Let's Discuss Medium v. Light

Nybling · July 2021

Alright, so let's just take a basic overview of what Light versus Medium armor will look like should nothing be changed in 7.1.0:

Penetration -- 6,573 (7 pieces light) vs. 0 (7 pieces medium)
Medium can use the Lover Mundus stone to obtain 4,491 Penetration with all 7 pieces being legendary with Divines. So even gearing up with the best quality of item and working to get all set pieces in Divines, Medium still has a gap to close here.

Critical Hit -- 1,533 (7 pieces light) vs. 0 (7 pieces medium)
I think we have seen enough discussion surrounding this.

Critical Hit Damage & Healing -- 0% (7 pieces light) vs. 14% (7 pieces medium)
This looks like a big win for Medium right? Heh, let's look at The Shadow mundus stone since the vast majority of magicka builds run this. With 7 pieces of Divines all at Legendary quality, Light Armor gets 18% Critical Hit Damage & Healing.

I think there's a couple possible solutions that can be looked at here:

Change Dexterity to give 1.5/3% critical damage and healing per piece of Medium. At 6 pieces of Medium, this will provide the same bonus as someone with 7 Light with Divines upped With 7 pieces of Medium equipped, it would give the wearer more benefit than someone just using a Mundus stone.
Buff the Lover Mundus stone to have a default value of 3844 Penetration. With maxed out divines, this would put the total Penetration value at 6293. Still lower than what Light Armor has, but enough of a gap closer that people can have a bit more variety in the types of weapons they want to use as well.

YandereGirlfriend · July 2021

This hybridization approach will continue to run into roadblocks since ~75% of the game's sets (e.g. anything that is not Crafted) are already locked into one of the three weights.

However, this could be easily circumvented by allowing players to use the Sticker Book to reconstruct their known set pieces in ANY weight that they liked.

Then you could meaningfully use "off-weight" armors on any types of characters are fully benefit from the hybridization campaign that has begun in recent patches.

FlamingBeard · July 2021

Medium still gives free bonus Weapon Damage, and now Spell Damage as well.

I don't agree with the changes because they don't make sense, but Medium armor will be absolutely fine even if the changes go to Live, especially given the fact that it is also the only armor type without any "penalty" passives.

BattleAxe · July 2021

At first I was definitely not thrilled with what I read initially with this but after some number crunching this isn’t so bad. Ya it sucks I’m going to have to change out of one of my sets I was enjoying in order to make up and actually gain more crit chance than I lost.

ExistingRug61 · July 2021

OP, it looks like you are trying to compare the LA and MA passives to the mundus to show if there is a difference in the "value" of the armour passives compared to the mundus stones, as the mundus stones can be used to get whichever stat you "don't have". However, if you are to take this approach it is worth considering all the dps bonuses from each armour line, as individual passives aren't worth the same even within a line.

ie:

7x LA
LA Penetration: 6573
Lover with 7 divines: 4491
Passive "worth": 6573/4491 = 1.46

LA Crit: 7%
Thief with 7 divines: 9.9%
Passive "worth": 7/9.9 = 0.71

Total: 2.17

7x MA
MA Crit Damage: 14%
Shadow with 7 divines: 18%
Passive "worth": 14/18 = 0.78

MA Damage: 14%
Warrior/Apprentice with 7 divines: 389
Can't compare these directly so if we instead compare the marginal gain of each:
Without the medium armour bonus, builds generally have a multiplier of somewhere around 1.3-1.4 on weap/spell damage, 7 medium adds 0.14 to this, which is a 10-11% increase.
Comparatively, warrior/apprentice adds 389 base spell/weap damage. A stam build may have something like 4.5k base weap damage (base + gold weap + jewellery glyphs + damage race + courage + infused power) so the mundus is something like an ~8-9% increase.
Comparing these increases (using an average for each), Passive "worth": 10.5/8.5 = 1.23

Total: 2.01

So sure, MA damage bonus look a bit behind LA if we examine them using ZOS's standard worths (using the mundus as a baseline), but not to the degree you are indicating by comparing MA crit damage passive directly to LA's penetration passive.
If anything, MA crit damage passive is quite well balanced with LA crit chance passive, both at 0.7-0.8 of a mundus with 7 divines, and a better comparison for LA pen passive is to MA damage passive as these are both the "bigger value" passive. As I said this does still favour LA, but only slightly.

Now, that is all assuming that ZOS's stat worth values are balanced, which is definitely debateable, especially in the case of pen and to a lesser extent crit chance. This is due to pen being easily the best damage stat if you don't have enough, but worthless if you do. Combined with the fact that LA can easily get "enough" but MA can't this leads to build issues for Stam, which is what I am inferring is the actual issue/motivation behind the post.

Now, using the above to consider the proposed solutions:

Increasing MA crit damage passive from 1/2 to 1.5/3.
Issues:
Firstly, I believe crit damage has to be integer values and rounds down if not (see the change to divines a while back that ensure divines always added exactly 1% crit damage, not part of a percentage)). So 1.5% may not be viable.
Secondly, while what I put above does show MA being a bit behind LA, this proposed change would actually send it too far the other way. It would increase the worth of the MA passives to 2.79 of a mundus with 7 divines making the comparison 2.17 vs 2.79 instead of the current 2.17 vs 2.01.

Increase Lover mundus to a base of 3844 or 6293 with 7 divines.
Issues:
Firstly, this change breaks the "set worth rules" of the relative value of the mundus stone as it makes the lover a disproportionately strong mundus. (Sure, they already did tis to a small degree with the regen mundus but thats a slightly separate argument).
Secondly, provided you are not overpenetrating, Lover is already hands down the best mundus for damage. This is often the case in PvP. So this change would make what is often already the strongest mundus in that setting for damage and give it a further buff.

Possible alternatives to the above:

Add more flexible options for Stam to get penetration from other build sources where LA users normally get spell damage or crit damage, to allow stam to make up the pen deficit for the same opportunity cost the mag uses to make up the damage and crit damage deficit. Possible options include slottable CP for pen and crit chance to compete with the crit damage slottable, or jewellery glyphs for crit chance, pen and crit damage to compete with the damage glyphs. Provided these choices are balanced in the same way, this would allow both stam and mag to reach the same stat distribution, just in a different way.

