Let's put aside for a second the fact that proc sets in general are out of balance with stat sets. I think most people already agree on that. What I think is
very strange is that proc sets aren't even balanced against
each other.
The general balance seems to be tooltips of around 1400-1600 damage per second from most proc sets depending on the type of damage and proc condition. Unfathomable does 1605, Venomous Smite does 1494, Caluurion does 1420 etc. There are a few outliers such as Pillar of Nirn that does 2830 or Pestilent Host that can do 3120 but anyone who has used those sets knows they're pretty unreliable and they're not an issue. Clearly at least
some thought has gone into how the proc is applied. Do you have to go close to apply it like Unfathomable? Okay, sure, do a little more damage. Is it AOE or burst damage? Okay, have a little less DPS. Do you not have complete control over who the proc hits (Red Mountain)? Fine, you can live on the upper end of the scale.
Then let's take a look at where things start to get a
little questionable. Icy Conjurer does 2120 DPS. It can be applied from range, you can control who it goes on, it can be used with Malacath etc. It has a 10 second cooldown, it's a little higher than the general balance of procs but whatever. If Magicka was stronger in general it would probably be an issue but it's not. Then you look at Vateshran Destro... it's almost like a better version of Icy Conjurer. 2371 DPS but I guess you could argue that having to stay in range for the beam and having to slot an ability (albeit a very useful and free one) could factor into why it gets a higher damage budget.
Then you get to the
WHAT!? territory. Unleashed Terror and Merciless Charge. Let's take a look at what these guys do:
- Unleashed does 1973 DPS, Merciless Charge does 2006
- Both of them can be affected by Malacath
- Both of them can be used AOE via Stampede
- Unleashed has a cooldown per target and you can get 100% uptime on it
- Merciless charge has no cooldown and the ground AOE from Stampede continually reapplies it
A single target, non-burst proc like Icy Conjurer and Vateshran Destro makes sense to have a higher DPS budget. Honestly, I just mentioned them to build up to the elephants in the room.
What I don't understand is why Unleashed and Merciless Charge get such a high damage budget. They do 25% more damage than the average proc. It's like wearing Malacath without having to wear Malacath... oh and you can also wear Malacath. The proc is AOE, it has per-target or no cooldown. You could maybe make an argument for these guys doing 1600 DPS because you have to slot an ability to use them
and you mostly have to get close to apply them. But when you combine that with the fact that they're AOE with negligible cooldowns, they should
really be sitting at 1400 by ZOS' own balancing standards.
And to be clear, I use one or both of these sets in just about all my battleground builds on Stamsorc. But I'm under no illusions that these sets are in any way balanced. So as an Unleashed/vMA 2h (ab)user I say... please change Merciless Charge to ~7000 damage over 5 seconds and Unleashed to ~14000 over 10 seconds. It just makes sense.
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