New BRP DW is bonkers

cheemers · May 2020

I'm all for consistency, but if this change goes through to Live, BRP DW proccing from the back bar is going to be the most broken thing in PvP.

Let's look here - for one GCD cast on my back bar, I get:

- An AoE pulsing DOT that procs my back bar enchants or poisons;
- (optional) Major expedition
- 25℅ damage mitigation against AoEs
- An extra 10% non-penetrable damage reduction (equivalent to 5-pc buffer of the swift)
- An extra 10% damage done with an easy condition (better than another 5pc which is more conditional in Essence Thief, and significantly better than Shield Breaker 5pc)

While still being able to run a full damage set on my front bar and whatever I want on the body. Look at this and tell me that this is OK. You would be silly to not run this on every single build, magicka included (very easy to use -80% cost stam ability after CC break in CP PvP).

Currently this set is annoying because it carries rock-jumping 1vX aspirants and lets them think they're doing something special when they're major protection-tanking against some new players. But if this goes to Live as 2+ 5pc set bonuses it's gonna be a different story.

I thought the idea with sets like Stuhn's and the new Balorgh was to allow for high penetration against tankier targets. This set goes completely against that grain. You already have far too many non-penetrable percentage modifiers in PvP, stamnecro being one of the more egregious examples.

You realise this is a buff to this already overpowered class, right? Simply swap to Deaden Pain morph to have your on-demand Major Protection, while stacking 10% mit from this, 10% from ghost, and 8% from Temporal Guard, and 25% from Major Evasion. Actually bonkers.

Zenimax please - for the sake of build diversity, PvP balance, and the sanity of your loyal player base - give this set a heavy-handed audit. Please.

Firstmep · May 2020

Blade cloak has a 5m radius, meaning you have to be on top of someone to proc it.
Also quick cloak pulses every 2 seconds so if you kite around a rock, you won't have a very good uptime on it.
This really only going to be valuable if your are constantly on the offense.

cheemers · May 2020

Firstmep wrote: »

Blade cloak has a 5m radius, meaning you have to be on top of someone to proc it.
Also quick cloak pulses every 2 seconds so if you kite around a rock, you won't have a very good uptime on it.
This really only going to be valuable if your are constantly on the offense.

You just need to be in the thick of the fight which is very easily done in PvP. With all the mitigations this set and skill give, you'll have very few requirements to kite anyway. It's not hard to be in melee range of something every 2s.

Militan1404 · May 2020

Lol some find eveything op, you litary have to stand in the players face that using this set for it to work. And it want be as good to kite or escape anymore sence you have to stay in 5m of the enemy to get the effect from it. So the only thing its good for is brawling as long as the enemy stay in your face

ku5h · May 2020

Firstmep wrote: »

Blade cloak has a 5m radius, meaning you have to be on top of someone to proc it.
Also quick cloak pulses every 2 seconds so if you kite around a rock, you won't have a very good uptime on it.
This really only going to be valuable if your are constantly on the offense.

Well this is partially true.
Against melee builds you'll have it anytime you need it, if you're kiting them and not procing it, they also are not hitting you.
Ranged builds will have easier time against it.
But yea, this arena weapon is far beyond any other.
Makes me lol how stam brigade went on fire when they saw new master destro, while at the same time getting this...bias, bias.

React · May 2020

The bonuses wont be active all the time in every 1v1 matchup, only while outnumbered or in group v group situations where you can stay close enough to your opponents for it to remain up. If you chose the damage morph of blade cloak, you'll have a higher uptime. If you choose the expedition, you'll have a lower uptime.

I think this iteration of the brp dw is far more balanced than the ridiculousness that was spammable major protection. If they choose to make any further adjustments to this set at all, I hope they opt for more damage and a reduction in mitigation. If the 10% damage proc was extended in duration for a better uptime, I'd be fine with seeing the 10% mitigation proc removed entirely. Like you said, the skill already has evasion attached to it, which is a ridiculously strong mitigation buff by itself.

wheem_ESO · May 2020

I'm so glad Stamina builds are getting a 10% damage bonus in Battlegrounds; 9,481 burst damage on Dawnbreaker, and 7,272 on Dizzying Swing just isn't good enough, it definitely needs another +10% (at least!) Super serious. Totes no sarcasm or anything.

cheemers · May 2020

Liam12548 wrote: »

The bonuses wont be active all the time in every 1v1 matchup, only while outnumbered or in group v group situations where you can stay close enough to your opponents for it to remain up. If you chose the damage morph of blade cloak, you'll have a higher uptime. If you choose the expedition, you'll have a lower uptime.

