Agree, if they want to make something more expensive, it would be cloak. Not a dodgiable, reflectable blockable spammable that does 3k best in pvp

ZOS, how about fixing Strife animation instead of nerfing that ability cost?
It's been two years already since you broke it with Dark Brotherhood update.

[Edited to remove profanity]

@ZOS_Wrobel
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_MattFiror

Yeah.

A skill that can give you 11% additional healing that heals you for the entire dmg done over 8 seconds, does reasonably good single target damage as well as providing 2 ult every four seconds in addition to costing nearly half as much as any other spammable is 100% balanced.

No.

I do think funnel should get it's 3rd target heal back, though.

Thats an impressive amount of bad nbs right here.

Derra wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

The dumb thing about balancing the game around trial performance is that ZOS has the ability to adjust the trial encounters according to the strengths and weaknesses of builds and classes.

This is not true for PVP where the encounters are against other players who cannot be adjusted.

Arguably magblade is overperforming there aswell if you know what you´re doing. Only minimally related to strife being cheap t hough.

Not related at all*

NyassaV wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

The dumb thing about balancing the game around trial performance is that ZOS has the ability to adjust the trial encounters according to the strengths and weaknesses of builds and classes.

This is not true for PVP where the encounters are against other players who cannot be adjusted.

Arguably magblade is overperforming there aswell if you know what you´re doing. Only minimally related to strife being cheap t hough.

Not related at all*

i´m gonna notice it on mine. it´s probably the "nerf" i´ll feel most out of everything announced so far.
still does not mean i agree with it.

100% agree with the notion that the game at this point shouldn´t be balanced around trialdps anymore. most of the cost increase + dmg alterations seem to be done around content few people play in the first place on a level where the changes become relevant.

Yeah, don't nerf it. I agree.

But "It's literally the worst spec for open world PvP."


Ahahahaaha. You are the best magspec, and 3th best openworld. Being top 3 for duels, and a necessary part of large raid groups.

The heal on strife is just shockingly bad, you can't weave it in easily with other abilities or light attacks, it's reflectable (don't even get me started on how dumb that is, you're pulling the life force from someone how you gonna say that's a projectile O_o)

And now another cost increase?

I wouldn't mind but I run 2.2k regen on my magicka NB with syphoning AND elemental drain and sometimes that isn't even enough

Obviously I'm moaning because this is my main class and whilst it may be extremely strong in pve it's shocking for open world cyrodiil so can we try and figure out a way to reign in its pve performance without punishing it even more in PvP?

Abstraqt wrote: »

The heal on strife is just shockingly bad...

No it's not. It's the best HoT in the game in terms of efficiency. People are doing vMA no-death with that as the only heal.

It's a better heal than Rapid Regen (and cheaper) and it's attached to a ranged spammable damage skill which is also the cheapest one in the game apart from Ransack/Pierce. Only damage/heal skill that's arguably better is Embers but that has 5m range and it's a DoT. Not a 28m range spammable.

I'm not saying it deserved a nerf necessarily, but let's not make up *** arguments about it.

I'd like Magblade to have a non-reflectable ranged skill though. I think Cripple would make a good candidate for that.

Rianai wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Abstraqt wrote: »

The heal on strife is just shockingly bad...

No it's not. It's the best HoT in the game in terms of efficiency. People are doing vMA no-death with that as the only heal.

That's only true in PvE though. In PvP other heals tend to be better in comparison because they aren't lowered by enemy mitigation. At average i'm getting ~ 800 heal ticks in no CP PvP. Crits against squishy targets can result 1,5k ticks, but against very tanky opponents it can go down to 200 hp every 2 seconds. Which is barely more than the health regen of a vampire ...

You think? I use Rapid Regen with Maelstrom Resto to support my buddy in no-CP BGs. It ticks for 440 on light armor (me) and 500 on heavy armour (buddy). Heals in no-CP PvP specifically, are terrible across the board.

As a MagBlade I would be supporting my buddy with Funnel for same heals more or less, but without having to use an extra skill on the bar. If I play solo, I replace Rapid Regen with Power Surge. Which costs 3k to cast, is only a self heal, heals only when I crit and overall heals much less than Funnel/Swallow.

It's still a very good heal compared to all alternative HoTs, except Burning Embers perhaps.

If you look at PvP in isolation this skill was fine, it did not deserve a nerf. However this was clearly a case of PvE getting a skill nerfed because MagBlade sustain in PvE is far superior to any other magicka spec.

ak_pvp wrote: »

Yeah, don't nerf it. I agree.

But "It's literally the worst spec for open world PvP."


Ahahahaaha. You are the best magspec, and 3th best openworld. Being top 3 for duels, and a necessary part of large raid groups.

If you play 2hand it's pretty decent open world, but it's no longer top teir for duels it also doesn't have any sustained pressure so good luck killing tanky players. Destro/resto however is top teir for duels, but it's kind of crap open world, every Stam spec will have a easier time. On paper it seems like it would be good but in practice you just can move. I would argue that magsorc is in a higher teir bracket than magblade for open world PvP. Magblade is too squishy to not have mobility. A root spamming tank or a snare basically turns magblade into a stand your ground class with out any stand your ground abilities. The class doesn't have any unavoidable damage or front loaded burst to quickly kill enemies and magblade spammable dps is low. Mostly everything you need to be good for solo open world PvP destro/resto magblade lacks. Overall though I think the class is in a good spot it really only struggles for open world, and if you are open to running 2hand you can mitigate alot of those struggles

Subversus wrote: »

Abstraqt wrote: »

The heal on strife is just shockingly bad, you can't weave it in easily with other abilities or light attacks, it's reflectable (don't even get me started on how dumb that is, you're pulling the life force from someone how you gonna say that's a projectile O_o)

And now another cost increase?