Alternatively, somehow remove Stams reliance on Relequen (without reducing stams DPS) to give stam more flexibility set choice and how it gets the damage stats it doesn't get from armour.

Neither of the above are really changin gthe balance between LA and MA, rather they would make it easier for each to get the "missing" stat without getting pigeonholed into a specific setup. (which is boring)

If balance between the two armour lines is found to need adjusting, ie possibly the LA pen passive is a little too strong - then perhaps this could simply be reduced a little bit - but problems with changing this is how important being at the right pen value is and this upsets that balance, plus players don't like nerfs and many consider LA to already be sub-par in PvP.

A more drastic action would be to completely remove LA pen passive entirely and replace it with some other damage affecting bonus, such as +X% mag and stam perhaps. This would be more straightforward to balance against mediums weapon/spell damage passive (while also benefitting heals and shields, so yay healers) in comparison to pen. Plus it would mean both mag dps and stam dps have the same starting point for pen which would mean mag dps may also become dependent on support to reach pen cap just like stam, somewhat equalising the dependence on support between mag and stam (and mixed) groups.
A side effect downside of this approach is it would completely nerf damage procs for mag in comparison to stam. Not really and endgame PvE thing, but relevant for PvP and more casual play. While this could be addressed with proc scaling of both damage and stat, at this point we are just snowballing changes.

Grandchamp1989 · July 2021

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

This hybridization approach will continue to run into roadblocks since ~75% of the game's sets (e.g. anything that is not Crafted) are already locked into one of the three weights.

However, this could be easily circumvented by allowing players to use the Sticker Book to reconstruct their known set pieces in ANY weight that they liked.

Then you could meaningfully use "off-weight" armors on any types of characters are fully benefit from the hybridization campaign that has begun in recent patches.

This is a great idea.

I will say I think the armor bonuses are.. off.

Mag already spec for max crit chance (mother's etc) so they should have the crit DAMAGE in their sets
Stam struggle to balance crit chance and penetration so they should have the crit CHANCE in their sets

That way stam can focus on penetration since they don't have to worry about weapon/spell dmg like mag does.

Then I think it would be perfect.

NupidStoob · July 2021

I really dislike posts like this cause they are obviously biased with OP trying to steer the discussion into a clear direction.

First of all you are not making clear that you are addressing only PvE. Secondly you conveniently ignore medium buffs such as weapon damage. Thirdly you are misinformed about current meta and claim that the vast majority of magicka builds run shadow mundus which is just not true. Everyone runs thief unless you have around 70% crit without a mundus which does not happen anymore unless you run Dusa MS, but why would anyone bother with that when Bahsei exists.

MashmalloMan · July 2021

The comparison op makes sucks and isn't 1:1.

The only math you needed to do was compare daggers to axes and thief to shadow. Those 2 comparisons show a trade of +60-70% value when going from Crit Chance to Crit Damage.

With that in mind, going from 1% Crit Chance on LA to 2% Crit Damage on MA is an increase of +100%.

This shows MA more than offers a fair, and even substantial boost in value for the changes. Issues regarding PvE, Crit Chance reliance and penetration reliance are fair points but by no means show an argument to be made for a required buff to MA for 3% Crit Damage. The math simply doesn't add up.

You also wouldn't trade thief for lover since you can cover penetration issues via the numerous penetration debuffs sets now. Alkosh was buffed from 3000 to 6000, the new set adds another 3500 and tremorscale still exists.

While mag is using sets like mother's sorrow, Stam has Advancing Yokeda.. a much stronger Crit set that carries its buff to your back bar. Then there is dw and bows for more innate Crit chance.

Mag may get high parses using melee weapons, but they're meta because they have great aoe DPS and can fight from range so odds are, you're usually going to use a staff, which just so happens to have been buffed this patch.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · July 2021

Light gloves and sash have less than 660 armor each. When 1% martial attack is applied, these items end up having negative armor against physical damage. This is fundamentally broken and should never go below 0 unless you're wearing gloves and sash made of knife sharpening material.

mzprx · July 2021

so... do i understand it correctly that Medium Armour is going to lose its Critical rating and will get Critical damage instead? meaning i will lose 1318 Crit. and get X Crit. damage? and all that Crit. chance will go to the Light Armour passive (Prodigy)? sorry for silly questions but i have issues understanding written text sometimes..

Septimus_Magna · July 2021

Simply put LA offers penetration and critical chance, MA offers weapon dmg and critical dmg.

Without looking at the values the most useful stat lines in the game are penetration (up to the pen cap) and critical chance.
In order for MA to win the values have to be high enough to compensate for the less effective stat lines.
Comparing it to Mundus values gives a good indication but there's a reason basically everyone runs the Thief.

Its nice that mixing gear weights becomes more beneficial for DDs but my overall feeling is that stam is losing out because its missing penetration and crit chance.

MudcrabAttack · July 2021

Before and after the change, that’s all you really need to compare

7 light armor before and after is the same result to a mage

7 medium armor - lose 7%crit rating, gain 14% crit damage multiplier

That sucks, like a 3% overall damage loss for stamina in 7 medium since crit% > crit damage

Oops I misread it, not much loss it seems since it’s losing 7% instead of 14%. Might be a small gain

Stamina could wear some light armor to make up part of the difference and gain some penetration, trading off weapon damage

WrathOfInnos · July 2021

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Simply put LA offers penetration and critical chance, MA offers weapon dmg and critical dmg.

Without looking at the values the most useful stat lines in the game are penetration (up to the pen cap) and critical chance.
In order for MA to win the values have to be high enough to compensate for the less effective stat lines.
Comparing it to Mundus values gives a good indication but there's a reason basically everyone runs the Thief.

Its nice that mixing gear weights becomes more beneficial for DDs but my overall feeling is that stam is losing out because its missing penetration and crit chance.

I don’t believe Stam will really be missing Crit Chance compared to Mag. Daggers alone more than make up the 5% difference from Armor passives (6-1 vs 1-6 light/medium means 5% gap). Bows also get 6% crit as a passive. Sets give Stam more crit, starting with trial sets: Relequen giving 6% weapon crit, while Bahsei only gives 3% Spell Crit and Siroria gives none. Bahsei/Rele are typically paired with a front bar crit set, and in this role AY outperforms Medusa or Mother’s Sorrow by about 5% crit chance.

