There is still no variativity

lQrukl · February 2022

ZoS please, stop talking about "variativity" by making everyone and everything hybrid, while you cant achieve this variativity even in pure magic builds.

You already can play anything while doing quests, without hybridization.

The whole conversation is just about endgame. And there are no changes, we still forced use daggers or fire staff (if you cannot use daggers), just because it is way more effective then anything else.

Lightining staff is useless, and what's nonsense - its much more useless for sorcerer, then most other classes. And in the next chapter it would be replaced even for trash setups: say hello 2-handed.
Ice staff is only for specific warden builds. Its fortunately competitive, but still worse then fire/fire or dagger/fire.
Most class abilities with "magic" morph are pointless for now.

Deep Fissure's penetration is just a joke after all this hybrid changes. It is useless in trials and magwardens already uses stam morph, but after this patch magica builds can use Razor Caltrops, geting 1 more cheep aoe dot that grants penetration as well.
Cutting Dive >> Screaming Cliff Racer, because of ridiculous amount of bleed damage.
Pestilent Colossus >> Glacial Colossus just because it damages more and doesnt prevents the tank from pulling up mobs by stuning them.
Detonating Siphon >> Mystic Siphon. Mag Necros already have brilliant sustain. And Detonating Siphon is costless ability that you can spam while your magica pool is empty and you have full 15% buff from Bahsei. Mystic Siphon is roleplay ability 2 patches in a row, and after next patch it would be even more useless, because of stamina abilities in every magdd rotation that would make sustain easier even with Bahsei and Spaulder of Ruin.

We dont need those, and much other morphs anymore. No need to force us to use only stamina morph only PLEASE REWORK

Jabs for now granting Major Sorcery as well. What finally makes magplar slave of heroism potions. And forces any magplar use stamina morph again, but ok, magica morph still viable because of healing for solo play.

But I want to be able to as a mage, not a hybrid clown at this circus meta.

I want to play with staffs.
I want to play with magica abilities.
I want to play sorcerer with storm staffs, not with fire at backbar and daggers at front.
I want to play dk with fire staff, not with poison enchanted daggers.

I can't.
I can't.
I can't.
I can't.

It could not be a problem, if i was alone, but i am not.

95% of players are dds. 99% of endgame dds are magica based.
Stop forcing people to play with what they don't want. Or stop talking about variativity in your game.

It is a lie.
At least for now.

KeiRaikon · February 2022

This is my big problem as well. It's becoming increasingly frustrating that as more hybridization happens it just becomes straight up better to either use a stamina skill or morph even as a magicka option or a magicka version even as a stamina character. Am I going to more and more hybridize my characters, no but I am going to be mad and annoyed that I feel like I'm losing efficiency and power because I want my magicka characters to use magicka and my stamina to use stamina.

They keep spouting that hybridization and the past standardization increases the idea of play how you want and that may be true for newer players but to me, someone who has been playing since the Veteran Level days it increasingly feels like I'm losing the ability to play as I want, a pure stamina or magicka character with a class that actually has a unique identity.

divnyi · February 2022

kek.

All the stam chars were already using magic animations in all of their skills in every class.
There is no such thing as pure warrior in the game.
Looks like mages getting the same fate in the end.

Necrotech_Master · February 2022

to me the big thing will be sustain, could you use a more effective morph that costs mag on a stam toon

sure as long as you can sustain a mag spammable with 13k max mag (unless you hybridize your max stats too)

most of my stam toons have low max mag and poor mag recov, and they can only support a few mag skills because they are long duration buffs, or very cheap semi spammable skills

as far as i could tell with the hybridization, this step is only affecting dmg, but stuff like max mag and max stam and max hp as well as recov for all 3 will be a big balance point to making a true hybrid build under the system

francesinhalover · February 2022

Lol ofcourse there isnt two handed is still overpowered because of stampede carve +vma

And z didnt nerf it so now all classes will use it. Unless long range is 100% necessary

Stx · February 2022

These homogenization changes were never going to increase build diversity. Anyone who thought that didn't know how to properly build previously, or just lacks sense.

