sets + monster) without having to actually chose dual wield, thus avoiding the negatives.

They aren't asking this to "balance" the game, they are asking this because they want the benefits from a different play-style without the consequences of actually choosing that play-style.

The actual consequence would be a vast increase in the amount of competitve options for any build running at least one two handed weapon, including setups currently only possible on builds running a mix of only dualwield/one hand and shield.
So how exactly would this reduce build diversity? You would somehow have to show how it would turn a large amount of options uncompetitive.

No see there are years of evidence to counter this imagined "vast increase".

At any point in time, there are some small set of "competitive builds" and a much much larger set of "non-competitive builds" and if adding more options for builds ever made a major siwth=ch in those numbers it would have shown a lot over the last several years where we have had time and time again new options added over and over... and yet each time more or less what happened was all that changed was what specific "builds went into that smaller set while the larger set got bigger.

As for how it could affect build diversity in a nagative way - right now there are sets and builds which cater more to "11 pc builds" and swapping after a long running or long cooldown power is triggered. On the other hand, there are builds which are built around 12pc setups which have all the bonuses up at all times. There are also of course ones built on master-maelstrom-asylum type weapons which bypass this concern entirely. Depending on your preference you can choose competitive options for each of those type.

But, if the 11pc all turned into 12 pc, a number of those would simply switch to the other existing 12 pc builds already being used. There would be no need to work an 11pc swap build in for staff users and they could just rely on the 12pc always up builds. So, a shift away from the 11pc to the 12pc already being used would be obvious - though not universal.

To try and establish an actual gain in competitive builds in use (much less a VAST gain) you would need to show that there are 12pc builds nobody currently uses that folks would migrate to that are both not in current use and not supeprior to the 11pc builds that folks are using (because if the 11s dropped and went to this better 12, that old 11 moves out of the competitive box.)

i cant imagine such a sweeping broad impact so many things all at once change would even be seriously explored given how much it would throw out most of the prior balance assumptions. i would not expect it in anything short of a chapter level change.

There was no option for "not this again"

How much of a dps boost would this be to magicka dps? I don't want to see only magicka dps in trails again. I like seeing both stam & mag dps in trials. If 2h weapons do become 2 piece I might actually use an ice staff to tank. Also, just to make drop rates fair 1h weapons would have to drop in pairs just like in DSA, MSA & AS

I think eventuality it should be counted as 2 set slots, currently as a mag toon having to decided between 5,5,1 or using a full monster set is abit of a meh...scenario. I want to use both! -pushes thunder and lighting button while cackling-

LOl @ all the 2h lovers voting yes. If you do that, don't forget to give 1h weapons equal dmg and skills.

LiquidPony wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Chadak wrote: »

All I see 'no' people saying is 'because balance', but nobody actually gives credible example one about just what 'balance' is being preserved here.

I'd like some actual examples to consider, because otherwise, I don't believe you and I'm not taking your word for it.

2H is tuned for PvP. Gap closer, strong HoT, snare

ToRelax wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Chadak wrote: »

All I see 'no' people saying is 'because balance', but nobody actually gives credible example one about just what 'balance' is being preserved here.

I'd like some actual examples to consider, because otherwise, I don't believe you and I'm not taking your word for it.

That's because it's so blatantly obvious that it shouldn't need to be explained.

In fact, "blatantly obvious" is an understatement. It's self-evident.

Do you really need someone to give you "examples" of how massively buffing all 2H builds affects the balance of the game?

But, there's no reason it can't happen. We'd just need ZOS to rebalance pretty much every single buff, bonus, passive, and skill in the game. No big deal.

Not at all. Currently, people mostly deal with the slot limitations on 2 handed weapons by running front/back bar sets and/or using single pieces worth several bonuses like Master weapons or Domihaus. Master weapons would de facto be turned into 2 piece sets anyway and sets applying their full bonus from having them on one bar only, like Lich, aren't less powerful than other sets. It's just more limiting having to rely on them.

