Ossein Cage HM class distribution

This patch was definitely very well thought out and tested when there are 5 players total who have beat the HM on non arcanist DDs

Now I don't know about FF14, but I know what another quite large MMO do - regular balance changes. In ESO, balance changes are rare and few, and beyond subclassing that's a problem, because if what you enjoy perform badly or even very, well you just have to accept that it will stay the same for months without any hope at all for a fix in the short term, where in some others MMO you still have the hope that devs will see the datas, and will try to fix at least some things in the short term. It don't alway happen, but it happen.

Sure enough, it can lead to some volatility - yesterday your class was on the top, today it's in the bottom - but at least, there is a will to balance things, not in three months, not in six months, not in the next chapter, but in some weeks. In ESO, you get a big pass what, every six months ? And then things just stay the same until the next big pass come - where you absolutely don't have any assurance that there will be a thorough review of the state of the game and attempt to fix broken things. It may, it may not.

Also, and on this I think we will agree, the way ESO have classes and the way you can build something, without a lot of restriction, a freedom of building which have been amplified, not allowed, by subclassing, most certainly limit how you can balance things. Everything is very similar, everything is very streamlined, most abilities work and do things roughly in the same way, so you will always be looking for outliers, for the abilities, the skill lines, which some little extra - dual wielding for example, or even lightning staff for heavy attack builds.

In a classical class-based game, you can balance the classes themselves, promote different gameplays, different styles, different ways of doing things, because these class are separated, there are few or maybe no cross-abilities, so if you touch something it won't directly affect everything else. It's not without flaws, far from it, and some styles can be less desirable then other - good luck playing a heavy-ramp build when things die too quickly for you to deal real damages. But I think balance it's easier.

In ESO, and even more so with subclassing, almost everything, every abilities, is cross-abilities - everyone can use everything. If you touch something, you affect directly everyone, every class, every builds. If something widely used is nerfed, it will most likely become uterly obsolete and useless, falling for everyone to oblivion; if an ability, a passive even, a simple set, is buffed, it may well become the new meta, be used by every builds, define every builds.

I'm no expert in theory crafting in ESO, I play rather casualy, not minding too much about the meta, but I can't help notice some trends - way of fire with dual wieldings in pvp some time ago, where someone was joking about the 'I have the basis for my build, time to pick up a class'; Stampede in PvE, which seems to still be a thing no matter the attempt or lack of attempt at balancing this skill and some related sets ( funny enough, I think at some point the interaction with rapid strike made the two a staple for every melee build or so, rendering any spamable from any class useless, before some nerf occured, rendering rapid strike useless ).

And now with sublassing, we see some abilities and class lines rising to overwhelming power, such as the infamous beam, through a combination of various advantages. And any attempt at balancing it will have one of two consequences : it will still be on ( or over ) the top ( there was some nerf with the recent major pass, it changes nothing ), or it will become entirely useless.

Balancing in ESO - it's just that : overpowered or useless. No nuance, no middle-ground, no real variety. Subclassing seems to have exacerbated this issue, but it was already here, most likely from the beginning of the game. And maybe, even if ESO was actively working toward more balance and more varieties in the possible builds, maybe they could not achieve that, because the very foundations of the game are what they are - heavily ( now almost entirely ) shared abilities, no matter what class you are playing.

And because of that, and also given the recents changes ( from hybridization, to scribing and subclassing ), I think it's entirely delusional to expect that, at any point ( in PvE at least ), we get balance and variety of builds. And I fully understand that, for someone who enjoy ESO PvE, it's difficult to accept, but really, I don't think it can change, so either accept it, or play something else where balance and variety of builds is more actively supported.

( To moderate my words : some variety will still be there, some slight changes in builds, and even comparatively bad builds may still be enough to achieve some PvE goals. And for a lot of activities, there will still be a huge freedom for building what you want, and still be able to do things. And obviously a lot of people would rather have insane freedom of building rather than balance. ESO is promoting a way of playing that have flaws, certainly, but also advantages, obviously.

