Merciless and the patch notes

MincMincMinc · August 18

Did anyone run the math on relentless focus? Have you not read the handful plus of duplicate threads on the PTS during testing?

The reason people choose Assassination so much especially in pvp is not because of the WD bonus. It is because the skill tooltips higher than most of every ultimate in the game except for take flight. Even so, you can do this burst every 4-5s or twice every 10s compared to an ultimate being every 30-60s+. It's tooltip must be lowered to be inline with other burst skills. Crystal frags proc, Blastbones, deep fissure are all around a 1.6 coefficient for damage/weapon damage...........however merciless is around a 2.15x coefficient. Which is roughly 25% more damage than the other similar skills

That is just talking about the tooltip too. A greater issue with PvP balance right now is that there are about 2-3x the number of unique crit damage passives in the game......while at the same time zos gutted impen during their trait "rebalance" that happened. So now the entirety of pvp is pigeonholed into only using rallying cry which still isnt enough to counteract players with 150%+ of crit damage.

Back in the day most people ran with around 50% crit damage mitigation fighting against players with 50-80% crit damage roughly. So you received 0-30% crit damage at most. This made pvp feel less like a gambling YoYo game.

Now impen being reduced and the base crit resist lands us around 33% crit mit and forces us to use rallying cry to get around 57% mit if procced. However players are running 100% on average builds to 170% crit damage on spec builds. So now you receive between 137(125% capped) crit damage at most or 43% crit damage at least. . This just shows power creep at its finest where the devs did not establish any standards for how they want these to prevent abuse. A good example is how pen and armor are fairly balanced or obtainable compared to each other. A similar dynamic MUST be brought back for crit damage and crit resist.

xylena_lazarow · August 18

We tried. Bring Vengeance.

tomofhyrule · August 18

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Did anyone run the math on relentless focus? Have you not read the handful plus of duplicate threads on the PTS during testing?

The reason people choose Assassination so much especially in pvp is not because of the WD bonus.

However, the passive WD bonus is precisely the reason it was mandatory in PvE. This is definitely addressing a PvE issue.

BXR_Lonestar · August 18

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Did anyone run the math on relentless focus? Have you not read the handful plus of duplicate threads on the PTS during testing?

The reason people choose Assassination so much especially in pvp is not because of the WD bonus. It is because the skill tooltips higher than most of every ultimate in the game except for take flight. Even so, you can do this burst every 4-5s or twice every 10s compared to an ultimate being every 30-60s+. It's tooltip must be lowered to be inline with other burst skills. Crystal frags proc, Blastbones, deep fissure are all around a 1.6 coefficient for damage/weapon damage...........however merciless is around a 2.15x coefficient. Which is roughly 25% more damage than the other similar skills
That is just talking about the tooltip too. A greater issue with PvP balance right now is that there are about 2-3x the number of unique crit damage passives in the game......while at the same time zos gutted impen during their trait "rebalance" that happened. So now the entirety of pvp is pigeonholed into only using rallying cry which still isnt enough to counteract players with 150%+ of crit damage.

Back in the day most people ran with around 50% crit damage mitigation fighting against players with 50-80% crit damage roughly. So you received 0-30% crit damage at most. This made pvp feel less like a gambling YoYo game.

Now impen being reduced and the base crit resist lands us around 33% crit mit and forces us to use rallying cry to get around 57% mit if procced. However players are running 100% on average builds to 170% crit damage on spec builds. So now you receive between 137(125% capped) crit damage at most or 43% crit damage at least. . This just shows power creep at its finest where the devs did not establish any standards for how they want these to prevent abuse. A good example is how pen and armor are fairly balanced or obtainable compared to each other. A similar dynamic MUST be brought back for crit damage and crit resist.

We don't just need to raise the inpen cap, which was lowered from 5k to 3k a long time ago, but we also need more readily available sources of major/minor enervation (reduces crit damage - line Inpen) and major/minor uncertainty (reduces critical chance). Major versions of these debuffs aren't even in the game yet as far as I am aware, but they need to be to help counter the critical damage meta. They PVP specific sets to implement these debuffs because they just aren't needed in PVE since monsters can't critical hit.

MincMincMinc · August 18

tomofhyrule wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Did anyone run the math on relentless focus? Have you not read the handful plus of duplicate threads on the PTS during testing?

The reason people choose Assassination so much especially in pvp is not because of the WD bonus.

However, the passive WD bonus is precisely the reason it was mandatory in PvE. This is definitely addressing a PvE issue.

Right, but the skill is so far overtuned that it could be removed entirely and have the tooltip cut down while still being a clear choice over something like crystal frags. Not saying I want frags buffed by any degree, but everyone in pvp has been complaining for multiple patches now about how overtuned assassin is.

