As a Plaguebreak user; please nerf Plaguebreak

Woodenplank · January 2022

First off, I believe this set is just the latest symptom in a long line of misguided attempts to fix game mechanics by releasing new sets - but that's how ZOS likes to do things for now, so I won't get into it.

(2 items) Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage and Spell Damage
(5 items) Dealing direct damage to an enemy, who is not a Plague Carrier, turns them into a Plague Carrier for 10 seconds, dealing 1715 Disease Damage over the duration. If the plague is removed early, it explodes, infecting enemies within 8 meters of the carrier and dealing 712 Disease Damage. The explosion deals an additional 50% damage per enemy hit. This effect can occur once per attack and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

It was designed to "punish larger groups for casting Purge with reckless abandon" - And it did that in a way; such that you're either part of a "Ball Group" which has the defenses/healing to power through it any way, or you're a part of disorganized rabble which will get absolutely obliterated if someone decides to use a Cleanse Synergy.
Anyhow, I digress. The set does make it punishing to spam Purges - but it does so much more than that. I use it in Cyrodiil, sure. But I also use it in Battlegrounds, or in PVE (yes, the dot/explosion also applies to PVE monsters) - things don't even have to be Purged, if a target dies they explode just the same (the tooltip fails to mention that, but it's there. Case in point; it works in AOE farming PVE)
At this point it's simply better than most other damage sets for Stamina (potentially).

Compare it to a set like Syvarra's Scales

(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka, Reduces your damage taken from Guards by 20%.
(5 items) When you deal damage, you cause a burst of lamia poison that deals 900 Poison Damage in a 5 meter radius and an additional 10272 Poison Damage over 6 seconds to all enemies hit. This effect can occur once every 7 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

Viper's Sting

(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) When you deal damage with a Martial melee attack, you deal an additional 6400 Poison Damage over 4 seconds. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

or Sheer Venom, which can only be applied with Execute abilities.

(2 items) Adds 1096 Max Stamina
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) When you deal damage with an Execute ability you infect the enemy, dealing 6576 Poison Damage over 6 seconds and dealing up to 100% more damage to enemies under 100% Health. This effect can occur every 6 seconds per target.

These sets do 1712, 1600, or 1096-2192 (at best!) DPS with their procs. Plague only does 1177 - lower, but somehow still comparable no?
Disregarding for the moment how Plaguebreak has an almost ideal offensive stat line of Penetration, Weapon Damage, Weapon Damage, you might prefer one of above sets in a 1v1 scenario - assuming your opponent doesn't use any sort of Purges - but in virtually any other scenario, Plaguebreak far outshines these sets (and most other proc sets at the moment)

Say you're a Warden - who, like most Wardens, likes to use Betty Netch summon, which purges a negative effect once every 5 seconds. If you're fighting, say, a stamDK with Plaguebreak, you'll probably be hit with Noxious Breath (Dot+Major Breach), Venomous Claw (DoT) and the Plaguebreak. Leaving you with a nice 25% chance to nuke yourself (and anyone around) if the Netch happens to purge the wrong effect.
Or say you're a Templar, and you like to use Cleansing Ritual (either morph) because it's a nice aura for dueling in (healing/damage) - better hope no one has Plaguebreak on you, because that's gonna hurt - incidentally, any rando who uses your Synergy might also nuke you.

Now, you might be thinking; well, Vicious Death can also be used to nuke groups like that. But I would argue that Plaguebreak is simply stronger than VD in every way.

Now, for a reference Weapon Damage of 5500 (not at all optimal, but just a reference point), Vicious Death does 18500 death-explosion damage.
Plaguebreak "only" does 4000, but it scales with 50% per target. Meaning that Plaguebreak would out-damage VD once there are 4+ enemies hit. Considering that Plaguebreak also has greater radius (8m vs. the 5m of VD) this is a fairly easy condition to meet, even in Battlegrounds.
Furthermore, while VD's (5)-piece bonus is USELESS in 1v1 scenarios, Plaguebreak remains very competitive with other DoT-proc sets. And in all this, we're not even taking into account that Plaguebreak reacts to purges.

