New Mara's balm "fix" does nothing at all to address the issue with this set

duckdown · September 2022

U know there r hundreds sets available in this game. And new expansion = new sets. After all this time they r ran out of idea on what set that r gonna be release. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

The7thLettter · September 2022

Please fix asap 😒

Mayrael · September 2022

The7thLettter wrote: »

Please fix asap 😒

In the case of ZOS ASAP, it's something around 3 months. This ship has already sailed, unfortunately, we won't see any fixes for this set until the next DLC. Remember how the necro bash allowed wiping entire groups? For ZOS it wasn't a problem requiring an immediate response, they waited until the next DLC, this time it will be the same.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

Mayrael wrote: »

The7thLettter wrote: »

Please fix asap 😒

In the case of ZOS ASAP, it's something around 3 months. This ship has already sailed, unfortunately, we won't see any fixes for this set until the next DLC. Remember how the necro bash allowed wiping entire groups? For ZOS it wasn't a problem requiring an immediate response, they waited until the next DLC, this time it will be the same.

A mid patch nerf is not unprecedented. I don't exactly remember the specific change that caused it, but there was a patch where all of a sudden everyone was wearing Torugs Pact with infused weapons because the extra strength enchants would apply continuously from single target weapon DOTs.

You would basically just hit someone with a DOT from each bar (Poision injection, rending slashes), and they would just melt in front of you (and you would pray they didnt do the same thing right back). It might have been the fastest ever TTK in ESO PVP.

They hot patched it so enchants only continuously applied from weapon ground DOTs, and however many years later, PVE DPS are backbaring 2H and stampede for that exact reason.

React · September 2022

Mayrael wrote: »

The7thLettter wrote: »

Please fix asap 😒

In the case of ZOS ASAP, it's something around 3 months. This ship has already sailed, unfortunately, we won't see any fixes for this set until the next DLC. Remember how the necro bash allowed wiping entire groups? For ZOS it wasn't a problem requiring an immediate response, they waited until the next DLC, this time it will be the same.

While I tend to agree with this, the argument I have as to why it can and should be fixed mid patch is that they took down the servers to hotfix undertaker - a set that was bypassing the cooldown on the lifesteal effect, and providing insane amounts of healing.

For context, mara's is currently "working as intended", and providing much more healing than undertaker was. Mara's also doesn't require you to deal damage, like undertaker did - you simply need to stand there and get hit.

Mayrael · September 2022

React wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

The7thLettter wrote: »

Please fix asap 😒

In the case of ZOS ASAP, it's something around 3 months. This ship has already sailed, unfortunately, we won't see any fixes for this set until the next DLC. Remember how the necro bash allowed wiping entire groups? For ZOS it wasn't a problem requiring an immediate response, they waited until the next DLC, this time it will be the same.

While I tend to agree with this, the argument I have as to why it can and should be fixed mid patch is that they took down the servers to hotfix undertaker - a set that was bypassing the cooldown on the lifesteal effect, and providing insane amounts of healing.

For context, mara's is currently "working as intended", and providing much more healing than undertaker was. Mara's also doesn't require you to deal damage, like undertaker did - you simply need to stand there and get hit.

I agree with both of you, this set is beyond broken, I'm just saying that ZOS thinks they have already did their part (and failed at it) and now it's less likely that they will do anything again.

Holycannoli · September 2022

Mayrael wrote: »

I agree with both of you, this set is beyond broken, I'm just saying that ZOS thinks they have already did their part (and failed at it) and now it's less likely that they will do anything again.

No they will. It may take three months but they will come to the conclusion that it needs a cooldown, just like we've been saying it needs all along. Watch, you'll see.

ForumBully · September 2022

Mayrael wrote: »

React wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

The7thLettter wrote: »

Please fix asap 😒

In the case of ZOS ASAP, it's something around 3 months. This ship has already sailed, unfortunately, we won't see any fixes for this set until the next DLC. Remember how the necro bash allowed wiping entire groups? For ZOS it wasn't a problem requiring an immediate response, they waited until the next DLC, this time it will be the same.

