HA set's nerfed in PVE ? Why ?

Lenny_linguine · February 2022

I don't understand the recent nerfs to undaunted infiltrator/unweaver and noble duellist sets in pve. I regularly play with HA set ups in PVE because I find them fun, I understand they may frustrate people in pvp, however I don't think these changes address that issue as they leave a bunch of other sets un touched. In PvE, HA set ups can not compete dps wise with light weave rotations, which is in my eyes reasonable because of the sustain they offer and the ease of use. However they are in my opinion not so strong that a nerf was justified in PvE, especially one of this size.

For example, my dk using a dot base heavy attack set up on the live server pulls 86k dps. while my light weave basi kinaras pulls 101k. naturally, this makes the light weave set up significantly stronger, however the heavy set up is nice on ad pulls and allows me to play my dk with flexibility (i.e at range if needed) and I think a 15k dps loss seems reasonable for this. However when I tested the same set up on the current pts after the changes, my basi kinras light set is now higher because of hybridisation of barbtrap, while my HA set up dropped to 78k making the bridge between the two drastically larger. It's a 9.3% damage nerf on my set up which was already well below the meta and I'm sure others are seeing even bigger drops depending on how many of these sets they use. Overall for me, it means in order to play with the flexibility I am used to I need to sacrifice 23k dps, which makes the setup far less viable in hard content and is incredibly frustrating as a player especially when the constant narrative I hear is about fostering build diversity and play the way you want. If these sets have been nerfed for a pvp reason, why is the solution not only applicable to pvp situations ? and if they have been nerfed in PvE for a reason, what the hell is the reason ?

Fennwitty · February 2022

Yes it's because of PvP.

Instead of treating certain things separately, they keep trying to blanket change gearsets to one-size-fits-all ... which experience should have amply illustrated IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Dalsinthus · February 2022

Play as you want! But not that way.

Dalsinthus · February 2022

In general, I don't like nerfs. But if they had to nerf something, I think it's the DK skill molten armaments that should have been the thing to get cut down. 50% is huge. The duration is huge. They should have left these sets as is. They're super niche, enable a playstyle, and are not over performing in my opinion.

MashmalloMan · February 2022

@Lenny_linguine There is already a thread about this you should read and comment on instead of creating a new thread that covers the same topics. There is also some good ideas on how to address the issue in pvp while keep it relevant for pve.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/597005/unweaver-infiltrator-noble-duelist-changes-please-revert-or-change-somehow/p1

Dalsinthus wrote: »

In general, I don't like nerfs. But if they had to nerf something, I think it's the DK skill molten armaments that should have been the thing to get cut down. 50% is huge. The duration is huge. They should have left these sets as is. They're super niche, enable a playstyle, and are not over performing in my opinion.

In general you don't like nerfs, but then suggest nerfing a class skill without thinking about the enitre context of the situation. DK's are not why this was nerfed and the skill doesn't need to be touched. For starters, it was not behaving as intended by buffing 1 weapon 4x as much as the other. Everyone just looking for execuses to nerf every class, it's annoying.

I'll just quote someone who put it best and into proper perspective:

divnyi wrote: »

jwarren68 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

Just because we see such a violent reaction of so many players it means that those sets were OP - every time something that is OP gets nerfed we can see the same reaction. With every patch the vast majority of players are forced to update their builds, it's time for HA builds.

It's a good change, it removes the problem of unbalanced builds in PvP but it's not like those who can't accept this change claim - you will still be able to use builds based on HA - overland, public dungs, delves, normal dungeons, normal trials and even most of vet dungs don't require high end DPS - no one is taking away your ability to play, you just have to adapt.

They were OP in PVP, yes, but not because of the sets. ONLY DK HA PVP builds were OP.

Not true. I had HA sorc and HA NB, both broken.
Empower +40%
Off-Balance +50%

So when we compare DK to nonDK, it's not flat +50% difference. It's 240% / 190% = +26% difference.
And non-DKs have better skills that are relevant for this sort of build.

It's really less than a 26% difference because of more factors. Sorc and Necro are popular HA builds too which compliment shock heavies much more than DK. If anything, the difference is closer to 20-15% with CP/passives included, but less access to good ranged skills.

What exactly does a DK do well from ranged and what damage passives do they have? Next to nothing as it's a melee focussed class kit. HA shock builds don't perform well in melee, they're broken when used at the back of a pack of meat shields. Not saying DK HA builds aren't a thing, but all 3 of those main users do it just as well as the other.

Sorc has 5% shock damage, the 10% damage done passive, 2% damage per sorc ability slotted, very good ranged skills like Curse/Frags/Mines for defense..
Necro has 15% dot damage, 1500 pen, Clown form for when they get focussed down (the downside of a HA build), Blastbones for ranged, extra crit chance in execute.

