The people who said HA builds require same or similar skill level to LA builds are either trolling massively, never played the game on a half serious level or are just too salty with the fact that they cannot achieve insane numbers on a dummy due to lack of coordination skills and practice

Asking for HA builds to be in 5-10% DPS range of a LA build is like asking for a shotgun to have the precision and effective range of a sniper rifle while not having to aim down sights

It's quite obvious that LA build has a lower floor and higher ceiling which rewards players that spent time to practice on their rotation and applying it to a real fight, HA builds have a higher floor but lower ceiling to allow players to be viable in content without having to put in a lot of effort into practicing coordination. The choice is yours but either options will get you into endgame content with no problem.

One can say as much as they want that they have put in tons of effort and time into optimizing their HA build but universally its a lower skilled playing style and should be returned with a lower damage ceiling.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

lauykanson wrote: »

Asking for HA builds to be in 5-10% DPS range of a LA build is like asking for a shotgun to have the precision and effective range of a sniper rifle while not having to aim down sights

In many games both a sniper headshot and a shotgun headshot will instantly kill the person being shot. Despite this, shotguns tend to perform worse than sniper rifles. However, nobody would argue that only a sniper rifle should be viable in the game mode, and that shotgun users should be stuck in VS AI.

Because people understand that a match being won the second you select your weapon is not balanced.

Snipers are still better due to things like superior range. And LA would still be better due to more damage.

The devs themselves have noted that the endgame population is at an unhealthy size. This is because the gap between floor and ceiling is too high, and they've made attempts at lowering that gap to fix it. The problem is that it's not actually the floor that is the problem, it's the gap between middle and high. Buffing HA builds so that they'd be more readily accepted in clears for vet trials would do a lot to increase the population, as LA weaving is both unintuitive and also physically painful for many people

I'm not too sure which platform you are playing on but if a HA build can pull 80K+ DPS you can clear all the vet content with it with zero issues. For endgame trial most groups don't ask DD's to wear specific sets so as long as you are pulling off good damage which a HA build can provide they will let you raid with them. The only exception might be trifectas in vet trials which requires the whole group to build around it

If players are unwilling to improve it doesn't matter how much the devs are buffing sets and items

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Okay let me put it another way.

A teacher asks a student to do the simple math problem 2+2 on a chalkboard and show his work.

The student writes 2+2=4 because I ate 4 M&Ms out of my bag.

What you're asserting is that because the student has an error "I ate M&Ms" that not only has the student now written 2+2=5, but that teacher is a total moron who will actually teach everyone that 2+2=5.

The student's reasoning is flawed, but the conclusion is still correct. 2+2=4. And we can trust the teacher not to go around telling everyone that it's 5.

You're not wrong about the reasoning being flawed, but an error in reasoning does not automatically mean someone's conclusion is different or that anyone else is beholden to it

OP undoubtedly has a flaw in his reasoning, just factually. But it doesn't mean his conclusion is now that HA should be higher than LA and he wants to destory end game. He wants HA to be more than they are now but less than LA, and he wants to maintain LA as the endgame skill rather than destorying it.

This is not an invalid conclusion even though his reasoning is flawed. It is possible to have solid reasoning but a bad conclusion and vice versa.

Ok I only understood the bolded part. Rest reminds me of debate club back in high school.

When you compare the gap between HA builds and LA builds, they can't be very close together. Remember all this stuff is for group content. If HA builds are able to reach 90% of LA builds (just an example), and the support roles are able to ditch the sustain boosting sets and wear more damage boosting sets, then that could mean that group total dps become almost identical between the 2 playstyles. Individual dps of HA build and LA build don't need to be identical for this to happen.

If that happens HA builds may become meta. If both playstyles could do very similar group dps, why would people choose to run a playstyle that is harder to master, prone to sustain issues and squishier due to using parse food? (which becomes mandatory for LA builds in some late endgame fights), when they can use a playstyle that is easier to master, having infinite sustain and sturdier due to being able to run bi-stat food even in parse fights like Yolna HM?

spartaxoxo wrote: »

lauykanson wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

lauykanson wrote: »

Asking for HA builds to be in 5-10% DPS range of a LA build is like asking for a shotgun to have the precision and effective range of a sniper rifle while not having to aim down sights

In many games both a sniper headshot and a shotgun headshot will instantly kill the person being shot. Despite this, shotguns tend to perform worse than sniper rifles. However, nobody would argue that only a sniper rifle should be viable in the game mode, and that shotgun users should be stuck in VS AI.