For further evidence that the armor changes help balance Crit Chance across Stamina and Magicka, we can look at one interesting and extreme example. Hypothetically, let’s say two generic classes (nothing with crit bonuses like Nightblade or Necro) want to build maximum crit chance next patch. The Magicka build would wear Medusa + Sorrow + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit 95.3% crit chance with daggers (giving up all useful weapon skills). The Stamina build would wear Advancing Yokeda + Tzogvin’s + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit the exact same 95.3% crit chance with daggers.

Now if they wanted to play ranged then the Magicka build would drop to 87.8% with a staff and the Stamina build would be at 93.8% with a bow. Additionally the Stamina build in all cases would keep more crit on back bar, since the 11% crit on AY’s 5pc carries over for 5s, while the 4% crit on Medusa’s 5pc is lost immediately.

Note: I could have used Dragonguard Elite for the comparison since it gives 1.5% more crit than Tzogvin, allowing up to 96.8% crit, but Tzog seemed more fair because it gives Minor Force like Medusa. Medusa is also a heavy set that must be front barred, which mirrors Advancing Yokeda’s weight and build restrictions.

yoo_mr_white · July 2021

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Simply put LA offers penetration and critical chance, MA offers weapon dmg and critical dmg.

Without looking at the values the most useful stat lines in the game are penetration (up to the pen cap) and critical chance.
In order for MA to win the values have to be high enough to compensate for the less effective stat lines.
Comparing it to Mundus values gives a good indication but there's a reason basically everyone runs the Thief.

Its nice that mixing gear weights becomes more beneficial for DDs but my overall feeling is that stam is losing out because its missing penetration and crit chance.

I don’t believe Stam will really be missing Crit Chance compared to Mag. Daggers alone more than make up the 5% difference from Armor passives (6-1 vs 1-6 light/medium means 5% gap). Bows also get 6% crit as a passive. Sets give Stam more crit, starting with trial sets: Relequen giving 6% weapon crit, while Bahsei only gives 3% Spell Crit and Siroria gives none. Bahsei/Rele are typically paired with a front bar crit set, and in this role AY outperforms Medusa or Mother’s Sorrow by about 5% crit chance.

For further evidence that the armor changes help balance Crit Chance across Stamina and Magicka, we can look at one interesting and extreme example. Hypothetically, let’s say two generic classes (nothing with crit bonuses like Nightblade or Necro) want to build maximum crit chance next patch. The Magicka build would wear Medusa + Sorrow + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit 95.3% crit chance with daggers (giving up all useful weapon skills). The Stamina build would wear Advancing Yokeda + Tzogvin’s + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit the exact same 95.3% crit chance with daggers.

Now if they wanted to play ranged then the Magicka build would drop to 87.8% with a staff and the Stamina build would be at 93.8% with a bow. Additionally the Stamina build in all cases would keep more crit on back bar, since the 11% crit on AY’s 5pc carries over for 5s, while the 4% crit on Medusa’s 5pc is lost immediately.

Note: I could have used Dragonguard Elite for the comparison since it gives 1.5% more crit than Tzogvin, allowing up to 96.8% crit, but Tzog seemed more fair because it gives Minor Force like Medusa. Medusa is also a heavy set that must be front barred, which mirrors Advancing Yokeda’s weight and build restrictions.

Yes this is correct mag has to makeup for lost crit chance thanks to a lack of weapons that provide that as a passive. But they get twice as much pen, a more important stat I might add, as Stam does. So now light armour gives the two most important offensive stats in PvE and Stam is stuck with the two worst ones.

Maybe if Stam were more on par with mag in endgame PvE I'd agree this change is necessary. Hell give the light armour the crit chance I don't care, just don't take it away from medium armour.

Milli_Rabbit · July 2021

Nybling wrote: »

Alright, so let's just take a basic overview of what Light versus Medium armor will look like should nothing be changed in 7.1.0:

Penetration -- 6,573 (7 pieces light) vs. 0 (7 pieces medium)
Medium can use the Lover Mundus stone to obtain 4,491 Penetration with all 7 pieces being legendary with Divines. So even gearing up with the best quality of item and working to get all set pieces in Divines, Medium still has a gap to close here.

Critical Hit -- 1,533 (7 pieces light) vs. 0 (7 pieces medium)
I think we have seen enough discussion surrounding this.

Critical Hit Damage & Healing -- 0% (7 pieces light) vs. 14% (7 pieces medium)
This looks like a big win for Medium right? Heh, let's look at The Shadow mundus stone since the vast majority of magicka builds run this. With 7 pieces of Divines all at Legendary quality, Light Armor gets 18% Critical Hit Damage & Healing.

I think there's a couple possible solutions that can be looked at here:
Change Dexterity to give 1.5/3% critical damage and healing per piece of Medium. At 6 pieces of Medium, this will provide the same bonus as someone with 7 Light with Divines upped With 7 pieces of Medium equipped, it would give the wearer more benefit than someone just using a Mundus stone.

Buff the Lover Mundus stone to have a default value of 3844 Penetration. With maxed out divines, this would put the total Penetration value at 6293. Still lower than what Light Armor has, but enough of a gap closer that people can have a bit more variety in the types of weapons they want to use as well.

No changes are necessary. Stamina already hits 112k on PTS with 7 medium. Pen cap is easier to hit in PTS as well so honestly the bonus for light armor is useless outside maybe solo content.

yoo_mr_white · July 2021

Milli_Rabbit wrote: »

Nybling wrote: »

Alright, so let's just take a basic overview of what Light versus Medium armor will look like should nothing be changed in 7.1.0:

Penetration -- 6,573 (7 pieces light) vs. 0 (7 pieces medium)
Medium can use the Lover Mundus stone to obtain 4,491 Penetration with all 7 pieces being legendary with Divines. So even gearing up with the best quality of item and working to get all set pieces in Divines, Medium still has a gap to close here.

Critical Hit -- 1,533 (7 pieces light) vs. 0 (7 pieces medium)
I think we have seen enough discussion surrounding this.