Urzigurumash · February 2022

Dalsinthus wrote: »

In general, I don't like nerfs. But if they had to nerf something, I think it's the DK skill molten armaments that should have been the thing to get cut down. 50% is huge. The duration is huge. They should have left these sets as is. They're super niche, enable a playstyle, and are not over performing in my opinion.

Are you sure? There are 36 DK Morphs. How many sets are there?

Brrrofski · February 2022

I think 78k DPS is still very kind, considering how little action or attention a HA build takes.

I'm surprised it hits that much.

colossalvoids · February 2022

Cause pvp still exists and can be better. Ik it's unpopular view but those sets can be easily replaced with other pve ones for better results, it's not a healthy gameplay to be tied to couple specific sets for years.

Grandchamp1989 · February 2022

Lenny_linguine wrote: »

I don't understand the recent nerfs to undaunted infiltrator/unweaver and noble duellist sets in pve. I regularly play with HA set ups in PVE because I find them fun, I understand they may frustrate people in pvp, however I don't think these changes address that issue as they leave a bunch of other sets un touched. In PvE, HA set ups can not compete dps wise with light weave rotations, which is in my eyes reasonable because of the sustain they offer and the ease of use. However they are in my opinion not so strong that a nerf was justified in PvE, especially one of this size.

For example, my dk using a dot base heavy attack set up on the live server pulls 86k dps. while my light weave basi kinaras pulls 101k. naturally, this makes the light weave set up significantly stronger, however the heavy set up is nice on ad pulls and allows me to play my dk with flexibility (i.e at range if needed) and I think a 15k dps loss seems reasonable for this. However when I tested the same set up on the current pts after the changes, my basi kinras light set is now higher because of hybridisation of barbtrap, while my HA set up dropped to 78k making the bridge between the two drastically larger. It's a 9.3% damage nerf on my set up which was already well below the meta and I'm sure others are seeing even bigger drops depending on how many of these sets they use. Overall for me, it means in order to play with the flexibility I am used to I need to sacrifice 23k dps, which makes the setup far less viable in hard content and is incredibly frustrating as a player especially when the constant narrative I hear is about fostering build diversity and play the way you want. If these sets have been nerfed for a pvp reason, why is the solution not only applicable to pvp situations ? and if they have been nerfed in PvE for a reason, what the hell is the reason ?

Well thought out post, you have even tested it.

For me I think this should have been exclusively a PvP nerf, as it is also my experience heavy attack sets are far below LA weaving in DPS.

I fear this PTS cycle may make the ceiling Higher and the floor lower, as Many low to mid tier players, who didnt weave, relied on heavy attack sets.. even som people with disabilities.

I’m not convinced this PvE nerf is the right one..

remosito · February 2022

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Lenny_linguine wrote: »

I don't understand the recent nerfs to undaunted infiltrator/unweaver and noble duellist sets in pve. I regularly play with HA set ups in PVE because I find them fun, I understand they may frustrate people in pvp, however I don't think these changes address that issue as they leave a bunch of other sets un touched. In PvE, HA set ups can not compete dps wise with light weave rotations, which is in my eyes reasonable because of the sustain they offer and the ease of use. However they are in my opinion not so strong that a nerf was justified in PvE, especially one of this size.

For example, my dk using a dot base heavy attack set up on the live server pulls 86k dps. while my light weave basi kinaras pulls 101k. naturally, this makes the light weave set up significantly stronger, however the heavy set up is nice on ad pulls and allows me to play my dk with flexibility (i.e at range if needed) and I think a 15k dps loss seems reasonable for this. However when I tested the same set up on the current pts after the changes, my basi kinras light set is now higher because of hybridisation of barbtrap, while my HA set up dropped to 78k making the bridge between the two drastically larger. It's a 9.3% damage nerf on my set up which was already well below the meta and I'm sure others are seeing even bigger drops depending on how many of these sets they use. Overall for me, it means in order to play with the flexibility I am used to I need to sacrifice 23k dps, which makes the setup far less viable in hard content and is incredibly frustrating as a player especially when the constant narrative I hear is about fostering build diversity and play the way you want. If these sets have been nerfed for a pvp reason, why is the solution not only applicable to pvp situations ? and if they have been nerfed in PvE for a reason, what the hell is the reason ?

I fear this PTS cycle may make the ceiling Higher and the floor lower, as Many low to mid tier players, who didnt weave, relied on heavy attack sets.. even som people with disabilities.

so very much this!

