zyk wrote: »

I have always thought Strife compares to the DK ability Burning Embers.

Strife is a direct damage ability that provides a heal over time based on the damage done. (costs 1891)

Burning Embers is a damage over time that applies a direct heal based on the damage done. (costs 1350)

Yet Strife continues to have its cost raised to the point where it's losing viability while Burning Embers remains OP relative to it. They used to cost the same if I recall correctly.

I thought it was okay for abilities like Burning Embers and Strife to be strong compared to general abilities available to everyone because they are class abilities.

Please do not nerf Strife again. Do not balance ESO around trial DPS please.

code65536 wrote: »

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.

Domander wrote: »

What is the actual change to strife that we are talking about?

SugaComa wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

The cheap spammable was a useful part of the incredible level of mediocrity that is magblade's kit. What is the purpose of this? In what context is magblade overperforming? It's literally the worst spec for open world PvP.

I'm sick of these ridiculous "on paper" nerfs comparing individual skills, rather than considering how the class actually performs in practice. Classes have strengths and weaknesses. Templar has more powerful healing but less mobility, DK has mitigation and self healing but less burst, Sorcs burst and mobility but poor healing and mitigation, etc etc. Yet we don't try to make these all equal based on individual ablilties or passives.

Magblade has no burst heal, no class shields, weak defensive passives, an extremely short offensive window, an almost entirely reflectable/absorbable offensive kit, the only class with hard counterable defensive mechanics, a dodgeable ult, bar space hungry offensive and defensive mechanics, weird and time consuming conditionals for offensive abilities, a hot that self inflicts damage, I could keep going... There are a lot of weaknesses here, Strife was a much needed strength and in no way over performing in context of magblades overall kit. Again what is the purpose of this beyond bean counting ability costs?

The fact that Strife gets a nerf while Stamina Warden trades a slightly more expensive Shield for EVEN MORE ult gen for it's completely broken defensive kit is utterly insane to me.

Please reconsider this.

Funny ... Cos in another thread I've read nightblade are the best PvP class due to their best defence capabilities, great self heals and insane damage ... Yet here you are claiming the opposite ... You magblades should get together n discuss what's what ... Currently nightblade are killing me before I time to even react due to the overperformance of some skills ...

While i'm not crying nerf ... They do need a rebalance ...

Abstraqt wrote: »

Every time I see this discussion im going to just remind people how dumb nerfing strife is

It worked with the sorc curse nerf they almost did, it can work with this... maybe

Maulkin wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Abstraqt wrote: »

Every time I see this discussion im going to just remind people how dumb nerfing strife is

It worked with the sorc curse nerf they almost did, it can work with this... maybe

I don't think they will revert entirely the change.

Curse "nerf" was intended to be a buff, but people rightfully say it was more a nerf than anything else.

Dragon Bone magblade NEED to be nerfed in summerset. If someone disagree, he is just stupid, no discution about that. Here is the reasons.

This is obvious, especially PvE side.

Non NB summerset change :

- New light attack scaling better on max pool

NB have a great pool of magicka (the best in the game).
NB are the best light attack user (light attack being the FIRST Damage in their DPS).
Magblade being the best magicka DPS.

You can understand the non NB buff will make a class overperforming (when u look at other mag character) even more OP because it's the one that gain the most on theze changes.

ZoS needed to bring their damage down, there is few way to do it :

- Nerf bow damage => Destroy the class in PvP
- Nerf strife damage => No reason to use it if force pulse do a lot more damage =>Also Destroy the class in PvP.
- Nerf Strife cost => Reduce the number of light attack by adding needed heavies, but still keep the good damage and utility of the skill => Don't destroy the class in PvP, because sustain can be improve with a glyph/food/set.

Not even speaking about PvP balance.

Nerfing strife cost is one of the smartest way to bring NB in line with other PvE DPS without breaking the class PvP side.

Long story short, they wanted to nerf MagBlade for PvE because it was outperforming every other magicka build in damage and sustain. If you look at the skills receiving a nerf in isolation (strife, path) they certainly didn't deserve these nerfs. But from all the possible nerfs, they are the ones that would hurt the least. They must have found it easier to nerf NB than buffing every other class without breaking balance, I guess.

Maulkin wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Abstraqt wrote: »

Every time I see this discussion im going to just remind people how dumb nerfing strife is

It worked with the sorc curse nerf they almost did, it can work with this... maybe

I don't think they will revert entirely the change.

Curse "nerf" was intended to be a buff, but people rightfully say it was more a nerf than anything else.

Dragon Bone magblade NEED to be nerfed in summerset. If someone disagree, he is just stupid, no discution about that. Here is the reasons.

This is obvious, especially PvE side.

Non NB summerset change :

- New light attack scaling better on max pool

NB have a great pool of magicka (the best in the game).
NB are the best light attack user (light attack being the FIRST Damage in their DPS).
Magblade being the best magicka DPS.

