Advanced Species Passive

Skjaldbjorn · July 2022

Let's discuss this change directly, because I feel it's a very, very important one and a ton of folks are simply glossing over it, or attempting to downplay the severity of this change. It really does need its own thread, I think. Let's first glance at the change itself;

LIVE:
Advanced Species: Increases your damage done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted.

PTS:
Advanced Species: This passive now increases your Armor Penetration by 495/990 per Animal Companion skill slotted, rather than damage done by 1/2%.

Let's first look at the issues surrounding this change.

1. Warden DPS were already hovering around mid-tier in general content, particularly trials. A flat 6-12% damage nerf to all of Warden's damage, depending on build obviously, is utterly brutal and I fail to find words to describe how impactful these changes are. Extreme, gutted and dismantled don't do it justice.

2. In PVP, this passive may be useful. However, according to my understanding, 500 Pen = ~1% damage. Feel free to correct me here, but this is the math I recall. If that is the case, effectively, in PVP the two passives are roughly equal. In any other medium where pen is applied by other sources, this is a direct nerf.

3. This makes light armor exceptionally ineffective for Wardens in basically all PVE content. It pushes Warden hard to medium armor setups. This is quite the opposite of the "play how you want" mantra the last few patches have espoused.

So what these changes do is create a passive that could be useful in PVP, completely disregard Mag-centric light armor Wardens as an option, and directly nerfs all Warden builds to an exceptionally higher degree than any other class received during this cycle. So now let's discuss why?

Why was this change made? What is the ultimate goal here? There was no description for this, so we are basically left to our own devices. I have heard two lines of reasoning that do make some level of sense to me.

1. Uncapped percentage gains are bad for the game. Fair enough.

2. Percentage gains mean more calculations. Also fair.

But...wait.

Nightblade: Increases your Weapon and Spell Critical ratings by 438 for each Assassination ability slotted.
Templar: Increases Weapon Damage by 6% and Spell Resistance by 2640.
DK: Increases the damage of Flame and Poison area of effect abilities by 6%.
Sorc: Increases Spell Damage and Weapon Damage by 2% for each Sorcerer ability slotted.

So it only uncapped flat percentage damage gains that are the issue? Fine. Then let's see what we can do. I would like to formally propose both a name and give it something useful and...good lord, unique? Since we're calling the split cost of DK's new whip "unique", what about a passive with split stats? Something like;

Ferocity: Increases your weapon and spell damage by 1% and your critical rating by 219 for each Animal Companion ability slotted.

It isn't ideal. I don't think for one second it would bridge the gap. But it would at least give us something useful.

Aldoss · July 2022

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

2. In PVP, this passive may be useful. However, according to my understanding, 500 Pen = ~1% damage. Feel free to correct me here, but this is the math I recall. If that is the case, effectively, in PVP the two passives are roughly equal. In any other medium where pen is applied by other sources, this is a direct nerf.

660 is 1%. This a nerf, through and through, for both PvE and PvP.

They nerfed our damage passive and then nerfed our skills.

Biggest slap in the face to a class that already is at the bottom of the pack.

Skjaldbjorn · July 2022

Aldoss wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

2. In PVP, this passive may be useful. However, according to my understanding, 500 Pen = ~1% damage. Feel free to correct me here, but this is the math I recall. If that is the case, effectively, in PVP the two passives are roughly equal. In any other medium where pen is applied by other sources, this is a direct nerf.

660 is 1%. This a nerf, through and through, for both PvE and PvP.

They nerfed our damage passive and then nerfed our skills.

Biggest slap in the face to a class that already is at the bottom of the pack.

Fair, someone else mentioned that. I'd always heard 500 = 1% so worked under that assumption. So it's actually even worse than I thought rofl

starkerealm · July 2022

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

So it's actually even worse than I thought rofl

Yeah, it sucks.

If it makes you feel better, I had been told it was 650, and it took five or six years before someone corrected me on that.

Mr_Stach · July 2022

This also removes the ONLY damage buff that Stamden has. Piercing Cold is the standard damage buff that you find across most the other classes increasing X damage type by Y%. But Warden rocks Frost and Magic for some making Stamden entirely reliant on outside sources fir damage buffs.

Skjaldbjorn · July 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

This also removes the ONLY damage buff that Stamden has. Piercing Cold is the standard damage buff that you find across most the other classes increasing X damage type by Y%. But Warden rocks Frost and Magic for some making Stamden entirely reliant on outside sources fir damage buffs.

I just fail to grasp what logic is being used on a dev team when their solution is "Let's make a passive that can only get progressively worse the more organized the group is!"