Critical Hit Damage & Healing -- 0% (7 pieces light) vs. 14% (7 pieces medium)
This looks like a big win for Medium right? Heh, let's look at The Shadow mundus stone since the vast majority of magicka builds run this. With 7 pieces of Divines all at Legendary quality, Light Armor gets 18% Critical Hit Damage & Healing.

I think there's a couple possible solutions that can be looked at here:
Change Dexterity to give 1.5/3% critical damage and healing per piece of Medium. At 6 pieces of Medium, this will provide the same bonus as someone with 7 Light with Divines upped With 7 pieces of Medium equipped, it would give the wearer more benefit than someone just using a Mundus stone.

Buff the Lover Mundus stone to have a default value of 3844 Penetration. With maxed out divines, this would put the total Penetration value at 6293. Still lower than what Light Armor has, but enough of a gap closer that people can have a bit more variety in the types of weapons they want to use as well.

No changes are necessary. Stamina already hits 112k on PTS with 7 medium. Pen cap is easier to hit in PTS as well so honestly the bonus for light armor is useless outside maybe solo content.

How is the pen cap easier to hit in 7.1? Didn't they leave that the same for the most part outside of adding offensive pen to la passive?

Jameson18 · July 2021

yoo_mr_white wrote: »

How is the pen cap easier to hit in 7.1? Didn't they leave that the same for the most part outside of adding offensive pen to la passive?

Major Breach: 5,948
Minor Breach/Sunder: 2,974
1pc Light Armor: 939
CP Pen: 700
Infused Crusher: 2,108
Total: 12,705

That leaves only(?) 5,495 armor left over to find penetration for. Which basically will now get taken out with Alkosh's update.

Correct?

yoo_mr_white · July 2021

Jameson18 wrote: »

yoo_mr_white wrote: »

How is the pen cap easier to hit in 7.1? Didn't they leave that the same for the most part outside of adding offensive pen to la passive?

Major Breach: 5,948
Minor Breach/Sunder: 2,974
1pc Light Armor: 939
CP Pen: 700
Infused Crusher: 2,108
Total: 12,705

That leaves only(?) 5,495 armor left over to find penetration for. Which basically will now get taken out with Alkosh's update.

Correct?

Ok alkosh got buffed, I suppose that makes it easier to obtain pen in trials. Assuming you get in a trial with more Stam than mag. You won't find many groups like this unless you join a Stam core.

Why run alkosh when there are more mag characters than Stam ones?

And not for nothing but there's a lot more to PvE than trials. Solo play is where Stam really feels that Pen loss. Which was made up for by having extra crit chance.

Now I will have even lower crit before I get to the pen cap.

Abyssmol · July 2021

I'm currently running 3 lights, 3 heavy, and 1 medium on my mag Templar. Next patch I'll be running 3 LA, 3 MA, and 1 heavy. I can't wait!!!

BattleAxe · July 2021

Jameson18 wrote: »

yoo_mr_white wrote: »

How is the pen cap easier to hit in 7.1? Didn't they leave that the same for the most part outside of adding offensive pen to la passive?

Major Breach: 5,948
Minor Breach/Sunder: 2,974
1pc Light Armor: 939
CP Pen: 700
Infused Crusher: 2,108
Total: 12,705

That leaves only(?) 5,495 armor left over to find penetration for. Which basically will now get taken out with Alkosh's update.

Correct?

Major breach:5948
Minor breach:2974
Infuse torugs crusher:2740
Tremorscale:2395
COR: 3541
Total 17598

Overall a tank running Torugs tremorscale and COR will allow stam to hit pen cap with only cpr passive. Instances when necessity demands alkosh can cover almost 2 of these armor shreds.

UnassumingNoob · July 2021

I think the biggest point missed is group make up (PVE wise). Two tanks and two healers is 8 total buff or debuff sets. It behooves raid leaders to stack into one form of damage (Magica or stamina) and buff the bejesus out of that spec. Mag doesn’t really need any pen sets to hit effective damage. So the healers and tanks can spec fully into damage buffs. If you bring Stam into that group without Alkosh etc then they are severely under pen. Conversely if your run pen debuff sets you will be running into redundancy when Magica dps is concerned. Mechanics favor ranged dps.

Simple solution is Stam should hit substantially harder than mag so they can earn a spot in trials again. Balance PVP accordingly.

ajkb78 · July 2021

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

OP, it looks like you are trying to compare the LA and MA passives to the mundus to show if there is a difference in the "value" of the armour passives compared to the mundus stones, as the mundus stones can be used to get whichever stat you "don't have". However, if you are to take this approach it is worth considering all the dps bonuses from each armour line, as individual passives aren't worth the same even within a line.

ie:

7x LA
LA Penetration: 6573
Lover with 7 divines: 4491
Passive "worth": 6573/4491 = 1.46

LA Crit: 7%
Thief with 7 divines: 9.9%
Passive "worth": 7/9.9 = 0.71

Total: 2.17

7x MA
MA Crit Damage: 14%
Shadow with 7 divines: 18%
Passive "worth": 14/18 = 0.78

MA Damage: 14%
Warrior/Apprentice with 7 divines: 389
Can't compare these directly so if we instead compare the marginal gain of each:
Without the medium armour bonus, builds generally have a multiplier of somewhere around 1.3-1.4 on weap/spell damage, 7 medium adds 0.14 to this, which is a 10-11% increase.
Comparatively, warrior/apprentice adds 389 base spell/weap damage. A stam build may have something like 4.5k base weap damage (base + gold weap + jewellery glyphs + damage race + courage + infused power) so the mundus is something like an ~8-9% increase.
Comparing these increases (using an average for each), Passive "worth": 10.5/8.5 = 1.23

Total: 2.01

So sure, MA damage bonus look a bit behind LA if we examine them using ZOS's standard worths (using the mundus as a baseline), but not to the degree you are indicating by comparing MA crit damage passive directly to LA's penetration passive.
If anything, MA crit damage passive is quite well balanced with LA crit chance passive, both at 0.7-0.8 of a mundus with 7 divines, and a better comparison for LA pen passive is to MA damage passive as these are both the "bigger value" passive. As I said this does still favour LA, but only slightly.

