Having some struggle. - Advice? Insight?

Jameson18 · October 2020

How do people have such great tanky-ness while ripping out 6-7k hits and 10-12k ultis?

I've gotten over 6k wep dmg and 10k pen and never seen a 10k+ ulti. Although I did manage an 11k executioner one time.

The rundown:

I've only been playing since March. Currently at 670cp.

I feel like its shred or get shredded about 30% of the time. Another 40% of the time is just straight getting shredded by a mag sorc, bomber or ganker blade, or a stamplar with 6k jab ticks and 12k dawnbreakers. Without being able to damage them. The remaining time +/- the time of day etc. seems "normal" combat. I won't even bring up the proc set thing. It's kind of beside the point.

I've been working on scaling back aggression in combat. Paying more attention to the enemy's actions and my blocking and dodging is making great strides.

I'm finally starting to not save my ultimate so much. Using it more offensively or in combos. Bar swapping, muscle memory or rotation/combo memory is built in on the builds on different toons.

Playing-wise, it seems to be coming together. Experience is being gained and applied and so on. So, the obvious curve is there, but should at some point round off.

I find that if I build for survival, i won't be able to bring a target down. At least not an experienced one with a good build.

If I crank the damage up, it feels like pure glass. But boy oh boy do I shred some folks.

Until you run into a decent alliance ranked 810. I've had up to 6.5kwep dmg on a build with 40% crit. Not a dent. Turns around and annihilates me.

In working on this i've found that weapon/spell damage seem to be the highest source of output as it inflates. However, in doing so, you tend to hinder your resources and hp by comparison. Is higher max stam better than weapon damage? Am I investing too much into recovery and damage?

Current build variations i'm testing have been running around 2k recovery and 27-29k max stam. 25-29k hp.

Is high weapon damage + vigor really that much survivability? I see people say "keep vigor up at all times". How are people able to do this without running out of resources?

Last night's example;

Heavy armor build test. 5k wep dmg. Malacath. 30k resists, 1.5k health recovery, 2k stam recovery, 28k hp. 28k stam.

Stamplar810 X, and Stam DK810 Y, roll in and attack my buddy and I. (Stam sorc. 590cp - EV/NMA 2h maul/master bow - I'm on my stamcro 670cp - NMA/Mal/Hvy Orgnum 2h maul/BRP bow)

Can't do squat. Hitting them for maybe 3k. Might have landed a 5k dawny in there. Target focusing, could get a guy to half health here and there but then they heal to full. Running dry most the fight, scrambling to stay up and keep pressuring. They don't seem to flinch. Always enough juice to break free or dodge. Every hit feels like a brick to the face.

Stamplar turns at one point and annihilates both of us. 6-7k jab ticks, 11k dawnbreaker. Some 6-7k d swings from the DK in there, and 12k executioner.

Is this a balorgh ulti dump?

Is there something else?

What am I missing?

Recapitated · October 2020

Was the fight long enough to rule out 500 ult Balorgh?

Jameson18 · October 2020

Recapitated wrote: »

Was the fight long enough to rule out 500 ult Balorgh?

I'm assuming in that particular instance its possible we were probably facing 500 ult Balorgh dumps.

Fights weren't really that long though tbh. Kept going back at them just to see if they were able to consistently do it and it happened pretty much every time. Short fights and long fights.

Recapitated · October 2020

Did it feel like they weren't hitting very hard except for when that burst came or were they pressuring you pretty much constantly? A big Balorgh tooltip gives you all the stats you need to burst someone down even if you're wearing tank sets I think.

To answer your question, 100 WD hits as hard as 1050 stam. Since the set bonuses are usually 129wd vs 1096 stam, that alone makes WD the better damage stat. Add major brutality, minor if you have access, and the Agility passive from medium armor and yes, you get much more out of building for WD.

(Also you may want to link to this thread so you don't derail the templar one)

Jameson18 · October 2020

It was total a**beat the entire time.

It's not particularly templar specific on the overall. That's just the most recent consistent example. The Stam DK with him had 35k hp and was dizzy popping for 6-7k consistently. Think we saw a 10k leap in there. Definitely a couple 11-12k executioners.

I've been seeing the; Basically can't hurt them at all, while they hit for 2-4 times what I do; thing, pretty much since Greymoore range. Although, I didn't spend quite as much time on it prior to Greymoore release.

Stonethorn actually made it worse. Before Stonethorn, it was there, but manageable.

I'm guessing its item and timing related. I don't have a balorgh myself, so it's hard to say. Perhaps I'll go get one this weekend. Perhaps I'm lacking penetration. But the more I build for damage and pen, the less survivability I have. So that doesn't answer the question either.

Waffennacht · October 2020

OW CP?

Dont forget the cyrodill passives if OW.

Adds to potentially

10% Wpn spell dmg, 20% recovery stacks
250-300 Wpn dmg
20% healing
+ keep bonuses like 5% wpn dmg and additional health

CP allocation is important as well.

(Somethings to keep in mind outside of builds and ults)

Alchemist, Balorgh are both common burst sets to be paired with Malacath that could potentially explain damage increases.

Corrosive armor and other abilities that nullify resistance could be at play too

fred4 · October 2020

I've been there and I wish I could answer this. I can't, but I can speculate. I've been up against people whose damage output fluctuated wildly. Alchemist + Balorgh came to mind. On the flip-side my own buff state may have also varied and I had quite different resistances between my two bars in the fight I'm thinking of.

There is a damage bonus after a 2H heavy attack. There is also off balance. There are sets like Titanborn, although it doesn't sound like that's what they were running. There is Simmering Fremzy, the vampire skill, which operates outside of the GCD as far as I'm aware. You can toggle it on momentarily, although for me personally and with lag-prone servers, I discarded this option after trying it.

Some people are hyper-aware of not just their own rotation, but yours too. They may track whether your have ultimate ready and they will certainly track whether you're CC immune or not. There is a video by Nefas, which opened my eyes to just how exacting people can get in duels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6DiGQZ105Y

Aside from this there is the unsavoury topic of cheats and exploits. There was a way, at the beginning of the current patch, to permanently gain Major Protection and some other buffs. This has been fixed on PC. I assume it has also been fixed on consoles by now. I only know this, because I discovered and reported it to ZOS myself. In retrospect I know that I wasn't the only one, but people get very opaque in the forums about stuff like this, because it is against the TOS to spell out exploits. They ninja-fixed this one on PC without mentioning it in the patch notes.