The Truth About The "Soldier Of Anguish" Set

Datthaw · September 2018

Joshlenoir wrote: »

Skoomah wrote: »

Sounds Iike solo players that want to take out groups of 7 people on their own seems pretty imbalanced to me. 1vX clips are fun and amazing to watch but they highlight gameplay imbalances more than skill in my opinion.

Why do people that get 1vXed always defend these types of sets?

Nobody said one person should be able to take out 7 in a normal scenario if at all- please stop straw manning this thread and provide counterarguments to positions that are actually stated by people.

It's funny how people think 1vx is just face tanking multiple people till they die. Every 1vx I've had on magnb is me hauling ass using shade and being elusive to seperate said 7 players and killing them 1 by 1.

And just to clear the air here, good players can get 1vX'ed also. Maybe they are on an alt, trying a new build, or maybe just having an off day and distracted. I know I've had days where I feel like I'm moving 2 seconds behind.

Joshlenoir · September 2018

Anyways I guess this thread can end now considering ZoS came out themselves and agreed with me.

https://imgur.com/7TmNWYD

leepalmer95 · September 2018

Joshlenoir wrote: »

Anyways I guess this thread can end now considering ZoS came out themselves and agreed with me.

https://imgur.com/7TmNWYD

Thank F.

Kadoin · September 2018

Joshlenoir wrote: »

Anyways I guess this thread can end now considering ZoS came out themselves and agreed with me.

https://imgur.com/7TmNWYD

Heavy armor "heal bots" everywhere are rejoicing...

mojomood · September 2018

Dashmatt wrote: »

Some good points here, but you slightly derail with the list of OP sets... Impregnable, really?

As for the set itself, it is stronger than Defile and has more uptime (because Defile uptime was just nerfed last patch, which is good) and it stacks with Defile. It functions almost like Sloads, however someone did the math in another thread and it is considerably stronger, and again it can be combined.

The best counter to it probably would have been damage shields... but let’s not go there.

Balance aside... I think it is a bad idea to add a mechanic that makes skills have zero effect. If you cast a heal, and are healed for 0, that is not fun.

It seems like this set is meant to counter “unkillable” builds, but the problem is that it works just as well against literally everyone. On top of that, it will likely even have the opposite effect of driving more people to super tanky/healing builds, because those are the only ones that will be able to survive it.

Would really like to know the intent. Hopefully it was just a mistake and they accidentally grabbed from the Rejected OP Set Idea pile from 2016.

Please change the 5th bonus to something else. If not, the uptime needs to be decreased, the effect needs to be decreased, and it needs to not stack from multiple players.

Agreed. Except that impreg is over-performing. It's just to much mitigation of burst (lethal) damage. Combined with CP, it can completely remove crit damage. It allows to many players to heal through stuff because they can't be bursted down.

_Ahala_ · September 2018

Oh thank god... they actually admitted that this will break the game and are gonna rework it... it’s almost as if they learned something from the sloadpocalypse

GreenSoup2HoT · September 2018

I dont think it takes an entire thread to know zos's itemization is whack. Everything you have said had been said before.

DeadlyRecluse · September 2018

Kadoin wrote: »

Joshlenoir wrote: »

Anyways I guess this thread can end now considering ZoS came out themselves and agreed with me.

https://imgur.com/7TmNWYD

Heavy armor "heal bots" everywhere are rejoicing...

FWIW, as an off-again-on-again heavy armor healbot, I wasn't worried about Soldier of Anguish. That's the spec that literally cares about it the least, as I'm overhealing in that role.

The OG set design really hinders builds that rely on OTHER forms of mitigation and have just enough healing to recoup lost HP (i.e. stam builds that use vigor+dodge roll to heal).

DarkJester1 · September 2018

I don't get it? 5500 isn't exactly a lot considering the amount of burst heal I've seen, and that's in BGs even!

Kadoin · September 2018

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

Kadoin wrote: »

Joshlenoir wrote: »

Anyways I guess this thread can end now considering ZoS came out themselves and agreed with me.

https://imgur.com/7TmNWYD

Heavy armor "heal bots" everywhere are rejoicing...