You can understand the non NB buff will make a class overperforming (when u look at other mag character) even more OP because it's the one that gain the most on theze changes.

ZoS needed to bring their damage down, there is few way to do it :

- Nerf bow damage => Destroy the class in PvP
- Nerf strife damage => No reason to use it if force pulse do a lot more damage =>Also Destroy the class in PvP.
- Nerf Strife cost => Reduce the number of light attack by adding needed heavies, but still keep the good damage and utility of the skill => Don't destroy the class in PvP, because sustain can be improve with a glyph/food/set.

Not even speaking about PvP balance.

Nerfing strife cost is one of the smartest way to bring NB in line with other PvE DPS without breaking the class PvP side.

Long story short, they wanted to nerf MagBlade for PvE because it was outperforming every other magicka build in damage and sustain. If you look at the skills receiving a nerf in isolation (strife, path) they certainly didn't deserve these nerfs. But from all the possible nerfs, they are the ones that would hurt the least. They must have found it easier to nerf NB than buffing every other class without breaking balance, I guess.

You don't get it.

NB will be nerf because the new light attack scaling would make them far too much OP because it's the only class with a huge magicka pool able to use a light attack rotation.

You're talking nonsense again.

Magicka NB runs smaller magicka pools than both Mag Sorc and Mag Warden, both of which use Necropotence with pets up.

They wanted to hit sustain in general, simply because it's the only class that can light attack. Not because they benefit more than anyone else from large mag pools.

thankyourat wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Abstraqt wrote: »

Every time I see this discussion im going to just remind people how dumb nerfing strife is

It worked with the sorc curse nerf they almost did, it can work with this... maybe

I don't think they will revert entirely the change.

Curse "nerf" was intended to be a buff, but people rightfully say it was more a nerf than anything else.

Dragon Bone magblade NEED to be nerfed in summerset. If someone disagree, he is just stupid, no discution about that. Here is the reasons.

This is obvious, especially PvE side.

Non NB summerset change :

- New light attack scaling better on max pool

NB have a great pool of magicka (the best in the game).
NB are the best light attack user (light attack being the FIRST Damage in their DPS).
Magblade being the best magicka DPS.

You can understand the non NB buff will make a class overperforming (when u look at other mag character) even more OP because it's the one that gain the most on theze changes.

ZoS needed to bring their damage down, there is few way to do it :

- Nerf bow damage => Destroy the class in PvP
- Nerf strife damage => No reason to use it if force pulse do a lot more damage =>Also Destroy the class in PvP.
- Nerf Strife cost => Reduce the number of light attack by adding needed heavies, but still keep the good damage and utility of the skill => Don't destroy the class in PvP, because sustain can be improve with a glyph/food/set.

Not even speaking about PvP balance.

Nerfing strife cost is one of the smartest way to bring NB in line with other PvE DPS without breaking the class PvP side.

Long story short, they wanted to nerf MagBlade for PvE because it was outperforming every other magicka build in damage and sustain. If you look at the skills receiving a nerf in isolation (strife, path) they certainly didn't deserve these nerfs. But from all the possible nerfs, they are the ones that would hurt the least. They must have found it easier to nerf NB than buffing every other class without breaking balance, I guess.

You don't get it.

NB will be nerf because the new light attack scaling would make them far too much OP because it's the only class with a huge magicka pool able to use a light attack rotation.

You're talking nonsense again.

Magicka NB runs smaller magicka pools than both Mag Sorc and Mag Warden, both of which use Necropotence with pets up.

They wanted to hit sustain in general, simply because it's the only class that can light attack. Not because they benefit more than anyone else from large mag pools.

No nonsense and no "again"

Magblade can have the best magicka pool in this game : They can run Necropotence, they have 8% more magicka passively and can easely run magelight (7%).

I was unclear, the difference between PvE Necro sorc and magblade is 3k magicka, but all sorc doesn't run Necro.

They benefit more than anyone else from large magepool in PvP.

I don't believe most magblades run necro either. That's really a Warden set now

Aedaryl wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Abstraqt wrote: »

Every time I see this discussion im going to just remind people how dumb nerfing strife is

It worked with the sorc curse nerf they almost did, it can work with this... maybe

I don't think they will revert entirely the change.

Curse "nerf" was intended to be a buff, but people rightfully say it was more a nerf than anything else.

Dragon Bone magblade NEED to be nerfed in summerset. If someone disagree, he is just stupid, no discution about that. Here is the reasons.

This is obvious, especially PvE side.

Non NB summerset change :

- New light attack scaling better on max pool

NB have a great pool of magicka (the best in the game).
NB are the best light attack user (light attack being the FIRST Damage in their DPS).
Magblade being the best magicka DPS.

You can understand the non NB buff will make a class overperforming (when u look at other mag character) even more OP because it's the one that gain the most on theze changes.