Because people understand that a match being won the second you select your weapon is not balanced.

Snipers are still better due to things like superior range. And LA would still be better due to more damage.

The devs themselves have noted that the endgame population is at an unhealthy size. This is because the gap between floor and ceiling is too high, and they've made attempts at lowering that gap to fix it. The problem is that it's not actually the floor that is the problem, it's the gap between middle and high. Buffing HA builds so that they'd be more readily accepted in clears for vet trials would do a lot to increase the population, as LA weaving is both unintuitive and also physically painful for many people

I'm not too sure which platform you are playing on but if a HA build can pull 80K+ DPS you can clear all the vet content with it with zero issues. For endgame trial most groups don't ask DD's to wear specific sets so as long as you are pulling off good damage which a HA build can provide they will let you raid with them. The only exception might be trifectas in vet trials which requires the whole group to build around it

If players are unwilling to improve it doesn't matter how much the devs are buffing sets and items

I think the vast majority of HA builds are pulling off just under the cutoffs for recruitment into endgame content. The people posting 85k+ on HA builds are the same ones pulling 110k dps on LA builds, and if we say that's unfair and unrealistic number that hardly anyone would hit for the LA builds and we should just more around say 100k. The same should be true of HA builds and we should be viewing them more in the 70k vs 100k range.

I've seen plenty of shout outs of people looking for 75k+ for endgame content, and almost all the people I've seen running HA builds are just below that cutoff and would require stuff like perfected gear to exceed it, which they can't get because they aren't welcome due to being cutoff. (Those are example numbers, I haven't actually bothered with trials stuff in a while)

I honestly suspect a very small boost would do a lot of good.

If that person who can do 85k on HA build and 110k on LA build could do 90k on HA build, I think that would result more people being to meet cutoffs in the midrange. And that would result in more people able to do that content.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I just so many people with those builds describing being close but unable to hit the cutoffs for endgame stuff.

And I think a 20k DPS difference would still keep LA builds dominance in trifectas and leaderboard content secure, which I do acknowledge is important because it's more skillful.

At the moment there isn't an established damage ceiling that a HA build can achieve, there are plenty of HA build videos online but none has been proof that you cannot go past the damage they parsed, it all comes down to your build and skill rotation and there are plenty of possibilities/ potential, I don't think anyone would dare say that they have managed to test every single possible combination out there and make a firm claim that you cannot go past a certain DPS with HA build.

And if you are quoting that the average DPS people are doing with HA builds is under 75k, its only fair to compare it with an average DPS people are doing with LA builds instead of the absolute ceiling like 110k+, vast majority of the parses I see in discord groups with LA builds are well below that value, averaging out between 70-90k give or take a little, more than happy to invite you into those groups to have a look if you don't believe me.

Even when someone posts a LA parse with 100k+ its often using sets that only works in an organized group with decent support, like bahsei's on mag builds, kilt that requires you to not take damage too often or sets like kinras/tzgovin/sioria/relequen which requires you to maintain stacks or otherwise risks losing all the damage buffs. Or you can even say plenty of these LA parses are using cheese to a certain extent to get those numbers which would be extremely hard or downright impractical to replicate in an actual raid. While HA builds often do not require trial gear which means they are easier to setup, have no sustain issue whatsoever so they don't need to build for recovery and very practical in actual fight so the disparity between dummy parse and actual fight is much smaller than the deviation from LA builds.

Last but not least, just because ''plenty'' of shout outs are asking for 75k+ DPS doesn't not mean that's the absolute number you need to complete a vet trial. Has ZOS made it crystal clear you must have this number in order to complete the content? No. Have they been completed with much lower DPS? Yes, when vMoL and vHof first came out people cleared it with less than 40k DPS, DPS has gotten higher overtime due to updates but the difficulty of the content DID NOT scale with that in any way whatsoever. If anyone's yelling you need 75k+ DPS to complete any vet trials that's only because they want an easier time and burn through mechanics instead of doing them. And who said you must join one of these groups in order to clear content? You can easily make your own guild or setup your own trial run to progress through content. I can assure you a group of 8DDs running HA build will clear content just as fine as LA builds if not better because you can focus more on mechanics rather than rotation.

