VMA bow math

SaintSubwayy · July 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@SaintSubwayy , yup, it have changed, Stampede now is a ground AoE that applies enchants. It is on a short side, granted, eight seconds, but 2H now does have one at least.

As for vMA bow meta... it would be okay to switch back and forth between vMA and vDSA bows for multi-target / single-target fights, but I feel that, for one, single target is all people will care about and vMA bow will fade into background, and for another, it will harm console users who don't have gear swapping addons. Generally this patch hits console very hard with strong segregation between ST and AoE setups.

Actually for most ppl it wont make a big difference which bow they will use, which is fair IMO.
If you have a msters bow, well use it, if you have a vMA bow also great.
ATM masters bow is in the background, so bringing them closer thogether seems fair to me.
for those ppl who dont want to bother swapping bows, nothing will change drastically, but for the scorepushers and progressgroups, they will most likely swap the bows out according to the next fight comin up.

well everybody can choose for themselfes on which platform they want to play

sorry but this cannot be a reason to balance certain things at all.

Nothing against the consoleplayers thou ;

e-rwan · July 2019

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oLdW5oeYFIBNVlCzMJiymAvjW0vtWxLKLmeNDTuigCo/edit?usp=sharing
based on patch notes.
that's a 40% nerf if math is correct

John_Falstaff · July 2019

@SaintSubwayy , well, I've always been of opinion that PvP can't be used to balance PvE either, but here we go... ^^

On a more serious note, I believe that vMA weapons should be slightly ahead of vDSA ones in similar applications. It's passing as biased, and it's debatable, I know, but I think that weapons earned personally should stand out.

On live, vMA and vDSA bows are quite balanced in relation to single target damage, the difference is somewhere near the noise floor, so it was kind of nice that people could run either bow where it matters most - ST fights - while being rewarded more in AoE fights if they run vMA, that edge is a bit of a personal achievement for a lot of people.

validifyedneb18_ESO · July 2019

Maths*

And that pretty much sums up my contribution to this discussion

MinaevNaKone · July 2019

LiquidPony wrote: »

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

I kinda hope it stays the way it is. Bow backbar has had no viable competition for far too long in PvE. I'm interested to see if 2H and DW are comparable backbar weapons now

Unfortunately, That will not be the case for 2H. Since there is only one dot that is single target and does not proc berserker enchant. This also goes for dw, The nerf to enchant size make back bar DW less viable aswell. It would be possible for DW if they never nerfed enchants. Also blade cloak+rending =/= PI + volley. So regardless of these nerf just by inspection these weapons are still too much of a loss.

I'm quite certain better players can push these higher with some optimization. In particular the 2H/DW stamsorc has the potential to hit 100k I think.

Plz link your skill bars and equip.

akray21 · July 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@SaintSubwayy , yup, it have changed, Stampede now is a ground AoE that applies enchants. It is on a short side, granted, eight seconds, but 2H now does have one at least.

As for vMA bow meta... it would be okay to switch back and forth between vMA and vDSA bows for multi-target / single-target fights, but I feel that, for one, single target is all people will care about and vMA bow will fade into background, and for another, it will harm console users who don't have gear swapping addons. Generally this patch hits console very hard with strong segregation between ST and AoE setups.

I'm on PC and I don't even like swapping gear mid activity. Running through an area with your mates... "hold on guys, I have to change clothes really quick, where is the bathroom?". I wouldn't mind if they locked your gear once you enter an activity, really make you decide how you want to approach the activity as a whole.

I'll keep using my vMA bow because I earned it when many haven't, it just sucks that the only challenging solo content in the game had its rewards nerfed pretty hard.

Juhasow · July 2019

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

I kinda hope it stays the way it is. Bow backbar has had no viable competition for far too long in PvE. I'm interested to see if 2H and DW are comparable backbar weapons now

Unfortunately, That will not be the case for 2H. Since there is only one dot that is single target and does not proc berserker enchant. This also goes for dw, The nerf to enchant size make back bar DW less viable aswell. It would be possible for DW if they never nerfed enchants. Also blade cloak+rending =/= PI + volley. So regardless of these nerf just by inspection these weapons are still too much of a loss.

