Defile should not have been touched

Aldoss · March 12

This is yet another form of feedback that was pointed out several times by various people on the PTS forum, that was then subsequently ignored and went to live. @ZOS_Kevin was tagged on it, as was @ZOS_GinaBruno.

Defile's numbers were downgraded from a combined 26% to a combined 18%. The compensation for this, as stated in the patch notes, was to be a counter for Major and Minor Vitality which was also downgraded because the buff would now affect shield sizes. The problem with this lies in the fact that there are 4 possible buffs that affect healing - Maj and Min Vitality and Maj and Min Mending. A player with both Maj Vitality and Maj Mending not only counters Maj and Min Defile, but the player still enjoys an extra 4% of increased healing after being debuffed, likely by the two skills in the game (Blighted Blastbones & Claws of Anguish) that can guarantee both debuffs at the same time.

The only saving grace to this is that Major Vitality is not easily sourced unless you're near a healer with Mender's Ward or are a troll tank with Malubeth. It's more likely that any given player has Major and Minor Mending.

Maybe you're unaware ZOS, but healing AND shields are completely overtuned, and after 24 hours of playing this patch, will continue to be overtuned. Defile should not have been adjusted at all. It should have just received the buff of downgrading shields (which are extremely high right now). Stronger than Maj + Min Vitality, but still weaker than MajMin Vitality + MajMin Mending* which is a combined total of 48% buffed healing and 18% buffed shield size (*this likelihood is extremely low, but just shows the possible buffing profit that might incentivize someone to try).

Sourcing Maj Vitality and Mending at the same time isn't easy, sure, just like Major Defile is only easily sourced via 4 skills - Blighted Blastbones, Claws of Anguish, Dark Flare, and Corrupting Pollen. All of those Defile skills are class locked except for Claws of Anguish, which is transformation locked (you need to be a werewolf and transformed in order to gain access to the skill). Minor Defile is easily sourced via disease glyphs. Buffing Maj and Min Defile a bit alone to be the same numbers as Mending would be a great boost to necro and WW (Necro would still be a trash can, but at least it wouldn't also be the dumpster fire that it is now without Stalking BB). Necro and WW would instantly become a check on the rampant overtuned healing and shield stacking present in Cyro.

Should this proposal actually make it to a devs eyes:

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to enjoy an extra 4% of healing and shield size against an opponent who only has Minor Defile (-8%). Hard to source buff, beats the easy sourced debuff.

- Someone with Major Mending (+18%) can expect to enjoy an extra 10% of healing, but -8% shield size against an opponent who only has Minor Defile (-8%). Both easily sourced, checks and balances, but Major still beats Minor in terms of power since healing tooltips are generally higher than shield tooltips.

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to be debuffed by -14% on their healing and shield size against a necro with blighted bb (-26%). Hard to source buff, but gets beaten by the two skills in the game that can guarantee both status effects at once.

- Should someone be able to source Minor Vitality and Major Mending (+24% healing, +6% shields), they would still (mostly) negate the healing debuff from the two skills in the game that guarantee both status debuffs, and take a -2% hit to their heals and a -20% hit to their damage shields. This scenario is a sorc healer, a warden healer, or templar healer. Given that there are only 12 (probably) necro's left in Cyro, and puppies are only slightly more common, this scenario against Minor Defile alone would see the user enjoy +14% healing with a -2% hit to their shields.

- Add in Minor Mending into the above scenario and you have a healer that has +32% healing and +6% shield size. Against someone with only Minor Defile, they would enjoy +26% healing and have their shield size debuffed by only -2%.

Nerfing it to match only one combination of those buffs is just another example of poor combat design because there is no counter to Maj and Min Mending, which was left untouched and has higher percentages than Defile. Defile is the catch all for all four.

TL;DR - Major and Minor Defile need to be stronger than Major and Minor Vitality alone, but should be weaker than combinations of Major and Minor Vitality and Mending.