Many magicka DPS PvE builds use a 4-piece front bar (e.g., 5 x Julianos body, 4 x Aether/Moondancer/MA jewelry/frontbar, 2 x Skoria/Ilambris).

If you just broadly make all 2H weapons count as 2 pieces, now all of those builds can use a 5-piece front bar. So now all of those magicka builds get a massive front bar boost. In the simplest case like just adding a 5th piece of Moondancer, all those magsorcs and magblades out there suddenly gain +448 magicka recovery or +448 spell damage. Absolutely massive buff to already strong builds.

I don't have any problem with the idea in principle but it's totally ridiculous to claim that doing this doesn't throw a huge wrench in balance. Doesn't make a lick of sense. Pretty clear that what you're saying is purely from a PvP perspective with no thought to how it changes balance in PvE.

I am aware, and the post I was replying to claimed "all 2H builds" would be massively buffed, which is not the case. Furthermore, in your example we are using Julianos over Moondancer, which means either the setup is idiotic or the difference is, in fact, less than 300 base spell dmg in practice.

Wait, wait ...

Are you saying that the standard 5 Julianos/4 Minor Slayer setup is "idiotic?"

I hope not.

The difference would be something like +225 spell damage and +235 magicka regen, on average, with the added 5th piece of Moondancer with normal PvE buffs (assuming 80% uptime, which is what it was back in the DW Templar days, and 50/50 procs with Major/Minor Sorcery/Intellect). Could be that something like 5 Julianos + 5 BSW (front bar) + Monster set would be even stronger. Which is really cool to theorycraft and opens up all sorts of new possibilities ... and obviously is a huge buff.

If it weren't a buff to 2H builds, people wouldn't be asking for it.

Jeez, you are so dense.
If your only argument is that in a game where magicka DPS is balanced around not having 12 set items, giving them 12 would be buff and therefore bad, then you actually have no argument. Bet you think you are some kind of genius for figuring that giving 12th item to them would create imbalance in DPS. Bet you think ZoS could never figure that out and would totally not change anything to balance the game about staves having 12 set items.

No, but WTB 1 hand and Rune, dual Scepters, w/e. With the amount of magicka melee skills in the game, magicka should get their own melee weapon line.

ToRelax wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

pauli133 wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Seriously, this whole idea never had any traction. Might as well throw out any sort of character customization and go back to Quake 3.

could you explain your reasoning? the idea of having set balance be independent of weapon class seems reasonable (regardless of whether that's 11 or 12 pieces for everyone to work with), and I don't see how it negatively impacts customization.

Dual wield has unique consequences (both negative and positive).
By taking away uniqueness and making everything the same (all weapons count as two pieces) you are *reducing* build diversity.

People want 2H to count as two so they can get the positive from dual wield (2 full sets + monster) without having to actually chose dual wield, thus avoiding the negatives.

They aren't asking this to "balance" the game, they are asking this because they want the benefits from a different play-style without the consequences of actually choosing that play-style.

The actual consequence would be a vast increase in the amount of competitve options for any build running at least one two handed weapon, including setups currently only possible on builds running a mix of only dualwield/one hand and shield.
So how exactly would this reduce build diversity? You would somehow have to show how it would turn a large amount of options uncompetitive.

No see there are years of evidence to counter this imagined "vast increase".

At any point in time, there are some small set of "competitive builds" and a much much larger set of "non-competitive builds" and if adding more options for builds ever made a major siwth=ch in those numbers it would have shown a lot over the last several years where we have had time and time again new options added over and over... and yet each time more or less what happened was all that changed was what specific "builds went into that smaller set while the larger set got bigger.

As for how it could affect build diversity in a nagative way - right now there are sets and builds which cater more to "11 pc builds" and swapping after a long running or long cooldown power is triggered. On the other hand, there are builds which are built around 12pc setups which have all the bonuses up at all times. There are also of course ones built on master-maelstrom-asylum type weapons which bypass this concern entirely. Depending on your preference you can choose competitive options for each of those type.