@Onefrkncrzypope

This is no longer the case. 2H Stampede is an 8s ground AoE DoT now, and it procs Berserker.

2H/DW is a totally viable setup in the current state of PTS. Stampede + Merciless Charge (if using Maelstrom 2H backbar) + Carve + Heavy Weapons Bleed does quite a bit of DPS ... comparable to Hail + Poison Inject.

Bow/DW is still stronger but it's much, much closer than in the past.

And you can also do DW/DW as well. Sure, you lose half of the strength of your Berserker enchant *but* it opens up interesting options like Asylum DW + Maelstrom DW.

Got some parses? very interesting.

What is funny here is that if vMA 2h from back bar would be replaced with matser's 2h it would be just slight DPS loss in single target DPS but huge improvement to AoE DPS which would make dw+2h well rounded setup.

Juhasow · July 2019

Ok so to make things slightly more clear to those who dont understand what's going on and to OP because he didnt explained well what he had in mind.

Currently on live server endless hail is doing 21 ticks within 10 seconds of duration there is also ~1,5 second time of "falling down" for arrows where damage are not done so overall time that it takes to perform those 21 ticks is ~11,5 seconds. On PTS endless hail is getting 12 seconds duration and during that time it should deal 12 ticks of damage (atleats it have to be assumend because there is a bug on PTS and endless hail is not getting 12 seconds duration but only 10 and it does 10 ticks). It also have that ~1,5 second delay between clicking the button and 1st arrows starting to deal damage so we can assume there is ~13,5 seconds duration for that ability.

So we have 21 ticks within 11,5 sec and 12 ticks within 13,5 sec. Now lets calculate raw damage that maelstrom bow will; provide to those numbers in current (live) and new(PTS) scenarios.

Lets assume 1st tick is getting buffed by the stacking bonus

For live server math goes like that :
flat value 161*21= 3 381
stacking value 21*(21+1)/2*56= 12 936
total raw value = 16 317
raw DPS 16 317/11,5 = 1418,9

For PTS math goes like that :
flat value 12*320= 3 840
stacking value 12*(12+1)/2*110 = 8 580
total raw value = 12 420
raw DPS 12 420/13,5= 920

DPS loss 1419-920= 499 499/1419= 0,35

So we can estimate ~35% DPS loss from maelstrom bow when used with endless hail ability before we include percentage modifiers.In short vMA bow got nerfed.

Juhasow · July 2019

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

I kinda hope it stays the way it is. Bow backbar has had no viable competition for far too long in PvE. I'm interested to see if 2H and DW are comparable backbar weapons now

Unfortunately, That will not be the case for 2H. Since there is only one dot that is single target and does not proc berserker enchant. This also goes for dw, The nerf to enchant size make back bar DW less viable aswell. It would be possible for DW if they never nerfed enchants. Also blade cloak+rending =/= PI + volley. So regardless of these nerf just by inspection these weapons are still too much of a loss.

Actually new stampede is now proccing back bar enchantments for 2h and deadly cloak was always doing that in dw.

Juhasow · July 2019

Osubaker33 wrote: »

ZoS: What do we do when 75% of players still can't beat vMA? You obsolete the vMA weapons so those players never have to even go in there.

Actually vMA dual wield seems to be onme of the best choices for stam builds now even for the classes like stamblade. Adding soul trap as higherst pool scaling ability buffs vMA dual wield a lot since soul trap on its own can give ~10k DPS with vMA dual wield. Even vMA 2h is decent now because stamp[ede DoT refreshes the duration of vMA DoT as long as You have vMA 2h on active bar. And like always vMA destro and vMA still will be relevant despite bow getting berfed. There will be more options now but vMA dual wield seems to be very strong on certain setups You can get 105k+ with it. There will be even more reasons now to go and visit maelstrom arena if nothing gets changed.

akray21 · July 2019

Juhasow wrote: »

Ok so to make things slightly more clear to those who dont understand what's going on and to OP because he didnt explained well what he had in mind.

