this is an interesting gameplay loop that is pretty crappy atm, as you cannot really buff or nerf a side without people being angry (and for good reason)

for instance, dots, many classes have them, many would like to use them, however bleeds fall into this category, generally people hate bleeds (as like oblivion damage it bypasses mitigation in an effort to "fight tanky players" as a result tanks still laugh at it and it nukes low health players)

you also have debuffs, major defile being the big hated one. so people want to be able to purge bleeds, and debuffs like defile

but dot heavy players don't want their damage nerfed (such non bleed dot heavy classes like magicka DK) also understandable


so, what do?

1) we need better options for killing tanks that don't also just flat out destroy anyone not a tank (something current bleeds / poisons / oblivion damage does) more abilities or sets that offer:

-%health damage *such as knight slayer*
-or perhaps some form of %resistance damage (for instance we have a set that gives health recovery based on sum resistances, what if we had a set or ability that did DAMAGE to the target based on their sum resistances)

these ideas by design do consistent damage to the target based on how tanky they are, doing less damage to squishy targets, and more damage to tanky targets without doing overbearing amounts of damage to either. this would be the only damage I would consider making "oblivion"

2) no dot should be "oblivion" or bypass all resistances, all dots should be a form of actual damage such as physical, magical, fire, poison, etc. that can be dealt with normally.

3) no dot should be able to be purged (OMG WHAT!!!) with dots reduced to doing consistent damage over time and bleeds removed there should be no reason to nerf this particular style of play with one end all be all effect. (note some / all skills might need to be re tuned with this in mind)

4) purge effects only purge actual negative status effects (such as maim, defile, fracture, breach, mangle, etc.) and more sources of purge can now be added to the game WITHOUT negating dot builds. this would also make abilities that only cleanse a limited number of effects do better at cleansing ACTUAL status effects rather then having to cast it 3-4 times


so, what do we end up with?
a healthy and consistent gameplay experience across the board with multiple build paths depending on the style of play or the kind of targets you need to deal with without double dipping and being over bearing on other particular playstyles.

@ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler