The state of debuffs with sample data from 20 fights (The Curse Eater Argument)

Crown · February 2019

Data source: The number of debuffs on my toon over time in the past 20 large fights (large being 15+ vs 15+). The results are as follows:

Total number of negative effects while fighting ranges up to 19 at the same time. There was one outlying case of 22, but 19 is seen in more than 12 of the 20 fights sampled.
In fights with large numbers of opponents, the average number of negative effects seen at the same time is 12.
There were more than 9 negative effects on me during fighting 48% of the time. Note that "during fighting" is within 2 seconds of taking damage, doing damage, or outputting healing.
The average duration of a negative effect is 5 seconds.
The average uptime of negative effects (removing the top and bottom 20%) is 28% of the fighting time (meaning that any given negative effect is applied about a quarter of the time while fighting).
The average percentage of negative effects (total) that are purged off using purge is 7%.
The average percentage of negative effects (total) that are purged off using cleanse is 4%.
The average percentage of negative effects (total) that are purged off using ritual is 12%.
The average percentage of time that the purge buff (reduces negative effect time) is active is 23%.

Data source: The number of debuffs on my toon over time in the past 14 small-ish fights (small-ish being 4-8 vs 4-8). The results are as follows:

Total number of negative effects while fighting ranges up to 18 at the same time.
In fights with large numbers of opponents (20-30 opponents show up to take a resource back), the average number of negative effects seen at the same time is 14.
There were more than 11 negative effects on me during fighting 55% of the time. Note that "during fighting" is within 2 seconds of taking damage, doing damage, or outputting healing.
The average duration of a negative effect is 4.5 seconds.
The average uptime of negative effects (removing the top and bottom 20%) is 39% of the fighting time.
The average percentage of negative effects (total) that are purged off using purge is 0%.
The average percentage of negative effects (total) that are purged off using cleanse is 0%.
The average percentage of negative effects (total) that are purged off using ritual is 26%.
The average percentage of time that the purge buff (reduces negative effect time) is active is 0%.

Curse Eater
OLD
5 – Reduces the duration of all negative effects applied to you by 20%.

4.3.0 PTS
5 – When you heal yourself or an ally, remove two negative effects from them. If a negative effect was removed this way, your target restores 150 Magicka. This effect can occur every 2 seconds.

4.3.2 NEW
5 – When you use a Direct Healing ability on a target, you remove 3 negative effects from them. If a negative effect was removed this way, it will restore 600 Magicka. This effect can occur once every 8 seconds.

Suggested changes:
5 – When you use a Direct Healing ability or on the first tick of a Heal-Over-Time ability, you remove 1 negative effect from the target healed. If a negative effect was removed this way, reduces the duration of all negative effects applied to that target by 50% for 5 seconds.

NOTE: This would be the same named buff as provided by Purge/Cleanse, so there would not be any stacking the buffs.

Reasoning / justification / explanation:

The set changes to remove 3 negative effects every 8 seconds only on direct healing renders it of zero value.
In order to address the issue of dot/bleed build duelists complaining incessantly, have the proc occur on a direct heal AND on the first tick of a heal-over-time (think master's resto).
Based on the combat negative effect plots (see post #360 in this link and/or the numbers at the top of this post) removing one negative effect per second is good, but not overpowered.
The new effect in my suggested 5-set bonus is the same as the purge buff. It will help to manage the insanely high number of negative effects going out without having to have someone build to spam one skill (purge).

Sharee · February 2019

Maybe PTS is down this long because there are adults in the room who are unwilling to waste developer time replacing one useless set with another useless set just to satisfy a tiny portion of playerbase (the duelists) who could have solved the problem in the firstplace by simply agreeing to not use the set in duels. Like, oh, Meridia.

Oh who am i kidding.

Wing · February 2019

its no use crown. it does not matter how good your data is or how many debuffs are constantly stacked in fights or how little difference the set actually makes in the legit zerg play of cyrodil.

all the "elite players" see is their burst potential go down, there bleeds removed, a bit of their easy mode cleansed. and will cry foul and call everyone stupid and uneducated for not being as overblown and outraged as they are.

ChunkyCat · February 2019

ZoS has already decided it’s easier to just sweep the set under the rug and never look at it again than to waste more time with mathematology to make the set useful.