I'm not sure exactly how this set should be nerfed; but I definitely think it should be - and I'll find something else to use, but right now it's simply too good to pass up.

I think ZOS should instead look towards "fixing" these game mechanics by... actually changing the game mechanics, rather than this patchwork of item sets.
Make a Purge cost-buffer like what's existed for roll-dodges and Streak/Ball-Lightning for years, so you can't spam it senselessly? Reduce the efficiency of things like purge, such that players at least have to build towards purging, if they want to keep it up?
I don't have all the answers, of course, but I'm fairly certain Plaguebreak isn't it.

ZOS's own descriptions of the set, for refererence:

"Similar to Dark Convergence, we targeted large groups again with this set, focusing on their ability to have numerous purges running, making locking them down and bleeding them out incredibly difficult to do. Now, larger groups must purge more carefully, running the risk of setting off ticking time bombs and having to heal up the aftermath instead of repeatedly casting it with reckless abandon"
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/584299/pc-mac-patch-notes-v7-1-5-waking-flame-update-31

Currently, this set feels like it is a better version of most Damage over Time sets, such as Hunter's Venom or Viper's Sting, where it can output decent pressure but with the added bonus of an explosion if removed early. We've toned down both the Damage over Time and the damage of the explosion against low target counts, while increasing the damage against large target counts to ensure it continues smashing groups who are chain casting purges with reckless abandon. Overall, this should help reduce the need to purge the set and make it far less oppressive to fight against as a solo or low group count player.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590109/pc-mac-patch-notes-v7-2-5-deadlands-update-32

EDIT:
For those commenting on it being a "Stamina set" - If you use it on weapons/Jewelry there is absolutely nothing about it that makes it maladapted for magicka builds - in fact, I've seen plenty of magicka builds using this.
It's Offensive Penetration, Weapon/Spell Damage, Weapon/Spell Damage and a proc which scales of the higher of your weapon/spell damage - perfectly fine for any build, as long as you don't use it on body pieces.

TequilaFire · January 2022

Actually it could use a buff in PvP.

Sun7dance · January 2022

I totally agree!
ZOS really needs to remove the dot damage and the procc must no longer be triggered by adds.
In addition, you cannot get the procc if you are not a carrier.

That would really be the least they have to do!

HyekAr · January 2022

The only fine set which make some stamina players have a fun in pve and u want to remove it? Pfff

If someone is good in pvp it is not necesarily bcz of the set, sometimes it is bcz of proper use of fingers

Vevvev · January 2022

Only nerf it needs is a cooldown on every target after it gets purged/ends. Right now it's way too easily reapplyable.

TequilaFire · January 2022

Of course stam isn't allowed to have nice things. lol

Sun7dance · January 2022

HyekAr wrote: »

The only fine set which make some stamina players have a fun in pve and u want to remove it? [...]

Exactly!
If proccs do your work for you, then something is simply wrong!

TequilaFire wrote: »

Of course stam isn't allowed to have nice things. lol

Ok, please explain, why it is a stamina set.

HyekAr · January 2022

TequilaFire wrote: »

Of course stam isn't allowed to have nice things. lol

😂🤣ESO doesnt like stamina players

HyekAr · January 2022

Vevvev wrote: »

Only nerf it needs is a cooldown on every target after it gets purged/ends. Right now it's way too easily reapplyable.

Idk i wouldnt touch it, bcz it is very nice doing some dungs or trials with a lot of trash

TequilaFire · January 2022

Sun7dance wrote: »

HyekAr wrote: »

The only fine set which make some stamina players have a fun in pve and u want to remove it? [...]

Exactly!
If proccs do your work for you, then something is simply wrong!

TequilaFire wrote: »

Of course stam isn't allowed to have nice things. lol

Ok, please explain, why it is a stamina set.

Uh, it is medium armor.

vgabor · January 2022

Few things comes to my mind to fix this set:

- no explosion on death only on debuff removal
- no explosion on self cleanse only if someone else removes it (like the aforementioned purge it supposed to counter...)

Sun7dance · January 2022

TequilaFire wrote: »

Sun7dance wrote: »

HyekAr wrote: »

The only fine set which make some stamina players have a fun in pve and u want to remove it? [...]

