We need a fix for Relentless Focus/Merciless Resolve and Light Attacks

Izaki · January 2018

Hey there,

Most people who play nightblades in raids have probably noticed the fact that sometimes you'd do 4 light attacks, then do your 5th light attack directly followed by Relentless Focus or Merciless Resolve in hopes that you'll fire off the proc straight away. But no. That won't happen. 90% of the time you'll just refresh the buff and feel really stupid. Why is this happening? Because we activate the ability too quickly after the light attack, so the light attack doesn't have the time to register. In short, the game can't keep up with you. So you're technically losing DPS because you're too good?

Now maybe this issue is only a thing with Relentless Focus, since I've heard some people say that you don't get that with Merciless Resolve. Either way, light attacks should be registered towards Relentless Focus/Merciless Resolve the moment you do your left click. Nightblades have the hardest rotations in PvE mainly because of this ability and very often, this ability is the one that screws us over because we end up refreshing the buff instead of firing off the proc. We could of course do 5 light attack weaves before firing off the proc, in order to ensure that all 5 light attacks are registered, but that lowers the potential of the skill's damage since it drasically reduces the maximum number of procs you can fire off with one cast of the ability.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Would it be possible to get a fix for this? Pretty please?

kypranb14_ESO · January 2018

This does happen with Merciless Resolve. It is usually only if you click a tad too fast or if you have a ping spike.

I'm not sure this is something they could fix so easily to be honest. We could always go on the "revert it to 4 light attacks rant" again though. lol

PS4_ZeColmeia · January 2018

Seconded.

For NB dps there are 2 issues

We need strife animation to get cleaned up. It has a wonky animation that will consume the damage of an LA but still did the animation. If you're lagging, not aware, or unable to see (like in a keep fight) you are losing massive dps.

Grim needs to either go back to 4 hits, or the get the firing of the spectral bow to recast the skill. The issue with the mechanics is that repeatedly recasting the skill for no damage while only getting 2 hits per cast (barring lag, miss fires, or skills consuming the damage of an LA) is just too much of a DPS loss to use.

This is separate and apart from the issue the OP brings up which is the same issue as strife but in reverse.

Izaki · January 2018

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

This does happen with Merciless Resolve. It is usually only if you click a tad too fast or if you have a ping spike.

I'm not sure this is something they could fix so easily to be honest. We could always go on the "revert it to 4 light attacks rant" again though. lol

Hell no. The skill is already VERY strong. Going back to 4 light attacks would be just way too much.

Well the easiest thing to do would be to register te light attack as soon as its fired off.

PS4_ZeColmeia wrote: »

Seconded.

Grim needs to either go back to 4 hits, or the get the firing of the spectral bow to recast the skill. The issue with the mechanics is that repeatedly recasting the skill for no damage while only getting 2 hits per cast (barring lag, miss fires, or skills consuming the damage of an LA) is just too much of a DPS loss to use.

This is actually very false. If you do 2 hits per cast its a very significant DPS increase and definitely worth using.

NyassaV · January 2018

Can we just recast the damn skill on use already... I literally don't see why this can't be the case

WrathOfInnos · January 2018

It definitely happens with merciless resolve. I think it may be caused by the travel time of staff light attacks, you don't get credit for the light attack until it hits (which could be after using the skill). This could also apply to the bow light attacks. Do you notice this issue on melee weapons? I think resto light attacks are more reliable (not that this is be viable for PVE DPS).

Izaki · January 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It definitely happens with merciless resolve. I think it may be caused by the travel time of staff light attacks, you don't get credit for the light attack until it hits (which could be after using the skill). This could also apply to the bow light attacks. Do you notice this issue on melee weapons? I think resto light attacks are more reliable (not that this is be viable for PVE DPS).

Yeah it happens on melee weapons too.

NightbladeMechanics · January 2018

The split second you have to pause after your fifth light attack before firing the bow is not long enough to encroach upon the gcd of the next ability. No dps change unless you botch your cast, just an annoyance you have to play around.

Izaki · January 2018

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

The split second you have to pause after your fifth light attack before firing the bow is not long enough to encroach upon the gcd of the next ability. No dps change unless you botch your cast, just an annoyance you have to play around.

So basically we have to play slower than we potentially could. And it does affect the GCD of the next ability since you activate your Bow proc 0.1 seconds later, which means you will also activate your next ability at least 0.1 seconds later.

PS4_ZeColmeia · January 2018

Izaki wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

The split second you have to pause after your fifth light attack before firing the bow is not long enough to encroach upon the gcd of the next ability. No dps change unless you botch your cast, just an annoyance you have to play around.