While I tend to agree with this, the argument I have as to why it can and should be fixed mid patch is that they took down the servers to hotfix undertaker - a set that was bypassing the cooldown on the lifesteal effect, and providing insane amounts of healing.

For context, mara's is currently "working as intended", and providing much more healing than undertaker was. Mara's also doesn't require you to deal damage, like undertaker did - you simply need to stand there and get hit.

I agree with both of you, this set is beyond broken, I'm just saying that ZOS thinks they have already did their part (and failed at it) and now it's less likely that they will do anything again.

Didn't they go through a whole overhaul thing not so long ago so they could quickly toggle off problems outside the usual patch maintenance?
This seems like a chance to demonstrate that power. Of course, they'd have to acknowledge that they created a disaster and then poorly tried to reign it in with a nerf that absolutely everyone told them would be ineffective.

Jaraal · September 2022

Holycannoli wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

I agree with both of you, this set is beyond broken, I'm just saying that ZOS thinks they have already did their part (and failed at it) and now it's less likely that they will do anything again.

No they will. It may take three months but they will come to the conclusion that it needs a cooldown, just like we've been saying it needs all along. Watch, you'll see.

Except giving it a cooldown goes directly against their stated goal to "ensure this set remains impactful when being afflicted with many incoming negative effects." Apparently they designed it to scale with the number of incoming attacks, and a cooldown negates that. And if they added a X seconds cooldown per incoming source, can you imagine the extra calculations that would require?

The whole concept sounds good on paper, but with so many potential sources of incoming effects, hard to dial in. If they reduce the healing to say, 100 per effect, then the set would be useless when fighting 1v1, and nobody would even think of wearing it.

ForumBully · September 2022

Jaraal wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

I agree with both of you, this set is beyond broken, I'm just saying that ZOS thinks they have already did their part (and failed at it) and now it's less likely that they will do anything again.

No they will. It may take three months but they will come to the conclusion that it needs a cooldown, just like we've been saying it needs all along. Watch, you'll see.

Except giving it a cooldown goes directly against their stated goal to "ensure this set remains impactful when being afflicted with many incoming negative effects." Apparently they designed it to scale with the number of incoming attacks, and a cooldown negates that. And if they added a X seconds cooldown per incoming source, can you imagine the extra calculations that would require?

The whole concept sounds good on paper, but with so many potential sources of incoming effects, hard to dial in. If they reduce the healing to say, 100 per effect, then the set would be useless when fighting 1v1, and nobody would even think of wearing it.

Seems like someone should have realized that almost everything has some kind of effect and would therefore pour a waterfall of healing making this set counter all of combat damage in general as opposed to any specific scenario.
I mean, they have a class spammable that fires off a trigger for this proc set 3 times in just over a second.
One might call this kind of oversight complete incompetence unless the goal was to release a set that turned damage abilities into target healing abilities.

TechMaybeHic · September 2022

duckdown wrote: »

U know there r hundreds sets available in this game. And new expansion = new sets. After all this time they r ran out of idea on what set that r gonna be release. [snip]

I've been saying for at least a couple years the adding sets every update is a bad idea.

[edited to remove quote]

Holycannoli · September 2022

Jaraal wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

I agree with both of you, this set is beyond broken, I'm just saying that ZOS thinks they have already did their part (and failed at it) and now it's less likely that they will do anything again.

No they will. It may take three months but they will come to the conclusion that it needs a cooldown, just like we've been saying it needs all along. Watch, you'll see.

Except giving it a cooldown goes directly against their stated goal to "ensure this set remains impactful when being afflicted with many incoming negative effects." Apparently they designed it to scale with the number of incoming attacks, and a cooldown negates that. And if they added a X seconds cooldown per incoming source, can you imagine the extra calculations that would require?

The whole concept sounds good on paper, but with so many potential sources of incoming effects, hard to dial in. If they reduce the healing to say, 100 per effect, then the set would be useless when fighting 1v1, and nobody would even think of wearing it.

