For clarification:

The opponent CCd (or silenced, whichever it was) me with Incap, before I could CC him.

Minor Berserk is not something NBs have ready access to anymore.

Breach would require an extra skill slot and is not a good skill to slot, when your opener is a gank. At any rate, my opponent did not mark me either, so I consider that a wash.

As to the +25% damage, while it's worrisome, it's not +25%. The way ZOS have done the calculation, it ends up being 11% up to 25%. I measured 17% on my DK. It depends on build, CP, your other buffs, and so on. So, no, I'm not going to imagine +25%, because that's not what happens in real world scenarios, especially when you run lots of other damage buffs / debuffs. Malacath only applies to a portion of your damage, your base damage, whatever that is. I'm not sure whether that's covered in the below spreadsheet, but anyhow:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/530523/malacaths-ring-and-impen-crit-calculations

The same applies to Minor Berserk and all other percentage buffs, by the way. They're all less than what it says on the tin. I measured it at 5.9% for Concealed Weapon and 5.7% for Swallow Soul (or vice versa) once. Yes, it's even differed between skills, because ESO is full of weirdness.

By the way, I changed my burst a while ago. I'm now running Balorgh and constructed my burst such that Caluurion typically lands after Soul Harvest. I have a record of an ice proc hitting a stamina player for 6.7K. Like I said, it's good. What I object to is the characterisation of this proc hitting for a massive amount, relative to what stamina characters hit me with even just with their spammables.

@zDan, I note your build includes Armor Master, Pirate Skeleton, Necropotence and 2x Willpower. In other words, you made a tanky-ish build that will hold up well as a brawler. Please swap out Necropotence for Caluurion and see how you like it! Take note of what that does to your shield. You pay a price for running a proc build and I don't think you even know what that feels like, because you flat out rejected the idea in the first place.

The other thing I forgot to mention is: Icy Conjurer? Really? It does it's damage over 10 seconds. ZOS are doing their usual balancing across PvE, CP PvP and no CP PvP. I'm a little worried, much as yourself. What I do object to is the hyperbole. The "insanes", the "massives", and so on. ZOS have probably gathered statistics indicating these sets are hardly used. I can't remember when I last saw Icy Conjurer or Widowmaker.

fred4 wrote: »

For clarification:

The opponent CCd (or silenced, whichever it was) me with Incap, before I could CC him.

Minor Berserk is not something NBs have ready access to anymore.

Breach would require an extra skill slot and is not a good skill to slot, when your opener is a gank. At any rate, my opponent did not mark me either, so I consider that a wash.

As to the +25% damage, while it's worrisome, it's not +25%. The way ZOS have done the calculation, it ends up being 11% up to 25%. I measured 17% on my DK. It depends on build, CP, your other buffs, and so on. So, no, I'm not going to imagine +25%, because that's not what happens in real world scenarios, especially when you run lots of other damage buffs / debuffs. Malacath only applies to a portion of your damage, your base damage, whatever that is. I'm not sure whether that's covered in the below spreadsheet, but anyhow:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/530523/malacaths-ring-and-impen-crit-calculations

The same applies to Minor Berserk and all other percentage buffs, by the way. They're all less than what it says on the tin. I measured it at 5.9% for Concealed Weapon and 5.7% for Swallow Soul (or vice versa) once. Yes, it's even differed between skills, because ESO is full of weirdness.

By the way, I changed my burst a while ago. I'm now running Balorgh and constructed my burst such that Caluurion typically lands after Soul Harvest. I have a record of an ice proc hitting a stamina player for 6.7K. Like I said, it's good. What I object to is the characterisation of this proc hitting for a massive amount, relative to what stamina characters hit me with even just with their spammables.

@zDan, I note your build includes Armor Master, Pirate Skeleton, Necropotence and 2x Willpower. In other words, you made a tanky-ish build that will hold up well as a brawler. Please swap out Necropotence for Caluurion and see how you like it! Take note of what that does to your shield. You pay a price for running a proc build and I don't think you even know what that feels like, because you flat out rejected the idea in the first place.

The other thing I forgot to mention is: Icy Conjurer? Really? It does it's damage over 10 seconds. ZOS are doing their usual balancing across PvE, CP PvP and no CP PvP. I'm a little worried, much as yourself. What I do object to is the hyperbole. The "insanes", the "massives", and so on. ZOS have probably gathered statistics indicating these sets are hardly used. I can't remember when I last saw Icy Conjurer or Widowmaker.

Yes I build more defensively since I am always fighting massively outnumbered. I'm not going to throw on caluurions just to "see how I like it" because it wont synergise with my build or playstyle at all. The people that benefit from these proc builds are like I said before, people in large groups oppressively zerging down other players. BG's will most likely be the main place for this to be an occurrence and yes Icy Conjurer also looks to be one of those strong oppressive ones.

And I don't know about you, but the caluurion proc hitting for 5-6k is way too much. All of that burst damage and a status effect just for barely doing anything at all, it's not skillful in the slightest.