FWIW, as an off-again-on-again heavy armor healbot, I wasn't worried about Soldier of Anguish. That's the spec that literally cares about it the least, as I'm overhealing in that role.

The OG set design really hinders builds that rely on OTHER forms of mitigation and have just enough healing to recoup lost HP (i.e. stam builds that use vigor+dodge roll to heal).

I know, my templar heals around 14-18K in light with honor the dead on me (no vitality buffs or heavy armor passive). I really wonder just how much healing is possible in heavy, yet ZOS won't look at the heavy armor passive. They nerfed shields but the other option is to just stack so much passive healing you can't be killed and start raising damage from there. It WILL happen and I will

when it does...

mojomood · September 2018

As @ZOS_Wrobel has said, he wants new players to feel powerful against veteran players in PvP. I must admit this is an valid point. if the skill curve in PvP is so steep that only a few players are willing to try it, the PvP community will dwindle without any new players staying around long enough to succeed. I want a healthy, growing PvP community.

However, implementing this strategy in the wrong way drives away veteran players, creating churn and ultimately still capping the growth of PvP in ESO. There must be a balance and SoA is a not a set that does that.

With the goal of a new PvPer finding success in PvP, I do see the value in proc sets with these conditions:
1. Simple proc conditions that don't already have a lot of damage behind them and don't proc themselves. Honestly, light attack is probably best. Taking damage is no good as it requires no action to proc. Using skills can be very hard because the more skilled a player is, the more uptime they can get from that set.
2. Have a short, powerful effect. Not instant, but short. Not a gank tool, but not an effect that won't go away. 3-6 seconds is probably it.
3. Have counterplay, but demand that the opposition react quickly. The increased difficulty on the veteran player is okay as long as they are allowed to make that play.
4. Have a long cooldown. If a new PvPer is so wanting to get a kill that they will use proc sets to get them, make it a prohibitively long cooldown. Something that will keep medium skilled players from using it because they can outperform it if they use the skills available too them. This can't be overstated. high uptime on powerful proc conditions will result in medium skilled players using them rather than class skills because they will have greater success from using the proc set.
5. Dont' let them stack. Please don't have another sload stack again. That is far too punitive and encourages ball groups even more, which means more lag.

If these are implemented correctly:
1. The new player will still need to layer burst to get a kill against a medium skilled player in a 1v1 but they will get kills.
2. The medium skilled player will realize they have more success not getting carried by sets. This is the player that is usually failed by ZOS with how proc sets are currently released. Instead of improving their skill, the procs are so strong that it's still easier to get carried. Don't fail this player. Give them reason to get better.
3. The high skilled player will sometimes die to it but not all the time since the effect does not stack. This is the player that you don't want to lose. They've put time and money in this game. They will help players get better, either by playing against them or with them. Don't let cheesy, stackable, high uptime procs drive this player away.

The new player should NOT have the amount of success as the skilled player, but they should have enough success to enjoy the experience. That can help them have the courage to try it more and grow their skill and learn. The amount of medium skilled players that are using procs to carry them is staggering. With a little more time and practice, they could be really good. But they are still focused on proccing a set instead of lining up combos, avoiding overcasting, etc.

@ZOS_Wrobel This is why Soldier of Anguish is overtuned. The cooldown should be much longer. It's okay that it is a powerful effect. It's great that this last PTS made it unstackable. Now extend the cooldown by a lot. like 15 seconds. If the new player must have this to get a kill, fine. But it won't help them for the next 15 seconds. I'm okay with dying to a noob occasionally if it means the PvP community can grow and that noob can feel successful enough to keep coming back and getting better. I don't want to have a set so powerful that's its ridiculously easier to win with it because that means the veterans will leave or use it to even more effect and still keep new players from having success and joining PvP long term.

nemvar · September 2018

mojomood wrote: »

As @ZOS_Wrobel has said, he wants new players to feel powerful against veteran players in PvP. I must admit this is an valid point. if the skill curve in PvP is so steep that only a few players are willing to try it, the PvP community will dwindle without any new players staying around long enough to succeed. I want a healthy, growing PvP community.