If they truly wanted to increase build diversity, they would balance the skills they currently have, or add new skills to the game to compete with what we have.

MashmalloMan · February 2022

It's clear some people can't stop themselves from chasing a meta like addicts. As long as something is competitive, there is nothing from stoping you playing a magicka DK with a Fire Staff and using only Magicka abilities. There is a ton of great skills. I still want changes too, way more, but I don't understand this mentality of do or die. Adapt or quit. Who is forcing that on you?

Again, as long as it's competitive (I'd argue I also hate the idea's behind Fire vs Shock staves). Idealy there is risk/reward in your choices. Daggers are nice, but now you're 100% melee. Your dummy parse is based on a non moving target. What is that extra 5% dps mean in a real fight when you spend 10% less time damaging your target while also putting yourself in greater danger by tunnel visioning a dps rotation?

I get the idea of FEELING shoehorned into a certain playstyle, but I've never felt that with ESO and I won't feel it with the changes because the floor/ceiling is really not that far a part when it comes to BIS vs not BIS. Usually it's like 5-15% at most.

Does anyone consider playstyle and whats fun anymore? These are probably the same people that hop class to class each update to get that juicy 2% more dps after some buffs/nerfs.

Tannus15 · February 2022

People need to chill out and try some "off meta" builds and see how much difference it's actually making for them, personally.

ESOLogs is great, use it. Do a vSS run with meta and do another with the build you want to run and see how much dps you're losing and where. I found kinra front bar great on a dummy, and then i looked at my logs and realised my uptime was way lower than i expected.

I always start with a meta parse on the 21m and see where i am with that, and then slowly shift over to the off meta build i prefer and see where i'm losing dps and why and if that's a compromise i'm willing to make.

sneakymitchell · February 2022

Just be substain how things be separate if you don’t have high mag or stam and use the opposite resources except to use just 1-3of the same ones mainly. Cause resource management will be hard to do. And using a spammable of the opposite will just decrease the amount of skills of the opposite main resource.

Like say stam sorc using crystal frags but they have to use all stam abilities to substain the crystal frags.

Stam dk using the whip but all the abilities need to be stam focus if not you can’t cast whip more than once.

Another note is heavy attacks for resources. You need a staff and a melee to be able to substain both

lQrukl · February 2022

It's clear some people can't stop themselves from chasing a meta like addicts. As long as something is competitive, there is nothing from stoping you playing a magicka DK with a Fire Staff and using only Magicka abilities. There is a ton of great skills. I still want changes too, way more, but I don't understand this mentality of do or die. Adapt or quit. Who is forcing that on you?

Again, as long as it's competitive (I'd argue I also hate the idea's behind Fire vs Shock staves). Idealy there is risk/reward in your choices. Daggers are nice, but now you're 100% melee. Your dummy parse is based on a non moving target. What is that extra 5% dps mean in a real fight when you spend 10% less time damaging your target while also putting yourself in greater danger by tunnel visioning a dps rotation?

I get the idea of FEELING shoehorned into a certain playstyle, but I've never felt that with ESO and I won't feel it with the changes because the floor/ceiling is really not that far a part when it comes to BIS vs not BIS. Usually it's like 5-15% at most.

Does anyone consider playstyle and whats fun anymore? These are probably the same people that hop class to class each update to get that juicy 2% more dps after some buffs/nerfs.

The conversation isn't about that you're forced to use meta by your oddity. It's about endgame content, only about endgame content. Where you have to reach maximum effectiveness. While 11 people hard try near you, you have no right to play as you want, at least for now, with this balance of skills and weapon lines.

Amount of quality progressive groups, that closing trial HMs and trifecta, much less than the amount of dds, who want to close it. And you can't compensate your poor build by yourself skill to still be competitive, because this game has 1s GCD for each skill, and you will never overcome it.

So, being the best of the best, it's all about gear and skills. It's not about 500 dps difference between daggers and fire staff, it's 5-15k depending on class in real content, not dummy. Don't forget also, that daggers buff not only single target skills, but also AoE damage. Same with skill morphs.