Skjaldbjorn · July 2022

My friend had a somewhat similar idea;

Advanced Species: This passive now increases your Armor Penetration by 495/990 per Animal Companion skill slotted. Penetration over 18,200 is converted into Critical Strike chance.

starkerealm · July 2022

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

This also removes the ONLY damage buff that Stamden has. Piercing Cold is the standard damage buff that you find across most the other classes increasing X damage type by Y%. But Warden rocks Frost and Magic for some making Stamden entirely reliant on outside sources fir damage buffs.

I just fail to grasp what logic is being used on a dev team when their solution is "Let's make a passive that can only get progressively worse the more organized the group is!"

I'm basing this on the Nightblade buff, but my suspicion is that a lot (though, not all) of the class balance changes are a "motivated" by, "personal experiences in PvP," by members of the combat team.

I don't see how these are improving balance, I just see them stacking the deck for Nightblades.

Skjaldbjorn · July 2022

starkerealm wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

This also removes the ONLY damage buff that Stamden has. Piercing Cold is the standard damage buff that you find across most the other classes increasing X damage type by Y%. But Warden rocks Frost and Magic for some making Stamden entirely reliant on outside sources fir damage buffs.

I just fail to grasp what logic is being used on a dev team when their solution is "Let's make a passive that can only get progressively worse the more organized the group is!"

I'm basing this on the Nightblade buff, but my suspicion is that a lot (though, not all) of the class balance changes are a "motivated" by, "personal experiences in PvP," by members of the combat team.

I don't see how these are improving balance, I just see them stacking the deck for Nightblades.

Not gonna name any names on the dev team, but if you had told me I'd saw off my left leg to get Wrobel back, I'd have called you a dirty liar.

My leg's fair game.

Vevvev · July 2022

500 pen = 1% is for PvE since all enemies are level 50.

660 pen = 1% is for PvP since players go above level 50 to level 66 (CP 160).

WrathOfInnos · July 2022

The change doesn't make sense to me. Warden was unique in that slotting more Animal Companion skills gave more % damage done. Nightblades get crit chance, sorcs get weapon & spell damage, Necros get more crit chance against low-health enemies.

If anything, Death Knell is the redundant skill stacking passive and should be changed, but not to penetration since they get 1500 for free. Sorc isn't particularly unique either, with Fighter's Guild abilities giving more weapon & spell damage, although Sorc also would not make sense for penetration since they get 1k through Crystal Weapon.

Nightblade certainly doesn't need a penetration passive since they get 2974 while flanking.

The only classes that can really justify needed a stacking pen bonus are Templar and Dragonknight. Both lack any interesting passive for slotting class skills and have no penetration bonus. Warden should keep Advanced Species with 2% damage done.

starkerealm · July 2022

Vevvev wrote: »

500 pen = 1% is for PvE since all enemies are level 50.

660 pen = 1% is for PvP since players go above level 50 to level 66 (CP 160).

Wut?

So, the tricky thing about enemy resistances is, we can't actually see that stat.

We can remove it, and strip enemies of their resistances completely (they have 18.2k), but I've never heard about that conferring a different amount of damage mitigation to enemies than to players. That would also mean enemies had 36.4 damage mitigation from their resistance... which doesn't sound right.

Mr_Stach · July 2022

I mean if the damage is an issue let's adjust things around a bit, also add in some things I've been bouncing around for a few days.

Advanced Species:
1% Crit Chance and 1% Damage done per animal companion skill slotted.

Icy Aura:
Activating a Warden ability increases Armor Penetration by 1200 for 15 seconds.

Biting Cold:
Increase Frost and Bleed Damage by 10%

ESO_Nightingale · July 2022

1%wep spell dmg and 1% crit chance would be really nice.

10% frost and bleed would be fantastic if they swapped our mag dmg animal companions skills to frost damage. Eviscerate on vampire should deal bleed.

TPishek · July 2022

I don't think it's as good as it was before, but it's kinda nice for being able to run more Medium armor in different situations.

Pevey · July 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I mean if the damage is an issue let's adjust things around a bit, also add in some things I've been bouncing around for a few days.

Advanced Species:
1% Crit Chance and 1% Damage done per animal companion skill slotted.

Icy Aura:
Activating a Warden ability increases Armor Penetration by 1200 for 15 seconds.

Biting Cold:
Increase Frost and Bleed Damage by 10%

The thing is, the damage wasn't an issue. Wardens were not over-performing.

ESO_Nightingale · July 2022

Pevey wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I mean if the damage is an issue let's adjust things around a bit, also add in some things I've been bouncing around for a few days.

Advanced Species:
1% Crit Chance and 1% Damage done per animal companion skill slotted.