However, implementing this strategy in the wrong way drives away veteran players, creating churn and ultimately still capping the growth of PvP in ESO. There must be a balance and SoA is a not a set that does that.

With the goal of a new PvPer finding success in PvP, I do see the value in proc sets with these conditions:
1. Simple proc conditions that don't already have a lot of damage behind them and don't proc themselves. Honestly, light attack is probably best. Taking damage is no good as it requires no action to proc. Using skills can be very hard because the more skilled a player is, the more uptime they can get from that set.
2. Have a short, powerful effect. Not instant, but short. Not a gank tool, but not an effect that won't go away. 3-6 seconds is probably it.
3. Have counterplay, but demand that the opposition react quickly. The increased difficulty on the veteran player is okay as long as they are allowed to make that play.
4. Have a long cooldown. If a new PvPer is so wanting to get a kill that they will use proc sets to get them, make it a prohibitively long cooldown. Something that will keep medium skilled players from using it because they can outperform it if they use the skills available too them. This can't be overstated. high uptime on powerful proc conditions will result in medium skilled players using them rather than class skills because they will have greater success from using the proc set.
5. Dont' let them stack. Please don't have another sload stack again. That is far too punitive and encourages ball groups even more, which means more lag.

If these are implemented correctly:
1. The new player will still need to layer burst to get a kill against a medium skilled player in a 1v1 but they will get kills.
2. The medium skilled player will realize they have more success not getting carried by sets. This is the player that is usually failed by ZOS with how proc sets are currently released. Instead of improving their skill, the procs are so strong that it's still easier to get carried. Don't fail this player. Give them reason to get better.
3. The high skilled player will sometimes die to it but not all the time since the effect does not stack. This is the player that you don't want to lose. They've put time and money in this game. They will help players get better, either by playing against them or with them. Don't let cheesy, stackable, high uptime procs drive this player away.

The new player should NOT have the amount of success as the skilled player, but they should have enough success to enjoy the experience. That can help them have the courage to try it more and grow their skill and learn. The amount of medium skilled players that are using procs to carry them is staggering. With a little more time and practice, they could be really good. But they are still focused on proccing a set instead of lining up combos, avoiding overcasting, etc.

@ZOS_Wrobel This is why Soldier of Anguish is overtuned. The cooldown should be much longer. It's okay that it is a powerful effect. It's great that this last PTS made it unstackable. Now extend the cooldown by a lot. like 15 seconds. If the new player must have this to get a kill, fine. But it won't help them for the next 15 seconds. I'm okay with dying to a noob occasionally if it means the PvP community can grow and that noob can feel successful enough to keep coming back and getting better. I don't want to have a set so powerful that's its ridiculously easier to win with it because that means the veterans will leave or use it to even more effect and still keep new players from having success and joining PvP long term.

The really sad thing is that both sloads and anguish don't really look that powerful to a new player. Sloads tooltip number is really low and anguish might seem like a bad deal to them. Why use it when he could use viper instead? Higher tooltip and it actually deals damage. If they devs actually wanted to empower new players, they would add stamina regen to hundings 5pc.

New players are usually not very familiar with how battlespirit works exactly. That's why these sets just make no sense. You need to have a firm grasp on the games mechanics to even understand why these sets are overpowered. And anguish wouldn't even show up in the death recap of a new player. How should they even know it exists?

These sets don't help new players. If anything they make the game feel strange and wonky to them. The only people that want sets like these are those who know about the games mechanics and are just mechanically bad. This is some participation trophy crap right here.

phbell · September 2018

Interesting assessment. Whether I agree or not is unimportant because this thread points out how complicated the issue is and how completely unsustainable ZOS's piecemeal approach is. The history of ZOS's approach to "balancing" PvP combat consistently shows that in "fixing" one complaint, they introduce several new ones. Every attempt to leveling the playing field in Cryodiil ends up leaving a relative few happy and an increasing number of others upset - and the PvE crowd gets negatively impacted every... single... time.