Now, that is all assuming that ZOS's stat worth values are balanced, which is definitely debateable, especially in the case of pen and to a lesser extent crit chance. This is due to pen being easily the best damage stat if you don't have enough, but worthless if you do. Combined with the fact that LA can easily get "enough" but MA can't this leads to build issues for Stam, which is what I am inferring is the actual issue/motivation behind the post.

Now, using the above to consider the proposed solutions:

Increasing MA crit damage passive from 1/2 to 1.5/3.
Issues:
Firstly, I believe crit damage has to be integer values and rounds down if not (see the change to divines a while back that ensure divines always added exactly 1% crit damage, not part of a percentage)). So 1.5% may not be viable.
Secondly, while what I put above does show MA being a bit behind LA, this proposed change would actually send it too far the other way. It would increase the worth of the MA passives to 2.79 of a mundus with 7 divines making the comparison 2.17 vs 2.79 instead of the current 2.17 vs 2.01.

Increase Lover mundus to a base of 3844 or 6293 with 7 divines.
Issues:
Firstly, this change breaks the "set worth rules" of the relative value of the mundus stone as it makes the lover a disproportionately strong mundus. (Sure, they already did tis to a small degree with the regen mundus but thats a slightly separate argument).
Secondly, provided you are not overpenetrating, Lover is already hands down the best mundus for damage. This is often the case in PvP. So this change would make what is often already the strongest mundus in that setting for damage and give it a further buff.

Possible alternatives to the above:

Add more flexible options for Stam to get penetration from other build sources where LA users normally get spell damage or crit damage, to allow stam to make up the pen deficit for the same opportunity cost the mag uses to make up the damage and crit damage deficit. Possible options include slottable CP for pen and crit chance to compete with the crit damage slottable, or jewellery glyphs for crit chance, pen and crit damage to compete with the damage glyphs. Provided these choices are balanced in the same way, this would allow both stam and mag to reach the same stat distribution, just in a different way.

Alternatively, somehow remove Stams reliance on Relequen (without reducing stams DPS) to give stam more flexibility set choice and how it gets the damage stats it doesn't get from armour.

Neither of the above are really changin gthe balance between LA and MA, rather they would make it easier for each to get the "missing" stat without getting pigeonholed into a specific setup. (which is boring)

If balance between the two armour lines is found to need adjusting, ie possibly the LA pen passive is a little too strong - then perhaps this could simply be reduced a little bit - but problems with changing this is how important being at the right pen value is and this upsets that balance, plus players don't like nerfs and many consider LA to already be sub-par in PvP.

A more drastic action would be to completely remove LA pen passive entirely and replace it with some other damage affecting bonus, such as +X% mag and stam perhaps. This would be more straightforward to balance against mediums weapon/spell damage passive (while also benefitting heals and shields, so yay healers) in comparison to pen. Plus it would mean both mag dps and stam dps have the same starting point for pen which would mean mag dps may also become dependent on support to reach pen cap just like stam, somewhat equalising the dependence on support between mag and stam (and mixed) groups.
A side effect downside of this approach is it would completely nerf damage procs for mag in comparison to stam. Not really and endgame PvE thing, but relevant for PvP and more casual play. While this could be addressed with proc scaling of both damage and stat, at this point we are just snowballing changes.

Or, you know, you could just bung Alkosh on a tank or buff *** stam DD. Boom, suddenly the whole group has enough pen. Funnily enough, the new value for Alkosh comes out somewhere around exactly what you need to max out pen in a stam group.

NupidStoob · July 2021

UnassumingNoob wrote: »

I think the biggest point missed is group make up (PVE wise). Two tanks and two healers is 8 total buff or debuff sets. It behooves raid leaders to stack into one form of damage (Magica or stamina) and buff the bejesus out of that spec. Mag doesn’t really need any pen sets to hit effective damage. So the healers and tanks can spec fully into damage buffs. If you bring Stam into that group without Alkosh etc then they are severely under pen. Conversely if your run pen debuff sets you will be running into redundancy when Magica dps is concerned. Mechanics favor ranged dps.

Simple solution is Stam should hit substantially harder than mag so they can earn a spot in trials again. Balance PVP accordingly.

I will say this again: actual stam oriented endgame groups have put Alkosh on a DD for a while. A stamcro hardly loses any DPS with it and can even use the self synergy for really high uptimes. With the buff to Alkosh you get a lot more freedom in stamgroups as well. Tanks and healers can still use all 8 slots for damage buffs.

There also have been multiple endgame groups that used 2 stam parse DPS in their mag groups simply cause it actually can compete in damage. My stamgroup got a ~250k godslayer last patch which is higher than most maggroups do and that is with lacking the full possible support setup. Stam can totally compete, but the real issue is ease of use, surviveability and convenience and always has been. We ended up running bow bow for Lokke and many of us for Yolna simply cause range makes everything so much easier and we had to give up a lot of ST on Nahvi by running master 2H simply cause stamcleave sucks whereas magicka can barswap and spam a skill (wall) they got slotted anyways and cover a way bigger area with it as well.

For most groups it simply comes down to the question which is easier to clear content with and that has been for many patches magicka.

The other big issue for full stamgroups is that the vast majority of damage enhancing sets is magicka and it's hard to fit everything you would want just on the supports. If I were to make a minmaxed stamgroup at the moment I would bring one magcro thats running Z'en EC while still putting Alkosh on a DD.

I like that there are differences between stam and mag and sure things could be better, but the real issues have hardly anything to do with armors and much more with fundamental game design.

angelofdeath333 · July 2021

I am all for buffing light armor, but that change to crit chance makes absolutely no Sense at all! So what if prodigy gives crit chance when i am in 7 medium? The devs did a Good job overall this time, but that change makes no sense...

Septimus_Magna · July 2021

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Simply put LA offers penetration and critical chance, MA offers weapon dmg and critical dmg.

Without looking at the values the most useful stat lines in the game are penetration (up to the pen cap) and critical chance.
In order for MA to win the values have to be high enough to compensate for the less effective stat lines.
Comparing it to Mundus values gives a good indication but there's a reason basically everyone runs the Thief.

