Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Funny thing is, by increasing the pen instead of the dmg they made it more of a tank set.

I'm not sure why they don't just accept it and make it a full on heavy armor set with tank bonuses.

This is the first issue about Alkosh from and endgamer optimization point of view:

Alkosh put a plain debuff on the enemy which increase the DPS of all the team by lowering target armor but, per se, it doesn't help the wearer dealing more damage so it will always be a better option to put it on a support role instead.

This not only happens with Alkosh, similiar other sets are:

• Infallible Aether (used by healers once, now by nobody since the same effect can be obtained by a class skill of the Warden)
• Roaring Opportunist (used by healers)
• Powerful Assault (used by tanks while it's intended as PvP set since it gives both health, stam and weapon damage)
• Elemental Catalyst (often used by tanks, only used by DD if the tank can't use it because it's wearing something else already)
• Zen (often used by healers even if this actually works a little better on a DD, a mdk in most cases)

In the end the issue is always the same:

Why should a DD give up a full item set buff (such as siroria) to use RO when the healer can use it with the same effectiveness?

At the moment there is no answer to this, there is actually no benefit in doing otherwise and this is the real reason why DD don't use these sets while tanks/healers have to pick between their own role sets + DD ones (often having even too many options).

Also, when it comes to tanks, this is also helps destroying the "proper" armor weight system (which should be revisited imho): A tank should not be able to tank in medium/light armor just like a DD is not able to deal damage in heavy but at the moment it's actually better to give an off tank PA (medium) in a trial + WC (or another light/medium armor set).

Anyway all buffing/debuffing sets that works not only on the user should be reserved for Tanks/healers while the DD should get anything "selfish" but stronger working on him alone (in most circumstances at least). It's not players fault if these sets are not used by DD but rather bad design; these sets works better on a support role since no DD is required to "give up" some of his damage to wear these.

Furthermore even if alkosh would give 100k Pen and, assume, only usable by a stamDD (proc condition should change into something only a DD can do reliably; everyone can pop a syn) it will still be most likely useless on a trial group given the pen nowadays. Most groups don't use alkosh anymore even on their tanks because no extra pen is needed. Increase the Damage (doesn't mean necessary to have bigger numbers) if you want DD to use it, change the proc condition to something a tank can hardly do (when you deal critical direct damage for example) with a very short effect (3 secs or so) with a 1 sec cooldown.

A tank would hardly/never be able to crit every 2-3 secs, while a PVE DD could proc it very often (they usually have 70%+ crit rate) obtaining a very high debuff uptime but also pushing a lot of damage (the first blow would hit many more times while the DoT and debuff would simply refresh).

This should probably be adjusted (set could be too strong while selfish ones should always be a tad better) but I believe this is the concept such sets should work.

At the moment DD using EC, Zen, MK etc. are called "buff ***" because they give up so much damage in order to keep the buffs up (no siroria, no medusa/mother's sorrow, etc.).

The typical example is the MDK "buff *** setup" (Zen+MK) but this is only used when Healers are busy with other sets; otherwise Zen+MK will fall on one of them as you just get a better result.

The issue with alkosh and why dps don't use it is the damage. Not the pen. The pen was fine especially with the new set coming. The damage has been the issue.

There's nothing wrong with having tanks and healers wearing support sets. Actually there are more useful support sets than it's possible for the support players to wear, hence you still tend to have one or two 'buff ***' DDs, say a necro wearing EC or a DK in zen. I don't really see why people get so hung up about Alkosh being a medium armor set either, you can still wear jewels and a weapon, and tanks sometimes wear EC which is light and has even fewer tanking related bonuses than Alkosh. Some of the interest of the game is using sets in ways other than what they were originally envisaged, using the wrong weights (I mean some of it must be deliberate on the part of ZoS to limit set combinations, otherwise why on earth would AY have been made a heavy set? Or medusa for that matter, though that one at least originated as a heavy set that just had all its bonuses changed.)

The only problem with both Alkosh and the new set is that they are only needed by stamina groups (in pve at least), but nobody runs stamina groups, in part because they need these sets because their penetration sucks. It's a catch 22.

axi wrote: »

Good start with buffing those sets would be adding perfected versions of them. And moondancer would see influx in use if proc wouldn't be random but based for example on remaining magicka (above 50% spell dmg buff under 50% mag regen buff).

Yep, I agree that the lack of a perfected version is the main problem. Add a line of Spell Crit to the MD 5pc, and Weapon Crit to the Alkosh 5pc and they’d see a lot more use on DD’s.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Everyone talking about Alkosh and doing the same thing that the OP is lamenting - completely forgetting about Moondancer!

As it stands, there's a 50/50 chance that you're going to get the resource proc, which is kind of useless in even remotely optimized trials. It's not worth taking the chance that you MAY get the spell damage, when you can just run better damage sets to begin with.

People used to run it back in the day, because there weren't that many sets in the game, compared to now. They would have to rework the set to make it viable.

Currently, they seem so DETERMINED to force alkosh on to dps for some reason.

hackdrag0n wrote: »

50/50 is the main issue for sure. You don't need that sustain in 12 man content, maybe something like crit damage as the alternate idk. Perfected stuff would be nice but it's only 2% or so extra damage on a set that's already lackluster compared to any of the meta options.

Oh, now that's a spicy idea!

Having the two blessings provide either Spell Damage or Spell Critical/Critical Damage would mean that you're receiving a useful benefit no matter which side of the dice roll you that you happen to land on.