How Thrassian Stranglers Are Doomed, And How to Fix Them

VioletDracolich · July 2020

The proposed changes to the mythic item Thrassian Stranglers as of v6.1.2, will 100% be the death of this item:

Thrassian Stranglers:
Reduced the Weapon and Spell Damage per stack to 17, down from 40.

This set no longer causes you to take 1% more damage per stack, or decreases your healing taken by 1% per stack.

This set now causes you to lose 120 Maximum Health for every stack you have. The maximum stack count stays at 50, resulting in the final stats to be 850 Weapon and Spell Damage, -6000 Health, and -50% shield efficacy.

Increased the duration of the stacks to 1 hour, up from 10 minutes, to better cement the quasi-permanent permanency.

The two bold points say it all, if the item keeps receiving changes like this in a live patch it will likely never be used by a decent player again.

Now the item having risk isn't a bad thing, in fact I kinda like the idea they're going with here, but it's when the reward isn't worth the risk that a problem occurs. 850 Weapon and Spell Damage is not worth a 6000 penalty to maximum health, and that is the problem currently here. I'm not saying don't nerf Thrassian Stranglers, quite the opposite actually this item is too good and needs to be toned down a bit, but instead come up with a nerf that won't just kill the item outright.As I see it, there are 3 ways to do this:

1. Get rid of the risk completely:
I don't think they'll do this one, but here it is anyway. Get rid of the penalties with the stacks and just lower the overall Weapon and Spell Damage they give. Maybe make also change the condition you gain a stack as well, maybe similar to False Gods or Vicious Serpent, and reduce the time the stacks last to as little as 10 seconds. This makes the stranglers interesting yes, but I don't personally like the idea as it doesn't mesh well with the item's theme.

2. Ramp up the risk and reward:

This set was originally created to be a risk/reward set that inflicted you with such a high penalty that despite the power potential it offered, attaining it would be something you'd seldom want to keep.

This idea may be seen as death for the item as well, but hear me out. Make the item have a huge bonus to Weapon and Spell Damage, and also bring back the more damage and healing reduction per stack. However, increase the negatives per stack to 2% instead of 1%. What will this do? Well If fully stacked, you take 100% more damage, receive a 100% reduction in healing, and lowers shield efficiency by 100%. Heck, let's ramp it up even more! Make the maximum stack 69 instead of 50. Not only does this make the stranglers a meme, but also takes into account Major and Minor Buffs that may negate these negatives, like the Vitality or Protection buffs. This would 100% align with the original goal of the item and would make it to where players would seldom want to be at full stacks, having to remove them constantly for fear of their own safety. As long as the reward is big enough for players to want it, they'll still use the item, but it'll make them think about it now.

3. Just do what you did with New Moon Acolyte:

New Moon Acolyte: Reduced the Weapon and Spell Damage granted from this set’s 5 piece bonus to 401, down from 481. This was done to make up for the fact that the resource cost increase penalty can be easily alleviated in group settings by having allies supply you with sets or synergies.

Just keep the item like it is in public, but lower the overall Weapon and Spell Damage you gain per stack. This option is boring, it's no fun, but it'll work.

Honestly, I would love to hear what other people have to say, because these were just things that I thought of on the top of my head, and other players may come up with better ideas.

TheNuminous1 · July 2020

All I know is if the current pts version hits live the set is garbage. Makes me sad I spent so much time farming it.

Czekoludek · July 2020

Max 10 stacks, 80 sd/wd per stack, 2% increased damage taken per stack. Live iteration of Thrassians is fun but too op, this change would be good for balance without killing the Item. Also they lower stack number for siro and rele this patch, why not do the same for thrassians?

Playboy_Shrek · July 2020

theres a threshold of this item being too good or too bad because its glass cannon

if healers can keep you alive = every DD will use it

if healers can't keep you alive = no DD will use it

simple as that.

Celestro · July 2020

I almost think I kind of see where they might've been coming from with this recent change. Not that its necessarily good but whatever.

Using set piece bonuses as a reference, 1206 Max Health = 129 Weapon/Spell Damage. This is close to the current Thrassian's numbers per stack, with 120 Health loss versus 17 WD/SD gained (12 would've been more equal). At the max is 6000 Health loss and 850 WD/SD gained. To make up that 6000 Health lost, you could redistribute about 50 points into Health, which is 122 per point for a total of 6100 in exchange of 50 points in Stamina or Magicka, which is 111 for 5500. 5500 of either resource is approximately 523 WD/SD. Subtracting that from the full bonus of 850 becomes 327 for the net gain here. That's close to a 5 piece bonus which these mythic items are supposed to be equivalent to. Closest examples are Hunding's Rage and Julianos of course.