I think this iteration of the brp dw is far more balanced than the ridiculousness that was spammable major protection. If they choose to make any further adjustments to this set at all, I hope they opt for more damage and a reduction in mitigation. If the 10% damage proc was extended in duration for a better uptime, I'd be fine with seeing the 10% mitigation proc removed entirely. Like you said, the skill already has evasion attached to it, which is a ridiculously strong mitigation buff by itself.

I would also like to see a longer damage proc with removal of the mitigation.

katorga · May 2020

This set is better than any of the "mythic" items (and the old version was even better). That's saying something.

In keeping with ZOS's goal of lowering the ceiling and raising the floor, it should drop at Dolmen.

Dirt_Rooster · May 2020

If you think it will be remotely difficult to keep a 95% uptime of this set in any and all pvp encounters you are sorely mistaken.

RealPhoenix · May 2020

To be honest I think the adjustment made to this set is pretty good. You wont be able to use this as a straight-up 30% dmg reduction on demand anymore, but it still gives you a really good bonus while you are on offense / active combat. The idea behind this set is a good one and it fells like some effort actually went into redesigning this set.

People who think you will proc this off-cd with 100% uptime on a skill that has a 5m radius literally have no idea what they are talking about. As already mentioned above, this set will be useful for groups who are constantly under pressure and fighting or for people who face-tank others and literally stay in the open all the time.
While the latter might be possible (to a certain amount) in CP, it certainly is not in No-CP and this is not an issue with the design of the Set, but of the CP System in general.

xXMeowMeowXx · May 2020

It has been cheesy for a long time now. Even I will admit it at this point.

Not that I am complaining with dizzy and spamming some other skills, lol.

PvP simply has become pretty much a joke to build for and sadly more boring to me imo.

To me the big miss out is that ZOS should buff the underperforming class skills. This would add in some more build variety and the excitement back.

Class identity needs to be restored.

To be fair I have been playing since beta. Once you get really good at a game, you can’t blame it for becoming easier after years of play.

@cheemers brp dw is not the most broken thing in PvP by a long shot. It is good certainly and still a little over-tuned on the PTS by a bit.

Ratzkifal · May 2020

BRP DW is looking strong, but consider what you have to give up for it in return.

Replace a twohander and you lose Momentum, Executioner, CritRush, DizzyingSwing and Onslaught.
Replace a bow and lose Snipe, Poison Injection, Balista and desyncs.
Replace a sword and shield and you lose shield ultimate as well as resistances.

If you have previously been running with an Asylum twohander, then the transition will be easy set-wise, although you will have significantly less ultimate and Bloodspawn won't be there to make up for it anymore.
Buf if you have been running another 5piece bonus, you will lose access to some powerful set combinations.
If you have been running 2 pieces of Potentate on the backbar for defense, then you are giving up 5% mitigation when running away from ranged enemies, since you can't reliably proc your BRP weapons while on the run.

I don't think BRP DW will be as oppressive as you think, but it will definitely be worth picking up on some builds.

MashmalloMan · May 2020

ku5h wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Blade cloak has a 5m radius, meaning you have to be on top of someone to proc it.
Also quick cloak pulses every 2 seconds so if you kite around a rock, you won't have a very good uptime on it.
This really only going to be valuable if your are constantly on the offense.

Well this is partially true.
Against melee builds you'll have it anytime you need it, if you're kiting them and not procing it, they also are not hitting you.
Ranged builds will have easier time against it.
But yea, this arena weapon is far beyond any other.
Makes me lol how stam brigade went on fire when they saw new master destro, while at the same time getting this...bias, bias.

Well with Master Destruction staff and Bow it's much weirder because it's basically the same bonuses, except lower duration, double the damage and it applies to yourself instead of just the person your attacking, not to mention a little cost decrease too.

When you compare them directly to one another (obviously because they're so similar) Master Destruction staff seems like a much better designed bonus than Master bow. The real problem is the abilities they're attached to. The morphs just don't make any sense for staff and lack any thought at all, they really butchered them in 2019.

The Reach morph just gives it a 28m range bump which is already present on the base ability of Poison Arrow and really... any ranged dot in the entire game. Look at Soul Trap, Entropy, etc. Clench (fire) is just a short range 15m knockback that is actually worse than Magnum Arrow at 22m, also very similar in comparison. All ranged stuns/knockbacks SHOULD fall under the 22m range standard that is present on gap closers and chain abilities, yet Clench has 15m. Can anyone really justify why it's so short? Poison Injection and Magnum Arrow are both better well thought out morphs than Reach and Clench.