Its nice that mixing gear weights becomes more beneficial for DDs but my overall feeling is that stam is losing out because its missing penetration and crit chance.

I don’t believe Stam will really be missing Crit Chance compared to Mag. Daggers alone more than make up the 5% difference from Armor passives (6-1 vs 1-6 light/medium means 5% gap). Bows also get 6% crit as a passive. Sets give Stam more crit, starting with trial sets: Relequen giving 6% weapon crit, while Bahsei only gives 3% Spell Crit and Siroria gives none. Bahsei/Rele are typically paired with a front bar crit set, and in this role AY outperforms Medusa or Mother’s Sorrow by about 5% crit chance.

For further evidence that the armor changes help balance Crit Chance across Stamina and Magicka, we can look at one interesting and extreme example. Hypothetically, let’s say two generic classes (nothing with crit bonuses like Nightblade or Necro) want to build maximum crit chance next patch. The Magicka build would wear Medusa + Sorrow + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit 95.3% crit chance with daggers (giving up all useful weapon skills). The Stamina build would wear Advancing Yokeda + Tzogvin’s + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit the exact same 95.3% crit chance with daggers.

Now if they wanted to play ranged then the Magicka build would drop to 87.8% with a staff and the Stamina build would be at 93.8% with a bow. Additionally the Stamina build in all cases would keep more crit on back bar, since the 11% crit on AY’s 5pc carries over for 5s, while the 4% crit on Medusa’s 5pc is lost immediately.

Note: I could have used Dragonguard Elite for the comparison since it gives 1.5% more crit than Tzogvin, allowing up to 96.8% crit, but Tzog seemed more fair because it gives Minor Force like Medusa. Medusa is also a heavy set that must be front barred, which mirrors Advancing Yokeda’s weight and build restrictions.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, are the values you mention from the PTS?
I would have expected that its difficult to reach 95% weapon crit now that the MA passives dont give crit chance.

If so, things are looking really good for stam DDs because pen will be less of an issue with the new set COR and the changes to Alkosh.

Abyssmol · July 2021

angelofdeath333 wrote: »

I am all for buffing light armor, but that change to crit chance makes absolutely no Sense at all! So what if prodigy gives crit chance when i am in 7 medium? The devs did a Good job overall this time, but that change makes no sense...

The medium armor change is great for balancing pvp. I'm using 3 light, 3 heavy, and 1 medium on my magical class. But next patch, I will be using 3 lights, 3 mediums, and 1 heavy. It's the most optimal set up. Stamina can optimize there set up by doing the same thing - you want more pen and crit chance, put some light armor. This changes will bring light and medium armor closer to parity. ZOS did a great job on this regard!!! Congrats!!!

WrathOfInnos · July 2021

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Simply put LA offers penetration and critical chance, MA offers weapon dmg and critical dmg.

Without looking at the values the most useful stat lines in the game are penetration (up to the pen cap) and critical chance.
In order for MA to win the values have to be high enough to compensate for the less effective stat lines.
Comparing it to Mundus values gives a good indication but there's a reason basically everyone runs the Thief.

Its nice that mixing gear weights becomes more beneficial for DDs but my overall feeling is that stam is losing out because its missing penetration and crit chance.

I don’t believe Stam will really be missing Crit Chance compared to Mag. Daggers alone more than make up the 5% difference from Armor passives (6-1 vs 1-6 light/medium means 5% gap). Bows also get 6% crit as a passive. Sets give Stam more crit, starting with trial sets: Relequen giving 6% weapon crit, while Bahsei only gives 3% Spell Crit and Siroria gives none. Bahsei/Rele are typically paired with a front bar crit set, and in this role AY outperforms Medusa or Mother’s Sorrow by about 5% crit chance.

For further evidence that the armor changes help balance Crit Chance across Stamina and Magicka, we can look at one interesting and extreme example. Hypothetically, let’s say two generic classes (nothing with crit bonuses like Nightblade or Necro) want to build maximum crit chance next patch. The Magicka build would wear Medusa + Sorrow + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit 95.3% crit chance with daggers (giving up all useful weapon skills). The Stamina build would wear Advancing Yokeda + Tzogvin’s + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit the exact same 95.3% crit chance with daggers.

Now if they wanted to play ranged then the Magicka build would drop to 87.8% with a staff and the Stamina build would be at 93.8% with a bow. Additionally the Stamina build in all cases would keep more crit on back bar, since the 11% crit on AY’s 5pc carries over for 5s, while the 4% crit on Medusa’s 5pc is lost immediately.

Note: I could have used Dragonguard Elite for the comparison since it gives 1.5% more crit than Tzogvin, allowing up to 96.8% crit, but Tzog seemed more fair because it gives Minor Force like Medusa. Medusa is also a heavy set that must be front barred, which mirrors Advancing Yokeda’s weight and build restrictions.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, are the values you mention from the PTS?
I would have expected that its difficult to reach 95% weapon crit now that the MA passives dont give crit chance.

If so, things are looking really good for stam DDs because pen will be less of an issue with the new set COR and the changes to Alkosh.

@Septimus_Magna Yep, that’s all after the removal of crit chance from Medium Armor. Those are front bar values only, back bar would likely be a bow or 2h with Infused trait. And it assumes you have Minor Savagery. The crit sets also have a ramp up time to get to full stacks, somewhere around 10s.

I wouldn’t really recommend building 95% crit because it’s better to use Shadow mundus over Thief when crit is that high, and a slayer set instead of a 2nd crit set. Nirnhoned main hand would outperform double precise. Still, it’s possible if you choose (and Nightblades with 3 Assassination skills can still hit 100% crit on front bar). Here’s the full breakdown if you’re interested.

10% Base Crit
12% Major Savagery (potions)
6% Minor Savagery (NB ally)
1.5% CP Passive
1% One piece Light Armor
5.7% Harpooner’s Kilt
3.5% Slimecraw
17% Advancing Yokeda
14% Tzogvin’s
7.2% Precise weapons
7.5% Dual daggers
9.9% Thief Mundus

95.3% Total

yoo_mr_white · July 2021

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Simply put LA offers penetration and critical chance, MA offers weapon dmg and critical dmg.