I should also mention that this change doesn't even require a balance between PvE and PvP because defile is only a combat mechanic in PvP* (*as far as I know. I'm a smooth brained 100% PvP player and haven't stepped foot in PvE in years)

Necrotech_Master · March 12

to give the pve perspective, defile is functionally useless in pve, very few enemies in PVE have any healing at all, but it either ranges from so low as to be ignorable, or so high even the defile buff wouldnt even dent it

most trash mobs have some form of weak healer enemy, these heal at a rate of like 500-1000 heal per second, which in pve most DPS are doing 30k dps, so this is negligible, and not worth the time trying to debuff

on the opposite spectrum are some enemies such as drodda in direfrost keep, on vet HM has heal ticks of like 120k per second, which even a combined major and minor defile will barely dent (they might reduce it down to like 100k heal per second, which is still enough that its almost impossible to out-dps it)

another overtuned PVE heal example is the walks-like-thunder WB in murkmire which gets absurdly strong heals and major/minor defile wouldnt even dent

theres pretty much no in between levels of healing where having major or minor defile in pve would be of benefit, your either doing so much dps that the npc heals are ignorable, or the npc heal is so insanely overtuned no amount of debuffs will be able to counter it

so realistically defile is a pvp only debuff because its not functionally useful in pve

ssewallb14_ESO · March 12

They don't seem to want heal debuffs to exist, this has been the case since they restructured the combat team. You used to be able to stack over 70% healing reduction and even then some people would still outheal it (to be fair this was before they tweaked battle spirit). Even 26% is kind of hilarious to me, let alone 18%.

El_Borracho · March 12

My guess, and this is just a guess, is that it had something to do with the amount of players complaining about Maarselok in PVP.

CameraBeardThePirate · March 12

El_Borracho wrote: »

My guess, and this is just a guess, is that it had something to do with the amount of players complaining about Maarselok in PVP.

That doesn't really make sense though?

Maarselok has a very small chance to even apply diseased in the first place.

Sure, Defile makes Maarselok better, but so does literally every other negative effect.

Defile needs to matter again. Buff it.

El_Borracho · March 13

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

My guess, and this is just a guess, is that it had something to do with the amount of players complaining about Maarselok in PVP.

That doesn't really make sense though?

Maarselok has a very small chance to even apply diseased in the first place.

Sure, Defile makes Maarselok better, but so does literally every other negative effect.

Defile needs to matter again. Buff it.

I have said the exact same thing to myself. I play PVP and I don't run Maarselok. I haven't found it to be the devastating force some think it is, and wonder why someone would forgo a full 5 piece set to run 2 pieces of Maarselok. But those that do are very vocal about it.

And YES, bring back defile. Along with Thurkovun and all the other sets that used to matter

Neoauspex · March 13

I absolutely agree with this, there are too many stalemates in PvP because healing is out of control. Also bring back shield breaker, shields are out of control too.

Aldoss · March 13

Changing defile rather than adjusting battle spirit would also give more agency to players and dramatically boost play styles.

Like I said in the main post, WW mostly plays like a fear bot. They're always tanky. No one runs from them. Their play style is relinquished to being "annoying tanks".

Necros are just clowns. No one sees them, outside of the random ball group that wants the major vuln. No one runs from necros.

Bring back defile. Give it the teeth it needs and Cyro's engagement will be better for it. These play styles would then have purpose outside of being annoying or a clown show.

Flame and poison enchants are super powerful and often used. Shock enchants are one of the best glyph options for easy access to minor vuln. Absorb stamina is used frequently for access to minor breach. The one thing all these glyphs have in common is that they boost a user's damage.

I never see foulness glyphs on my combat logs. Defile is always sourced from a skill or set. Diseased does awful dmg, slightly more now with the aoe change, but the status effect is still just subpar and underwhelming. Healers barely notice defile.

There are builds in the game that were able to 1vX a handful of people while being affected by Major and Minor Defile (-26% healing) AND a full stack of Malady (-30% healing)... a whopping -56% healing, and were still able to sustain a small group of average players for over 5 minutes. That's honestly absurd. And yet, this suggestion will still see those builds do just fine.

If the devs refuse to counter heal stacking in Cyro, the LEAST they can do is buff defile to be something worth slotting over all the other damage boosting glyphs.

Personally I think defile needs to be 20%/10% for a combined 30%.

EF321 · March 14

Aldoss wrote: »

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to be debuffed by -14% on their healing and shield size against a necro with blighted bb (-26%). Hard to source buff, but gets beaten by the only skill in the game that can guarantee both status effects at once.

Claws of anguish guarantee both too.

the1andonlyskwex · March 14

I agree with this proposal, although you did forget Dark Flare as an easy source of Major Defile. Fortunately, it could use a buff.

Vulkunne · March 14

Yeah defile status effect used to be strong but enough big names complained about, so they nerfed it so hard they're still nerfing it.

Many of the changes in this patch really seems like they got nothing. I mean they got nothing to do but bring a needle to knife-throwing competition. Serves no one and wastes everyone's time trying to figure out why.