I believe realistically the net gain should still be decently more since you're sacrificing a full monster set bonus and need to build stacks over a period of time before even reaching a "break even" point with what the monster set would've gave you from the jump. The conditional aspect of it is no different than other sets that give you more WD/SD due to these types of narrow conditions. At least then it could maybe push the net gain to 500 or 600.

But even with that, the issue with the stacks currently is there still requires not only way too many to reach that break even point in a reasonable time in the first place but also still requiring kills, which is questionable in at least trial settings. Its not 100% clear what their intentions are but it definitely doesn't seem like they want it for group play, so I dunno what its purpose is exactly.

Czekoludek · July 2020

Playboy_Shrek wrote: »

theres a threshold of this item being too good or too bad because its glass cannon

if healers can keep you alive = every DD will use it

if healers can't keep you alive = no DD will use it

simple as that.

There always be meta, we can have a mythic in meta. Thrassians was problematic because it give too much even for meta item. It should be powerful item for dd to use, current Item rewards you for knowledge of mechanics and your own class (cuz you don't die, even with more damage and less healing). At least we got something new on meta other then boring ms/pfg/zaan that actually alters the way you play. Besides too high reward only problem with thrassians was stack acquisition way that promotes more selfish approach

VioletDracolich · July 2020

Celestro wrote: »

I almost think I kind of see where they might've been coming from with this recent change. Not that its necessarily good but whatever.

Using set piece bonuses as a reference, 1206 Max Health = 129 Weapon/Spell Damage. This is close to the current Thrassian's numbers per stack, with 120 Health loss versus 17 WD/SD gained (12 would've been more equal). At the max is 6000 Health loss and 850 WD/SD gained. To make up that 6000 Health lost, you could redistribute about 50 points into Health, which is 122 per point for a total of 6100 in exchange of 50 points in Stamina or Magicka, which is 111 for 5500. 5500 of either resource is approximately 523 WD/SD. Subtracting that from the full bonus of 850 becomes 327 for the net gain here. That's close to a 5 piece bonus which these mythic items are supposed to be equivalent to. Closest examples are Hunding's Rage and Julianos of course.

I believe realistically the net gain should still be decently more since you're sacrificing a full monster set bonus and need to build stacks over a period of time before even reaching a "break even" point with what the monster set would've gave you from the jump. The conditional aspect of it is no different than other sets that give you more WD/SD due to these types of narrow conditions. At least then it could maybe push the net gain to 500 or 600.

But even with that, the issue with the stacks currently is there still requires not only way too many to reach that break even point in a reasonable time in the first place but also still requiring kills, which is questionable in at least trial settings. Its not 100% clear what their intentions are but it definitely doesn't seem like they want it for group play, so I dunno what its purpose is exactly.

I agree that the net gain should be much higher. When compared to New Moon Acolyte, which gives you an additional 401 WD/SD for a less drastic risk, Thrassian Stranglers would be completely inferior. With these changes, it would barely be better than the two sets you gave as an example, Julianos and Hunding's, in terms of net gain, and those two have no risk at all!

BTW thank you for the additional insight, it was helpful.

VioletDracolich · July 2020

Czekoludek wrote: »

Max 10 stacks, 80 sd/wd per stack, 2% increased damage taken per stack. Live iteration of Thrassians is fun but too op, this change would be good for balance without killing the Item. Also they lower stack number for siro and rele this patch, why not do the same for thrassians?

According to the developer comments they originally wanted the item to be high risk/high reward, which does appear to be their reasoning behind the high number of stacks. Well, that and they want fewer people to use them in trail settings apparently.

Myrddin1357 · July 2020

VioletDracolich wrote: »

The proposed changes to the mythic item Thrassian Stranglers as of v6.1.2, will 100% be the death of this item:

2. Ramp up the risk and reward:

This set was originally created to be a risk/reward set that inflicted you with such a high penalty that despite the power potential it offered, attaining it would be something you'd seldom want to keep.

This idea may be seen as death for the item as well, but hear me out. Make the item have a huge bonus to Weapon and Spell Damage, and also bring back the more damage and healing reduction per stack. However, increase the negatives per stack to 2% instead of 1%. What will this do? Well If fully stacked, you take 100% more damage, receive a 100% reduction in healing, and lowers shield efficiency by 100%. Heck, let's ramp it up even more! Make the maximum stack 69 instead of 50. Not only does this make the stranglers a meme, but also takes into account Major and Minor Buffs that may negate these negatives, like the Vitality or Protection buffs. This would 100% align with the original goal of the item and would make it to where players would seldom want to be at full stacks, having to remove them constantly for fear of their own safety. As long as the reward is big enough for players to want it, they'll still use the item, but it'll make them think about it now.