Currently on live server endless hail is doing 21 ticks within 10 seconds of duration there is also ~1,5 second time of "falling down" for arrows where damage are not done so overall time that it takes to perform those 21 ticks is ~11,5 seconds. On PTS endless hail is getting 12 seconds duration and during that time it should deal 12 ticks of damage (atleats it have to be assumend because there is a bug on PTS and endless hail is not getting 12 seconds duration but only 10 and it does 10 ticks). It also have that ~1,5 second delay between clicking the button and 1st arrows starting to deal damage so we can assume there is ~13,5 seconds duration for that ability.

So we have 21 ticks within 11,5 sec and 12 ticks within 13,5 sec. Now lets calculate raw damage that maelstrom bow will; provide to those numbers in current (live) and new(PTS) scenarios.

Lets assume 1st tick is getting buffed by the stacking bonus

For live server math goes like that :
flat value 161*21= 3 381
stacking value 21*(21+1)/2*56= 12 936
total raw value = 16 317
raw DPS 16 317/11,5 = 1418,9

For PTS math goes like that :
flat value 12*320= 3 840
stacking value 12*(12+1)/2*110 = 8 580
total raw value = 12 420
raw DPS 12 420/13,5= 920

DPS loss 1419-920= 499 499/1419= 0,35

So we can estimate ~35% DPS loss from maelstrom bow when used with endless hail ability before we include percentage modifiers.In short vMA bow got nerfed.

That's a big nerf for an ability that takes skill to place and time correctly. And an ability that has a cleaner animation and takes no skill to use is getting a big buff (poison inject).

John_Falstaff · July 2019

@Juhasow , is 12 ticks correct projection? Right now on live 21 ticks includes one initial tick, so shouldn't Hail be 13 ticks after update, not 12? (And yes, technically it doesn't change the picture, bow is still nerfed - so it's just for clarity.)

SodanTok · July 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Juhasow , is 12 ticks correct projection? Right now on live 21 ticks includes one initial tick, so shouldn't Hail be 13 ticks after update, not 12? (And yes, technically it doesn't change the picture, bow is still nerfed - so it's just for clarity.)

No. 12 is incorrect. 13 is what it should be doing. For example 8s Volley hits 9 times.

Generally DotS with no direct hit have first tick on application so they hit one more.

Juhasow · July 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Juhasow , is 12 ticks correct projection? Right now on live 21 ticks includes one initial tick, so shouldn't Hail be 13 ticks after update, not 12? (And yes, technically it doesn't change the picture, bow is still nerfed - so it's just for clarity.)

SodanTok wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Juhasow , is 12 ticks correct projection? Right now on live 21 ticks includes one initial tick, so shouldn't Hail be 13 ticks after update, not 12? (And yes, technically it doesn't change the picture, bow is still nerfed - so it's just for clarity.)

No. 12 is incorrect. 13 is what it should be doing. For example 8s Volley hits 9 times.

Generally DotS with no direct hit have first tick on application so they hit one more.

@John_Falstaff although I cannot be 100% certain since it's ZoS we're talking about I think 12 should be correct from mathematical perspective. What supports my claim is fact that on PTS 8 seconds arrow barrage hits 8 times and 10 seconds endless hail hits 10 times. Because intervals have streched from 0,5 sec to 1 sec there wont be that 1 free additional tick at the beggining and it is also possible that "landing time" for that ability will be now 0,5 sec longer and whole real time duration for the ability can be 14 seconds which can be supported with the fact that currently add on action duration reminder starts timer at 14 seconds mark for endless hail. I think what You've missed @SodanTok is that endless hail is not classic DoT with no direct hit but it have certain ETA after the cast and 1st tick is not happening instantly after the cast so intervals between the cast are very important and the smaller intervals the more "free ticks" You would be able to get at start. For example if interval would be 0,25 sec You would get 3 additional ticks and Your overall amount of ticks during 10 seconds would be 43.