The only time where you cannot complete a certain content is that if there's a hard DPS check mechanic and you can't pass that, which is a rather rare occurrence and HA builds CAN pass those DPS check. There are no DPS check in-game at the moment that requires more than 50k and that's with group buff on. There are plenty of HA builds on youtube showcasing 40K+ DPS on a 3mil-6mil dummy which has no group buffs and debuffs. Even with fights like vSS HM portals or vRG final boss HM you can complete with HA builds as long as people have practiced and build around it.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

sonwon.1_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

There is nothing short of a high leaderboard that you cant accomplish without AC. It would just be nice if people didn't want to destroy skill based endgame for people that actually like the system.

That's clearly not the case as there isn't a lot of them in endgame content.

Nobody is proposing to destroy end game.

Why is it when anybody proposes a change to this game people act like every change they don't like will be the end of the world as they know it? Heavy attack builds doing 90k and LA builds doing 110k somehow results in the total destruction of superior builds for leaderboard content.

I remember when someone made a suggestion that was more or less the stickerbook, people argued that every raid group would disband and dungeons and trials would be destoryed.

It's kind of crazy how every single change in this game can somehow destory the entire game

My issue is that they are proposing changes based on misinformation and bad assumptions. The title of this thread is a blatant lie!

No weapon attacks or only heavy attacks are perfectly viable. Its not done often because most people actually try to do LA rotations because they enjoy it or they are under the false assumption its necessary. But you could absolutely clear all content without light or heavy attacks, certainly with only HAs. The DPS is there.

Heavy attack builds doing 90k and LAs doing 110k is really not far from where we are at now. Almost nobody is pulling 110k+. I know it can be done, but almost nobody is doing it. Mid to high 80s with a HA build, just isn't that hard to do from a player skill standpoint. Pulling 85k on a HA build is night and day easier than pulling 105k on a light attack build.

You will never hear me say that HAs shouldn't be viable. In fact, I have argued the opposite MANY times on this forum. I think it is an excellent way to raise the floor, something they claim to be trying to do. I am not opposed to a small buff to them, but if the floor is raised above the ceiling, the house has collapsed.

Why I get so worked up is the false comparisons being made. We have mediocre DPS comparing their HA parses to the best of the best cherry picked parses on YouTube. That overstates the actual gap between the two types of rotations. If you use that data as a justification to buff HA builds, we will by definition over buff them.

I do believe that when HA rotations were actually better than LA rotations (we have been there in the past), that end game was pretty dull. I don't think it would collapse the game. I am not naïve. I know that vet trials are a small part of the community, but I do think it would have a detrimental impact on competitive end game, because it seemed to the last time.

I realize that OP is not suggesting raising HAs above LAs. But if you make changes based on blatantly false assumptions then, that's what happens. He wants 80%, we are pretty much there right now. The title says its currently half (50%), which is just nonsense.

Your assumption that the title is a lie is false and I would ask that you keep the discourse respectful. My perceptions are based on in game experiences compared to meta LA builds. Now I admit I have not played every class so it is possible that there are builds out there that do more damage than half. I have yet to see a video or screenshots of a pure heavy attack build showing all of the abilities doing as much damage as you claim a HA build can do. I've asked several times so I will ask again, please provide such information.

Assuming such a build is out there then that would leave a 29% gap between a Stamblade LA build (111k) and HA build (86k). 29% is a sizeable difference. It is likely that HA builds between classes are severely unbalanced and less so for LA builds? I would add that not everyone wants to play a Stamblade.

Also not every player is capable of playing a LA weave build due to physical constraints. By making some slight tweaks we can have a game that will allow a larger share of players to participate in high end game content like DLC HM and trials (hard mode included). I believe this would be a win for all players!

°

This is my whole point. You are comparing what you are capable of with what the best of the best are capable of and drawing incorrect conclusions about how big the gap actually is. I don't dispute there is a gap. I dont dispute that there might be a meaningful way to close the gap a bit.

I really don't mean to be disrespectful, but are YOU capable of pulling 110K on a light attack build? No I am not asking for a parse, and not trying to be insulting, but it is relevant to the discussion. If you arent (and that's okay, most people arent), you cant compare your HA parse to LA parse you found on YouTube. It is wildly overstating the gap. Regardless of the types of attacks are used, there is a skill set to parsing. If you want to actually measure the gap that exists, someone of the same skill needs to be doing both tests.

Someone that is capable of pulling 110k on a LA Build is going to be able to pull north of 85-90K on a HA build. That is right in line with the 80% you are asking for. You percentages are also a little funny. I believe you said you wanted 80% of the damage. 80% of 110 is 88.