Smells of a lack of direction on their end.

Aldoss · March 15

EF321 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to be debuffed by -14% on their healing and shield size against a necro with blighted bb (-26%). Hard to source buff, but gets beaten by the only skill in the game that can guarantee both status effects at once.

Claws of anguish guarantee both too.

Thank you. I have updated the OP.

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I agree with this proposal, although you did forget Dark Flare as an easy source of Major Defile. Fortunately, it could use a buff.

I purposefully left Dark Flare off the list. I said "easily" sourced and I think I stand by that. Dark Flare is definitely unique, hits hard, and is an interesting skill in the plar toolkit, but it's single target and has a cast time. The 3 skills I mentioned are instant cast aoe's that create the debuff, two of which are ranged. A WW will cast claws of anguish frequently enough in a rotation that major and minor defile maintains high uptime against a group and a necro can have 90+% uptime on major and minor defile at range on a group.

Turtle_Bot · March 15

I can get behind these buffs for defile, and I say this as a sorc main who plays off meta builds (using, but not abusing, the max mag wards, my wards sit about 10-11k with a 4k heal, not the 14-15k ward + 6k heal that max mag can get to).

nejcn001 · March 15

Offensive buffs should always be stronger than defensive to reduce stalemating.

Aldoss · March 15

nejcn001 wrote: »

Offensive buffs should always be stronger than defensive to reduce stalemating.

What's amazing about this is that the stalemating is on par with how things were in 2021, back when Alessian WW's were trolling around with 4k+ hp regen.

Healing is out of this world strong. Regen is easier than ever. Undeath has completely negated the benefit of most executes.

We need a strong defile. There should be a counter to this.

Necrotech_Master · March 15

Aldoss wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to be debuffed by -14% on their healing and shield size against a necro with blighted bb (-26%). Hard to source buff, but gets beaten by the only skill in the game that can guarantee both status effects at once.

Claws of anguish guarantee both too.

Thank you. I have updated the OP.

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I agree with this proposal, although you did forget Dark Flare as an easy source of Major Defile. Fortunately, it could use a buff.

I purposefully left Dark Flare off the list. I said "easily" sourced and I think I stand by that. Dark Flare is definitely unique, hits hard, and is an interesting skill in the plar toolkit, but it's single target and has a cast time. The 3 skills I mentioned are instant cast aoe's that create the debuff, two of which are ranged. A WW will cast claws of anguish frequently enough in a rotation that major and minor defile maintains high uptime against a group and a necro can have 90+% uptime on major and minor defile at range on a group.

FYI the dmg on dark flare is single target, but it applies defile in an aoe around the target (specifically 8 meters)

while it still has the cast time, it can be used from range and does apply defile in aoe

the1andonlyskwex · March 15

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to be debuffed by -14% on their healing and shield size against a necro with blighted bb (-26%). Hard to source buff, but gets beaten by the only skill in the game that can guarantee both status effects at once.

Claws of anguish guarantee both too.

Thank you. I have updated the OP.

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I agree with this proposal, although you did forget Dark Flare as an easy source of Major Defile. Fortunately, it could use a buff.

I purposefully left Dark Flare off the list. I said "easily" sourced and I think I stand by that. Dark Flare is definitely unique, hits hard, and is an interesting skill in the plar toolkit, but it's single target and has a cast time. The 3 skills I mentioned are instant cast aoe's that create the debuff, two of which are ranged. A WW will cast claws of anguish frequently enough in a rotation that major and minor defile maintains high uptime against a group and a necro can have 90+% uptime on major and minor defile at range on a group.

FYI the dmg on dark flare is single target, but it applies defile in an aoe around the target (specifically 8 meters)

while it still has the cast time, it can be used from range and does apply defile in aoe

Exactly this. If major defile were strong, Dark Flare would be one of the most effective ways to get it. The only reason Dark Flare isn't a preferred source now is that Major Defile is weak and Dark Flare is lackluster compared to Sweep/Jabs otherwise.

Aldoss · March 15

Good arguments. I haven't played plar in years. Had no idea the defile was aoe.

Updating the OP. Cheers @the1andonlyskwex and @Necrotech_Master

silky_soft · March 15

I agree offense should always be higher then defence. Return it back to what it used to be to counter both healing buffs. There is also the 20% healing from support line? Then you return cost increase poisons to 60%, but make it all cost including sprint, breakfree, roll, jumping and skills. There is plenty of cleanse in the game.