They have other sh*t to do.

Bald_templar · February 2019

don’t underestimate direct heals though...
lotus, bird spam, crit surge, siphoning attack, sweep, ember, and many other abilities are all considered as direct heal

Crown · February 2019

Bald_templar wrote: »

don’t underestimate direct heals though...
lotus, bird spam, crit surge, siphoning attack, sweep, ember, and many other abilities are all considered as direct heal

@Bald_templar USUALLY (note the significance on that word) the first tick of a heal over time spell procs things that require a direct heal. Like the first tick of healing springs. This is inconsistent and one of the long standing bugs since early 2015. The reason I was clear about direct heals and the first tick of HoTs is to ensure that it doesn't become one more messed up set bonus or ability that sometimes works in some cases with some (but not all) circumstances in a "maybe" as intended by someone who thought something at some point but decided not to code it correctly situation.

Nivellan · February 2019

Wing wrote: »

its no use crown. it does not matter how good your data is or how many debuffs are constantly stacked in fights or how little difference the set actually makes in the legit zerg play of cyrodil.

all the "elite players" see is their burst potential go down, there bleeds removed, a bit of their easy mode cleansed. and will cry foul and call everyone stupid and uneducated for not being as overblown and outraged as they are.

I think that you have to look beyond just the "zerg play" of cyrodiil. Even if it didn't make much of a difference in zerg play, the set is still way too powerful for what it offers and for what you give up. I guess the "elite players" are the only ones that are able to decern what is overpowered and not

Glory · February 2019

I appreciate that your math shows how truly awful this set is going to be with an 8 second cooldown.

I hope they redesign it entirely so it does not become oppressive against smaller groups (or in duels, whatever), but actually is still useful in healing setups.

My preferred recommendation at this point is just to make the live game effect of curse eater a Worm Cult-esque buff: "(5 items) Reduces the duration of all negative effects applied to you and up to 11 of your allies by 20%."

Syhae · February 2019

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

Wing · February 2019

Nivellan wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

its no use crown. it does not matter how good your data is or how many debuffs are constantly stacked in fights or how little difference the set actually makes in the legit zerg play of cyrodil.

all the "elite players" see is their burst potential go down, there bleeds removed, a bit of their easy mode cleansed. and will cry foul and call everyone stupid and uneducated for not being as overblown and outraged as they are.

I guess the "elite players" are the only ones that are able to decern what is overpowered and not

no they are just the loudest.

the fact is that It represented a threat to their ability to kill, plain and simple. that jumping one person might end up being harder, that maybe a person who should be dead might otherwise survive a burst or attack and survive and begin to react forcing an actual drawn out fight.

and thus, much rage and shouting ensued.

ball groups can already run dedicated purge, and purge is far more effective in these groups anyway, removing a colossal amount of effects, has no cooldown, and does not require anyone to give up a set.

templars already have a fantastic purge as well.

however, the idea that randoms could run this set, and contribute to making it harder to kill, or survive 1v1's (where this set shines) and make it harder to kill, or god forbid actually put up a fight?

no, not happening, bring on the pitchforks and rage.

GrumpyDuckling · February 2019

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Glory · February 2019

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

I don't disagree with you, but the cat is so far out of the bag that this argument definitely holds little sway whether we like it or not.

Sandman929 · February 2019

What was lost with this change to curse eater was the potential of smaller groups to benefit from the same kind of support that large groups have due to dedicated support players. Which is kind of a shame, because it seems like it's going to be awhile before ZOS takes a look at why groups run purge spammers and, previously, rapids spammers to begin with. Everyone else enjoy bleeding and burning in the mud, because Purge is only too expensive for people who don't dedicate group spots for it.

Irylia · February 2019

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Lmao what? No.
Fury stacks and gives you x weapon damage.
That damage is stagnant and not doing anything so long as you aren’t utilizing it to 1) hit an enemy or 2) heal yourself.
And when you do 1 or 2 it is you casting, weaving and managing your skills/resources.

When you wear a set like earthgore and get stunned and have poor reflexes so don’t break instantly that’s an alright because the heal will just keep you afloat despite you being A) worse player Or b) getting outplayed and burned out of resources.