Merciless
- 2.1476 damage/wd
- Every 5s
- Major Crit Chance
- 1890 mag cost
- 6.6% chance to flanking enemies
- 2k resource restore on kills
- 2.5% crit chance for slotting
- 10% unique stacking crit damage
- Minor crit chance

Crystal Frags
- 1.1226 damage/wd with 66% boost.......which is either 1.7826 or 1.8635 however zos did their math additive or multi
- Every 3-4s gambling
- no major buff
- ~1300 mag cost
- Reduce skill costs by 6%
- 3680 heal (1840 in pvp)
- Blocking an attack gives 18% skill cost reduction (not even really at play here since it has its own cost/use case)
- minor crit chance

Frags is just substantially less damage, and now adays with power creep the reduced skill costs dont mean much since most people get their sustain solely from tripots and bear haunch without needing more.

Ramber · August 18

NO. they do not pay attention to peoples info during PTS.. at all ever. so dont ask them to or ask why. they have no real test system just live servers given the past performance of the game and its changes.

MincMincMinc · August 18

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Did anyone run the math on relentless focus? Have you not read the handful plus of duplicate threads on the PTS during testing?

The reason people choose Assassination so much especially in pvp is not because of the WD bonus. It is because the skill tooltips higher than most of every ultimate in the game except for take flight. Even so, you can do this burst every 4-5s or twice every 10s compared to an ultimate being every 30-60s+. It's tooltip must be lowered to be inline with other burst skills. Crystal frags proc, Blastbones, deep fissure are all around a 1.6 coefficient for damage/weapon damage...........however merciless is around a 2.15x coefficient. Which is roughly 25% more damage than the other similar skills
That is just talking about the tooltip too. A greater issue with PvP balance right now is that there are about 2-3x the number of unique crit damage passives in the game......while at the same time zos gutted impen during their trait "rebalance" that happened. So now the entirety of pvp is pigeonholed into only using rallying cry which still isnt enough to counteract players with 150%+ of crit damage.

Back in the day most people ran with around 50% crit damage mitigation fighting against players with 50-80% crit damage roughly. So you received 0-30% crit damage at most. This made pvp feel less like a gambling YoYo game.

Now impen being reduced and the base crit resist lands us around 33% crit mit and forces us to use rallying cry to get around 57% mit if procced. However players are running 100% on average builds to 170% crit damage on spec builds. So now you receive between 137(125% capped) crit damage at most or 43% crit damage at least. . This just shows power creep at its finest where the devs did not establish any standards for how they want these to prevent abuse. A good example is how pen and armor are fairly balanced or obtainable compared to each other. A similar dynamic MUST be brought back for crit damage and crit resist.

We don't just need to raise the inpen cap, which was lowered from 5k to 3k a long time ago, but we also need more readily available sources of major/minor enervation (reduces crit damage - line Inpen) and major/minor uncertainty (reduces critical chance). Major versions of these debuffs aren't even in the game yet as far as I am aware, but they need to be to help counter the critical damage meta. They PVP specific sets to implement these debuffs because they just aren't needed in PVE since monsters can't critical hit.

Do you have a source for the crit resist cap? Who is telling you it is at 5k or 3k? As far as I know there is no cap other than people thinking there is a cap based on how much is obtainable or practical to use.

I would not be opposed to those buffs being more prevalent for sure. However they still pale in comparison. Much like how zos tried to remove the unique ult gen stacking from different class skill lines, I think a similar approach would have to happen with the unique crit damage passives provided with subclassing.

History wise it is pretty funny to think about because originally zos justified the trait changes to try and get PvE players into pvp and have more fair of a fight so they dont have to make impen gear. In reality everyone just became susceptible to crit damage burst making combat feel inconsistent.

MincMincMinc · August 18

Ramber wrote: »

NO. they do not pay attention to peoples info during PTS.. at all ever. so dont ask them to or ask why. they have no real test system just live servers given the past performance of the game and its changes.

It really feels like they probably only do a meeting the day after pts releases and might only catch on one or two feedback points to listen to.

Like we got the lightning form reverted so stamsorc is still a playstyle. However they somehow dont respond to the glaring issues complained about like assassination and crit damage stacking or other issues like ball group sets and effect stacking.

Tommy_The_Gun · August 18

At this point it is everyone's skill, not just NB skill. Clearly ZOS is making those changes this with sub-classing in mind. So right now it Assassination that is meta pick for every build - but it won't last forever as they will for sure change stuff around in the future so that people would have to re-grind everything again, over & over.

I think that real issue is that sub-classing system allows to pick 3x DPS or 3 x Tank skill tree from 3 different classes. Something like this should not be possible.

MincMincMinc · August 18

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

At this point it is everyone's skill, not just NB skill. Clearly ZOS is making those changes this with sub-classing in mind. So right now it Assassination that is meta pick for every build - but it won't last forever as they will for sure change stuff around in the future so that people would have to re-grind everything again, over & over.

I think that real issue is that sub-classing system allows to pick 3x DPS or 3 x Tank skill tree from 3 different classes. Something like this should not be possible.

Yeah i'm sure you already saw the plethora of threads covering how subclassing brought this issue with no restriction. Ideally zos would have balanced EVERY skill line on their own to have the same damage/tank/support in them. Or they would have isolated lines to be only damage/tank/support and then restrict subclassing to make you only trade your tank line for another tank line. Or they should have made it so subclassing only lets you trade off one skill line.