StarOfElyon · March 15

Aldoss wrote: »

This is yet another form of feedback that was pointed out several times by various people on the PTS forum, that was then subsequently ignored and went to live. @ZOS_Kevin was tagged on it, as was @ZOS_GinaBruno.

Defile's numbers were downgraded from a combined 26% to a combined 18%. The compensation for this, as stated in the patch notes, was to be a counter for Major and Minor Vitality which was also downgraded because the buff would now affect shield sizes. The problem with this lies in the fact that there are 4 possible buffs that affect healing - Maj and Min Vitality and Maj and Min Mending. A player with both Maj Vitality and Maj Mending not only counters Maj and Min Defile, but the player still enjoys an extra 4% of increased healing after being debuffed, likely by the two skills in the game (Blighted Blastbones & Claws of Anguish) that can guarantee both debuffs at the same time.

The only saving grace to this is that Major Vitality is not easily sourced unless you're near a healer with Mender's Ward or are a troll tank with Malubeth. It's more likely that any given player has Major and Minor Mending.

Maybe you're unaware ZOS, but healing AND shields are completely overtuned, and after 24 hours of playing this patch, will continue to be overtuned. Defile should not have been adjusted at all. It should have just received the buff of downgrading shields (which are extremely high right now). Stronger than Maj + Min Vitality, but still weaker than MajMin Vitality + MajMin Mending* which is a combined total of 48% buffed healing and 18% buffed shield size (*this likelihood is extremely low, but just shows the possible buffing profit that might incentivize someone to try).

Sourcing Maj Vitality and Mending at the same time isn't easy, sure, just like Major Defile is only easily sourced via 4 skills - Blighted Blastbones, Claws of Anguish, Dark Flare, and Corrupting Pollen. All of those Defile skills are class locked except for Claws of Anguish, which is transformation locked (you need to be a werewolf and transformed in order to gain access to the skill). Minor Defile is easily sourced via disease glyphs. Buffing Maj and Min Defile a bit alone to be the same numbers as Mending would be a great boost to necro and WW (Necro would still be a trash can, but at least it wouldn't also be the dumpster fire that it is now without Stalking BB). Necro and WW would instantly become a check on the rampant overtuned healing and shield stacking present in Cyro.

Should this proposal actually make it to a devs eyes:

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to enjoy an extra 4% of healing and shield size against an opponent who only has Minor Defile (-8%). Hard to source buff, beats the easy sourced debuff.

- Someone with Major Mending (+18%) can expect to enjoy an extra 10% of healing, but -8% shield size against an opponent who only has Minor Defile (-8%). Both easily sourced, checks and balances, but Major still beats Minor in terms of power since healing tooltips are generally higher than shield tooltips.

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to be debuffed by -14% on their healing and shield size against a necro with blighted bb (-26%). Hard to source buff, but gets beaten by the two skills in the game that can guarantee both status effects at once.

- Should someone be able to source Minor Vitality and Major Mending (+24% healing, +6% shields), they would still (mostly) negate the healing debuff from the two skills in the game that guarantee both status debuffs, and take a -2% hit to their heals and a -20% hit to their damage shields. This scenario is a sorc healer, a warden healer, or templar healer. Given that there are only 12 (probably) necro's left in Cyro, and puppies are only slightly more common, this scenario against Minor Defile alone would see the user enjoy +14% healing with a -2% hit to their shields.

- Add in Minor Mending into the above scenario and you have a healer that has +32% healing and +6% shield size. Against someone with only Minor Defile, they would enjoy +26% healing and have their shield size debuffed by only -2%.

Nerfing it to match only one combination of those buffs is just another example of poor combat design because there is no counter to Maj and Min Mending, which was left untouched and has higher percentages than Defile. Defile is the catch all for all four.

TL;DR - Major and Minor Defile need to be stronger than Major and Minor Vitality alone, but should be weaker than combinations of Major and Minor Vitality and Mending.

I should also mention that this change doesn't even require a balance between PvE and PvP because defile is only a combat mechanic in PvP* (*as far as I know. I'm a smooth brained 100% PvP player and haven't stepped foot in PvE in years)

I guess the plan is to implement more sources of defile through scribing.

Aldoss · March 16

StarOfElyon wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

This is yet another form of feedback that was pointed out several times by various people on the PTS forum, that was then subsequently ignored and went to live. @ZOS_Kevin was tagged on it, as was @ZOS_GinaBruno.