Exactly!
If proccs do your work for you, then something is simply wrong!

TequilaFire wrote: »

Of course stam isn't allowed to have nice things. lol

Ok, please explain, why it is a stamina set.

Uh, it is medium armor.

And?

spartaxoxo · January 2022

TequilaFire wrote: »

Of course stam isn't allowed to have nice things. lol

This may be true of PvE, but definitely not PvP.

Woodenplank · January 2022

For those commenting on it being a "Stamina set" - If you use it on weapons/Jewelry there is absolutely nothing about it that makes it maladapted for magicka builds - in fact, I've seen plenty of magicka builds using this.
It's Offensive Penetration, Weapon/Spell Damage, Weapon/Spell Damage and a proc which scales of the higher of your weapon/spell damage - perfectly fine for any build, as long as you don't use it on body pieces.
The fact that's it's medium is not all that important. In fact, it's a very good set to use on weaponry, since you don't even need it active on both bars (just apply the relatively lengthy dot, and you can switch off the set).

I'm not saying it has to be removed - although I would prefer if ZOS found a different way to address issues like Purge without just slapping a new set on it, and calling it a day...
But in its current state, it feels like Vicious Death 2.0 - now applicable in 1v1s and any small-scale encounter as well!

If they really wanted to target purges, why make it also proc on player death? It just makes it another Vicious Death; with the added benefit of DoTs and proccing off of Purge.
But as it is right now, the organized groups that know how to abuse Purge are typically strong enough to survive a few Plaguebreak applications, and the set instead just annihilates poor sods who might not even be familiar with it, or just got purged by some well-meaning healer trying to get rid of Burning Oil effects.

TequilaFire · January 2022

So we go back to nerfing ways to control zergs and are right back where we started.
Same thing when the buffed siege and had to nerf it back.
Faction stacking zergs are the problem, ball groups get the blame.

Tommy_The_Gun · January 2022

Woodenplank wrote: »

First off, I believe this set is just the latest symptom in a long line of misguided attempts to fix game mechanics by releasing new sets - but that's how ZOS likes to do things for now, so I won't get into it.

Agree on that, they should not try to balance out ball groups by releasing a set. It just hurts the game. What they should do instead is they need to look at previous attempts they did to reduce ball groups effectiveness and look up when it worked or not.

For the most part, almost every attempt to balance out Ball group was either not affecting those, or was a buff to this type of gameplay... but There was one instance in which ball groups were nerfed (and only ball groups).

And it was.... Pale Order ring changes.

Ring of the Pale Order:
(1 item) Restore 20% of the damage you deal as Health. This value is decreased by 4% per ally you are grouped with. You cannot be healed by anyone but yourself.

Before changes to Pale Order, it did not had that condition. But now this set gets worse the larger the group is.

^ And that is the answer how to balance ball groups in Cyro. Just add something like that to Battle Spirit, so that sets/skills/ultimates would get weaker the larger the group is. So for example small scale group would barely notice that, but a 10 or 12 man group would be less effective. Imho it is the only way to reduce effectiveness of ball group, especially in a mixed content like Cyro or IC, that does not have any kind of MM and solo / small scale / large groups coexist.

There is a reason why players are choosing to play like this. It is not because they like it or not. It is because it is OP "Most Effective Tactics Available". It has little to no counters. It is weird that ZOS did not looked at it. Whenever we have BIS class, set, race or skill - it gets nerfed immediately. Sometimes even in a hot-fix. But Ball groups as a play-style were never really looked into. The biggest nerf those got is group limit (24 -> 12). And that is pretty much it.

Kwoung · January 2022

I think the only change that needs to be made is, it shouldn't go off on death, that should be left to Vicious Death. If Plaguebreak only exploded on purge like the tooltip implies, it would be fine. I mean seriously, dying is considered removing an effect???