But, if the 11pc all turned into 12 pc, a number of those would simply switch to the other existing 12 pc builds already being used. There would be no need to work an 11pc swap build in for staff users and they could just rely on the 12pc always up builds. So, a shift away from the 11pc to the 12pc already being used would be obvious - though not universal.

To try and establish an actual gain in competitive builds in use (much less a VAST gain) you would need to show that there are 12pc builds nobody currently uses that folks would migrate to that are both not in current use and not supeprior to the 11pc builds that folks are using (because if the 11s dropped and went to this better 12, that old 11 moves out of the competitive box.)

i cant imagine such a sweeping broad impact so many things all at once change would even be seriously explored given how much it would throw out most of the prior balance assumptions. i would not expect it in anything short of a chapter level change.

Any serious theorycrafter would be aware that there are many setups not in use because they would require 12 pieces on a two handed weapon. Likewise, such setups for dualwield or one hand/shield are meant for these weapon types and not optimized for two handed weapons, so people won't just use the same stuff on different weapon types.

As for an example, how about using 5 Necro + 5Winterborn + 2 Bloodspawn on Warden. Currently you could already go 5 Necro + 5 Winterborn + Master Ice Staff.
Or another example, my old Sorc sustain setup of 5 Bloodthorn + 5 Lich + 2 Pirate Skeleton. If I didn't have to split the sets in front and back bar, I could run Amberplasm instead of one of the 5 piece sets. Or Shacklebreaker. Or Seducer. Or Alteration. Or Willow's Path. Or Torug's Pact...

Any serious theorycrafter would realize that there are already far more combos than there are those that make it into the competitive build bucket.

Any serious theorycrafter would point out that for every one of your cases where someone switches to a new build, they are dropping one they are using now thus shifting one from the "used here" bracket into the "not used here bracket" and vice versa and the same math of selection would push us to the exact same basic percentage more or less.

let me put it more simply: Any increase the the types of sets ALLOWED has traditionally increased the number of sets in the unused pool by a great deal and as far as the number of sets in the "competitive sets used" pile it has resulted in just swapping some in and others out.

there is nothing at all inherent in a blunt force change like "all 2h weapons count as 2 items for counts" that says it wont just swap around which builds are competitive and which are not. There is nothing inherent in broad sweeping changes that suddenly makes for more balanced options enough that it promotes a bigger pool of actually used "competitive options" as opposed to just changing around which ones fall into that bucket as opposed to the ones that drop in the other bucket.

But hey it is so unlikely this big a sweeping blunt force change will be made, by all means, keep up the faith!

LiquidPony wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Chadak wrote: »

All I see 'no' people saying is 'because balance', but nobody actually gives credible example one about just what 'balance' is being preserved here.

I'd like some actual examples to consider, because otherwise, I don't believe you and I'm not taking your word for it.

2H is tuned for PvP. Gap closer, strong HoT, snare

ToRelax wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Chadak wrote: »

All I see 'no' people saying is 'because balance', but nobody actually gives credible example one about just what 'balance' is being preserved here.

I'd like some actual examples to consider, because otherwise, I don't believe you and I'm not taking your word for it.

That's because it's so blatantly obvious that it shouldn't need to be explained.

In fact, "blatantly obvious" is an understatement. It's self-evident.

Do you really need someone to give you "examples" of how massively buffing all 2H builds affects the balance of the game?

But, there's no reason it can't happen. We'd just need ZOS to rebalance pretty much every single buff, bonus, passive, and skill in the game. No big deal.

Not at all. Currently, people mostly deal with the slot limitations on 2 handed weapons by running front/back bar sets and/or using single pieces worth several bonuses like Master weapons or Domihaus. Master weapons would de facto be turned into 2 piece sets anyway and sets applying their full bonus from having them on one bar only, like Lich, aren't less powerful than other sets. It's just more limiting having to rely on them.