Defile's numbers were downgraded from a combined 26% to a combined 18%. The compensation for this, as stated in the patch notes, was to be a counter for Major and Minor Vitality which was also downgraded because the buff would now affect shield sizes. The problem with this lies in the fact that there are 4 possible buffs that affect healing - Maj and Min Vitality and Maj and Min Mending. A player with both Maj Vitality and Maj Mending not only counters Maj and Min Defile, but the player still enjoys an extra 4% of increased healing after being debuffed, likely by the two skills in the game (Blighted Blastbones & Claws of Anguish) that can guarantee both debuffs at the same time.

The only saving grace to this is that Major Vitality is not easily sourced unless you're near a healer with Mender's Ward or are a troll tank with Malubeth. It's more likely that any given player has Major and Minor Mending.

Maybe you're unaware ZOS, but healing AND shields are completely overtuned, and after 24 hours of playing this patch, will continue to be overtuned. Defile should not have been adjusted at all. It should have just received the buff of downgrading shields (which are extremely high right now). Stronger than Maj + Min Vitality, but still weaker than MajMin Vitality + MajMin Mending* which is a combined total of 48% buffed healing and 18% buffed shield size (*this likelihood is extremely low, but just shows the possible buffing profit that might incentivize someone to try).

Sourcing Maj Vitality and Mending at the same time isn't easy, sure, just like Major Defile is only easily sourced via 4 skills - Blighted Blastbones, Claws of Anguish, Dark Flare, and Corrupting Pollen. All of those Defile skills are class locked except for Claws of Anguish, which is transformation locked (you need to be a werewolf and transformed in order to gain access to the skill). Minor Defile is easily sourced via disease glyphs. Buffing Maj and Min Defile a bit alone to be the same numbers as Mending would be a great boost to necro and WW (Necro would still be a trash can, but at least it wouldn't also be the dumpster fire that it is now without Stalking BB). Necro and WW would instantly become a check on the rampant overtuned healing and shield stacking present in Cyro.

Should this proposal actually make it to a devs eyes:

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to enjoy an extra 4% of healing and shield size against an opponent who only has Minor Defile (-8%). Hard to source buff, beats the easy sourced debuff.

- Someone with Major Mending (+18%) can expect to enjoy an extra 10% of healing, but -8% shield size against an opponent who only has Minor Defile (-8%). Both easily sourced, checks and balances, but Major still beats Minor in terms of power since healing tooltips are generally higher than shield tooltips.

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to be debuffed by -14% on their healing and shield size against a necro with blighted bb (-26%). Hard to source buff, but gets beaten by the two skills in the game that can guarantee both status effects at once.

- Should someone be able to source Minor Vitality and Major Mending (+24% healing, +6% shields), they would still (mostly) negate the healing debuff from the two skills in the game that guarantee both status debuffs, and take a -2% hit to their heals and a -20% hit to their damage shields. This scenario is a sorc healer, a warden healer, or templar healer. Given that there are only 12 (probably) necro's left in Cyro, and puppies are only slightly more common, this scenario against Minor Defile alone would see the user enjoy +14% healing with a -2% hit to their shields.

- Add in Minor Mending into the above scenario and you have a healer that has +32% healing and +6% shield size. Against someone with only Minor Defile, they would enjoy +26% healing and have their shield size debuffed by only -2%.

Nerfing it to match only one combination of those buffs is just another example of poor combat design because there is no counter to Maj and Min Mending, which was left untouched and has higher percentages than Defile. Defile is the catch all for all four.

TL;DR - Major and Minor Defile need to be stronger than Major and Minor Vitality alone, but should be weaker than combinations of Major and Minor Vitality and Mending.

I should also mention that this change doesn't even require a balance between PvE and PvP because defile is only a combat mechanic in PvP* (*as far as I know. I'm a smooth brained 100% PvP player and haven't stepped foot in PvE in years)

I guess the plan is to implement more sources of defile through scribing.

I hope that's not their logic, though.

Even if everyone had some sort of defile, it's action was already weak compared to the raw healing made possible in this game. One HA from a resto staff essentially negates Major and Minor Defile, minus the new action to damage shield size, which I don't think is a good enough reason to keep things as they are.

Both healing and shield sizes are overtuned. Both need to be countered.

DarkAgentZer0 · April 11

Aldoss wrote: »

This is yet another form of feedback that was pointed out several times by various people on the PTS forum, that was then subsequently ignored and went to live. @ZOS_Kevin was tagged on it, as was @ZOS_GinaBruno.