Take off your rose colored glasses, its not a single-play chapter, its MMO. If you "have never felt shoehorned into a certain playstyle" it doesn't mean that it's point of view problem.
It only means that you don't have that experience YET. Not about "game fatigue", but the conditions in which people are REALLY forced to play every day to achieve a result.

And again, there is nothing to stop you playing as you want in normal randoms or open world. You don't need massive gameplay hybrid changes for that. It's only affected endgame, and it's killing endgame every patch. One good change like templar buff or adding frost spammable crossed out by a dozen changes that make at least the slightest acting out of any archetype with the exception of the hybrid clown.

Seraphayel · February 2022

Stx wrote: »

These homogenization changes were never going to increase build diversity. Anyone who thought that didn't know how to properly build previously, or just lacks sense.

If they truly wanted to increase build diversity, they would balance the skills they currently have, or add new skills to the game to compete with what we have.

Balancing the skills doesn’t help. People would still figure out the best way to play and everybody would run the same loadout again. This is happening now too, but the new system doubles the possible options. Stamina Sorcs with Frags and Curse, Magicka Sorcs with Bound Armaments etc. - sure, there will be THE META build again, but now the pool of usable abilities has doubled for everyone. Which is good.

IronWooshu · February 2022

lQrukl wrote: »

The conversation isn't about that you're forced to use meta by your oddity. It's about endgame content, only about endgame content. Where you have to reach maximum effectiveness. While 11 people hard try near you, you have no right to play as you want, at least for now, with this balance of skills and weapon lines.

We are playing completely different games, I've finished nearly all trials not even near maximum effectiveness in my PVP gear set-up, maybe 30-40k damage at max. I'm not even ashamed.

lQrukl · February 2022

We are playing completely different games, I've finished nearly all trials not even near maximum effectiveness in my PVP gear set-up, maybe 30-40k damage at max. I'm not even ashamed.

The difference between poor vet and HM is the same as between vet and normal.
As i said: "It only means that you don't have that experience YET".

When I received all posible skins in the game (about 1,5 years ago) with my absolutely non-meta Argonian Templar, I thought exactly the same.

Your example only confirms that we do not need hybridization in low-tier content to expand variability. Its only affects high-tier, and this influence makes it more and more disgusting. When i first time created necro, i loved it. Animations, playstyle. Yes, it had problems like broken BB, but it still was well-made archtype. For now, problems kept, but you forced to use stamina drain, ult, daggers. Maybe better focus on existing balance/broken skills problems (say hello sorcs that can't play non-pet or storm staff without losing 10k+ damage for each "compromise"), then break the game even more?

burglar · February 2022

Stx wrote: »

These homogenization changes were never going to increase build diversity. Anyone who thought that didn't know how to properly build previously, or just lacks sense.

If they truly wanted to increase build diversity, they would balance the skills they currently have, or add new skills to the game to compete with what we have.

Increasing the viable number of ability combinations reduces the homogeneity of the existing build diversity, so what do you mean? Assuming there are an equal amount of stamina and magicka abilities, the potential combinations available have grown dramatically; also, because not everyone makes the same decisions, not every person is going to select the same abilities, even if they're taking skills from the same trees.

If your concern revolves around optimization, then your perceived problem exists without hybridization - there's no fixing the homogenous builds created and supported by min/maxers because there can only be so many optimal combinations. Something is either optimal, or it's not; there's no grey area.

emilyhyoyeon · February 2022

lQrukl wrote: »

You already can play anything while doing quests, without hybridization.

that's what confuses me the most about all this stuff

BronzeCaiman · February 2022

I think this is more aimed at making you more viable playing for vDLC dungeons & trials in non score pushing guilds (Endgame is score pushing on leaderboards, if you think your at endgame doing vTrials then vDLC is endgame too). Endgame will always be the majority min max based because that is what the endgame communities like and that is what people who want to play endgame are willing to do. If you are just going to use daggers on a mage because its the best, your not playing what you want, unless you want to be the best, then you can bend over backwards all you want to meet your goal.