When curse eater can eat debuffs 2 /s or even remove stuns from you the moment they aren’t placed on you, that’s once again avoiding mechanics and allowing players who are less skilled, to circumvent gameplay and ignore things like blocking stuns/managing resources to heal or remove debuffs.

Having flat stats is of no use to a player if he/she has no idea how to ani cancel combos or pressure an opponent while simultaneously managing their own buffs/resources.

Sets shouldn’t play the game for us and make things easier or allow us to ignore mechanics completely.
You should have to face the learning curve and improve or just stick to number stacking and have that be your sole advantage.

karekiz · February 2019

Syhae wrote: »

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Issue with that is you can only have so many sets that just boost stats and you will quickly run out of design space. You will either end up running into a loop of Increase spell dmg by - A lesser or more difficult way to achieve said amount than the previous set thus making the set DoA - or making it increase it greater than the previous set thus falling into ever growing power creep.

*Edit and yes the old purge set from PTS was way too OP, but I don't think a set that provides purge in a fashion is necessarily a bad thing.

GrumpyDuckling · February 2019

Irylia wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Lmao what? No.
Fury stacks and gives you x weapon damage.
That damage is stagnant and not doing anything so long as you aren’t utilizing it to 1) hit an enemy or 2) heal yourself.
And when you do 1 or 2 it is you casting, weaving and managing your skills/resources.

When you wear a set like earthgore and get stunned and have poor reflexes so don’t break instantly that’s an alright because the heal will just keep you afloat despite you being A) worse player Or b) getting outplayed and burned out of resources.

When curse eater can eat debuffs 2 /s or even remove stuns from you the moment they aren’t placed on you, that’s once again avoiding mechanics and allowing players who are less skilled, to circumvent gameplay and ignore things like blocking stuns/managing resources to heal or remove debuffs.

Having flat stats is of no use to a player if he/she has no idea how to ani cancel combos or pressure an opponent while simultaneously managing their own buffs/resources.

Sets shouldn’t play the game for us and make things easier or allow us to ignore mechanics completely.
You should have to face the learning curve and improve or just stick to number stacking and have that be your sole advantage.

"Sets shouldn't... make things easier."

That is literally what every single set in the game does... gives you statistics and or bonuses that make the game easier. I have no idea what your goal is with attempting this argument.

Syhae · February 2019

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Nice try? There was no try. That is a fact.

Any set in the game that buffs your base stats leaves the rest of what you as an individual can do up to you. There are no mechanics being played FOR you.

Fury- Premise of the set is you gain more weapon damage when you take more critical damage.
What you do with that weapon damage is based on your actions alone. Some guy that only spams flying dagger while wearing this set? He does NOTHING.
Someone who knows how to heal themselves, put pressure properly via dots and when to burst combo someone? The set works.

Zaans- Premise of the set is you proc a beam to the person you light attack that deals a hefty amount of damage.
Guy spamming nothing but light attack? Procs it and deals 12k damage to you over 4 seconds.
Guy weaving light attack between all of his skills? Procs and deals 12k damage to you over 4 seconds.

Sanctuary- Increases you and your allies healing received (which counts as your own healing output)
Guy that doesn't actively heal or know how to recover from burst damage? Doesn't get the most out of the set.
Guy that knows how to actively keep HoT's rolling on himself and his allies and knows to reserve resources to recover from burst damage and knows how to recover from burst damage? Maximizes the utility from this set because of that.

Earthgore- AoE burst heal for falling below a certain health threshold and having any source of healing ongoing.
Guy that doesn't know how to position, recover from burst damage, CC break? Receives a huge chunk of healing AND heals all allies around him.
Guy that does know how to position, recover from burst damage and CC break? Receives a huge chunk of healing AND heals all allies around him.

Seeing this list, can you identify the difference between these sets? Both healing and damage oriented sets.
For both categories there is 1 set that performs a mechanic FOR the player regardless of how they are performing as individuals, and another set that actively PROMOTES using the proper skills at the proper time to fully maximize the benefit of the sets.

This is the difference between a balanced set and one that is not balanced, and is also why proc sets will never be balanced.
It does not promote individual skill which should be what any game is about, especially in a PvP environment.

Sharee · February 2019

Syhae wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Nice try? There was no try. That is a fact.

Any set in the game that buffs your base stats leaves the rest of what you as an individual can do up to you. There are no mechanics being played FOR you.