So basically we have to play slower than we potentially could. And it does affect the GCD of the next ability since you activate your Bow proc 0.1 seconds later, which means you will also activate your next ability at least 0.1 seconds later.

The issue I run into more often is the effect of lag (especially in Cyrodiil) with the 2 wonky animations we have. I don't mind if I weave too fast and have to double attack because I was wrong. What's harder to swallow is that it'll play you through the LA animation and NOT do damage. If they changed the window for these 2 skills it would do a lot to improve the class.

Izaki wrote: »

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

This does happen with Merciless Resolve. It is usually only if you click a tad too fast or if you have a ping spike.

I'm not sure this is something they could fix so easily to be honest. We could always go on the "revert it to 4 light attacks rant" again though. lol

Hell no. The skill is already VERY strong. Going back to 4 light attacks would be just way too much.

Well the easiest thing to do would be to register te light attack as soon as its fired off.

PS4_ZeColmeia wrote: »

Seconded.

Grim needs to either go back to 4 hits, or the get the firing of the spectral bow to recast the skill. The issue with the mechanics is that repeatedly recasting the skill for no damage while only getting 2 hits per cast (barring lag, miss fires, or skills consuming the damage of an LA) is just too much of a DPS loss to use.

This is actually very false. If you do 2 hits per cast its a very significant DPS increase and definitely worth using.

No this is reality in anything other than the easiest of PvE or content where it's fairly easy to get overhealed. In a perfect weave, which we just covered doesn't work for our spammable without slowing down, your attacks look like this

1....2....3....4....5....6....7....8....9....10
GF>LA>S.>LA>S.>LA>S.>LA>S.>LA.>SB

When you add the delays in you can only get in 2 casts if you perfectly execute the weave AND have 0 lag. Worse, when you get to the last 10 seconds of Grim Focus, if you messed up the first 10 seconds in anyway you will get to the end of GF with no carry over of the LAs completed.

This is why dropping the # of attacks back to 4 (which should give you roughly 2-2.5 seconds of buffer, but still sucks because if you have to dodge roll, block, whatever, you lose momentum as you have to recast GF again) or, the preferred option, have the Spectral Bow cast GF. This gets rid of the nearly impossible to LA to GF to cast SB again 2x in the same cast.

Another option is to have LA be on a global counter so you can recast GF within 5-8s and pick up where you left off. IMHO, this and # of attacks are far inferior and will require future tweaking when compared to just having the SB recast GF in the same animation. I think it also makes this skill much more viable to stamblades that need use dodge roll more than cloak to avoid damage (more time to execute grim) and for magblades that would like to use shadowy disguise for a guarenteed crit or have more wind up on damage as they lay down aoes or have issues with weaving with our wonky spammable.

LUC1D7 · January 2018

I think the issue is that in order to proc it needs to detect a target hit not a LA/HA being casted. If they made it so that it was instant based on LA/HA being casted then it would be abused. People wouldn't need to hit anyone to proc it. The type of weapon you use has a travel time based on distance and a bunch of other things to take into consideration to make sure it detected a LA/HA hit on the enemy. That's why it seems delayed. Sucks but i don't know any other way they can make it smoother?

The only other thing I could think of would be to have 2 morphs of the skill. One morph would continue working as it is where you would need to manually fire the spectral bow and another morph would auto fire spectral bow for you when it's ready. That's what I would like to see. This way you have people to have a morph for PVE and one for PVP.

deepseamk20b14_ESO · January 2018

On top of this I notice melee LA’s don’t always register either. But that relentless focus for me. Could just be lag.

LiquidPony · January 2018

Thirded.

Have videos of multiple parses where you can see the proc on my ability bar but pressing it just causes a re-cast of Relentless Focus rather than actually activating the proc.

This combined with the garbage DW heavy attack animation bugs leads to my stamblade just standing around with his tail in his hands far too often.

Marabornwingrion · January 2018

It' so damn annoying! I need to be slower to not lose that proc. It's ridiculous. Fix please.

Mureel · January 2018

PS4_ZeColmeia wrote: »

Seconded.

For NB dps there are 2 issues

We need strife animation to get cleaned up. It has a wonky animation that will consume the damage of an LA but still did the animation. If you're lagging, not aware, or unable to see (like in a keep fight) you are losing massive dps.

Grim needs to either go back to 4 hits, or the get the firing of the spectral bow to recast the skill. The issue with the mechanics is that repeatedly recasting the skill for no damage while only getting 2 hits per cast (barring lag, miss fires, or skills consuming the damage of an LA) is just too much of a DPS loss to use.

This is separate and apart from the issue the OP brings up which is the same issue as strife but in reverse.

Agree 100%

Izaki · January 2018

LiquidPony wrote: »

Thirded.

