So, here we are. Another set of patch notes, another series of changes that seemingly no one in the community asked for to change the game into a vision that no one can understand, seemingly, even the devs themselves.

I was almost pleasantly surprised with these patch notes at first. Subtle tweaks to old sets, some interesting new ones theorycraft with, and then suddenly, there it was: the changes to Off Balance and Dizzy Swing, in signature ZOS fashion, coming in to shake things up for reasons no one can seem to articulate.

First of all, no one wanted the stun back on Dizzy Swing. We've done what you always said to do: we adapted. We've embraced the Off Balance mechanic, hell, it's even enjoyable. Landing a clean medium-weave off of a Dizzy feels nice. The skill remains just as easy to counter as it always has been, but due to the insanely underwhelming nature of most stam spammables, it remains the frontrunner for any stam class that's not a Templar.

But, for whatever reason, that's not good enough for ZOS. Now, we have to add that stun BACK to Dizzy in a way that rewards brainlessly spamming it. And then to "balance" this, we have to rework Off Balance, a mechanic that has existed in this game without complaint since launch. Now, I'm a believer that most balance tweaks need to abide by the principle of "First, do no harm," and this already doesn't pass the smell test: MagDKs will now have a morph gutted by this change, and Stamden DPS, who are already in the gutter, will be further pushed to the bottom if attempting to use their class spammable.

The question I have is: why? Why make these entirely arbitrary changes to mechanics that no one is complaining about? If the goal here was to create parity between PvE and PvP, here's a tip: that's exactly what we DON'T need in this game. We need MORE mechanics that behave fundamentally different between PvE and PvP so that these balance passes can stop stepping on each other's toes.

So yes, I'm creating one more post about this because I think it merits the discussion and the feedback, as clearly many others do. Come on ZOS. I nearly enjoyed reading your patch notes for once. Do the right thing and let this go.