You simply cant take a player of skill level 5/10, look at their HA parse, then take a player with skill level 10/10, look at their LA parse, and say, the gap between the two playstyles is X. It's not a fair comparison. If you want some data, I see two good options.

One look at @MudcrabAttack 's recent post. It really shows what can be done with various levels of HAs by a skilled player. His baseline is roughly 111k with a LA weave. With 3 per rotation, he is at 105K, with roughly 8k of LAs. That is net of 97k. 97/111 is 87% of the DPS.

Two: Look at your own parses. Give your best effort with a LA build, and give your best effort with a HA build, and look at the difference. I would be beyond shocked if you saw a 50% difference. It is simply bad science to compare your HA parse to Mudcrabs LA parse.

*Also, you keep asking about DKs. Been a while since I parsed on a DK, but they probably do better with a HA build than a NB. NBs are all about insta cast spammables, which play to LAs. DKs are all about DOTs, which play better to HAs. Now a DKs ceiling might not be as high as a NB's, but then you are getting into class balance more than LA/HA balance.

If we make it so an average player can pull 90k with a HA build, think about what someone like Mudcrab would be able to do with it.

LashanW wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

And just to give some context, here is a parse I did about 8 months ago. Over 70k. There are no light OR heavy attacks. I even did my best to not swap cancel, so there is nothing that can be called animation canceling. That would be the world you are describing. God was it boring and trivial to accomplish. If this became the norm, people would leave this game by the masses.

How did you get ultimate for storm atronach without light or heavy attacks? I tried the same thing recently and my dps was 64k. I had zero ultimate generation so I could only cast my atro at the very beginning.

I am have to eat my words slightly on that. It was 9 months ago. If memory serves, I did a parse, realized I didnt build any ult. So on the next rotation, about every 10-15 seconds, instead of hard casting frags, I charged what is informally called a medium attack. Game would register as a HA, but they hit like a we paper towel.

The reason I did that was so I could charge for a the full duration of a global cooldown, essentially treat it like a 1 second cast, and thus not actually weave or AC anything. The damage was obviously less then 1k total as it didnt show up on that screen shot. I don't have the original parse saved, but if memory serves it was like 300-400 DPS. You would of course be better off weaving in a LA or HA once per rotation, but the purpose of that parse was in the context of what AC/Weaving does to your parse, not a LA/HA discussion. So yes, the game does make you do some sort of weapon attack if you want to use ultimates.

I was actually using ESO logs. I have zero desire to pull 110K from a light attack weave build nor the time to train for that (Take that to mean I can't if you want.).

Again, can anyone show a pure heavy attack parse showing all of the abilities? I am skeptical since none have been provided, although the MudcrabAttack's parse was close just missing the bottom half of the abilities.

I am not comparing skill levels. I am comparing light attack builds to heavy attack builds.

MudcrabAttack's light attack parse does 29% more dps when compared to his HA parse. Same player, same skill level, same class (29% of 86k is 25k, 25k plus 86k equals 111k).

Again, not every player is capable of playing a light attack weave build due to physical constraints. By making some slight tweaks we can have a game that will allow a larger share of players to participate in high end game content like DLC hard mode and trials (hard mode included). I believe this would be a win for all players!

I would hope we could agree that some small tweaks to heavy attacks would not break light attack weave builds. And would continue to keep light attack weave builds meta.

*Also, I never asked about a DKs?

°

On a separate note all zos could do is to buff up heavy attacks damage to the level when every second of the cast is on par with a one spammable cast at the very least, as you're wasting time also not casting dots, LA's and probably loosing uptime on said dots while might also losing on a skills like grim focus / merciless getting more stacks than you need to fire up th bow instead of gaining them one by one or with mix of ha and la.

And this solution would probably just kill all that left from pvp at the very least, not even talking about passive results like new players seeing easy ways would be less likely becoming more experienced players because why exactly when you can just not care.

colossalvoids wrote: »

By making some slight tweaks we can have a game that will allow a larger share of players to participate in high end game content like DLC hard mode and trials (hard mode included). I believe this would be a win for all players!

Implying they can't, but what is stopping said heavy attack players to complete said content besides their skill level? Heavy attack builds can do every single dlc HM dungeon and every achievement I can think of there, they are surely able to do all dlc HM trials AND trifectas bar fresh PB and probably GS due to time limitation, if they're competent enough doing a portal shouldn't be that big of an issue with potential dps.