Have videos of multiple parses where you can see the proc on my ability bar but pressing it just causes a re-cast of Relentless Focus rather than actually activating the proc.

This combined with the garbage DW heavy attack animation bugs leads to my stamblade just standing around with his tail in his hands far too often.

The heavy attack bug has to be one of the stupidest things in the game. Like really. The number of times it has happened to me is just.... argh

LiquidPony · January 2018

Izaki wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Thirded.

Have videos of multiple parses where you can see the proc on my ability bar but pressing it just causes a re-cast of Relentless Focus rather than actually activating the proc.

This combined with the garbage DW heavy attack animation bugs leads to my stamblade just standing around with his tail in his hands far too often.

The heavy attack bug has to be one of the stupidest things in the game. Like really. The number of times it has happened to me is just.... argh

Probably 50% of my solo parses have to be reset because at some point I can't heavy attack.

I also note that when I get the heavy attack bug, I can't weave into Rending Slashes either. Usually happens on a DW pass where I intend to do: LA-->Bow Proc, LA-->Relentless Focus, HA-->Rending Slashes, HA-->Deadly Cloak, LA-->Surprise Attack, swap.

So what happens is, after recasting Relentless Focus, I can't HA. So I have to re-press trigger to start the HA, but then it won't weave into Rending Slashes (I press the button, nothing happens, I just do the HA). So then I LA-->Deadly Cloak and swap ... which means on that pass I've lost: Rending Slashes, a heavy attack, a light attack, and a Surprise Attack (so I probably didn't proc the Berserker enchant either).

It's a huge DPS loss and it's obnoxious. Of all the thousands of bugs in this game, combat animation bugs irk me the most. They're just really frustrating and demoralizing. Feels like I'm fighting the game to get my DPS up.

Vaoh · January 2018

I wish that they would just reduce the duration to 15 seconds, but make it so that firing a proc refreshes the duration. That alone would clean up the process a lot.

LZH · January 2018

Call me an elitist but firing merciless on the 5th light attack is a skill thing more than anything. If you get aggressive and use the skill early you'll pay for it. Practice makes perfect.

BigBadVolk · January 2018

LZH wrote: »

Call me an elitist but firing merciless on the 5th light attack is a skill thing more than anything. If you get aggressive and use the skill early you'll pay for it. Practice makes perfect.

Agree with this, in most of my time I learnt that I have to wait a little before I fire the arrow otherwise I'm ***

We need strife animation to get cleaned up. It has a wonky animation that will consume the damage of an LA but still did the animation. If you're lagging, not aware, or unable to see (like in a keep fight) you are losing massive dps.

This, imo is a little bit more important then the early pressing, at least on mag side

Synroth · January 2018

I'm also having the issue where my skill icon doesn't switch back after I shoot the spectral bow off. Slightly frustrating if I'm not paying the best attention.

This is at least happening on Xbox any ways.

LiquidPony · January 2018

LZH wrote: »

Call me an elitist but firing merciless on the 5th light attack is a skill thing more than anything. If you get aggressive and use the skill early you'll pay for it. Practice makes perfect.

You're an elitist.

Deservedly so.

But a lot of these little quirks about NBs make them pretty difficult to play, especially on console. The damn buff tracker is so small and jumps around the screen so much that it's really difficult to see the LA counter on the Grim Focus tracker, and performance and lag are so bad that it's hard to be confident when a proc is coming up. The duration of Twisting Path is a pain in the ass to track on console because we don't have AoE trackers (so those constant bar-swap rotations we see PC players doing for max DPS are not so easy to emulate when you have to track Path in your head).

kypranb14_ESO · January 2018

Izaki wrote: »

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

This does happen with Merciless Resolve. It is usually only if you click a tad too fast or if you have a ping spike.

I'm not sure this is something they could fix so easily to be honest. We could always go on the "revert it to 4 light attacks rant" again though. lol

Hell no. The skill is already VERY strong. Going back to 4 light attacks would be just way too much.

Well the easiest thing to do would be to register te light attack as soon as its fired off.

PS4_ZeColmeia wrote: »

Seconded.

Grim needs to either go back to 4 hits, or the get the firing of the spectral bow to recast the skill. The issue with the mechanics is that repeatedly recasting the skill for no damage while only getting 2 hits per cast (barring lag, miss fires, or skills consuming the damage of an LA) is just too much of a DPS loss to use.

This is actually very false. If you do 2 hits per cast its a very significant DPS increase and definitely worth using.

I was being sarcastic about the going back to 4 light attacks bit, I never cared much weather it was 4 or 5. I can consistently get 3 Spectral Bows per cast, with only the occasional slip up.

@Izaki