Without looking at the values the most useful stat lines in the game are penetration (up to the pen cap) and critical chance.
In order for MA to win the values have to be high enough to compensate for the less effective stat lines.
Comparing it to Mundus values gives a good indication but there's a reason basically everyone runs the Thief.

Its nice that mixing gear weights becomes more beneficial for DDs but my overall feeling is that stam is losing out because its missing penetration and crit chance.

I don’t believe Stam will really be missing Crit Chance compared to Mag. Daggers alone more than make up the 5% difference from Armor passives (6-1 vs 1-6 light/medium means 5% gap). Bows also get 6% crit as a passive. Sets give Stam more crit, starting with trial sets: Relequen giving 6% weapon crit, while Bahsei only gives 3% Spell Crit and Siroria gives none. Bahsei/Rele are typically paired with a front bar crit set, and in this role AY outperforms Medusa or Mother’s Sorrow by about 5% crit chance.

For further evidence that the armor changes help balance Crit Chance across Stamina and Magicka, we can look at one interesting and extreme example. Hypothetically, let’s say two generic classes (nothing with crit bonuses like Nightblade or Necro) want to build maximum crit chance next patch. The Magicka build would wear Medusa + Sorrow + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit 95.3% crit chance with daggers (giving up all useful weapon skills). The Stamina build would wear Advancing Yokeda + Tzogvin’s + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit the exact same 95.3% crit chance with daggers.

Now if they wanted to play ranged then the Magicka build would drop to 87.8% with a staff and the Stamina build would be at 93.8% with a bow. Additionally the Stamina build in all cases would keep more crit on back bar, since the 11% crit on AY’s 5pc carries over for 5s, while the 4% crit on Medusa’s 5pc is lost immediately.

Note: I could have used Dragonguard Elite for the comparison since it gives 1.5% more crit than Tzogvin, allowing up to 96.8% crit, but Tzog seemed more fair because it gives Minor Force like Medusa. Medusa is also a heavy set that must be front barred, which mirrors Advancing Yokeda’s weight and build restrictions.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, are the values you mention from the PTS?
I would have expected that its difficult to reach 95% weapon crit now that the MA passives dont give crit chance.

If so, things are looking really good for stam DDs because pen will be less of an issue with the new set COR and the changes to Alkosh.

@Septimus_Magna Yep, that’s all after the removal of crit chance from Medium Armor. Those are front bar values only, back bar would likely be a bow or 2h with Infused trait. And it assumes you have Minor Savagery. The crit sets also have a ramp up time to get to full stacks, somewhere around 10s.

I wouldn’t really recommend building 95% crit because it’s better to use Shadow mundus over Thief when crit is that high, and a slayer set instead of a 2nd crit set. Nirnhoned main hand would outperform double precise. Still, it’s possible if you choose (and Nightblades with 3 Assassination skills can still hit 100% crit on front bar). Here’s the full breakdown if you’re interested.

10% Base Crit
12% Major Savagery (potions)
6% Minor Savagery (NB ally)
1.5% CP Passive
1% One piece Light Armor
5.7% Harpooner’s Kilt
3.5% Slimecraw
17% Advancing Yokeda
14% Tzogvin’s
7.2% Precise weapons
7.5% Dual daggers
9.9% Thief Mundus

95.3% Total

So with the two highest crit sets in the game and thief mundus yes you are at 95.3 crit that's over kill completely and to include that in your calculation just seems disingenuous. Who wears double crit sets like that? Who wears double precise daggers? I am very curious to see what AY and Tzogivn hits on a dummy, I would bet good money it's lower than what people hit with ay/rele. If people are so concerned about mag being behind with crit thanks to their sets why don't the devs make better crit sets for mag? Make a ranged version of ay.

In reality when your in solo play you will lose about 30% of that crit give or take building for penetration. You won't be running double precise daggers and slimecraw here.

katorga · July 2021

14% weapon and spell damage is effectively uncapped. 14% crit damage is effectively uncapped (and directly impacted by 14% wd/sd).

WrathOfInnos · July 2021

yoo_mr_white wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Simply put LA offers penetration and critical chance, MA offers weapon dmg and critical dmg.

Without looking at the values the most useful stat lines in the game are penetration (up to the pen cap) and critical chance.
In order for MA to win the values have to be high enough to compensate for the less effective stat lines.
Comparing it to Mundus values gives a good indication but there's a reason basically everyone runs the Thief.

Its nice that mixing gear weights becomes more beneficial for DDs but my overall feeling is that stam is losing out because its missing penetration and crit chance.

I don’t believe Stam will really be missing Crit Chance compared to Mag. Daggers alone more than make up the 5% difference from Armor passives (6-1 vs 1-6 light/medium means 5% gap). Bows also get 6% crit as a passive. Sets give Stam more crit, starting with trial sets: Relequen giving 6% weapon crit, while Bahsei only gives 3% Spell Crit and Siroria gives none. Bahsei/Rele are typically paired with a front bar crit set, and in this role AY outperforms Medusa or Mother’s Sorrow by about 5% crit chance.

For further evidence that the armor changes help balance Crit Chance across Stamina and Magicka, we can look at one interesting and extreme example. Hypothetically, let’s say two generic classes (nothing with crit bonuses like Nightblade or Necro) want to build maximum crit chance next patch. The Magicka build would wear Medusa + Sorrow + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit 95.3% crit chance with daggers (giving up all useful weapon skills). The Stamina build would wear Advancing Yokeda + Tzogvin’s + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit the exact same 95.3% crit chance with daggers.

Now if they wanted to play ranged then the Magicka build would drop to 87.8% with a staff and the Stamina build would be at 93.8% with a bow. Additionally the Stamina build in all cases would keep more crit on back bar, since the 11% crit on AY’s 5pc carries over for 5s, while the 4% crit on Medusa’s 5pc is lost immediately.

Note: I could have used Dragonguard Elite for the comparison since it gives 1.5% more crit than Tzogvin, allowing up to 96.8% crit, but Tzog seemed more fair because it gives Minor Force like Medusa. Medusa is also a heavy set that must be front barred, which mirrors Advancing Yokeda’s weight and build restrictions.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, are the values you mention from the PTS?
I would have expected that its difficult to reach 95% weapon crit now that the MA passives dont give crit chance.

