Buff stripping

DrNukenstein · September 2022

Nocturnal's Ploy would have been a problem if it hit live with it's original design, but I think the idea of adding buff stripping to the pvp side of gameplay would be awesome if it was well supported outside of one set.

Why is buff stripping cool?:

It's another tool in the tool kit outside of damage, sustain and survivability. In a game like ESO (PVP at least) where buffing is almost 1/4th of what you spend your action economy on Buffing, Buff Stripping can give a player an incredible amount of control over another player. You can force them to reapply their buffs or take the risk of fighting unbuffed. Fleshing out a buff stripping system could open up an entire approach to build design and combat between players that hasn't existed in this game yet

Why buff stripping didn't work for update 35:

It was introduced as one 5 piece bonus. No other skill or set can buff strip, Oakensoul builds would be unstrippable without consequence, it would render brutality/sorcery inaccessible to some classes unless they slot a two hander, and it could effectively double dip by replacing a buff with an equal debuff. The game wasn't ready for it.

What might make it work better in update 3X:

-More than one way to strip buffs. at least two classes should have a skill for it and an unlocked skill line should offer it (rework elemental weapon or the MG dot with a hot?). There should be more than one set that can give a buff stripping effect as it's 5 piece.
-More than one flavor of buff stripping. Maybe one effect steals a buff, another "detonates" a buff for some proc damage, another can remove multiple at the same time on a longer cooldown, and another can remove one at a time on a short cool down.
-a punish for perma buff users. There's a huge hole in the system if one subset of very strong builds can side step it. Maybe these effects could apply damage or a rare and potent debuff if no buffs are removed.
-No stripping potion buffs. Those cost gold
-make major sorcery/brutality in particular accessible to all classes as castable buffs, without slotting a two hander
-Have more actions and skills passively generate buffs. Like how most (all?) classes have a minor buff they share with their group just by doing their thing.
-avoid the double dip effect by not tying it to debuff application.

side note: I wonder how difficult it would be to create sets designed to be back barred that proc on weapon swap?

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

the biggest problem i recall people had with the buff stripping is when that includes the buffs provided by pots, since pots can either cost immense amount of gold due to the mats, or crowns if you happen to be one of those that actually bought crown pots (lol)

if it only stripped buffs from skills, then it would probably have been way less issue with it and it wouldnt have had to been nerfed into oblivion before it even made it out of the PTS

Heartrage · September 2022

I mean, they could also probably make a debuff that negate all minor and major buffs for it’s duration without removing them. Oakensoul and other sets would be affected by it but they wouldn’t be affected by the other stripping effects mentioned by op. Potions wouldn’t be all wasted either. It would probably need some sort of cooldown or a shorter length for balancing but having some stripping effects that are better suited for some buffs could be interesting. Oakensoul users might also want to take a set or skill to remove that debuff at the cost of more dps or tankiness.

ghastley · September 2022

Buff stripping is too powerful, because it is generic. A specific debuff that cancels out the buff is fair, because both parties need to know the effect involved. E.g. resistance to fire, and weakness to fire.

You could try to balance a buff strip with a debuff strip, where neither party knows what effect is the target, but the game is simpler, and performance better, without.

Artim_X · September 2022

I thought this was going to be a fun post... *sigh* oh well.

IMO buff stripping could be added to the negate ultimate. The idea of removing buffs from another player is interesting. However, it can be overwhelming if it is too easy to cast or too easy to proc.

jaws343 · September 2022

ghastley wrote: »

Buff stripping is too powerful, because it is generic. A specific debuff that cancels out the buff is fair, because both parties need to know the effect involved. E.g. resistance to fire, and weakness to fire.

You could try to balance a buff strip with a debuff strip, where neither party knows what effect is the target, but the game is simpler, and performance better, without.

Exactly this.

Buffs and debuffs work in most cases as direct counters to one another. Counters that you can prepare for. Like Breach and Resolve. Those two negate eachother directly. So, by adding resolve to your buff kit, you know you will be able to cancel out Breach on you, or have more resistance if an opponent isn't running the debuff.

By being able to strip a buff, you are potentially effectively doubling the debuffs you are applying to an opponent with no way to counter them. A player running Resolve is cancelling out your Breach, giving a net 0 effective to penetration for you. But you stripping Resolve from them means that you now have effectively 2 Breach worth of penetration against them. It is a lot. And it's not limited to just Breach, and the way that Nocturnal was set up meant that it could strip much more at one time. With the randomness of it, you could run an opponent dry on resources just trying to re-buff.

Wolf_Eye · September 2022

Darn. I thought this was going to be a fun thread about buffing the stats of toons who choose to go unclothed.

DrNukenstein · September 2022

ghastley wrote: »

Buff stripping is too powerful, because it is generic. A specific debuff that cancels out the buff is fair, because both parties need to know the effect involved. E.g. resistance to fire, and weakness to fire.

You could try to balance a buff strip with a debuff strip, where neither party knows what effect is the target, but the game is simpler, and performance better, without.

This is an extremely good point. Having an equal debuff for each buff in a way is a buff stripping and even a dispelling system. With that consideration, even with avoiding the double dip effect balanced buff stripping would likely have to involve buffs removing their equal debuffs. Which would probably make such a system one or two levels of convolutedness too convoluted for the game. Sorry everyone, bad idea.

But then there might be space for more ways to apply ennervation, uncertainty and ravage stam/mag