And also I'm not talking about PvP, where things seem to be a bit more complexe. )

I would like Aqueduct Bandersnatch to do a voice in ESO.

whitecrow wrote: »

I would like Aqueduct Bandersnatch to do a voice in ESO.

Broccoli Cucumbersalad feels that he should be first in line for that job!

There is actually currently more choice compared to u45.

A typical u45 mid-tier trial would have 5-8 arcs with an optional zenkosh dk, mk sorc and rarely after Lucent Echos, ec cro. We called the latter 3 jails. Really, it was usually 7-8 arcs and 1 zenkosh dk.

Was that at all required? No. Did that comp win every record? No. But it was a good combination of power and survivability. As parse arcs became more confident they wanted to run exhausting fatecarver to help win the dps race, but most RLs wanted pragmatic because it made things go smoother. Smooth is what most people are looking for.

Did it have to be? NO! The top end groups were much more diversified. Templars, DKs and Necros were also strong parsers and though we rarely saw them compared to arcs so were were sorcs, wardens, and nightblades. Why did we rarely see them? Because that's what players chose to play. The rigid requirements players here imagine largely did not exist.

Now, we have hot/assassination/variable. We still have dd jail supports, but they can be distributed differently and more creatively. In most trials the non-jail DDs can choose their 3rd skill line as long as it's one of aedric spear, ardent flame, dawn's wrath, grave lord and storm calling.

To theorycrafters, the assassination line is considered as strong as hot. Yes, fail/beam/scholarship are a potent combo, but not the most potent single target combo. They are just more conducive to smooth runs. Like heavy attack builds, they open trials to more players who otherwise might be able to compete if they tried hard enough, but they would prefer to relax and lol during the trial.

The advocacy path you're on won't result in nerfed beam. That's a popular play style. The only real adjustment ZOS would make is to add more cleave abilities almost exactly like beam. That would be horrible and though we may see more skill line diversity, we would actually have less choice about how to play.

I want to add that I didn't mention the animal companions skill line. It is also very strong. I play with someone who runs with hot/assassination/animal companions and she does REALLY well. It's just not popular. She performs better in content relative to a dummy parse, but her dummy parse is 160k.

Honestly, it's more balanced than you think.

I think it's pretty obvious that the balance is lacking right now and that some combinations (*cough* Herald of the Tome + Assassination + any good DPS skill line *cough*) are overpowered compared to other options. I mean, the Wild Heart Discord server has a 'World Records' channel and all of the new U46 World Records appear to have mostly Arcanist base classes in them (ranging from Trials such as vAS, vCR and vOC to Arenas such as vBRP and vVH). Since subclassing introduced over 1000 unique combinations, the diversity certainly seems lacking.

I personally really hope that underperforming skill lines with some pretty iconic skills, such as Dark Magic and Draconic Power (which isn't even used by optimized tanks I believe), get buffed in the next update. Of course I realise that there will always be a meta - but it'd be nice if other combinations wouldn't be so much worse than the meta.

I'm sorry but the Benedict Cumberbatch slander is an absolute riot.

Anyways, Fatecarver is just way too amazing of a ranged AoE ability to drop. Even non Arcanists are simply just subclassing to it for their spammable.

IMO, in addition to what you said in your post, I would also 1. replace the Crux generation on Arc banner with something else, and 2. turn Fatecarver into something more like Ballista where you conjure your book to fire its laser in a target direction (with lower damage so it's more like a ground DoT) and you are free to do other things like move away or use other abilities.

Either that or just straight up give every class more viable ranged AoE options.

HatchetHaro wrote: »

I'm sorry but the Benedict Cumberbatch slander is an absolute riot.

That's unnecessarily harsh. "Slander" implies mean-spirited intent, and that's not what it is at all.