Why you don't see such teifecta postings from ha build users? Simply because absolute most people doing endgame content aren't interested in heavy attack builds in trials to a point of creating a ha comp while they can spend their time enjoying the game how they want to enjoy it, it doesn't mean that it's impossible. If heavy attack player can't do a dungeon trifecta run now, he won't be doing them after any buffs zos can throw at them as it's a player problem mostly.

Heavy attack players are often excluded from trials due to lower dps.

°

*All* content in the game is accessible to every build. There is nobody who is completely locked out of completing anything in this game. Now, will you be able to do *All* levels of the content (normal, vet, vet hardmode)? Perhaps not.... and you know what.. that's okay. It's okay to have some optional content, when you can still experience the story/aesthetics/etc on a different difficulty, that is not 100% accessible to everybody.

Whether the reason is the lack of ability, the lack of time, the lack of motivation, the need to use a unique build, whatever. It's perfectly reasonable for there to be some content that may require a certain ability level, a certain amount of time commitment, a certain motivation, a certain range of builds.

I sure as heck wasn't a good enough athlete in high school to go play college football at the top tier. I had the size, the strength, and the knowledge of the game to do so... but I was lacking in some other skills (natural quickness, several knee injuries, length of my arms... lol) to be able to play at that level. I could have played at the D-III level (small colleges... basically pay to play in college), but not with the elites in D-1 (the top tier). AND THAT'S OKAY

The same goes for this game. The hardest difficulty and titles do not need to be accessible to everybody on every build at every time. You are never locked out of any content (from a story standpoint, completing it, etc) in this game. They have built in ways for you do do all the things, just not all the things at the hardest level.

Edit: typo

StevieKingslayer wrote: »

Im just so confused as to why some of you think you cant/arent allowed to do trials/ dlc's /hm's simply because you run a heavy attack build? Clearly you're looking in the wrong places, that's elitist garbage. You absolutely can. I did it, so Im so confused as to why you care what those groups think? Find groups that arent that toxic. My guild pulled a dude thru vet kynes aegis and vet sunspire and they only pulled 7k dps, max. The entire time. But I mean, who cares right? And your telling me, that you cant find a group anywhere to let you through or something? Heck come run with people who arent so gating

Those groups can be hard to find and aren't accessible to everyone. And the reasons for so many guilds gatekeeping isn't that they are mean, it's that they want to put the damage at a number where they know their teammates can get through the content at a reasonable pace and difficulty. If HA attacks were just a bit, they would allow those same players they reject to take now because many have simply established those numbers out efficiency rather than malice.

It would not even take a large buff I don't think. I think the buff could pretty small and turn out okay.

lauykanson wrote: »

that's a people issue not the game's fault.

Balance influences player behaviors

perfiction wrote: »

sonwon.1_ESO wrote: »

However half the damage per second output for a heavy attack build is not balanced.

Why not? HA builds require way less actions per minute (and skill), it's completely balanced that they deal less damage overall.

But takes way longer, plus can weave with skill. Makes sense that a heavy attack would hit for more. In every game ever made a heavy attack hits significantly harder than a light attack (maybe slight exaggeration)

lauykanson wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

lauykanson wrote: »

that's a people issue not the game's fault.

Balance influences player behaviors

And what ''Balance'' issue have you identified so far?

That you lose over a quarter of your dps to HA builds even if you're a good player, and that LA builds as a result are overrepresented in endgame recruitment. And this is causing problems for HA build users.

It's not different than making slight tweaks to different weapons or heroes in other games to effect pickrate.

As long as LA remains top dog in competitive activities like leaderboards, there's nothing wrong with HA builds getting buffed.

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

Here's another one since I got bored. If you don't like light attacks, don't even bother with weapon attacks 90% of the time, just do one heavy attack per rotation to keep up ultimate regeneration etc




Yandir's Might works great if you hate doing light attacks and only do one heavy occasionally. It also works on a mage.

Here's the log of the build in action:
https://www.esologs.com/reports/Gv3qWJHmzMyAftRQ

I think this is sufficient to close this thread. Original premise has been proven incorrect, [snip]

[edited for baiting]

edit... nvm. All info OP wants is there already. Thanks @Disturbed_One

sonwon.1_ESO wrote: »

The screen shots still fail to provide the list of all the abilities. The ESO logs fail to show any abilities. I've been asking for a parse with ALL of the abilities to be listed for days and nobody has provided it. Why is that?

Looks like you are not familiar with reading eso logs.

This link should have all the info you asked for,
https://www.esologs.com/reports/Gv3qWJHmzMyAftRQ#fight=last&source=1&type=damage-done&target=3