Except, you know... the buffing.

validifyedneb18_ESO · February 2019

Sharee wrote: »

Maybe PTS is down this long because there are adults in the room who are unwilling to waste developer time replacing one useless set with another useless set just to satisfy a tiny portion of playerbase (the duelists) who could have solved the problem in the firstplace by simply agreeing to not use the set in duels. Like, oh, Meridia.

Oh who am i kidding.

tfb with the old cooldown and working on DOTS (Which can, for example, be proc'd AOE by every stam build) zerg balls in Cyro would be able (with only a few people with the set) be able to remove any debuffs on the entire group before any of it became too much of a problem.

Its good now, but the 8 seconds makes it unable to do quite what it could have done before.

Glory · February 2019

@Irylia @Syhae I agree with both of your logic. What would be a better design of this set? I have suggested a few, but there is little other discussion about creating a balanced healer set and more about not allowing (more) sets which do things for people.

I think it's pretty obvious that it went from a set that could grossly overperform to yet again a vendor trash set which is sad.

Syhae · February 2019

Sharee wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Nice try? There was no try. That is a fact.

Any set in the game that buffs your base stats leaves the rest of what you as an individual can do up to you. There are no mechanics being played FOR you.

Except, you know... the buffing.

Of course, every MMO has sets that buff your stats. That's MMO 101.
The difference is a set that simply buffs your stats and leaves the rest to the player and a set that procs a mechanic such as free damage or free healing for simply wearing it.

Sandman929 · February 2019

Syhae wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Nice try? There was no try. That is a fact.

Any set in the game that buffs your base stats leaves the rest of what you as an individual can do up to you. There are no mechanics being played FOR you.

Except, you know... the buffing.

Of course, every MMO has sets that buff your stats. That's MMO 101.
The difference is a set that simply buffs your stats and leaves the rest to the player and a set that procs a mechanic such as free damage or free healing for simply wearing it.

There's definitely a distinction to be made between sets that buff potential that the player has to use well, and sets that simply perform actions.

Irylia · February 2019

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Irylia wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Lmao what? No.
Fury stacks and gives you x weapon damage.
That damage is stagnant and not doing anything so long as you aren’t utilizing it to 1) hit an enemy or 2) heal yourself.
And when you do 1 or 2 it is you casting, weaving and managing your skills/resources.

When you wear a set like earthgore and get stunned and have poor reflexes so don’t break instantly that’s an alright because the heal will just keep you afloat despite you being A) worse player Or b) getting outplayed and burned out of resources.

When curse eater can eat debuffs 2 /s or even remove stuns from you the moment they aren’t placed on you, that’s once again avoiding mechanics and allowing players who are less skilled, to circumvent gameplay and ignore things like blocking stuns/managing resources to heal or remove debuffs.

Having flat stats is of no use to a player if he/she has no idea how to ani cancel combos or pressure an opponent while simultaneously managing their own buffs/resources.

Sets shouldn’t play the game for us and make things easier or allow us to ignore mechanics completely.
You should have to face the learning curve and improve or just stick to number stacking and have that be your sole advantage.

"Sets shouldn't... make things easier."

That is literally what every single set in the game does... gives you statistics and or bonuses that make the game easier. I have no idea what your goal is with attempting this argument.

How do you not see the difference.

Me getting raw stats from a set is no where the same thing as me light attacking and having calurion/sloads/zaan proc and deal tremendous damage for me.

With raw stats from hundings the player has to know how to utilize their skills to kill an enemy.

Meanwhile someone who doesn’t know how to excel in combat spams light attacks because he knows his zaan will proc and do the damage for him.

Read syhae’s above comment about the diff in sets.
Sanctuary / earthgore etc

Syhae · February 2019

Glory wrote: »

@Irylia @Syhae I agree with both of your logic. What would be a better design of this set? I have suggested a few, but there is little other discussion about creating a balanced healer set and more about not allowing (more) sets which do things for people.

I think it's pretty obvious that it went from a set that could grossly overperform to yet again a vendor trash set which is sad.

It's hard to balance a set like this, but I think one of the best places to begin with is intertwining it with purge skills that already exist in the game.

For example:

When you use a purge ability, purify 1-2 extra debuffs.