Many magicka DPS PvE builds use a 4-piece front bar (e.g., 5 x Julianos body, 4 x Aether/Moondancer/MA jewelry/frontbar, 2 x Skoria/Ilambris).

If you just broadly make all 2H weapons count as 2 pieces, now all of those builds can use a 5-piece front bar. So now all of those magicka builds get a massive front bar boost. In the simplest case like just adding a 5th piece of Moondancer, all those magsorcs and magblades out there suddenly gain +448 magicka recovery or +448 spell damage. Absolutely massive buff to already strong builds.

I don't have any problem with the idea in principle but it's totally ridiculous to claim that doing this doesn't throw a huge wrench in balance. Doesn't make a lick of sense. Pretty clear that what you're saying is purely from a PvP perspective with no thought to how it changes balance in PvE.

I am aware, and the post I was replying to claimed "all 2H builds" would be massively buffed, which is not the case. Furthermore, in your example we are using Julianos over Moondancer, which means either the setup is idiotic or the difference is, in fact, less than 300 base spell dmg in practice.

Wait, wait ...

Are you saying that the standard 5 Julianos/4 Minor Slayer setup is "idiotic?"

I hope not.

The difference would be something like +225 spell damage and +235 magicka regen, on average, with the added 5th piece of Moondancer with normal PvE buffs (assuming 80% uptime, which is what it was back in the DW Templar days, and 50/50 procs with Major/Minor Sorcery/Intellect). Could be that something like 5 Julianos + 5 BSW (front bar) + Monster set would be even stronger. Which is really cool to theorycraft and opens up all sorts of new possibilities ... and obviously is a huge buff.

If it weren't a buff to 2H builds, people wouldn't be asking for it.

I am saying the fact that Julianos is being used over Moondancer is proof that either it has a better 5 pc bonus, which means Moondancer 5 pc bonus is worth less than 300 base sp dmg, or the setup is bad. The only difference outside of the 5 pc bonuses would be whether you keep a sp dmg or sp crit bonus active on back bar, which is negligable and probably has sp dmg winning out anyway.

STEVIL wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

pauli133 wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Seriously, this whole idea never had any traction. Might as well throw out any sort of character customization and go back to Quake 3.

could you explain your reasoning? the idea of having set balance be independent of weapon class seems reasonable (regardless of whether that's 11 or 12 pieces for everyone to work with), and I don't see how it negatively impacts customization.

Dual wield has unique consequences (both negative and positive).
By taking away uniqueness and making everything the same (all weapons count as two pieces) you are *reducing* build diversity.

People want 2H to count as two so they can get the positive from dual wield (2 full sets + monster) without having to actually chose dual wield, thus avoiding the negatives.

They aren't asking this to "balance" the game, they are asking this because they want the benefits from a different play-style without the consequences of actually choosing that play-style.

The actual consequence would be a vast increase in the amount of competitve options for any build running at least one two handed weapon, including setups currently only possible on builds running a mix of only dualwield/one hand and shield.
So how exactly would this reduce build diversity? You would somehow have to show how it would turn a large amount of options uncompetitive.

No see there are years of evidence to counter this imagined "vast increase".

At any point in time, there are some small set of "competitive builds" and a much much larger set of "non-competitive builds" and if adding more options for builds ever made a major siwth=ch in those numbers it would have shown a lot over the last several years where we have had time and time again new options added over and over... and yet each time more or less what happened was all that changed was what specific "builds went into that smaller set while the larger set got bigger.

As for how it could affect build diversity in a nagative way - right now there are sets and builds which cater more to "11 pc builds" and swapping after a long running or long cooldown power is triggered. On the other hand, there are builds which are built around 12pc setups which have all the bonuses up at all times. There are also of course ones built on master-maelstrom-asylum type weapons which bypass this concern entirely. Depending on your preference you can choose competitive options for each of those type.