Xogath · July 2019

While I am completely against the vMA Bow being nerfed considering how much of a pain in the ass it is to get.. I am totally fine with Bow having competitors for back bars; this is the way it should be.

You can imagine my glee when I discovered the thread with the 2H/DW parses that are actually competitive to */Bow.

Honestly, it's a step in the right direction. While I do not like nerfs being used as an answer (unless it's totally justified), if the tweaks to Bow means there are viable options other than Bow now.. I'm okay with that.

EDIT: Bow/Bow builds should still be viable, though.. so hopefully that can be addressed.

And as for Relequen stacks during ranged phases of fights.. I am okay with the tradeoff of those stacks potentially falling off. It's a nice trade off for having another back bar option instead of Bow.

I am kind of interested to see how a 2H/DW Stamina Necro performs both in parses and actual gameplay, though. If I can make that mess work I'm going to run it.. already got the vMA weapons to do so.. although I only managed to get the 2H Axe and Maul, so I'd likely use the Axe anyway for DoT reasons, plus Daggers.. or maybe Axes, for the DW Bar.

SodanTok · July 2019

Juhasow wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Juhasow , is 12 ticks correct projection? Right now on live 21 ticks includes one initial tick, so shouldn't Hail be 13 ticks after update, not 12? (And yes, technically it doesn't change the picture, bow is still nerfed - so it's just for clarity.)

SodanTok wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Juhasow , is 12 ticks correct projection? Right now on live 21 ticks includes one initial tick, so shouldn't Hail be 13 ticks after update, not 12? (And yes, technically it doesn't change the picture, bow is still nerfed - so it's just for clarity.)

No. 12 is incorrect. 13 is what it should be doing. For example 8s Volley hits 9 times.

Generally DotS with no direct hit have first tick on application so they hit one more.

John_Falstaff although I cannot be 100% certain since it's ZoS we're talking about I think 12 should be correct from mathematical perspective. What supports my claim is fact that on PTS 8 seconds arrow barrage hits 8 times and 10 seconds endless hail hits 10 times. Because intervals have streched from 0,5 sec to 1 sec there wont be that 1 free additional tick at the beggining and it is also possible that "landing time" for that ability will be now 0,5 sec longer and whole real time duration for the ability can be 14 seconds which can be supported with the fact that currently add on action duration reminder starts timer at 14 seconds mark for endless hail. I think what You've missed SodanTok is that endless hail is not classic DoT with no direct hit but it have certain ETA after the cast and 1st tick is not happening instantly after the cast so intervals between the cast are very important and the smaller intervals the more "free ticks" You would be able to get at start. For example if interval would be 0,25 sec You would get 3 additional ticks and Your overall amount of ticks during 10 seconds would be 43.

I think this is where the issue lies @Juhasow in either wrong assumption on your part or some other bugs because for me Arrow Barrage on PTS is clearly ticking 9 times and Hail 11 times

Onefrkncrzypope · July 2019

dwig wrote: »

I was doing some math in my head, and it occurred to me that doubling the bonus from VMA bow does NOT account for switching from one tick per 0.5 seconds to one tick per second.

To add a sequence of numbers you can use the formula N(N+1)/2 (famously invented by Gauss when he was in grade school). That means that the stacking bonus is quadratic, not linear. To account for cutting the number of ticks roughly in half you would need to roughly quadruple the stacking bonus.

The total bonus for vma bow is:

bonus = (flat)N + (stacking) N(N+1)/2

doubling the flat part is fine, but not the stacking part.
(caveat, that's adding N numbers starting with one, in the case of hail that's N=20 live and N=12 PTS).

Was this intentional? Or did you guys make a math error?

If I read the tool tip correctly I dont think the 161(old) or 320(new) scales per iteration.

more like:

Where Xo is the tooltip damage. The problem between the two formulas is a missing 56 stack. That is all. I have an Excel to prove that but it's easily reproduced. So didn't upload

Edit: I didn't round for pretty numbers.

SORjosh · July 2019

I FINALLY got my VMA bow and now this? GG

Kolzki · July 2019

People are suggesting using a masters bow with arrow barrage for single target and swapping to vMA bow for aoe.