Now on the other hand, the ability altering weapons are the opposite. Doubling the Damage bonus for a decreased duration of 4s instead of 10s makes perfect sense. I will contest to that. However, it decreases the cost by -10% AND the damage bonus is applicable to yourself, increasing not only your damage done, but your healling for some defensive power. Imo, the duration needs a bit of a boost to line up better with the fact that this ability has a dot morph and is also used with Clench as a cc tool. 4s won't line up with the stun immunity. I suppose they half expect this to still be spammed, but the only spammable option is the Shock morph of clench. All these morphs are so complex and poorly thought out that even the ability altering weapon doesn't know what it's trying to do.

If you compare Master Staff to BRP DW I think they share very similar power budgets. Both will offer strong offensive and defensive advantages (if you have magicka healing that benefits from spell damage). The main difference being BRP DW requires constant refreshing while being in melee range, it is not on demand, but can have a very high uptime if you take that risk. Master Staff has lower risk due to increased range, but double the duration and on demand.

Really, I feel as if these 2 need to be slightly lowered in potency, maybe 7/8% dmg done/mitigation vs 500 spell damage, but increased duration beyond 4s. Then, ZOS needs to buff all the other crappy weapons to bring them in line. Master bow needs a buff, Destructive Reach/Clench need a buff, Master DW needs a substantial buff, maybe cost reduction would help solidify it as a nice front bar DW option to make Twin Slashes a spammable the same way Live Master Staff does. Asylum Staff sucks now, Asylum DW still sucks. List goes on and on.

precambria · May 2020

The melee weapon now requires that people be in melee range to make use of it, what will they think of next.

NeillMcAttack · May 2020

Enchants and arena weapons have always proc’d from the back bar. That’s what makes them strong. If your issue is with mitigation, then that should be the title of the thread.

MentalxHammer · May 2020

Honestly this set is stronger now than it was... this company is completely hopeless when it comes to balance.

MentalxHammer · May 2020

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

Enchants and arena weapons have always proc’d from the back bar. That’s what makes them strong. If your issue is with mitigation, then that should be the title of the thread.

No, originally this iteration of the brp dual wield did NOT proc while you were on front bar. The issues OP presented are very clearly stated. This 2 piece item gives the same mitigation as the strongest 5 piece defensive set in the game, and more damage than most 5 piece sets, look at the commonly used 5 pc buff on spriggans, offering 3450 penetration, 660 res is 1% mitigation so this offers 3450/660 = 5.23% damage increase. BRP dual wield offers so much more dmg on top of mitigation. Overloaded AF!

NeillMcAttack · May 2020

MentalxHammer wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

Enchants and arena weapons have always proc’d from the back bar. That’s what makes them strong. If your issue is with mitigation, then that should be the title of the thread.

No, originally this iteration of the brp dual wield did NOT proc while you were on front bar. The issues OP presented are very clearly stated. This 2 piece item gives the same mitigation as the strongest 5 piece defensive set in the game, and more damage than most 5 piece sets, look at the commonly used 5 pc buff on spriggans, offering 3450 penetration, 660 res is 1% mitigation so this offers 3450/660 = 5.23% damage increase. BRP dual wield offers so much more dmg on top of mitigation. Overloaded AF!

Is there too many sources of percentage mitigation.., maybe. But I don't notice them too much because I play No-CP, where fights have endings, and resources matter.
Anyway, my simple point here was that for consistency regarding arena/ability altering weapons, as long as the spell is active, then so should the ability to proc the buff. It just makes sense, as all other arena weapons have the same mechanic.

And honestly, since we are on the subject, I'm actually tired of players of CP PvP in this game having such strong opinions on what is and isn't balanced. The percentage mitigation in CP was the start of all this nonsense and here they just complain about the same thing that they think is the straw that is gonna break the camels back, they need to go way further back than 10% damage mitigation.
Your preferred form of PvP is inherently broken, look at the Battle Spirit change, they are essentially removing two of the CP stars, they will likely continue on this trend until CP can be balanced, but leave no-CP a painful mess, that wouldn't surprise me sadly.
Don't take this as a go at you personally, or OP, I would just prefer if people stated which kind of PvP they are referring to when they call things unbalanced.

WrathOfInnos · May 2020

MentalxHammer wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

Enchants and arena weapons have always proc’d from the back bar. That’s what makes them strong. If your issue is with mitigation, then that should be the title of the thread.

No, originally this iteration of the brp dual wield did NOT proc while you were on front bar. The issues OP presented are very clearly stated. This 2 piece item gives the same mitigation as the strongest 5 piece defensive set in the game, and more damage than most 5 piece sets, look at the commonly used 5 pc buff on spriggans, offering 3450 penetration, 660 res is 1% mitigation so this offers 3450/660 = 5.23% damage increase. BRP dual wield offers so much more dmg on top of mitigation. Overloaded AF!