As it is now, it is Vicious Death on steroids and actually pairs with Vicious Death pretty nicely, in which case you become a one person zerg killing machine.

thesarahandcompany · January 2022

Kwoung wrote: »

I think the only change that needs to be made is, it shouldn't go off on death, that should be left to Vicious Death. If Plaguebreak only exploded on purge like the tooltip implies, it would be fine. I mean seriously, dying is considered removing an effect???

As it is now, it is Vicious Death on steroids and actually pairs with Vicious Death pretty nicely, in which case you become a one person zerg killing machine.

It also applies to pets like blastbones, which causes the blatbones to explode.

Kwoung · January 2022

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

I think the only change that needs to be made is, it shouldn't go off on death, that should be left to Vicious Death. If Plaguebreak only exploded on purge like the tooltip implies, it would be fine. I mean seriously, dying is considered removing an effect???

As it is now, it is Vicious Death on steroids and actually pairs with Vicious Death pretty nicely, in which case you become a one person zerg killing machine.

It also applies to pets like blastbones, which causes the blatbones to explode.

And there seems to be a pretty large number of I guess casual PVPers who have no clue about the set, and still run around purging everyone, casting synergies that purge, or wear monster sets that purge... nevermind the wardens that run around with Betty trailing behind zipping into crowds, making themselves a prime target and killing everyone around them.

It is bad enough trying to siege without purge, as those oils burn big time! They might as well just remove purge from PVP at this point that set is so messed up.

$spacefracking$ · January 2022

Plaguebreak is fine. Leave it alone. Honestly, could use a second stat 5 piece bonus like vicious death.

Necrotech_Master · January 2022

from the PVE side, plaguebreak is poor performance against single hard targets like dungeon bosses if there are no trash mobs, because the explosion never happens until enemy is dead

it is great for clearing trash mobs though

from the PVP side, if you wanted a range nuke build, due to hybridization you could stack both plague and VD

the plague DoT is OK, it is a little stronger (higher dmg per tick than most others), but the tooltip also fails to mention it now only ticks every 2 sec instead of every 1 second, so it has maybe the same strength as virulent shot (blackrose bow proc, of course this proc dmg is based on how much dmg your magnum shot deals (i mention magnum shot because that is the higher dmg morph of bombard, more dmg = stronger blackrose bow dot))

drsalvation · January 2022

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Woodenplank wrote: »

First off, I believe this set is just the latest symptom in a long line of misguided attempts to fix game mechanics by releasing new sets - but that's how ZOS likes to do things for now, so I won't get into it.

Agree on that, they should not try to balance out ball groups by releasing a set. It just hurts the game. What they should do instead is they need to look at previous attempts they did to reduce ball groups effectiveness and look up when it worked or not.

For the most part, almost every attempt to balance out Ball group was either not affecting those, or was a buff to this type of gameplay... but There was one instance in which ball groups were nerfed (and only ball groups).

And it was.... Pale Order ring changes.

Ring of the Pale Order:
(1 item) Restore 20% of the damage you deal as Health. This value is decreased by 4% per ally you are grouped with. You cannot be healed by anyone but yourself.

Before changes to Pale Order, it did not had that condition. But now this set gets worse the larger the group is.

^ And that is the answer how to balance ball groups in Cyro. Just add something like that to Battle Spirit, so that sets/skills/ultimates would get weaker the larger the group is. So for example small scale group would barely notice that, but a 10 or 12 man group would be less effective. Imho it is the only way to reduce effectiveness of ball group, especially in a mixed content like Cyro or IC, that does not have any kind of MM and solo / small scale / large groups coexist.

There is a reason why players are choosing to play like this. It is not because they like it or not. It is because it is OP "Most Effective Tactics Available". It has little to no counters. It is weird that ZOS did not looked at it. Whenever we have BIS class, set, race or skill - it gets nerfed immediately. Sometimes even in a hot-fix. But Ball groups as a play-style were never really looked into. The biggest nerf those got is group limit (24 -> 12). And that is pretty much it.

I mean... yeah, but also... I join a lot of ball groups and zergs without grouping in a team. It's just me, I'd still get benefits from pale-order, while still being in a group... I'm just not grouped up.

I personally don't think that ball groups should be split/nerfed. The idea that one player can wipe a ball group is odd.
I think there just needs to be more crowd control, but I can't think of any balanced way to do that yet.