Defile's numbers were downgraded from a combined 26% to a combined 18%. The compensation for this, as stated in the patch notes, was to be a counter for Major and Minor Vitality which was also downgraded because the buff would now affect shield sizes. The problem with this lies in the fact that there are 4 possible buffs that affect healing - Maj and Min Vitality and Maj and Min Mending. A player with both Maj Vitality and Maj Mending not only counters Maj and Min Defile, but the player still enjoys an extra 4% of increased healing after being debuffed, likely by the two skills in the game (Blighted Blastbones & Claws of Anguish) that can guarantee both debuffs at the same time.

The only saving grace to this is that Major Vitality is not easily sourced unless you're near a healer with Mender's Ward or are a troll tank with Malubeth. It's more likely that any given player has Major and Minor Mending.

Maybe you're unaware ZOS, but healing AND shields are completely overtuned, and after 24 hours of playing this patch, will continue to be overtuned. Defile should not have been adjusted at all. It should have just received the buff of downgrading shields (which are extremely high right now). Stronger than Maj + Min Vitality, but still weaker than MajMin Vitality + MajMin Mending* which is a combined total of 48% buffed healing and 18% buffed shield size (*this likelihood is extremely low, but just shows the possible buffing profit that might incentivize someone to try).

Sourcing Maj Vitality and Mending at the same time isn't easy, sure, just like Major Defile is only easily sourced via 4 skills - Blighted Blastbones, Claws of Anguish, Dark Flare, and Corrupting Pollen. All of those Defile skills are class locked except for Claws of Anguish, which is transformation locked (you need to be a werewolf and transformed in order to gain access to the skill). Minor Defile is easily sourced via disease glyphs. Buffing Maj and Min Defile a bit alone to be the same numbers as Mending would be a great boost to necro and WW (Necro would still be a trash can, but at least it wouldn't also be the dumpster fire that it is now without Stalking BB). Necro and WW would instantly become a check on the rampant overtuned healing and shield stacking present in Cyro.

Should this proposal actually make it to a devs eyes:

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to enjoy an extra 4% of healing and shield size against an opponent who only has Minor Defile (-8%). Hard to source buff, beats the easy sourced debuff.

- Someone with Major Mending (+18%) can expect to enjoy an extra 10% of healing, but -8% shield size against an opponent who only has Minor Defile (-8%). Both easily sourced, checks and balances, but Major still beats Minor in terms of power since healing tooltips are generally higher than shield tooltips.

- Someone with Major Vitality (+12%) can expect to be debuffed by -14% on their healing and shield size against a necro with blighted bb (-26%). Hard to source buff, but gets beaten by the two skills in the game that can guarantee both status effects at once.

- Should someone be able to source Minor Vitality and Major Mending (+24% healing, +6% shields), they would still (mostly) negate the healing debuff from the two skills in the game that guarantee both status debuffs, and take a -2% hit to their heals and a -20% hit to their damage shields. This scenario is a sorc healer, a warden healer, or templar healer. Given that there are only 12 (probably) necro's left in Cyro, and puppies are only slightly more common, this scenario against Minor Defile alone would see the user enjoy +14% healing with a -2% hit to their shields.

- Add in Minor Mending into the above scenario and you have a healer that has +32% healing and +6% shield size. Against someone with only Minor Defile, they would enjoy +26% healing and have their shield size debuffed by only -2%.

Nerfing it to match only one combination of those buffs is just another example of poor combat design because there is no counter to Maj and Min Mending, which was left untouched and has higher percentages than Defile. Defile is the catch all for all four.

TL;DR - Major and Minor Defile need to be stronger than Major and Minor Vitality alone, but should be weaker than combinations of Major and Minor Vitality and Mending.

I should also mention that this change doesn't even require a balance between PvE and PvP because defile is only a combat mechanic in PvP* (*as far as I know. I'm a smooth brained 100% PvP player and haven't stepped foot in PvE in years)

Devs ruining Necromancer, what a surprise…

Shiredo · April 11

Everything ZOS does revolves around money. We've had 10 years of this, nothing changes.

If they made good decisions and investments, they'd have nothing to fix. This way they can pretend to care.

Also, they're making people upset as a way to make them more invested and potentially spend more money on their product. Cos that's all this is to them, a product that makes them money, not a passion project.

mb10 · April 11

They haven’t been listening since 2017. There’s a reason PVP is a ghost town on consoles and the game has been on a downward spiral combat wise for years and years now. The devs simply do not listen to the player base. So arrogant