Icy Aura:
Activating a Warden ability increases Armor Penetration by 1200 for 15 seconds.

Biting Cold:
Increase Frost and Bleed Damage by 10%

The thing is, the damage wasn't an issue. Wardens were not over-performing.

And if we were, more than just sorc should've been hit

Mr_Stach · July 2022

Pevey wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I mean if the damage is an issue let's adjust things around a bit, also add in some things I've been bouncing around for a few days.

Advanced Species:
1% Crit Chance and 1% Damage done per animal companion skill slotted.

Icy Aura:
Activating a Warden ability increases Armor Penetration by 1200 for 15 seconds.

Biting Cold:
Increase Frost and Bleed Damage by 10%

The thing is, the damage wasn't an issue. Wardens were not over-performing.

I know that damage wasn't an issue, Warden's weren't overpowering dps charts or pvp. Zos just decided to do something.

But if they were to change something, this is how I would do it, rework the nearly useless icy Aura passive, remove the magic damage and add bleed for Stamdens. I also think the crit chance is nice for general purposes, especially Brittleden setups.

ESO_Nightingale · July 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I mean if the damage is an issue let's adjust things around a bit, also add in some things I've been bouncing around for a few days.

Advanced Species:
1% Crit Chance and 1% Damage done per animal companion skill slotted.

Icy Aura:
Activating a Warden ability increases Armor Penetration by 1200 for 15 seconds.

Biting Cold:
Increase Frost and Bleed Damage by 10%

The thing is, the damage wasn't an issue. Wardens were not over-performing.

I know that damage wasn't an issue, Warden's weren't overpowering dps charts or pvp. Zos just decided to do something.

But if they were to change something, this is how I would do it, rework the nearly useless icy Aura passive, remove the magic damage and add bleed for Stamdens. I also think the crit chance is nice for general purposes, especially Brittleden setups.

With the charged nerfs and bleed proc from bear precise is overtaking charged once again. But since brittle and glacial presence is mostly crit damage based, I'm absolutely not going to argue with getting more crit chance. Would be nice if icy aura increased crit chance while a winter's embrace skill was active or something though. Or if chilled execute was put on there.

francesinhalover · July 2022

From what i understand % extra dmg has diminishing(...is that how you write the word?) returns.
Pen doesnt.
When ppl have trial sets that increase dmg
by 5% on dungeons trials and arena.
What ppl actually get is around 3%.

Anyways, hopefully im wrong

Skjaldbjorn · July 2022

francesinhalover wrote: »

From what i understand % extra dmg has diminishing(...is that how you write the word?) returns.
Pen doesnt.
When ppl have trial sets that increase dmg
by 5% on dungeons trials and arena.
What ppl actually get is around 3%.

Anyways, hopefully im wrong

How they handle additive percentages is kind of odd. I have yet to see any definitive math behind how it actually works. But if we read it as the tooltip, we can at least use a related value. Either way, it's the only passive in the game where being in more and more optimized, organized groups is actually a nerf. The passive gets worse. You're not rewarded for optimizing. You're punished for it.

Mr_Stach · July 2022

francesinhalover wrote: »

From what i understand % extra dmg has diminishing(...is that how you write the word?) returns.
Pen doesnt.
When ppl have trial sets that increase dmg
by 5% on dungeons trials and arena.
What ppl actually get is around 3%.

Anyways, hopefully im wrong

I think percentages get messy which is why Zos has often switched to numerical values.

So instead of it adding 1% damage, it could add 100 weapon/spell damage and X spell crit per animal companion skill slotted

Tannus15 · July 2022

it all depends on when the percentages and bonuses are applied

a great example of this is cost reduction % vs cost reduction enchants.
the cost reduction enchantment is applied before the cost reduction passive, so to keep the math simple, say a skill costs 1000 mag and you have 100 cost reduction.
now the skill costs 900
now lets say the skill had 20% cost reduction.
900 - 20% = 720.
however without the enchantments
1000 - 20% = 800

so the cost reduction enchant only reduced it by 80, not the advertised 100.

you have the same issue in reverse with damage% increase. because of the ordering of damage increases applied, the final tool tip isn't increased by 5%, in real terms you end up with 3%

Mr_Stach · July 2022

Either way, switch Damage for Pen is just a bad move for Warden. It's such a fundamental passive for Wardens Damage kit and we didn't even get a Developer Note on it. Probably because there is no real way they could justify changing it, they just felt like nerfing Warden just a little more I guess.