This change opens up more build possibilities in general, Graveyard being more viable on Stamina Necro, Entropy on Stamina builds, Barbed trap being viable on mages, Maelstrom staves on stamina builds, conduit on stamina sorcerers, I could go on and on.

If you have been following meta builds to do the most DPS, I don´t see what the problem is, just look up another guide content creators will have ready for you. All the work is being done for you. This update is for theory crafters and for more freedom in more aspects of the game.

pecheckler · February 2022

Remember when this game was literally marketed as “play the way you want”? I remember. I’ve yet to see that be the case though.

lQrukl · February 2022

This change opens up more build possibilities in general, Graveyard being more viable on Stamina Necro, Entropy on Stamina builds, Barbed trap being viable on mages, Maelstrom staves on stamina builds, conduit on stamina sorcerers, I could go on and on.

If you have been following meta builds to do the most DPS, I don´t see what the problem is, just look up another guide content creators will have ready for you. All the work is being done for you. This update is for theory crafters and for more freedom in more aspects of the game.

I'm not dislike hybrids in general. Being theory crafer by myself, I just want to see objective function of this min/max more flat, then with +15k dps peak at hybrid point.

I can craft my own build for any needs. But its a huge disapoint, when I look at my lore frendly archetype creation with maximally efficient under given constraints and aware of every aspect of why it is way worse than a hybrid. Just because ZoS doesn't even trying to balance different morphs/weapons/ults before dumping them in one heap.

Stx · February 2022

Seraphayel wrote: »

Stx wrote: »

These homogenization changes were never going to increase build diversity. Anyone who thought that didn't know how to properly build previously, or just lacks sense.

If they truly wanted to increase build diversity, they would balance the skills they currently have, or add new skills to the game to compete with what we have.

Balancing the skills doesn’t help. People would still figure out the best way to play and everybody would run the same loadout again. This is happening now too, but the new system doubles the possible options. Stamina Sorcs with Frags and Curse, Magicka Sorcs with Bound Armaments etc. - sure, there will be THE META build again, but now the pool of usable abilities has doubled for everyone. Which is good.

Absolutely wrong.

The pool of skills has not doubled, because they haven't added any skills to the game. Previously if you wanted to use a fun combo of skills, you had to build for it. Now you don't. That's the only difference. They are just dumbing everything down.

Stx · February 2022

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Stx wrote: »

These homogenization changes were never going to increase build diversity. Anyone who thought that didn't know how to properly build previously, or just lacks sense.

If they truly wanted to increase build diversity, they would balance the skills they currently have, or add new skills to the game to compete with what we have.

Increasing the viable number of ability combinations reduces the homogeneity of the existing build diversity, so what do you mean? Assuming there are an equal amount of stamina and magicka abilities, the potential combinations available have grown dramatically; also, because not everyone makes the same decisions, not every person is going to select the same abilities, even if they're taking skills from the same trees.

If your concern revolves around optimization, then your perceived problem exists without hybridization - there's no fixing the homogenous builds created and supported by min/maxers because there can only be so many optimal combinations. Something is either optimal, or it's not; there's no grey area.

If you don't care about being optimal, then all the combinations already existed in game for you to use. If you do care about being optimal (imagine that in a team setting) than build diversity is indeed going down, once people figure out the new best set of skills. Before you had optimal pure builds, 2 per class, now there will just be one, because quite literally everyone will be hybrid.

Seraphayel · February 2022

Stx wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Stx wrote: »

These homogenization changes were never going to increase build diversity. Anyone who thought that didn't know how to properly build previously, or just lacks sense.

If they truly wanted to increase build diversity, they would balance the skills they currently have, or add new skills to the game to compete with what we have.

Balancing the skills doesn’t help. People would still figure out the best way to play and everybody would run the same loadout again. This is happening now too, but the new system doubles the possible options. Stamina Sorcs with Frags and Curse, Magicka Sorcs with Bound Armaments etc. - sure, there will be THE META build again, but now the pool of usable abilities has doubled for everyone. Which is good.