[snip]

[Edited to remove Discussion of Disciplinary Actions]

Juhasow wrote: »

Combining Unleashed Terror and vMA 2hand will be interresting for sure.

I agree. I think this is the set people are most concerned about and I share that concern, because the proc condition looks awfully nice for PvP. I just object to people throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This set having a good proc condition means it could be OP or it might merely result in it actually being viable for PvP, unlike a lot of other sets.

I used to run a DW front bar / 2H back bar DK long ago. Perhaps the closest thing I've seen recently is Ani's Potatohunter 2.0 build. This would fit into that build. However if you want to argue that adding a 4th DOT makes that build OP, you have to think it through. You always give up something as well. A lot of people don't run gap closers anymore. Fitting a gap closer and Executioner and 2 DK DOTs and Rending Slashes and Master's DW will leave you either very squishy or lacking utility and Minor Brutality (Fossilize) or something else. It will also weaken your Leap. I think only testing will show how good that set really is.

Fawn4287 wrote: »

The number of annoying troll templar tanks with bogdan and earthgore who spam heals for their group, them glue down the block button when you turn to attack them is ridiculous.

The only annoying part of annoying troll tanks is the fact that annoyingly many clueless players focus them instead of killing the real players in the vicinity. Enemy troll tanks are even usful because you can refill your ulti on them (dont use it though!). But keep in mind: After refilling you need to move on to a real target. Why waste your playing time on something as boring as a dumb permablocker?

@fred4 you understand that you got hit with incap which is a 20% vulnerability to yourself then the surprise attack. Like reading this post just looks like a bunch of people not understanding mechanics of the game. Caluurions getting the potential to not proc of crit strikes and be paired with malacath on one of the highest burst procs in the game is not good end of story. The proc right now is borderline over tuned for a burst proc the only thing keeping it in check is that it is proc'd off a crit and has crit stats which is not the best for proc builds which scale off of penetration (lover mundus) where as crit builds benefit from 0 procs and pure stats for crit damage.

JinxxND wrote: »

@fred4 you understand that you got hit with incap which is a 20% vulnerability to yourself then the surprise attack. Like reading this post just looks like a bunch of people not understanding mechanics of the game. Caluurions getting the potential to not proc of crit strikes and be paired with malacath on one of the highest burst procs in the game is not good end of story. The proc right now is borderline over tuned for a burst proc the only thing keeping it in check is that it is proc'd off a crit and has crit stats which is not the best for proc builds which scale off of penetration (lover mundus) where as crit builds benefit from 0 procs and pure stats for crit damage.

I basically agree with your sober assessment and have never said anything else. I'd substitute "about right" for "borderline overtuned" - in CP - but that's splitting hairs. I'm also a little less concerned about Malacath than everyone else, because I'm not sold on it on live. Thus it's more of a wait (on PTS testing) and see attitude from me. The community have gotten things right in the past, but they've also caused a bunch of stillborn sets. Is anyone running Soldier of Anguish?

Anyhow, this should be the last major rebalance under new management, right? I think from ZOS' perspective, they may well write off next patch as experimental, cause that's what they tend to do, but then - finally - limit themselves to surgical interventions afterwards.

JinxxND wrote: »

I see it either getting it's crit condition back

I have also advocated for this.

you can proc it instantly from stealth right behind someone where they have no time to react

This is incorrect. There is a 1 second delay. A dodge roll mitigates it. Fear after your opener tends to be the most effective at bypassing mitigations, however it does no damage by itself. Soul Harvest is good, but at the same time you're not stacking 3 skills and a CC into a single GCD, like a stamden with Subterranean -> Dizzying -> Dawnbreaker. Make of that what you will. I'm tired of arguing. ZOS will probably do what they want anyway.

JinxxND wrote: »

If you ele weapon from stealth then light attack concealed weapon they will get hit with all 5 potential attacks (Ele weapon, dmg glyph, light attack and concealed weapon which stuns and caluurions) with no room to dodge roll. The only counter to this is if you are expecting it and either hold block or preemtively dodge roll before the concealed stun

I've been debating whether to go for this. It doesn't suit the bar layout I evolved, thus I currently use Ele Weapon, Soul Harvest, Fear, Swallow Soul or Impale. Incap may now be an option, whereas Flame Clench looks terribly nerfed and is less reliable than Fear.

It's easy to gank a stationary target, but I'd argue that, if someone is standing still (on a flag) and not holding block or shielding, they are inexperienced or careless. They are not merely prone to be successfully ganked by me, but by any number of gank builds, proc or non-proc.

It gets much trickier on a moving target and/or in the middle of a larger fight. Have you noticed that people are getting faster and are more prone to dodge rolling lately? I put this down to Wild Hunt and the Impen changes. People can move so fast, they are behind you by the time you Fear, which is why I prefer that over Clench and why I'm not totally keen on Concealed, it needing the right attack vector.