But, if the 11pc all turned into 12 pc, a number of those would simply switch to the other existing 12 pc builds already being used. There would be no need to work an 11pc swap build in for staff users and they could just rely on the 12pc always up builds. So, a shift away from the 11pc to the 12pc already being used would be obvious - though not universal.

To try and establish an actual gain in competitive builds in use (much less a VAST gain) you would need to show that there are 12pc builds nobody currently uses that folks would migrate to that are both not in current use and not supeprior to the 11pc builds that folks are using (because if the 11s dropped and went to this better 12, that old 11 moves out of the competitive box.)

i cant imagine such a sweeping broad impact so many things all at once change would even be seriously explored given how much it would throw out most of the prior balance assumptions. i would not expect it in anything short of a chapter level change.

Any serious theorycrafter would be aware that there are many setups not in use because they would require 12 pieces on a two handed weapon. Likewise, such setups for dualwield or one hand/shield are meant for these weapon types and not optimized for two handed weapons, so people won't just use the same stuff on different weapon types.

As for an example, how about using 5 Necro + 5Winterborn + 2 Bloodspawn on Warden. Currently you could already go 5 Necro + 5 Winterborn + Master Ice Staff.
Or another example, my old Sorc sustain setup of 5 Bloodthorn + 5 Lich + 2 Pirate Skeleton. If I didn't have to split the sets in front and back bar, I could run Amberplasm instead of one of the 5 piece sets. Or Shacklebreaker. Or Seducer. Or Alteration. Or Willow's Path. Or Torug's Pact...

Any serious theorycrafter would realize that there are already far more combos than there are those that make it into the competitive build bucket.

Any serious theorycrafter would point out that for every one of your cases where someone switches to a new build, they are dropping one they are using now thus shifting one from the "used here" bracket into the "not used here bracket" and vice versa and the same math of selection would push us to the exact same basic percentage more or less.

let me put it more simply: Any increase the the types of sets ALLOWED has traditionally increased the number of sets in the unused pool by a great deal and as far as the number of sets in the "competitive sets used" pile it has resulted in just swapping some in and others out.

there is nothing at all inherent in a blunt force change like "all 2h weapons count as 2 items for counts" that says it wont just swap around which builds are competitive and which are not. There is nothing inherent in broad sweeping changes that suddenly makes for more balanced options enough that it promotes a bigger pool of actually used "competitive options" as opposed to just changing around which ones fall into that bucket as opposed to the ones that drop in the other bucket.

But hey it is so unlikely this big a sweeping blunt force change will be made, by all means, keep up the faith!

If I don't use something that doesn't mean it's not competitive. My own gear setups haven't been meta for years, practically no one using the same stuff, but they've always been competitive. And I am telling you, there would be a lot more competitive options with two handed weapons counting as two set pieces.

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Every single person that voted yes on this has a child-like level of understanding on how balance in this game actually works in this game.

If staves counted as a two slots towards set bonus there would be no reason to ever play a build that didn't use staves. It would make them the most powerful option for weapons in the game by a substantial margin. If you can't see that I seriously question your intelligence and common sense.

LOL, calm your t*ts... all the horrifically overpowered Stamblades and Stam Wardens are doing just fine without staves.

I don't understand, what's even remotely strong about destruction staves. Pitiful passives and noodle wipping abilities.
I believe, these people are saying this, because they get owned by 10 stacked elemental storms. Which is bad game design, not directly a staff problem. 1 elemental storm is not even strong, not after all these nerfs.

Destruction staff has a greatly underpowered dot (destructive touch) probably the weakest spammable aoe (impulse) and a ground aoe, that can't even be used reliably in pvp. The only good thing in this line is elemental drain, which is just a joke compared to what it used to be. Then we have force pulse, which is only a desperate filler for classes who have no spammable spell (Sorcerers) If there wasn't the Asylum staff, then force pulse would still be uninteresting and well, only the perfected version is strong and who has that anyway ?

If anything, then staves need buffs. If none directly, then by making them count as 2 pieces.