As players leave cryodiil for greener PvP pastures it is increasingly clear that we might benefit from a different approach.

I think that an interesting experiment would be to create a new character class that is strictly PvP. with enough skill lines to allow for individual characterizations (Stam vs. mag; Tank, healer, DPS) made up of skills that are uniquely relevant to PvP.
Somewhat like NASCAR, everyone plays the same basic character. In this way "balancing" calibrations effect everyone equally. Dump set gear and [perhaps even] CP and player skill becomes the main determining factor in combat. After all, no one can be called OP if everyone plays the same class.

Put it on the PTS - if it works and enough players like it then keep it. If not... then don't. The thing is --> the current methodology is unsustainable.

eso_lags · September 2018

Joshlenoir wrote: »

Soldier of Anguish (Medium)

2: Weapon Damage
3: Weapon Critical
4: Weapon Damage
5: When you deal damage with a melee attack, you have a 25% chance to traumatize your enemy, negating their next 5500 points of healing for 4 seconds. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.

This set is the greatest testament that the people who oversee pvp combat and balance in this game either don't understand how to address the issues that creep up from patch to patch, or don't care about the far reaching consequences of the things the implement.

Let's get one thing straight, there is nothing wrong with strong "meta" sets as long as they are properly implemented . Examples of this would be

- burning spellweave
- bone pirate
- warriors fury
- spinners
- seventh legion
- war maiden
- innate axiom
- spriggans
- mechanical acuity
- automaton
- hundings rage
- necropotence
- hulking draugr
- bloodspawn
- infernal guardian
- balorghs

The majority of these sets offer strong damage or recovery buffs and have fair conditions applied to them.
The thing about sets like these are in the hands of a good player, you can obliterate people with high burst damage and a healthy amount of sustain, whereas a mediocre or weaker player wearing the exact same gear won't reap near the same effect.

Lets look at some poorly implemented sets with little to no counterplay which are clearly overturned.

- Zaans
- Sloads
- Viper
- Valkyn Skoria
- Caluurions Legacy
- Troll Kings
- Pirate Skeleton
- Earthgore
- Impregnable

In contrast to the former list of sets, the amount of thought and skill required to make a combination of these sets work is virtually non existent. You can have a weak rotation in PvP with weak animation cancelling and can easily combo 15k+ damage especially if something like Zaans is on someone. Sets like these heavily carry players healing and survivability allowing them to not have to actively think about things like healing, surviving/avoiding damage, and weaving since the sets cover that aspect for them.

Now the reason I've mentioned these list of sets is to give an idea of where I'm coming from and why soldier of anguish is simply apalling to see.
First of all, it won't come as a surprise to anybody to say that healing is much stronger now than it was in the past.
The ability to roll an argonian templar, slot a restoration staff, wear two defensive sets with little to no Magicka bonuses, and still have enough healing due to CP and recovery to carry multiple players in a large group without even having to look or aim at anyone, or quickly running out of Magicka is a problem.

ZoS seems to have a habit of trying to address in game issues with blanket changes or sets that would affect more than just what they intended it to counter, or even have the opposite effect. Some examples of that include

Sloads - intended to counter Shields, which it did, however it ended up being the most powerful set in the game against every player due to it having absolutely no counterplay and stacking with other players applications

Duroks bane - probably intended to counter high healing, especially on heavy armor templar builds. But the ironic thing is this set was actually strongest against players who played stamina and didn't use shields or already build insane healing to begin with.

The "proc sets can no longer crit" change - back during the first prococalypse, sets like viper, tremorscale, velidreth, and widowmaker were insanely over performing. So instead of ZoS to address those sets specifically, they decided to make a blanket Nerf to all proc sets making none of them crit. What this actually did was make any proc set that wasn't viper, tremorscale, velidreth or widowmaker obsolete since it paled in comparison when it came to damage to the four strongest ones.