Doesn't have to be 1 second per source. It just has to fire off every 1 second regardless of incoming.

It can't stay with unlimited procs. It's taxing on the servers and unless it's heavily nerfed beyond even this 50% it will still be over-used and Cyrodiil performance and balance will continue to suffer.

This set has to be nerfed to near uselessness like Nocturnal's Ploy was.

Diundriel · September 2022

Just an opinion: but the set kinda shows the state of the game: everything is more balanced now

one sets to kill Zergs if they purge your dot one that protect you against dots ... logic of the game design right now...

Gahn · September 2022

GZ ZOS scuffed cyro cp pvp.
Zerg only. Nothing killable.
Everyone supertank.
And the whole community warned about it!
You really hate us pvpers ZOS.

React · September 2022

How long must we wait for zenimax to gather whatever data they need in order to accept that this set needs a cooldown? Tune into any PVP stream and listen to what players are saying. The set is still just as broken as it was pre healing nerf. It is healing more than undertaker did when undertaker was bugged.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_BrianWheeler Do you folks want me to gather examples? What can we do to definitively show you that this set NEEDS to be adjusted?

ZOS_GinaBruno · September 2022

Hey everyone,

We wanted to thank you all for taking the time to provide so much feedback on this item set – both during the most recent PTS cycle and onwards since launch – and wanted to give you some insight into a few additional adjustments we’re planning to make for Mara’s Balm now that we’ve had a chance to do some further investigation with this item set in a Live environment.

First, we are going to add a one second cooldown, as many of you have discussed, in addition to having it trigger a larger heal when the cleanse occurs. We’re also going to increase the healing a bit from where it currently is. The goal of the set is to offer a steady stream of healing for when your character is having many negative effects applied to them, so the cooldown will still benefit from frequent incoming and outgoing effects, but now with a more consistent and predictable limit to effective healing at any given moment.

We’re still working out when we can publish this adjustment (in a future incremental versus in Update 36) but we’ll keep you posted.

ForumBully · September 2022

Cooldowns on proc heals..let's maybe log that one away for next time, this time.

ForumBully · September 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We wanted to thank you all for taking the time to provide so much feedback on this item set – both during the most recent PTS cycle and onwards since launch – and wanted to give you some insight into a few additional adjustments we’re planning to make for Mara’s Balm now that we’ve had a chance to do some further investigation with this item set in a Live environment.

First, we are going to add a one second cooldown, as many of you have discussed, in addition to having it trigger a larger heal when the cleanse occurs. We’re also going to increase the healing a bit from where it currently is. The goal of the set is to offer a steady stream of healing for when your character is having many negative effects applied to them, so the cooldown will still benefit from frequent incoming and outgoing effects, but now with a more consistent and predictable limit to effective healing at any given moment.

We’re still working out when we can publish this adjustment (in a future incremental versus in Update 36) but we’ll keep you posted.

@ZOS_GinaBruno didn't we have a big change not too long ago to allow problem sets and skills and whatnot to be disabled outside of an update? Am I nuts?

Headshotwi · September 2022

I am long time player just returned. Love to PVP and only PVE to PVP. Found
the game unplayable due to
this set. I was facing all these teams in BGs that just stick together and don’t take damage. they don’t hit as hard as me but I can’t get their life to drop. I came here looking for answers and found out it’s due to this set being abused to create practically invincible people in PVP. Very disappointed and can’t even do what i love in this game now…..

Holycannoli · September 2022

Headshotwi wrote: »

I am long time player just returned. Love to PVP and only PVE to PVP. Found
the game unplayable due to
this set. I was facing all these teams in BGs that just stick together and don’t take damage. they don’t hit as hard as me but I can’t get their life to drop. I came here looking for answers and found out it’s due to this set being abused to create practically invincible people in PVP. Very disappointed and can’t even do what i love in this game now…..

I don't know about since this week's patch but people used to be able to tank the chaosball damage + all incoming damage for the entire match because of this set.

My guess is it still can be done.