Absolutely wrong.

The pool of skills has not doubled, because they haven't added any skills to the game. Previously if you wanted to use a fun combo of skills, you had to build for it. Now you don't. That's the only difference. They are just dumbing everything down.

Absolutely wrong.

As a Stamsorc you could use Curse, but not effectively. As a MagSorc you could use Bound Armaments, but not effectively. Now you can use them and still parse with top DPS.

So indeed the amount of available effective skills has doubled.

There will always be THE build. Always. But now you have a lot more options for builds that might only be 99% instead of 100%.

MudcrabAttack · February 2022

I’ve always been able to get 10-20kdps more on the trial atro when using a meta melee setup on a meta class, in my hands they tend to die often and get low dps in practice. I mostly run a build I’m comfortable with, an archer stamblade, for vet trials. It still easily hits the target dps requirement of the trial group, and it outparses and outsurvives anything I ever did with the meta

Now after running some tests on the PTS the DPS gap has grown to 30k, Stamblade archer was already basically hybrid because it had twisting path and dark shade, so it’s dps didn’t go up like the rest. But there’s still little chance I’m running those new dummy parse magic builds because I like using my extra stamina to survive through stuff, blocking and breaking free is still a thing you would want to do. I might try some other stamina hybrid archer builds, they’re going to have loads of spare stamina to survive while pumping out more dps than ever.

Stx · February 2022

I understand what you're saying. But I'm saying that's an illusion. The only difference with these changes are now you don't have to put any thought into a build.

I have been using curse on a hybrid Stam sorc for a long time and let me tell you, it was very effective. All the available options were there before, you just had to put effort into a build, where now you don't.

lQrukl · February 2022

As a Stamsorc you could use Curse, but not effectively. As a MagSorc you could use Bound Armaments, but not effectively.

What do u mean by effectively? Doesnt that mean: one ability provides much more dps increase then another?

So that, Stx is absolutely right.
2 patches ago magica warden bugs were more efficient then stamina morph, if you max magica pool. And vice versa. But for now, stamina morph is almost x2 more efficient.
For both mag and stam dd. For pvp and pve. Doesnt that mean, that amount of efficient skills halved?

Yes, it does.

Seraphayel · February 2022

Stx wrote: »

I understand what you're saying. But I'm saying that's an illusion. The only difference with these changes are now you don't have to put any thought into a build.

I have been using curse on a hybrid Stam sorc for a long time and let me tell you, it was very effective. All the available options were there before, you just had to put effort into a build, where now you don't.

Your Curse still was not scaling well and suffered from exactly that, even if you build for that. I don't say the solution they try now is optimal, but it's a step in the right direction.

The biggest issue lies in the mindset of the meta community that enforce their restrictive views onto others.

I'm happy that I can incorporate Curse into my full Stam build now and will have a completely new skill that parses very well (to whom it may concern).

Seraphayel · February 2022

lQrukl wrote: »

As a Stamsorc you could use Curse, but not effectively. As a MagSorc you could use Bound Armaments, but not effectively.

What do u mean by effectively? Doesnt that mean: one ability provides much more dps increase then another?

So that, Stx is absolutely right.
2 patches ago magica warden bugs were more efficient then stamina morph, if you max magica pool. And vice versa. But for now, stamina morph is almost x2 more efficient.
For both mag and stam dd. For pvp and pve. Doesnt that mean, that amount of efficient skills halved?

Yes, it does.

No? Former Stamina-only skills can now be used by Magicka toons. Former Magicka-only skills can now be used by Stamina toons.

I can build a Magicka Sorc now that uses a Bow, Poison Arrow, Bound Armaments, Frags etc. and still parse very good (e.g. perform effectively).

etchedpixels · February 2022

lQrukl wrote: »

As a Stamsorc you could use Curse, but not effectively. As a MagSorc you could use Bound Armaments, but not effectively.

What do u mean by effectively? Doesnt that mean: one ability provides much more dps increase then another?