Firstmep · February 2022

These sets were disproportionately buffing lightning staff heavy attacks, this change fixes that.
They already did something similar to dual wield heavies before with sergeants mail for example.
If heavy attack builds underperform by a huge margin than the amount of spd/wpd provided by these sets can be buffed, but now it will affect all heavy attacks.
It's also worth mentioning that empower didn't buff heavy attacks for quite a while so when they changed it, it was a quite large buff.

spotzhopz · February 2022

So let me preface by saying, obviously they should've just nerfed lightning heavy attacks and not the sets themselves.but...

Everyone always blames pvp for nerfs when it's obvious zos has been trying to make PvE harder in general the last couple of patches. In example look at the mist form nerf or the nerf to crit as recent examples. They don't like PvE cheese.

Also if you're looking for an alternative I've soloed veteran PvE dungeons with a lightning heavy attack build with heartland/torugs pact with under 1300 cp on my sorc

ZiggyTStardust · February 2022

For pvp it's not just the Lightning Heavy attacks that are a problem, there are people oneshotting players with inferno ehavy attacks due to how flat damage bonuses like those nerfed ones interact with Empower and the Molten Armarments.
Seargetns Mail actually works realyl well in builds like this, though they are mostly just gank builds

Lenny_linguine · February 2022

Brrrofski wrote: »

I think 78k DPS is still very kind, considering how little action or attention a HA build takes.

I'm surprised it hits that much.

the set up has two heavy attacks within a dynamic rotation, the vast majority of the damage is done while light weaving, with two heavy's between a spamable. a big misconception with HA builds is about just holding left click. that's not the case at all on if you are aiming for higher numbers with a HA build. Infliltrator and unweaver also buff light attacks, so the light weaving ends up being around 15% of the overall dps as well.

Lenny_linguine · February 2022

Firstmep wrote: »

These sets were disproportionately buffing lightning staff heavy attacks, this change fixes that.
They already did something similar to dual wield heavies before with sergeants mail for example.
If heavy attack builds underperform by a huge margin than the amount of spd/wpd provided by these sets can be buffed, but now it will affect all heavy attacks.
It's also worth mentioning that empower didn't buff heavy attacks for quite a while so when they changed it, it was a quite large buff.

I'm not convinced the nerf is due to over buffing lighting ticks, when other sets are explicit about only applying to the last tick I.e sergeants mail. i think they have had an unintended affect in PVP and this is a lazy PVE nerf, especially considering there are still two sets that do work in the same manner as Infiltrator and unweaver that they have not touched.

GERMANO-THE-IMPERIAL · March 2022

Haha because of all the "set's nerfed" there are hardly any players at Eso.

mocap · March 2022

did few tests and didn't see any difference after update. Same HA rotation DPS with IA + Duelist + MA backbar. It was Sorc though, don't know about DK.

alberichtano · March 2022

colossalvoids wrote: »

Cause pvp still exists and can be better. Ik it's unpopular view but those sets can be easily replaced with other pve ones for better results, it's not a healthy gameplay to be tied to couple specific sets for years.

...until THOSE are nerfed for the exact same reason.

merpins · March 2022

Fennwitty wrote: »

Yes it's because of PvP.

Instead of treating certain things separately, they keep trying to blanket change gearsets to one-size-fits-all ... which experience should have amply illustrated IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Agreed. They should 100% balance PVE and PVP separately. I along with many other members of the community have been pushing this for years and years; let's just hope part of the pvp changes that are supposed to come sometime next year are going to have this implemented. Unlikely since it's supposed to be performance enhancement changes, but it's something to hope for.

Merlin13KAGL · March 2022

The (tooltip) numbers never added up on those anyway, not that that's kept them from plowing ahead with miscellaneous other 'features' because they couldn't find/fix or simply opted not to.

My guy says someone finally just put the decimal point in the right place.

Broken or not, it does suck that they've changed it to no longer viable though.

Lenny_linguine · March 2022

mocap wrote: »

did few tests and didn't see any difference after update. Same HA rotation DPS with IA + Duelist + MA backbar. It was Sorc though, don't know about DK.

Interesting, MA and IA didn't get nerfed, but Duellist did, I wonder if hybridisation of any skills may have offset lost HA damage in your rotation. Is your HA dps proportionally the same between last patch and live ? I have not bothered testing my DK again on live, I just cut my losses during pts and since have been Basi Z'en/ and or Tzogvins. I always just found HA set ups more fun to play but less dps. I did test a IA, deadly strikes HA set up on pts on my dk which out performed my Live HA build 88-91k so the HA play style is for sure still alive and strong but I suspect they will eventually come for the lighting staff so I'm not investing in it.