I wouldn't mind but I run 2.2k regen on my magicka NB with syphoning AND elemental drain and sometimes that isn't even enough

Obviously I'm moaning because this is my main class and whilst it may be extremely strong in pve it's shocking for open world cyrodiil so can we try and figure out a way to reign in its pve performance without punishing it even more in PvP?

Well technically you throw a transmutation ball at the enemy that fills up with life energy and then comes back at you. If the enemy reflects it it means they reflect the transmute ball so you take life from yourself.

"Steal an enemy’s life force, dealing [x] Magic Damage and healing you for 25% of the damage inflicted every 2 seconds for 10 seconds."

Yeah I can totally see the "transmute ball" part here...

Rianai wrote: »

You need to crit every ~3 seconds for Power Surge to pull ahead of Strife's single target HPS, which doesn't seem too unrealistic to me, and it is a lot more cost efficient, because you only need to cast it once every 30s (the latter applies to most HoTs - the initial cost might be higher, but the duration is longer, so you need to cast them less often).

Doesn't mean, Strife is not an amazing skill in PvP - it definitely is. But mostly because it is a cheap ranged spammable that offeres some nice additional boni, not because the heal is "the best HoT in the game". If they would remove the heal i would still use it i think. But with a cost equal to FP i'm questioning if it isn't better to just use the latter.

In what sort of universe is Power Surge more efficient? It requires an extra slot, it cost 3k to cast. You will be using Funnel at least once every 8 seconds in every fight as part of your offensive rotation so the heal costs you nothing. 3k is more than nothing.

Strife has received multiple nerfs over the years.

• A healing reduction nerf by making it impossible to crit a Strife heal that was sourced from a crit hit, essentially eliminating the "double crit" that made Strife a strong heal.
• Another healing nerf that reduced the number of people healed by Strife.
• A cost nerf that increased the cost of Strife.
• And now, an upcoming second cost nerf to Strife that eliminates its cost advantage over Force Shock.

Never has Strife ever been buffed over the years. Only nerfed.

Now, let's consider Force Shock vs. Strife:

• Damage: Despite Strife's slightly higher base tooltip, Force Shock is actually much stronger.
  • The Destruction Staff passive that increases the penetration of destro attacks/abilities makes up for the tooltip difference between the two.
  • Force Shock is easily buffed: Dunmer, Altmer, and Nord have passives that buff Force Shock damage. Engulfing Flames will buff Force Shock. There are no Magic Damage amps in this game.
  • Force Pulse has an AoE component, which applies rather frequently due to the increased ease of applying status effects on a target.
  • Force Shock can apply status effects which do additional damage.
  • Force Shock counts as 3 hits, which increases the rate at which "chance on damage" sets proc (Scathing, Nerien'eth, etc.)
  • Force Shock's damage can be substantially buffed by an Asylum staff; there are no sets that buff Strife's damage.
• Resource sustain: After the Summerset cost nerf, Force Shock will actually have better sustain than Strife. Why? The destro staff passive that returns magicka on kills attributed to staff abilities. Since this requires a kill, it makes no difference in PvE boss fights, but it is a substantial source of sustain in low-health fights like trash pulls, vMA, vDSA, and PvP. Pre-Summerset, this was the one major advantage that Strife had.
• Utility: Strife has a heal. Crushing Shock is a ranged interrupt. There will be content where Crushing Shock is required, and here is content where the Strife heal is required. The two are not really comparable.

So my question to @ZOS_Wrobel and @ZOS_RichLambert is simple: Why would anyone use Strife in traditional PvE content where there is healer support? Sure, Strife will still see use in vMA (even though the most competitive vMA runners have already switched to Force Pulse over Strife) and Asylum (but that's really a problem with Asylum's unique design that forces healers away from the healing role, creating an "everyone-for-themselves" paradigm).

Do you remember the days pre-Morrowind, when every magicka nightblade played like a wannabe sorc, using Force Pulse as their spammable instead of Strife, their own class ability? Force Pulse is simply stronger than Strife. The reason magicka nightblades went back to using their own class-identifying still instead of a homogenized weapon skill was that Morrowind made sustain relevant again, and that gave Strife an advantage that wasn't really relevant pre-Morrowind.

Again, Force Shock is stronger than Strife. This is why everyone used Force Shock in PvE pre-Morrowind. This is why competitive vMA scores in the CwC and DB patches are done using Force Pulse. This is why for short bursty fights (no need for long-term sustain) where people want to post large parses, they use Force Pulse instead of Strife. Strife had two pillars that kept it relevant: sustain and the self-healing. In Summerset, sustain will turn from an advantage to a disadvantage (since Force Shock has a magicka refund component), and the self-healing is not relevant for a wide range of content.

This nerf is unnecessary, especially since the cost of Strife had already been nerfed in an earlier patch. And it makes Strife a subpar skill that is no longer competitive with Force Shock. Is this really what you want? For all magicka users to go around spamming Force Pulse regardless of class? To relegate a class-identifying skill to irrelevance?

@ZOS_Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert If you nerf the cost of Strife, at the very least, the damage of Strife needs to be made competitive, considering that Force Shock is subject to buffs and amps not available to Strife. Or... just don't nerf things that don't need to be nerfed.