This would simply buff your characters purge, while retaining the mechanic to templar as having strong on demand purge, while also buffing those that chose to run alliance skill purge.

What this does is not give purge to anybody with a burst heal(Which is essentially every build) so templars class identify remains solidified, while also still giving a coveted buff to the skill you are already using.

Main issue that comes from that though is mag warden's netch which now becomes a free and really strong purify, so the set might have to not work with that skill. (Editted this in because I just thought of how broken that would be. Balancing is hard :P)

I'm not saying this is the best way to balance the set at all, that isn't my job. But that doesn't sound as controversial to the previous versions of curse eater which gave access to the purge to virtually anybody.

Joy_Division · February 2019

Any Templar will already know Crown's point. If I had a dime for every time I hit ritual and still was rooted, cursed, defiled, etc. I have no idea how templars out there even function with the other morph that takes away only 2 debuffs, it's like they aren't even templars.

DivineFirstYOLO · February 2019

Yeah, this set is of course underwhelming in 15+ vs 15+ battles, but so are other sets with single target damage like sloads and viper. You are comparing apples with bananas. If you want a good set that purges negative effects in a 15+ vs 15+ scenario then go get stendarrs embrace (the cooldown is per target).

New Curse-Eater was designed for a different envoironment and in that envoironment purging 2 debuffs every 2 seconds by casting mutagen once every 20 seconds would have been broken. Does not matter if some zergers in here are able to realize that or not, because guess what, ZOS did realize and they did a good job on fixing the problem. Try playing solo or with a few people and stay away from your zerg, maybe you will finally learn something.

Olupajmibanan · February 2019

Nvm.

ToRelax · February 2019

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

The question is if new Curse Eater procs from Lotus Flower, Siphoning Strikes, Surge and other on hit direct healing effects.

Hopesfully not, with that cooldown the benefit is largely lost if you can't control the proc.

WreckfulAbandon · February 2019

DivineFirstYOLO wrote: »

Yeah, this set is of course underwhelming in 15+ vs 15+ battles, but so are other sets with single target damage like sloads and viper. You are comparing apples with bananas. If you want a good set that purges negative effects in a 15+ vs 15+ scenario then go get stendarrs embrace (the cooldown is per target).

New Curse-Eater was designed for a different envoironment and in that envoironment purging 2 debuffs every 2 seconds by casting mutagen once every 20 seconds would have been broken. Does not matter if some zergers in here are able to realize that or not, because guess what, ZOS did realize and they did a good job on fixing the problem. Try playing solo or with a few people and stay away from your zerg, maybe you will finally learn something.

I know right its says a lot when someone legitimately thinks healers need more tools in PvP or healing needs some kind of buff

GrumpyDuckling · February 2019

Syhae wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Nice try? There was no try. That is a fact.

Any set in the game that buffs your base stats leaves the rest of what you as an individual can do up to you. There are no mechanics being played FOR you.

Fury- Premise of the set is you gain more weapon damage when you take more critical damage.
What you do with that weapon damage is based on your actions alone. Some guy that only spams flying dagger while wearing this set? He does NOTHING.
Someone who knows how to heal themselves, put pressure properly via dots and when to burst combo someone? The set works.

Zaans- Premise of the set is you proc a beam to the person you light attack that deals a hefty amount of damage.
Guy spamming nothing but light attack? Procs it and deals 12k damage to you over 4 seconds.
Guy weaving light attack between all of his skills? Procs and deals 12k damage to you over 4 seconds.

Sanctuary- Increases you and your allies healing received (which counts as your own healing output)
Guy that doesn't actively heal or know how to recover from burst damage? Doesn't get the most out of the set.
Guy that knows how to actively keep HoT's rolling on himself and his allies and knows to reserve resources to recover from burst damage and knows how to recover from burst damage? Maximizes the utility from this set because of that.

Earthgore- AoE burst heal for falling below a certain health threshold and having any source of healing ongoing.
Guy that doesn't know how to position, recover from burst damage, CC break? Receives a huge chunk of healing AND heals all allies around him.
Guy that does know how to position, recover from burst damage and CC break? Receives a huge chunk of healing AND heals all allies around him.