So that, Stx is absolutely right.
2 patches ago magica warden bugs were more efficient then stamina morph, if you max magica pool. And vice versa. But for now, stamina morph is almost x2 more efficient.
For both mag and stam dd. For pvp and pve. Doesnt that mean, that amount of efficient skills halved?

Yes, it does.

There are a bunch of skills that need rebalancing. That IMHO is a different debate to the question about hybridisation.

Right now hybridisation is broken because the scaling doesn't consider sum of magicka/stamina or sum of weapon/spell damage except in a few weird cases which prevents proper hybrids from working.

There are much more glaring examples than the shalks like the warden bear which has two morphs one of which in fact does less damage and is worse in all conceivable cases.

At least for the Shalk case it's actually somewhat balanced. The stamina one doees more damage, the magicka one provides major breach. On a tank for example the magicka one is actually usually better - especially in an organized group where the templar drops an egg on the target group just after the shalks strike.

xylena_lazarow · February 2022

There's a much bigger floor/ceiling power gap in PvP between meta and jank. I doubt the PvP meta changes much, already unkillable players and groups got more tools to be even more unkillable-er, while pugs and randoms got absolutely nothing that would close the floor/ceiling power gap. Another 3mo of every fight being a stomp or a stalemate.

Chilly-McFreeze · February 2022

Stx wrote: »

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Stx wrote: »

These homogenization changes were never going to increase build diversity. Anyone who thought that didn't know how to properly build previously, or just lacks sense.

If they truly wanted to increase build diversity, they would balance the skills they currently have, or add new skills to the game to compete with what we have.

Increasing the viable number of ability combinations reduces the homogeneity of the existing build diversity, so what do you mean? Assuming there are an equal amount of stamina and magicka abilities, the potential combinations available have grown dramatically; also, because not everyone makes the same decisions, not every person is going to select the same abilities, even if they're taking skills from the same trees.

If your concern revolves around optimization, then your perceived problem exists without hybridization - there's no fixing the homogenous builds created and supported by min/maxers because there can only be so many optimal combinations. Something is either optimal, or it's not; there's no grey area.

If you don't care about being optimal, then all the combinations already existed in game for you to use. If you do care about being optimal (imagine that in a team setting) than build diversity is indeed going down, once people figure out the new best set of skills. Before you had optimal pure builds, 2 per class, now there will just be one, because quite literally everyone will be hybrid.

That's not quite right. If the mag spec of Class X outperforms the stam spec by any margin, BiS will be the mag spec, no matter what would be optimal for the stam version of this class. That's why pve endgame is flooded with mag toons.
The old saying still stands: 2nd place is 1st loser. There never really was diversity on the first pedestal for anyone chasing meta/ bis. Stay honest.

lQrukl · February 2022

The old saying still stands: 2nd place is 1st loser. There never really was diversity on the first pedestal for anyone chasing meta/ bis. Stay honest.

Honestly, you can't reach complete equivalence, yes. But you can try to lower difference as much as you can, before you turn mag player's life into a nightgreenmare.

Etchedpixels rightly noted that in most of the options, you have a choice only between additional damage and its absence.

But he is wrong in notice that skills balancing and hybridization is a different debate.

We would play under these conditions for more than six months. We need worth alternatives now, before it happen. Ok, it would be 1-2% less effective probably, but it's much, much better than current situation with gap in 10-20k.

Tannus15 · February 2022

Stx wrote: »

I understand what you're saying. But I'm saying that's an illusion. The only difference with these changes are now you don't have to put any thought into a build.

I have been using curse on a hybrid Stam sorc for a long time and let me tell you, it was very effective. All the available options were there before, you just had to put effort into a build, where now you don't.

this was exactly the point.

a lot of the low dps that tanks and healer complain about in dungeon finder are people who don't understand how damage scales in this game and aren't going to go looking to find out. they used what skills and sets were fun and looked cool. this patch will dramatically increase their dps while only moving the top end a little.

it's good for the game.

this update and the previous one have done the most to "raise the floor" without really affecting the ceiling that i've seen zos do.