I like this idea. It fits the original intent (as per the description - awesome power but unattainable) the best. And it really makes the item unique and interesting. At full stacks the penalty should be prohibitively high (like getting 1 shot by just about everything in any vet content and no healer can do anything to protect you). If you are a god-like player who can avoid all damage, then, fair play, you get to use godlike powers. Everyone else has to manage stacks carefully and really take on risks to get a damage boost beyond other sets.

ZOS should have gone with this in the first place!

nsmurfer · July 2020

Problem with this item is it's binary nature. Either it is too good and everybody uses it. Or it is very limited in scope and hence not useful in most situations.

So it is either meta or niche with no middle ground. Problem is that us players, especially those of us did the extremely annoying grind for it, would prefer it to be meta rather than unused in most cases. ZOS on the other hand is adamant about keeping it niche instead as it created the fastest powercreep in DPS in the last 5 years.

Runefang · July 2020

nsmurfer wrote: »

Problem with this item is it's binary nature. Either it is too good and everybody uses it. Or it is very limited in scope and hence not useful in most situations.

So it is either meta or niche with no middle ground. Problem is that us players, especially those of us did the extremely annoying grind for it, would prefer it to be meta rather than unused in most cases. ZOS on the other hand is adamant about keeping it niche instead as it created the fastest powercreep in DPS in the last 5 years.

The problem with having the risk portion of the item only applying if players take damage is that the best players can avoid it in most PvE content. The only way to balance the item in PvE is either have it not work well in trials (balance in dungeons is generally ignored) or have the risk portion not be dependent on taking damage.

There's so many other negatives they could have used instead of/as well as:

Snare (imagine being stuck in place at max stacks)
Resource drain / increased skill cost
Health drain
Damage reflect (hard to balance between PvE and PvP though)
Summon a pet that taunts enemies so they attack you
Damage other group members (trolls would have fun)

katorga · July 2020

It is a dead set. There are lots of dead sets. There are lots of sets you spent a ton of effort getting that started good, got nerfed, and died. There are lots of formerly dead sets that get made good again. All it means is you use a different set.

Everything changes every three months.

You either keep it, and be happy if it gets made BIS some time in the future, or decon it to see what a mythic item decons for.

VioletDracolich · July 2020

The problem with having the risk portion of the item only applying if players take damage is that the best players can avoid it in most PvE content. The only way to balance the item in PvE is either have it not work well in trials (balance in dungeons is generally ignored) or have the risk portion not be dependent on taking damage.

There's so many other negatives they could have used instead of/as well as:
Snare (imagine being stuck in place at max stacks)

Resource drain / increased skill cost

Health drain

Damage reflect (hard to balance between PvE and PvP though)

Summon a pet that taunts enemies so they attack you

Damage other group members (trolls would have fun)

I'd also love for them to have done the snare instead

Asardes · July 2020

As of Stonethorn the name also changes to Trash Stranglers

Kadoin · August 2020

My opinion on the item: as long as it does not adhere to the damage-sustain relationship every other set and skill is balanced around, then it has the potential to be OP and will be OP. Even with the stacks and health loss, it will still have its place somewhere somehow that will make it broken given time...

ARCHIVE - need to say that to bring this post up and copy and paste it when what I say comes to pass. The search function on forums makes my head hurt

MJallday · August 2020

The live version of the gloves there is NOTHING wrong with

Good reward, high risk And loss of 5 pierce - -perfect

These pts changes mean no one will wear them. Noone

VioletDracolich · August 2020

MJallday wrote: »

The live version of the gloves there is NOTHING wrong with

Good reward, high risk And loss of 5 pierce - -perfect

These pts changes mean no one will wear them. Noone

I am sorry to tell you, but you're wrong. I use the stranglers for my high risk vampire build, and they give it too much power with literally no risk. If a stage 4 vampire who occassionally uses Shimmering Frenzy has literally no fear of death, then there is little risk to using them. Now imagine a group of people working together to minimize the little risk this set currently provides.

The developers want this item to provide a significant risk which is currently not the case. However, they're now wanting to give it too much risk for little to no actual reward. It needs to have risk with an appropriate reward, which neither the live or current pst versions provide.

MJallday · August 2020

VioletDracolich wrote: »

MJallday wrote: »

The live version of the gloves there is NOTHING wrong with

Good reward, high risk And loss of 5 pierce - -perfect

These pts changes mean no one will wear them. Noone

I am sorry to tell you, but you're wrong. I use the stranglers for my high risk vampire build, and they give it too much power with literally no risk. If a stage 4 vampire who occassionally uses Shimmering Frenzy has literally no fear of death, then there is little risk to using them. Now imagine a group of people working together to minimize the little risk this set currently provides.

The developers want this item to provide a significant risk which is currently not the case. However, they're now wanting to give it too much risk for little to no actual reward. It needs to have risk with an appropriate reward, which neither the live or current pst versions provide.

