Cleansing problem in PvP

Wup_sa · September 14

With the introduction of subclassing PvP has been a total mess, but cleansing has gotten out of hand. Every build has now access to two cleanses (extended ritual and netch) which makes people that use restoring light and animal companions (vast majority) unkillable, unless they are really bad.

I think a way to balance that mess is to allow cleanses to remove only debuffs, such as minor defile, breach, etc. Since otherwise it cleanses all DOT pressure along with status effects that do damage. Another good way to balance mindless cleansing is to punish the cleanser for doing so, like making every DOT work similarly to how plague break does (cleanse DOT off and it does a burst of damage).

Currently there's too many cleanse options and all of them are over performing by a lot, so for the sake of balance something should be done.

Avran_Sylt · September 14

No. The counteraction to instant damage is block. the counteraction to DoT is cleanse.

Are they too resource efficient for the damage negated? maybe, I don't know the values, but preventing cleanses from removing damage effects is not a good idea.

Plaguebreak is a specialized set for cleanses (but also tries to do ball-groups, and ultimately then fails), much like bulwark ruination is for block (which isn't bad).

Wup_sa · September 14

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

No. The counteraction to instant damage is block. the counteraction to DoT is cleanse.

Are they too resource efficient for the damage negated? maybe, I don't know the values, but preventing cleanses from removing damage effects is not a good idea.

Plaguebreak is a specialized set for cleanses, much like bulwark ruination is for block.

That was the case closer to 10 years ago. right now netch removes effects passively for the entire duration and can also be spammed for free to remove an effect every half a second. Extended ritual removes 5 effects from yourself and everyone around you, pair that with a friend and you cleanse 10 negative effects at once. And that is not to even mention sets like mara's balm, wyrd tree and the cleansing revival CP, that removes all negative effects passively.

Avran_Sylt · September 14

Wup_sa wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

No. The counteraction to instant damage is block. the counteraction to DoT is cleanse.

Are they too resource efficient for the damage negated? maybe, I don't know the values, but preventing cleanses from removing damage effects is not a good idea.

Plaguebreak is a specialized set for cleanses, much like bulwark ruination is for block.

That was the case closer to 10 years ago. right now netch removes effects passively for the entire duration and can also be spammed for free to remove an effect every half a second. Extended ritual removes 5 effects from yourself and everyone around you, pair that with a friend and you cleanse 10 negative effects at once. And that is not to even mention sets like mara's balm, wyrd tree and the cleansing revival CP, that removes all negative effects passively.

And nowadays I can apply 7 debuffs in 2 casts with such setups as Lethal/Venomous/Sheer/Poison Injection/Double Poison solo, 5 excluding the Poison, at range.

Netch spam being free does seem a bit of an oversight as I didn't realize it cleanse an effect on cast, as I assumed it only did so after 5s... Does it actually cleanse on cast?

Mara's balm cleanses at minimum 6, but may proc at only 6, every half a minute, outside of your control. It seems decently jank enough not to be much of an issue.

Wyrd tree seems like it wouldn't be problematic, but I can imagine a Stamina build leveraging control over magicka ability useage making it problematic with no limit to removed debuffs.

Cleansing revival does sound a bit over tuned for a CP star if it allows the effect to occur on oneself.

Wup_sa · September 14

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

No. The counteraction to instant damage is block. the counteraction to DoT is cleanse.

Are they too resource efficient for the damage negated? maybe, I don't know the values, but preventing cleanses from removing damage effects is not a good idea.

Plaguebreak is a specialized set for cleanses, much like bulwark ruination is for block.

That was the case closer to 10 years ago. right now netch removes effects passively for the entire duration and can also be spammed for free to remove an effect every half a second. Extended ritual removes 5 effects from yourself and everyone around you, pair that with a friend and you cleanse 10 negative effects at once. And that is not to even mention sets like mara's balm, wyrd tree and the cleansing revival CP, that removes all negative effects passively.

And nowadays I can apply 7 debuffs in 2 casts with such setups as Lethal/Venomous/Sheer/Poison Injection/Double Poison solo, 5 excluding the Poison, at range.

Netch spam being free does seem a bit of an oversight as I didn't realize it cleanse an effect on cast, as I assumed it only did so after 5s... Does it actually cleanse on cast?

Mara's balm cleanses at minimum 6, but may proc at only 6, every half a minute, outside of your control. It seems decently jank enough not to be much of an issue.

Wyrd tree seems like it wouldn't be problematic, but I can imagine a Stamina build leveraging control over magicka ability useage making it problematic with no limit to removed debuffs.

Cleansing revival does sound a bit over tuned for a CP star if it allows the effect to occur on oneself.

Yeah, applying status effects and DOTs is easy, but DOTs have been bad since u35 (aside from damaging status effects). Not only that, but I think cleanse is still way too strong in all forms, considering that you can outheal all DOTs with just vigor. On top of that there are DOT heavy skill lines and playstyles, it doesn't seem fair that you can use one skill to counter the whole offensive kit.

And yes you can spam netch and it will remove a negative effect for free. And with how cheap extended ritual is, you might as well spam it too.

Solariken · September 14

I'd say it's pretty irrelevant in this meta since DOTs are so ridiculously bad by design.

Even if your enemy does not have cleanses, DOTs won't be killing a decent player because healing outpaces DOTs by a longshot.

BXR_Lonestar · September 15

Wup_sa wrote: »

With the introduction of subclassing PvP has been a total mess, but cleansing has gotten out of hand. Every build has now access to two cleanses (extended ritual and netch) which makes people that use restoring light and animal companions (vast majority) unkillable, unless they are really bad.