That math is a little misleading. Spriggans is an observed 5.5% damage against other players if it is removing the last 3450 of their resistances (100%/(100%-5.23%)). Assuming no overpen this is literally the worst case scenario for the set.

Best case for Spriggans is against an enemy that was at 33k resistance, and gets reduced to 29550, which means they go from taking 50% of your damage to 55.23%, for a 10.45% damage increase. And Spriggans isn’t even a great comparison, Twice Fanged Serpent would make more sense (drops from a trial, has a conditional short duration buff), which gives 4300 penetration for 7% to 13% damage increase in PVP.

Note that in PVE both Spriggans and Twice Fanged are even better because resistances are divided by 500 instead of 660 to get the % mitigation.

Now look at the BRP Dual Wield. It gives a tooltip “10% Damage”. In any environment with CPs active this instantly becomes closer to 7%. With any other % damage increases (swords, minor berserk, slayer, class passives, etc) it’s closer to 6% damage.

So the BRP DW seems to be relatively strong in no-CP PVP while being relatively weak in end game PVE. Seems backward to me, but the solution isn’t to make it weaker for everything.

idk · May 2020

cheemers wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Blade cloak has a 5m radius, meaning you have to be on top of someone to proc it.
Also quick cloak pulses every 2 seconds so if you kite around a rock, you won't have a very good uptime on it.
This really only going to be valuable if your are constantly on the offense.

You just need to be in the thick of the fight which is very easily done in PvP. With all the mitigations this set and skill give, you'll have very few requirements to kite anyway. It's not hard to be in melee range of something every 2s.

The difference between the most skilled players and average players is they aggressively avoid damage.

The person you quoted is correct. Moving out of the damage is better than complaining the way a weapon or skill is designed.

Strider__Roshin · May 2020

Looks as strong as the master's destro.

cheemers · May 2020

idk wrote: »

cheemers wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Blade cloak has a 5m radius, meaning you have to be on top of someone to proc it.
Also quick cloak pulses every 2 seconds so if you kite around a rock, you won't have a very good uptime on it.
This really only going to be valuable if your are constantly on the offense.

You just need to be in the thick of the fight which is very easily done in PvP. With all the mitigations this set and skill give, you'll have very few requirements to kite anyway. It's not hard to be in melee range of something every 2s.

The difference between the most skilled players and average players is they aggressively avoid damage.

The person you quoted is correct. Moving out of the damage is better than complaining the way a weapon or skill is designed.

If you're "aggressively avoiding" damage, why do you need 10% mitigation anyway? This set will have 100% uptime when it matters - when you're dealing or taking damage as a melee build. If you or any other "most skilled players" want to explain this further, please do.

Mortiis13 · May 2020

My stamcro brawler love this change.

MentalxHammer · May 2020

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

MentalxHammer wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

Enchants and arena weapons have always proc’d from the back bar. That’s what makes them strong. If your issue is with mitigation, then that should be the title of the thread.

No, originally this iteration of the brp dual wield did NOT proc while you were on front bar. The issues OP presented are very clearly stated. This 2 piece item gives the same mitigation as the strongest 5 piece defensive set in the game, and more damage than most 5 piece sets, look at the commonly used 5 pc buff on spriggans, offering 3450 penetration, 660 res is 1% mitigation so this offers 3450/660 = 5.23% damage increase. BRP dual wield offers so much more dmg on top of mitigation. Overloaded AF!

Is there too many sources of percentage mitigation.., maybe. But I don't notice them too much because I play No-CP, where fights have endings, and resources matter.
Anyway, my simple point here was that for consistency regarding arena/ability altering weapons, as long as the spell is active, then so should the ability to proc the buff. It just makes sense, as all other arena weapons have the same mechanic.

And honestly, since we are on the subject, I'm actually tired of players of CP PvP in this game having such strong opinions on what is and isn't balanced. The percentage mitigation in CP was the start of all this nonsense and here they just complain about the same thing that they think is the straw that is gonna break the camels back, they need to go way further back than 10% damage mitigation.
Your preferred form of PvP is inherently broken, look at the Battle Spirit change, they are essentially removing two of the CP stars, they will likely continue on this trend until CP can be balanced, but leave no-CP a painful mess, that wouldn't surprise me sadly.
Don't take this as a go at you personally, or OP, I would just prefer if people stated which kind of PvP they are referring to when they call things unbalanced.

I agree with your comment regarding consistency. Regarding the brp dual wield in no CP, it will actually stand out even more in no CP. In CP environments you would only get 7-8% more dmg and mitigation due to the extra % mitigation and % damage modifiers coming from CP. In no CP you wont experience any diminishing returns on the % values from brp dual so its potency will shine through even more!