Whilst I don’t doubt this is the case in the wilds of auridon against mud crabs , this is not true against anything in a vet dlc dungeon or indeed any vet trial. You simply would not wear them (Also worth noting you are using b4b to aid your invulnerable status I assume)

Tanis-Stormbinder · August 2020

Tone down the damage per stack a bit and done! In future update come out with a stamina version everyone is happy. Stop hating on something new and fun to use!

VioletDracolich · August 2020

Whilst I don’t doubt this is the case in the wilds of auridon against mud crabs , this is not true against anything in a vet dlc dungeon or indeed any vet trial. You simply would not wear them (Also worth noting you are using b4b to aid your invulnerable status I assume)

Sorry to say, but I use the build in question all the time in vet content, and had recently completed Ruins of Mazzatun with a pug group while using the stranglers. It's was overall easy dungeon. Heck, I even use this build for Vet Maelstrom, it's great! However, since I used the stranglers so much I can 100% say that they're too good, and need a reasonable nerf to make it's power make since.

VioletDracolich · August 2020

Tanis-Stormbinder wrote: »

Tone down the damage per stack a bit and done! In future update come out with a stamina version everyone is happy. Stop hating on something new and fun to use!

See, that is what most people wanted, heck that simply of a change is okay with me even. However, that's not what ZoS wanted apparently so we're now giving feedback on what we think should be done. Critic isn't hate, well most of the time, it's a way to show what we think can be done to change something for the better.

usmcjdking · August 2020

This item should be completely reworked. It's not a bad idea, but the zero-sum game of PVE can literally min/max it into abusive territory - largely thanks to CP.

10 max stacks. Stacks should effectively do nothing positive until expended. -HP, -Shield Strength, Healing reduction should be the only thing passive stacks do. Stacks should expend on ultimate usage and provide 200 WD/SD per stack for 10 seconds after ultimate is expended. Just make it Balorghs 1.0.

VioletDracolich · August 2020

The recent change from 17 to 23 WD/SD is a welcome change in my book

Anyron · August 2020

They should increase stacks cap to 1000 and then reduce wd/SD to 1 per stack. Shield reduction should be at 100% to make sure its only used by stam.

Seriously, 50 stacks is really stupid. Make it 10 or 5 with wd/SD capped at 850

VioletDracolich · August 2020

Anyron wrote: »

They should increase stacks cap to 1000 and then reduce wd/SD to 1 per stack. Shield reduction should be at 100% to make sure its only used by stam.

Seriously, 50 stacks is really stupid. Make it 10 or 5 with wd/SD capped at 850

It now caps at 1150 wd/sd

Eiregirl · August 2020

No matter the game anytime there is a piece of gear that is overpowered players will find a way to maximize its use. How can developers not realize this and let items like this make it to the live servers is beyond my understanding but it happens in many games. Even when they are told it is a nice thought but a bad idea for the power structure of the game.

Thrassians are overpowered and everyone knows it and knew it during testing but they let it out on live anyway and now they want to tone it down to being just another piece of gear that gets put in a storage chest and forgotten because it is getting abused in trials.

Very simple if you don’t want them used to much in trials or cyro then make them so that once you enter a trial, cyro or a BG they become useless or make the penalty so harsh that very few if any would even want to attempt to use them.

As an example only - once you enter a trial double the penalty that is currently on live and reduce the reward by 40% and if that is not enough then increase the penalty more and reduce the reward more while in a trial but otherwise keep them as they are or slightly reduce their effectiveness for other parts of the game.

They should have gone the route with these items that many people wanted and made them cosmetic and/or useful for overland content only.

The fundamental flaw with items like this is that it is almost if not impossible to balance them without making them just another piece of gear.

Sahidom · August 2020

They should have stayed with the 30 stacks build-up curve and trimmed the SD/WD down. No less than 50 per stack so you have more meaningful benefits early and consistent.

The 1-hour timer is a stupid decision when a) the stacks reset on load screens, b) stealth or Invisibility resets stacks, or c) death. What will players most often experience? Load screens e.g. traveling, entering delves or dungeons, or anywhere else the server gifts you with a load screen. Why bother with a timer then?

Atleast show enough coding expertise where their persistent through traveling between zones, entering delves or dungeons, or wherever else you encounter a load screen. Food does this, so why is too difficult to have an item have its earned benefits stay persistent the same way? It would give more meaning to having a timer on stacks than;

But with each current stack reset condition, and with other reasons stated across the forums; the mythic item is more useless under 6.13.

They could have swapped the penalties without changing the actual benefit since players are forced to encounter a stack reset through normal game play. Not to mention the item current and PTS excludes classes and game play.