This setup results in an even greater nerf for the vMA bow because the vMA bow damage will ramp up less with the fewer ticks from arrow barrage.

dwig · July 2019

@Onefrkncrzypope

Sum n (from 1 to N) is equal to N(N+1)/2, which is why I put that equation in my original post. Your equation is the same as mine (well, Gauss').

Onefrkncrzypope · July 2019

dwig wrote: »

@Onefrkncrzypope

Sum n (from 1 to N) is equal to N(N+1)/2, which is why I put that equation in my original post. Your equation is the same as mine (well, Gauss').

The n(161 or 320) was what I was talking about. Are you doing total damage dealt? It was bit confusing because it seems that 161 scales up per tick in your function.

Just specify total damage dealt and I think the equation would make more sense.

But adding 56 to the base damage buff will actually put the bow back in line with old one

dwig · July 2019

Oh, I just didn't include a term for the base hail damage. I used flat=131 (or 320) and stacking=56 (or 112).

Remember, my equation isn't a sum, it gives you the entire bonus, so you need to multiply the flat bonus by the total number of ticks.

Based on other posts in this thread I may have gotten the actual number of ticks wrong. However, the main point here is that N(N+1)/2 is quadratic, not linear, so you cannot simply double the stacking bonus and expect to get the same result.

dwig · July 2019

To put it another way...

vma_total_bonus = SUM(1 to N) flat + N*stacking = flat*N + stacking*(N+1)*N/2

e-rwan · July 2019

akray21 · July 2019

e-rwan wrote: »

This is awesome. So this implies it won't be easy to switch bows based on the fight because endless is better with the vMA bow and barrage is better with the master bow? Or is this assumption wrong?

dwig · July 2019

The bonus from vma bow gets larger with each tick, so you want the longest duration possible when you use vma bow.

This isn't new though.

Lord_Eomer · July 2019

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@SaintSubwayy , yup, it have changed, Stampede now is a ground AoE that applies enchants. It is on a short side, granted, eight seconds, but 2H now does have one at least.

As for vMA bow meta... it would be okay to switch back and forth between vMA and vDSA bows for multi-target / single-target fights, but I feel that, for one, single target is all people will care about and vMA bow will fade into background, and for another, it will harm console users who don't have gear swapping addons. Generally this patch hits console very hard with strong segregation between ST and AoE setups.

Actually for most ppl it wont make a big difference which bow they will use, which is fair IMO.
If you have a msters bow, well use it, if you have a vMA bow also great.
ATM masters bow is in the background, so bringing them closer thogether seems fair to me.
for those ppl who dont want to bother swapping bows, nothing will change drastically, but for the scorepushers and progressgroups, they will most likely swap the bows out according to the next fight comin up.

well everybody can choose for themselfes on which platform they want to play
sorry but this cannot be a reason to balance certain things at all.

Nothing against the consoleplayers thou ;

Do you think VMA bow have any advantage in PVP?

VDSA bow is now effective for PVE too and is already good choice for PVP

e-rwan · July 2019

This is awesome. So this implies it won't be easy to switch bows based on the fight because endless is better with the vMA bow and barrage is better with the master bow? Or is this assumption wrong?

I posted this a few post above:
hail 5.1.0
barrage still out dps hail though, so master bow all the way I'd say.

Onefrkncrzypope · July 2019

e-rwan wrote: »

This also proves my point that with the tick change that the vma set bonus is behind by 56 per second thus their math is off and 56 is needed to be added to the flat value to hold their comment in the patch true.

Two old tick equal one new tick.

217 + 273 =\= 430

It's almost a 12% nerf. The nerf does decay over the course of the skill but it's still there

wills43b14_ESO · July 2019

Bow on pts right now is 2 ticks shorter than it should be, so keep that in mind too when using real values vs. calculated values to infer % nerf.

Aimed at no one in particular, just saw some people doing both calculations and posted this to make sure there was no confusion as to why PTS testing values differed from theoretical values.