Soldier of anguish seems to be ZoS answer to Earthgore ball groups with heavy armor argonian pocket healers who are Invincible unless you can deal a coordinated burst with abnormal amounts of damage within one global cooldown. However what's actually going to happen is more players will play with, or spec to pocket healers in group to counter the lack of healing, and anyone who doesn't already have an abnormal amount of healing will be absolutely destroyed by this set since it passively applies, doesn't cost a global cooldown, and can be used in conjunction with bleeds, dots, poisons, defile, and ultimates.

this is not the answer

What needs to happen is to actually address issues directly. If healing is an issue then tune down, the blessed cp passive, make argonians only have 5% healing received instead of also healing done. Make Earthgore have more counterplay by splitting the healing based on the amount of people within the circle, so the more people it hits the less each person is healed, make breath of life heal for significantly less than honor the death since it hits more than one person and both heals can crit. Change all healing so that you must at least face your target or have them in your view for your healing ward, breath of life, etc. To hit them. These are obviously just examples however.

How come every single patch since as far back as I can remember, extremely over performing, blatantly overpowered sets keep being introduced that have absolutely 0 counterplay? First one tamriel prococalypse, then sloads in summerset, now this.

Have you not learned from those days? We're told constantly every patch that the devs are working desperately to bring plenty of PvP balance changes and are always listening to player feedback to improve the game. You even went as far as to introduce the class rep system to show just how much dedication you have to fixing the PvP issues in this game, yet absolute balance failures still sneak into patch notes such as putting a cast time on sorc shields.

Transparency would be great. If free burst damage, no counterplay, overtuned sets are a direction the combat devs in this game are interested in, simply just tell us. Don't misdirect us and pretend you're interested about real PvP balance when every patch encourages the weak to be strong without having to actually learn how to PvP due to absolutely insane sets like these that require 0 understanding of game mechanics and stats to work.

On another hand, please do not introduce a class rep system designed to let you know exactly how the PvP community feels about certain sets in the game and balance changes when you do not intend to gear game updates towards said feedback.

This post is ****ing amazing. I agree with everything you said. This falls in line with zos' policy of not balancing pve and pvp separately. Something that, if they had done, would have balanced the game a lot more than it is now.

And like you said, sets like duroks and sloads that are in game to balance one thing end up hurting another thing more. Sloads and duroks destroy stamina builds. Most of us have no purge, we have no healing ward to counter this stuff. Sure sloads was great against shields but it was brutal against stamina builds.

This is also why certain classes with certain combos become broken and why certain builds become cancer. Like maybe i could run sloads on my stam sorc with bone pirate and have solid damage. Or maybe i could run sloads on a heavy armor mag dk with duroks and destroy people. Or maybe a heavy armor stamblade with troll king and fassalas and still hit 10k spectral bows.

And like you said with the proc sets. Who uses selistrix? The set, in theory, is awesome. Nice 2 pc, nice proc, and it stuns. But the person has to be in the aoe, the damage is less than other sets, and its cooldown is too much. Whos gonna use that over selenes? Or velidreth? Same with stormfist. Cool concept but never gonna work in pvp.

Its amazing to me that zos makes some sets so blatantly broken and others so mediocre or just bad. I dont get it.

But for me, in this game, i still care more about the performance being fixed than anything. I would rather play in an unbalanced, broken OP set, mess if i could play without skill delay and lag. If i am given the chance to outplay people then im happy. But i cannot fight broken builds, while being solo, and fight the game itself. And as of right now i feel like what you're saying in this thread is going to be the same thing as performance. We know zos will never fix it so we either deal with it or not play. Thats the sad part. But i think this issue, compared to performance, is more likely to be addressed in the future.. Sadly enough.. But i think zos will have to realize and admit theyre doing something wrong and that is not very likely..

ZOS_JesC · September 2018

Greetings, we've removed a few baiting comments. Please remember to keep your comments on topic with the thread and civil.