If so, things are looking really good for stam DDs because pen will be less of an issue with the new set COR and the changes to Alkosh.

@Septimus_Magna Yep, that’s all after the removal of crit chance from Medium Armor. Those are front bar values only, back bar would likely be a bow or 2h with Infused trait. And it assumes you have Minor Savagery. The crit sets also have a ramp up time to get to full stacks, somewhere around 10s.

I wouldn’t really recommend building 95% crit because it’s better to use Shadow mundus over Thief when crit is that high, and a slayer set instead of a 2nd crit set. Nirnhoned main hand would outperform double precise. Still, it’s possible if you choose (and Nightblades with 3 Assassination skills can still hit 100% crit on front bar). Here’s the full breakdown if you’re interested.

10% Base Crit
12% Major Savagery (potions)
6% Minor Savagery (NB ally)
1.5% CP Passive
1% One piece Light Armor
5.7% Harpooner’s Kilt
3.5% Slimecraw
17% Advancing Yokeda
14% Tzogvin’s
7.2% Precise weapons
7.5% Dual daggers
9.9% Thief Mundus

95.3% Total

So with the two highest crit sets in the game and thief mundus yes you are at 95.3 crit that's over kill completely and to include that in your calculation just seems disingenuous. Who wears double crit sets like that? Who wears double precise daggers? I am very curious to see what AY and Tzogivn hits on a dummy, I would bet good money it's lower than what people hit with ay/rele. If people are so concerned about mag being behind with crit thanks to their sets why don't the devs make better crit sets for mag? Make a ranged version of ay.

Right, that’s why I said not to use a build like that. It’s not intended to be meta. I specifically recommended a slayer set (like Rele) and Nirnhoned main hand. The point was that if Mag or Stam wanted to build full crit, Stamina could still do it as well or better than Magicka, even with no crit chance from Medium Armor. And for Magicka DPS the combination of two crit sets (Sorrow + Medusa) with Thief and Precise has been very popular the last several months (personally I never liked it over Siroria). Comparing Magicka crit chance using two crit sets to Stamina DPS with one crit set would certainly skew the results.

StytchFingal · July 2021

yoo_mr_white wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Simply put LA offers penetration and critical chance, MA offers weapon dmg and critical dmg.

Without looking at the values the most useful stat lines in the game are penetration (up to the pen cap) and critical chance.
In order for MA to win the values have to be high enough to compensate for the less effective stat lines.
Comparing it to Mundus values gives a good indication but there's a reason basically everyone runs the Thief.

Its nice that mixing gear weights becomes more beneficial for DDs but my overall feeling is that stam is losing out because its missing penetration and crit chance.

I don’t believe Stam will really be missing Crit Chance compared to Mag. Daggers alone more than make up the 5% difference from Armor passives (6-1 vs 1-6 light/medium means 5% gap). Bows also get 6% crit as a passive. Sets give Stam more crit, starting with trial sets: Relequen giving 6% weapon crit, while Bahsei only gives 3% Spell Crit and Siroria gives none. Bahsei/Rele are typically paired with a front bar crit set, and in this role AY outperforms Medusa or Mother’s Sorrow by about 5% crit chance.

For further evidence that the armor changes help balance Crit Chance across Stamina and Magicka, we can look at one interesting and extreme example. Hypothetically, let’s say two generic classes (nothing with crit bonuses like Nightblade or Necro) want to build maximum crit chance next patch. The Magicka build would wear Medusa + Sorrow + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit 95.3% crit chance with daggers (giving up all useful weapon skills). The Stamina build would wear Advancing Yokeda + Tzogvin’s + Kilt + Slimecraw and hit the exact same 95.3% crit chance with daggers.

Now if they wanted to play ranged then the Magicka build would drop to 87.8% with a staff and the Stamina build would be at 93.8% with a bow. Additionally the Stamina build in all cases would keep more crit on back bar, since the 11% crit on AY’s 5pc carries over for 5s, while the 4% crit on Medusa’s 5pc is lost immediately.

Note: I could have used Dragonguard Elite for the comparison since it gives 1.5% more crit than Tzogvin, allowing up to 96.8% crit, but Tzog seemed more fair because it gives Minor Force like Medusa. Medusa is also a heavy set that must be front barred, which mirrors Advancing Yokeda’s weight and build restrictions.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, are the values you mention from the PTS?
I would have expected that its difficult to reach 95% weapon crit now that the MA passives dont give crit chance.

If so, things are looking really good for stam DDs because pen will be less of an issue with the new set COR and the changes to Alkosh.

@Septimus_Magna Yep, that’s all after the removal of crit chance from Medium Armor. Those are front bar values only, back bar would likely be a bow or 2h with Infused trait. And it assumes you have Minor Savagery. The crit sets also have a ramp up time to get to full stacks, somewhere around 10s.

I wouldn’t really recommend building 95% crit because it’s better to use Shadow mundus over Thief when crit is that high, and a slayer set instead of a 2nd crit set. Nirnhoned main hand would outperform double precise. Still, it’s possible if you choose (and Nightblades with 3 Assassination skills can still hit 100% crit on front bar). Here’s the full breakdown if you’re interested.

10% Base Crit
12% Major Savagery (potions)
6% Minor Savagery (NB ally)
1.5% CP Passive
1% One piece Light Armor
5.7% Harpooner’s Kilt
3.5% Slimecraw
17% Advancing Yokeda
14% Tzogvin’s
7.2% Precise weapons
7.5% Dual daggers
9.9% Thief Mundus

95.3% Total

So with the two highest crit sets in the game and thief mundus yes you are at 95.3 crit that's over kill completely and to include that in your calculation just seems disingenuous. Who wears double crit sets like that? Who wears double precise daggers? I am very curious to see what AY and Tzogivn hits on a dummy, I would bet good money it's lower than what people hit with ay/rele. If people are so concerned about mag being behind with crit thanks to their sets why don't the devs make better crit sets for mag? Make a ranged version of ay.

In reality when your in solo play you will lose about 30% of that crit give or take building for penetration. You won't be running double precise daggers and slimecraw here.

Maybe read all of what you quoted?