ZoS needed to bring their damage down, there is few way to do it :

- Nerf bow damage => Destroy the class in PvP
- Nerf strife damage => No reason to use it if force pulse do a lot more damage =>Also Destroy the class in PvP.
- Nerf Strife cost => Reduce the number of light attack by adding needed heavies, but still keep the good damage and utility of the skill => Don't destroy the class in PvP, because sustain can be improve with a glyph/food/set.

Not even speaking about PvP balance.

Nerfing strife cost is one of the smartest way to bring NB in line with other PvE DPS without breaking the class PvP side.

Long story short, they wanted to nerf MagBlade for PvE because it was outperforming every other magicka build in damage and sustain. If you look at the skills receiving a nerf in isolation (strife, path) they certainly didn't deserve these nerfs. But from all the possible nerfs, they are the ones that would hurt the least. They must have found it easier to nerf NB than buffing every other class without breaking balance, I guess.

You don't get it.

NB will be nerf because the new light attack scaling would make them far too much OP because it's the only class with a huge magicka pool able to use a light attack rotation.

You're talking nonsense again.

Magicka NB runs smaller magicka pools than both Mag Sorc and Mag Warden, both of which use Necropotence with pets up.

They wanted to hit sustain in general, simply because it's the only class that can light attack. Not because they benefit more than anyone else from large mag pools.

No nonsense and no "again"

Magblade can have the best magicka pool in this game : They can run Necropotence, they have 8% more magicka passively and can easely run magelight (7%).

I was unclear, the difference between PvE Necro sorc and magblade is 3k magicka, but all sorc doesn't run Necro.

They benefit more than anyone else from large magepool in PvP.

I don't believe most magblades run necro either. That's really a Warden set now

In PvE they don't, it's not enough damage.

Necro is good on PvP on sorc with shadowrend or pet sorc. Also on magicka NB, shadow Image is considered like a pet so they can run it easely. But Necropotence is clearly awesome for magden.

Maulkin wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

Abstraqt wrote: »

Every time I see this discussion im going to just remind people how dumb nerfing strife is

It worked with the sorc curse nerf they almost did, it can work with this... maybe

I don't think they will revert entirely the change.

Curse "nerf" was intended to be a buff, but people rightfully say it was more a nerf than anything else.

Dragon Bone magblade NEED to be nerfed in summerset. If someone disagree, he is just stupid, no discution about that. Here is the reasons.

This is obvious, especially PvE side.

Non NB summerset change :

- New light attack scaling better on max pool

NB have a great pool of magicka (the best in the game).
NB are the best light attack user (light attack being the FIRST Damage in their DPS).
Magblade being the best magicka DPS.

You can understand the non NB buff will make a class overperforming (when u look at other mag character) even more OP because it's the one that gain the most on theze changes.

ZoS needed to bring their damage down, there is few way to do it :

- Nerf bow damage => Destroy the class in PvP
- Nerf strife damage => No reason to use it if force pulse do a lot more damage =>Also Destroy the class in PvP.
- Nerf Strife cost => Reduce the number of light attack by adding needed heavies, but still keep the good damage and utility of the skill => Don't destroy the class in PvP, because sustain can be improve with a glyph/food/set.

Not even speaking about PvP balance.

Nerfing strife cost is one of the smartest way to bring NB in line with other PvE DPS without breaking the class PvP side.

Long story short, they wanted to nerf MagBlade for PvE because it was outperforming every other magicka build in damage and sustain. If you look at the skills receiving a nerf in isolation (strife, path) they certainly didn't deserve these nerfs. But from all the possible nerfs, they are the ones that would hurt the least. They must have found it easier to nerf NB than buffing every other class without breaking balance, I guess.

Aedaryl wrote: »

Abstraqt wrote: »

Every time I see this discussion im going to just remind people how dumb nerfing strife is

It worked with the sorc curse nerf they almost did, it can work with this... maybe

I don't think they will revert entirely the change.

Curse "nerf" was intended to be a buff, but people rightfully say it was more a nerf than anything else.

Dragon Bone magblade NEED to be nerfed in summerset. If someone disagree, he is just stupid, no discution about that. Here is the reasons.

This is obvious, especially PvE side.

Non NB summerset change :

- New light attack scaling better on max pool

NB have a great pool of magicka (the best in the game).
NB are the best light attack user (light attack being the FIRST Damage in their DPS).
Magblade being the best magicka DPS.

You can understand the non NB buff will make a class overperforming (when u look at other mag character) even more OP because it's the one that gain the most on theze changes.

ZoS needed to bring their damage down, there is few way to do it :

- Nerf bow damage => Destroy the class in PvP
- Nerf strife damage => No reason to use it if force pulse do a lot more damage =>Also Destroy the class in PvP.
- Nerf Strife cost => Reduce the number of light attack by adding needed heavies, but still keep the good damage and utility of the skill => Don't destroy the class in PvP, because sustain can be improve with a glyph/food/set.

Not even speaking about PvP balance.

Nerfing strife cost is one of the smartest way to bring NB in line with other PvE DPS without breaking the class PvP side.