Holycannoli · September 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We wanted to thank you all for taking the time to provide so much feedback on this item set – both during the most recent PTS cycle and onwards since launch – and wanted to give you some insight into a few additional adjustments we’re planning to make for Mara’s Balm now that we’ve had a chance to do some further investigation with this item set in a Live environment.

First, we are going to add a one second cooldown, as many of you have discussed, in addition to having it trigger a larger heal when the cleanse occurs. We’re also going to increase the healing a bit from where it currently is. The goal of the set is to offer a steady stream of healing for when your character is having many negative effects applied to them, so the cooldown will still benefit from frequent incoming and outgoing effects, but now with a more consistent and predictable limit to effective healing at any given moment.

We’re still working out when we can publish this adjustment (in a future incremental versus in Update 36) but we’ll keep you posted.

Just know that the game is continually applying negative effects since it can't distinguish between an entirely new effect being applied and an already existing effect being overwritten (sometimes called "refreshing").

That's what the cooldown will hopefully address.

FrankonPC · September 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We wanted to thank you all for taking the time to provide so much feedback on this item set – both during the most recent PTS cycle and onwards since launch – and wanted to give you some insight into a few additional adjustments we’re planning to make for Mara’s Balm now that we’ve had a chance to do some further investigation with this item set in a Live environment.

First, we are going to add a one second cooldown, as many of you have discussed, in addition to having it trigger a larger heal when the cleanse occurs. We’re also going to increase the healing a bit from where it currently is. The goal of the set is to offer a steady stream of healing for when your character is having many negative effects applied to them, so the cooldown will still benefit from frequent incoming and outgoing effects, but now with a more consistent and predictable limit to effective healing at any given moment.

We’re still working out when we can publish this adjustment (in a future incremental versus in Update 36) but we’ll keep you posted.

Thank you for the update Gina. Excited to see the new changes

React · September 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We wanted to thank you all for taking the time to provide so much feedback on this item set – both during the most recent PTS cycle and onwards since launch – and wanted to give you some insight into a few additional adjustments we’re planning to make for Mara’s Balm now that we’ve had a chance to do some further investigation with this item set in a Live environment.

First, we are going to add a one second cooldown, as many of you have discussed, in addition to having it trigger a larger heal when the cleanse occurs. We’re also going to increase the healing a bit from where it currently is. The goal of the set is to offer a steady stream of healing for when your character is having many negative effects applied to them, so the cooldown will still benefit from frequent incoming and outgoing effects, but now with a more consistent and predictable limit to effective healing at any given moment.

We’re still working out when we can publish this adjustment (in a future incremental versus in Update 36) but we’ll keep you posted.

Thank you for this update, Gina.

I am happy to hear that a cooldown will be added, but I really hope we do not need to wait for u36 to receive it. PVP is in a fairly good spot balance wise, and it would be great to just have this one outlier reigned in sooner rather than later.

As far as adding a stronger heal to the purge proc - this does not seem necessary at all. The purge is on only a 15 second cooldown, which is not long at all. The way the purge functions is that for each effect removed, you are healed for one instance of the tooltip heal. While the tooltip reads "when 6 effects are on you", often times it is going to trigger with far more than 6 effects on you and result in a heal to full HP as you will come off cooldown for the set with more than 6 effects on you.

If you are going to increase the healing done when the purge procs, you need to extend the cooldown of the purge. If you simply buff the HOT portion back to where it was and leave the purge how it is, the set will still be by far the STRONGEST defensive set in PVP. I urge zenimax to simply compare it to Robes of the Hist when making this change - hist is regarded as one of the strongest defensive sets in the game, and this set performs better than it in every way/shape/form by a large margin.

TechMaybeHic · September 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We wanted to thank you all for taking the time to provide so much feedback on this item set – both during the most recent PTS cycle and onwards since launch – and wanted to give you some insight into a few additional adjustments we’re planning to make for Mara’s Balm now that we’ve had a chance to do some further investigation with this item set in a Live environment.