Seeing this list, can you identify the difference between these sets? Both healing and damage oriented sets.
For both categories there is 1 set that performs a mechanic FOR the player regardless of how they are performing as individuals, and another set that actively PROMOTES using the proper skills at the proper time to fully maximize the benefit of the sets.

This is the difference between a balanced set and one that is not balanced, and is also why proc sets will never be balanced.
It does not promote individual skill which should be what any game is about, especially in a PvP environment.

"Any set in the game that buffs your base stats leaves the rest of what you as an individual can do up to you. There are no mechanics being played FOR you."

C'mon. You must realize that this argument isn't very strong. If we wear a set that boosts stats, then it buffs our damage, or defense, or recovery -- meaning that there are less skill buffs that we have to apply to boost our damage, defense, or recovery. Every set in the game literally "plays" a part of the game for us and does a certain amount of work for us. The only way they wouldn't is if we all fought each other without wearing sets.

That's why I said "nice try." Because you can't argue against that fact and expect me to take you seriously.

Draxys · February 2019

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Syhae wrote: »

Way to identify if a set is overpowered: The set performs a mechanic for you.
This mechanic can range from damaging other players to healing you or your allies to purging debuffs off of you.
Curse Eater was and still is a proc set.

Sets should never perform mechanics for you. Sets should bolster your stats so you can perform the mechanics yourself.

Viper/Sloads/EG/Zaan/Curse Eater, you aren't fighting a player when they're wearing those sets. You're fighting the sets themselves, and that is a horrible balance mechanic.

This made me laugh. The same could be said about sets that bolster stats -- they're performing the "stat buff" mechanic instead of requiring the player to perform the buff themselves.

Nice try, though.

Nice try? There was no try. That is a fact.

Any set in the game that buffs your base stats leaves the rest of what you as an individual can do up to you. There are no mechanics being played FOR you.

Fury- Premise of the set is you gain more weapon damage when you take more critical damage.
What you do with that weapon damage is based on your actions alone. Some guy that only spams flying dagger while wearing this set? He does NOTHING.
Someone who knows how to heal themselves, put pressure properly via dots and when to burst combo someone? The set works.

Zaans- Premise of the set is you proc a beam to the person you light attack that deals a hefty amount of damage.
Guy spamming nothing but light attack? Procs it and deals 12k damage to you over 4 seconds.
Guy weaving light attack between all of his skills? Procs and deals 12k damage to you over 4 seconds.

Sanctuary- Increases you and your allies healing received (which counts as your own healing output)
Guy that doesn't actively heal or know how to recover from burst damage? Doesn't get the most out of the set.
Guy that knows how to actively keep HoT's rolling on himself and his allies and knows to reserve resources to recover from burst damage and knows how to recover from burst damage? Maximizes the utility from this set because of that.

Earthgore- AoE burst heal for falling below a certain health threshold and having any source of healing ongoing.
Guy that doesn't know how to position, recover from burst damage, CC break? Receives a huge chunk of healing AND heals all allies around him.
Guy that does know how to position, recover from burst damage and CC break? Receives a huge chunk of healing AND heals all allies around him.

Seeing this list, can you identify the difference between these sets? Both healing and damage oriented sets.
For both categories there is 1 set that performs a mechanic FOR the player regardless of how they are performing as individuals, and another set that actively PROMOTES using the proper skills at the proper time to fully maximize the benefit of the sets.

This is the difference between a balanced set and one that is not balanced, and is also why proc sets will never be balanced.
It does not promote individual skill which should be what any game is about, especially in a PvP environment.

"Any set in the game that buffs your base stats leaves the rest of what you as an individual can do up to you. There are no mechanics being played FOR you."

C'mon. You must realize that this argument isn't very strong. If we wear a set that boosts stats, then it buffs our damage, or defense, or recovery -- meaning that there are less skill buffs that we have to apply to boost our damage, defense, or recovery. Every set in the game literally "plays" a part of the game for us and does a certain amount of work for us. The only way they wouldn't is if we all fought each other without wearing sets.

That's why I said "nice try." Because you can't argue against that fact and expect me to take you seriously.

Honestly, people that take that stance just sound petty at this point. Stop focusing on calling stat buffs the same as automating a buttload of purges. The difference is vast, regardless of how you want to describe them.

Automating things like purges and beams with giant amounts of damage is bad game design and bad for balance. Period.