Instead we are stuck somewhere in limbo with just pure chaos without any numerical standard holding tension.

Æthërnüm · August 18

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Did anyone run the math on relentless focus? Have you not read the handful plus of duplicate threads on the PTS during testing?

The reason people choose Assassination so much especially in pvp is not because of the WD bonus. It is because the skill tooltips higher than most of every ultimate in the game except for take flight. Even so, you can do this burst every 4-5s or twice every 10s compared to an ultimate being every 30-60s+. It's tooltip must be lowered to be inline with other burst skills. Crystal frags proc, Blastbones, deep fissure are all around a 1.6 coefficient for damage/weapon damage...........however merciless is around a 2.15x coefficient. Which is roughly 25% more damage than the other similar skills
That is just talking about the tooltip too. A greater issue with PvP balance right now is that there are about 2-3x the number of unique crit damage passives in the game......while at the same time zos gutted impen during their trait "rebalance" that happened. So now the entirety of pvp is pigeonholed into only using rallying cry which still isnt enough to counteract players with 150%+ of crit damage.

Back in the day most people ran with around 50% crit damage mitigation fighting against players with 50-80% crit damage roughly. So you received 0-30% crit damage at most. This made pvp feel less like a gambling YoYo game.

Now impen being reduced and the base crit resist lands us around 33% crit mit and forces us to use rallying cry to get around 57% mit if procced. However players are running 100% on average builds to 170% crit damage on spec builds. So now you receive between 137(125% capped) crit damage at most or 43% crit damage at least. . This just shows power creep at its finest where the devs did not establish any standards for how they want these to prevent abuse. A good example is how pen and armor are fairly balanced or obtainable compared to each other. A similar dynamic MUST be brought back for crit damage and crit resist.

We don't just need to raise the inpen cap, which was lowered from 5k to 3k a long time ago, but we also need more readily available sources of major/minor enervation (reduces crit damage - line Inpen) and major/minor uncertainty (reduces critical chance). Major versions of these debuffs aren't even in the game yet as far as I am aware, but they need to be to help counter the critical damage meta. They PVP specific sets to implement these debuffs because they just aren't needed in PVE since monsters can't critical hit.

when did they reduce impen cap to 3k? could you show me?

MincMincMinc · August 18

Æthërnüm wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Did anyone run the math on relentless focus? Have you not read the handful plus of duplicate threads on the PTS during testing?

The reason people choose Assassination so much especially in pvp is not because of the WD bonus. It is because the skill tooltips higher than most of every ultimate in the game except for take flight. Even so, you can do this burst every 4-5s or twice every 10s compared to an ultimate being every 30-60s+. It's tooltip must be lowered to be inline with other burst skills. Crystal frags proc, Blastbones, deep fissure are all around a 1.6 coefficient for damage/weapon damage...........however merciless is around a 2.15x coefficient. Which is roughly 25% more damage than the other similar skills
That is just talking about the tooltip too. A greater issue with PvP balance right now is that there are about 2-3x the number of unique crit damage passives in the game......while at the same time zos gutted impen during their trait "rebalance" that happened. So now the entirety of pvp is pigeonholed into only using rallying cry which still isnt enough to counteract players with 150%+ of crit damage.

Back in the day most people ran with around 50% crit damage mitigation fighting against players with 50-80% crit damage roughly. So you received 0-30% crit damage at most. This made pvp feel less like a gambling YoYo game.

Now impen being reduced and the base crit resist lands us around 33% crit mit and forces us to use rallying cry to get around 57% mit if procced. However players are running 100% on average builds to 170% crit damage on spec builds. So now you receive between 137(125% capped) crit damage at most or 43% crit damage at least. . This just shows power creep at its finest where the devs did not establish any standards for how they want these to prevent abuse. A good example is how pen and armor are fairly balanced or obtainable compared to each other. A similar dynamic MUST be brought back for crit damage and crit resist.

We don't just need to raise the inpen cap, which was lowered from 5k to 3k a long time ago, but we also need more readily available sources of major/minor enervation (reduces crit damage - line Inpen) and major/minor uncertainty (reduces critical chance). Major versions of these debuffs aren't even in the game yet as far as I am aware, but they need to be to help counter the critical damage meta. They PVP specific sets to implement these debuffs because they just aren't needed in PVE since monsters can't critical hit.

when did they reduce impen cap to 3k? could you show me?

I am pretty sure this "cap" was just old build theory saying you were capped because with 7 impen you were at like 3050 crit resist. Thus being "capped out". The 5k "cap" probably comes since back in the day people could only reach like 50+25% crit damage which was 75% crit damage. 75%*66 gives us the requirement of 4950 crit resist to fully "cap" or mitigate all possible crit damage

fufu_from_ps4 · August 18

you gotta take away all of the crit damage/weapon damage passives in the class skill line passives..... oooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ONLY allow passives for your class. you can borrow skills from other classes, but not the passives.

otherwise pure class is dead and then you will nerf all the fun skills and kill everything.