Muttsmutt · January 2022

Woodenplank wrote: »

things don't even have to be Purged, if a target dies they explode just the same (the tooltip fails to mention that, but it's there. Case in point; it works in AOE farming PVE)

are you serious???
i wanted to run it in pve because it sounded good for trash stacks but was told "mobs don't purge"...
yep, i'm off to try this, thank you.

francesinhalover · January 2022

TequilaFire wrote: »

Of course stam isn't allowed to have nice things. lol

Game is called staff of scrolls online for a reason

ArchMikem · January 2022

If we're talking about PvP, can we still talk about how horrible it is to fight Necro Bombers?

katanagirl1 · January 2022

I don’t like it because it disproportionally affects Templars. I hate ball groups as much as anyone else, but I have never seen one killed with this set, I just get hit with it from just about every large group of enemies outside of any keep or resource.

I’m a stamplar, I really don’t have much in my class toolkit except jabs, javelin, POTL, and magicka purge. It’s how I stay alive as a melee player when I get hit with tons of stuff from ranged magicka users.

Why should I be punished for using my class skills? I am a solo player most of the time. If I happen to hit purge just as I get hit with plaguebreak people start yelling in zone chat. What am I supposed to do, take that skill off my bars just in case? I have to work pretty hard just to stay alive as it is.

At least with VD It doesn’t work that way.

maxjapank · January 2022

Plaguebreak is not a problem as long as you don’t use an aoe purge or stand near friendly npcs that are almost dead. Self-purging is fine. The damage eaten from self-purging is negligible. There can also only be one Plaguebreak on you, so it’s not that bad. Likewise, if you are using Plaguebreak, your dmg might not be that great if the enemy already has the dot on them from someone else. You’d likely do better wearing VD or something else.

I do not see a reason to nerf the set any further. It’s not that deadly in pvp and it’s quite fun in pve.

That said, it makes me feel that the purge skill in the alliance support should be redesigned, maybe something similar to Curse-eater, where it can purge 1-2 people every number of seconds. A skill that aoe purges is not a skill you want to use, so what happens to that skill then. And no, I don’t think every class deserves their own class self-purge. Classes should have pros and cons, and I’d dread for things to get anymore homogeneous as is.

xDeusEJRx · January 2022

Kwoung wrote: »

I think the only change that needs to be made is, it shouldn't go off on death, that should be left to Vicious Death. If Plaguebreak only exploded on purge like the tooltip implies, it would be fine. I mean seriously, dying is considered removing an effect???

As it is now, it is Vicious Death on steroids and actually pairs with Vicious Death pretty nicely, in which case you become a one person zerg killing machine.

Disagree tbh, there's not enough classes running around with purge to justify it only proccing off just purges. It's supposed to proc a chain reaction burst, but problem is, you can't reliably do this via purging. Not everyone has a purge. So if one templar or warden purges every few seconds, you'll get a few explosions that hit a group, but it won't be effective at group wiping because again, not everyone is running around with purge. I think the chain reaction burst is the best part of it, but it can only be done reliably on kill(which happens at keep battles with guards, but IMO it's supposed to be that effective as that's where the zerg fights happen and it's supposed to break up large groups

Unless they increase the damage from purges, I can't see that being effective enough to run IMO. Any effective healer can just heal you back to full health with one burst heal from low health

runa_gate · January 2022

well, what's especially unfair is that it procs off a condition that most of those affected by have no control over
the only issue with ball groups at the moment is their bizarre immunity to snare/CC for the most part, I've resorted to using really niche things which are at least partially effective

I guess by ball groups is 15 healers all running around occasionally using dark convergence

Brrrofski · January 2022

Yeh, it's way too strong. Half of Cyrodiil is wearing it.

Imagine thinking it was a Stam set haha. Mag and Stam are wearing this. It's much better than VD.

But, Dark Convergence needs looking at first. That what makes plaguebreak even more potent.

merpins · January 2022

ZoS just needs to bite the bullet and balance PVE and PVP separately. Then they can deal with whether sets like this need a buff or a nerf in each game type.