Skjaldbjorn · July 2022

Tannus15 wrote: »

it all depends on when the percentages and bonuses are applied

a great example of this is cost reduction % vs cost reduction enchants.
the cost reduction enchantment is applied before the cost reduction passive, so to keep the math simple, say a skill costs 1000 mag and you have 100 cost reduction.
now the skill costs 900
now lets say the skill had 20% cost reduction.
900 - 20% = 720.
however without the enchantments
1000 - 20% = 800

so the cost reduction enchant only reduced it by 80, not the advertised 100.

you have the same issue in reverse with damage% increase. because of the ordering of damage increases applied, the final tool tip isn't increased by 5%, in real terms you end up with 3%

Either way, regardless of how the math tracks on how flat percentage damage gains work, when they reduced it from 3% to 2% it was a massive nerf that pushed Warden deep down the DPS charts. Removing it entirely and replacing it with wasted stat is going to kill the class.

MindOfTheSwarm · July 2022

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

1%wep spell dmg and 1% crit chance would be really nice.

10% frost and bleed would be fantastic if they swapped our mag dmg animal companions skills to frost damage. Eviscerate on vampire should deal bleed.

At the very least Arterial Burst. WIth a Bleed DoT on it.

MindOfTheSwarm · July 2022

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

1%wep spell dmg and 1% crit chance would be really nice.

10% frost and bleed would be fantastic if they swapped our mag dmg animal companions skills to frost damage. Eviscerate on vampire should deal bleed.

To be honest though, I think Warden needs a rework anyway. No one uses birds, shalks are the crutch for the class, bear is also required, most morphs don't get used. It feels almost like a half class. The entire thing needs looking at again. I would say the same for Necromancer, too. I never understood why each line was dedicated to a specific role, and then they tried that philosophy to the older classes and now they feel a mess too.

Honestly, who is in charge of the decision making when it comes to managing the classes and skills. I cannot express how much I hate with a passion this standardization nonsense. I haven't touched the game since this PTS, I will wait to see what happens. But knowing ZoS history for not listening to players, I think I know what the future of my role in this game will be.

Mr_Stach · July 2022

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

1%wep spell dmg and 1% crit chance would be really nice.

10% frost and bleed would be fantastic if they swapped our mag dmg animal companions skills to frost damage. Eviscerate on vampire should deal bleed.

To be honest though, I think Warden needs a rework anyway. No one uses birds, shalks are the crutch for the class, bear is also required, most morphs don't get used. It feels almost like a half class. The entire thing needs looking at again. I would say the same for Necromancer, too. I never understood why each line was dedicated to a specific role, and then they tried that philosophy to the older classes and now they feel a mess too.

Honestly, who is in charge of the decision making when it comes to managing the classes and skills. I cannot express how much I hate with a passion this standardization nonsense. I haven't touched the game since this PTS, I will wait to see what happens. But knowing ZoS history for not listening to players, I think I know what the future of my role in this game will be.

I mean over on the Frost Discord we've been Reworking Tons of stuff....... we pitched a bunch of it last time too. I think Zos need to refocus on what Warden is. There's plenty of Lore and even more with High Isle. Warden deserves better be we keep getting knocked down.

the1andonlyskwex · July 2022

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

francesinhalover wrote: »

From what i understand % extra dmg has diminishing(...is that how you write the word?) returns.
Pen doesnt.
When ppl have trial sets that increase dmg
by 5% on dungeons trials and arena.
What ppl actually get is around 3%.

Anyways, hopefully im wrong

How they handle additive percentages is kind of odd. I have yet to see any definitive math behind how it actually works. But if we read it as the tooltip, we can at least use a related value. Either way, it's the only passive in the game where being in more and more optimized, organized groups is actually a nerf. The passive gets worse. You're not rewarded for optimizing. You're punished for it.

While I'm not even sure I agree with your premise about penetration getting worse in organized groups (just change your group composition to provide different bonuses), you're still wrong about this being the only passive that provides penetration. Take a look at Necromancer's Dismember passive and Nightblade's Master Assassin passive.

Mr_Stach · July 2022

Whether you agree with the premise of Penetration being worse in organized groups or not, the change of Damage to Penetration is a Nerf in PvE, especially if you're running light armor. In PvP it's a bit different because Penetration is more important against so many people running heavy armor.

This 1 rework is making the rest of the general nerfs worse for Warden.

prof_doom · July 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Whether you agree with the premise of Penetration being worse in organized groups or not, the change of Damage to Penetration is a Nerf in PvE, especially if you're running light armor. In PvP it's a big different because Penetration is more important against so many people running heavy armor.

This 1 rework is making the rest of the general nerfs worse for Warden.

It's probably still a nerf in PVP. People were getting enough penetration just fine with advanced species being damage boost.