First, we are going to add a one second cooldown, as many of you have discussed, in addition to having it trigger a larger heal when the cleanse occurs. We’re also going to increase the healing a bit from where it currently is. The goal of the set is to offer a steady stream of healing for when your character is having many negative effects applied to them, so the cooldown will still benefit from frequent incoming and outgoing effects, but now with a more consistent and predictable limit to effective healing at any given moment.

We’re still working out when we can publish this adjustment (in a future incremental versus in Update 36) but we’ll keep you posted.

Seems reasonable. I'm cautious about how much you increase the healing, I feel the original values were fine if they weren't happening multiple times a second; but appreciate the acknowledgement for a needed fix

ForumBully · September 2022

React wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We wanted to thank you all for taking the time to provide so much feedback on this item set – both during the most recent PTS cycle and onwards since launch – and wanted to give you some insight into a few additional adjustments we’re planning to make for Mara’s Balm now that we’ve had a chance to do some further investigation with this item set in a Live environment.

First, we are going to add a one second cooldown, as many of you have discussed, in addition to having it trigger a larger heal when the cleanse occurs. We’re also going to increase the healing a bit from where it currently is. The goal of the set is to offer a steady stream of healing for when your character is having many negative effects applied to them, so the cooldown will still benefit from frequent incoming and outgoing effects, but now with a more consistent and predictable limit to effective healing at any given moment.

We’re still working out when we can publish this adjustment (in a future incremental versus in Update 36) but we’ll keep you posted.

Thank you for this update, Gina.

I am happy to hear that a cooldown will be added, but I really hope we do not need to wait for u36 to receive it. PVP is in a fairly good spot balance wise, and it would be great to just have this one outlier reigned in sooner rather than later.

As far as adding a stronger heal to the purge proc - this does not seem necessary at all. The purge is on only a 15 second cooldown, which is not long at all. The way the purge functions is that for each effect removed, you are healed for one instance of the tooltip heal. While the tooltip reads "when 6 effects are on you", often times it is going to trigger with far more than 6 effects on you and result in a heal to full HP as you will come off cooldown for the set with more than 6 effects on you.

If you are going to increase the healing done when the purge procs, you need to extend the cooldown of the purge. If you simply buff the HOT portion back to where it was and leave the purge how it is, the set will still be by far the STRONGEST defensive set in PVP. I urge zenimax to simply compare it to Robes of the Hist when making this change - hist is regarded as one of the strongest defensive sets in the game, and this set performs better than it in every way/shape/form by a large margin.

This. Even without seeing the values, this will still be incredibly strong, but the cooldown will at least keep it from proccing multiple times per second, so that's good.

ZOS_GinaBruno · September 2022

Just to quickly update, it sounds like we will likely be able to get this into an incremental patch so you won't need to wait until Update 36 launches (I also thought I posted this an hour ago but just noticed it was in my drafts, whoops!)

React · September 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to quickly update, it sounds like we will likely be able to get this into an incremental patch so you won't need to wait until Update 36 launches (I also thought I posted this an hour ago but just noticed it was in my drafts, whoops!)

Amazing to hear. Thank you, Gina!

Headshotwi · September 2022

Can’t come soon enough. just was in a chaosball BG match where one person held the ball the entire game and sat in place while nobody could kill him.

acastanza_ESO · September 2022

The 1 second cooldown is exactly what it needs, thank you!
Hopefully the (re)buffed healing doesn't go too far.
Edit: reading some of the other comments in this thread, I still have concerns about the purge proc being overtuned. A full heal every 15 seconds is too much. The amount of negative effects that you can get a heal from might need a cap.

ginoboehm · September 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to quickly update, it sounds like we will likely be able to get this into an incremental patch so you won't need to wait until Update 36 launches (I also thought I posted this an hour ago but just noticed it was in my drafts, whoops!)

We will have a solid month with mara's balm breaking pvp by then. It was clear from week one on pts and clearly stated by many experienced pvp players how broken the no cooldown is. The same thing happend with oakensoul. @ZOS_GinaBruno what is the disconnect here? Is pts feedback smth you will consider again going forward?