I think a way to balance that mess is to allow cleanses to remove only debuffs, such as minor defile, breach, etc. Since otherwise it cleanses all DOT pressure along with status effects that do damage. Another good way to balance mindless cleansing is to punish the cleanser for doing so, like making every DOT work similarly to how plague break does (cleanse DOT off and it does a burst of damage).

Currently there's too many cleanse options and all of them are over performing by a lot, so for the sake of balance something should be done.

Everyone can use Purge from the support tree, everyone can make a scribed ability with a cleanse on it, and there are sets that remove negative effects when healed. There has always been a wide variety of purges/cleanses. The netch is the only one that is somewhat problematic because it is cost free and does so many things for you, but none of this is a problem unless you are running a DoT build, which have always been ineffective against builds that have access to a purge. The META right now is crit damabe/burst so you need to make an adjustment for that for YOUR build.

MincMincMinc · September 15

Funny enough I would argue the other direction. There are just as many cleanses now adays, however zos has only continued to bloat the game and add more and more effects to purge.

People always try to justify skills like netch because of the purge, but in reality that purge probably just removes a status effect that gets instantly re-applied by one of the several guaranteed skills the enemy has to apply status effects

Rohamad_Ali · September 15

I feel cleaner. I like it.

Xarc · September 15

I think they wanted for it

Erickson9610 · September 15

Can we give Werewolf a cleanse somewhere in its toolkit? It's especially weak to DoTs and snares because it can't cleanse like everyone else can.

YandereGirlfriend · September 15

Wup_sa wrote: »

With the introduction of subclassing PvP has been a total mess, but cleansing has gotten out of hand. Every build has now access to two cleanses (extended ritual and netch) which makes people that use restoring light and animal companions (vast majority) unkillable, unless they are really bad.

I think a way to balance that mess is to allow cleanses to remove only debuffs, such as minor defile, breach, etc. Since otherwise it cleanses all DOT pressure along with status effects that do damage. Another good way to balance mindless cleansing is to punish the cleanser for doing so, like making every DOT work similarly to how plague break does (cleanse DOT off and it does a burst of damage).

Currently there's too many cleanse options and all of them are over performing by a lot, so for the sake of balance something should be done.

Spamming status effects and DOTs is already pretty low-tier gameplay. And cleanses are working so much harder than they used to due to the proliferation of endless new negative effects that all stack with each other on targets.

If negative effects are limited to one copy per target then we can talk about cleansing again.

MincMincMinc · September 16

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

With the introduction of subclassing PvP has been a total mess, but cleansing has gotten out of hand. Every build has now access to two cleanses (extended ritual and netch) which makes people that use restoring light and animal companions (vast majority) unkillable, unless they are really bad.

I think a way to balance that mess is to allow cleanses to remove only debuffs, such as minor defile, breach, etc. Since otherwise it cleanses all DOT pressure along with status effects that do damage. Another good way to balance mindless cleansing is to punish the cleanser for doing so, like making every DOT work similarly to how plague break does (cleanse DOT off and it does a burst of damage).

Currently there's too many cleanse options and all of them are over performing by a lot, so for the sake of balance something should be done.

Spamming status effects and DOTs is already pretty low-tier gameplay. And cleanses are working so much harder than they used to due to the proliferation of endless new negative effects that all stack with each other on targets.

If negative effects are limited to one copy per target then we can talk about cleansing again.

Agreed, there are so many effects in the game. No wonder the server cant handle them, zos had removed the restrictions set in place originally to prevent runaway calculations once the game got bloated.

BXR_Lonestar · September 17

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

With the introduction of subclassing PvP has been a total mess, but cleansing has gotten out of hand. Every build has now access to two cleanses (extended ritual and netch) which makes people that use restoring light and animal companions (vast majority) unkillable, unless they are really bad.

I think a way to balance that mess is to allow cleanses to remove only debuffs, such as minor defile, breach, etc. Since otherwise it cleanses all DOT pressure along with status effects that do damage. Another good way to balance mindless cleansing is to punish the cleanser for doing so, like making every DOT work similarly to how plague break does (cleanse DOT off and it does a burst of damage).

Currently there's too many cleanse options and all of them are over performing by a lot, so for the sake of balance something should be done.

Spamming status effects and DOTs is already pretty low-tier gameplay. And cleanses are working so much harder than they used to due to the proliferation of endless new negative effects that all stack with each other on targets.

If negative effects are limited to one copy per target then we can talk about cleansing again.

Honestly, the best counter to cleanse was pre-nerf Plague Break. If Cleansing becomes a problem, then we also need to talk about buffing its counter and creating more counter-sets like Plaguebreak.

I know back in its hay day, we wouldn't allow cleanses in ball group because accidentally cast it at the wrong time and the whole ballgroup goes up in smoke. This is the way to disincentivize cleanses.

Sluggy · September 18

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Netch spam being free does seem a bit of an oversight as I didn't realize it cleanse an effect on cast, as I assumed it only did so after 5s... Does it actually cleanse on cast?

Not only does it cleanse on cast, but it heals too! Not much mind you. But if you are completely out of options it is there. I pretty much use it to rush right into most inner keeps because with max speed, tons of crit chance and crit healing, and a free purge that heals I can get away with it and not worry about petty little things like scalding oil or meatbags.

Again it boils down to being acceptably strong on a Warden when in the context of their limits and strengths but way overboard on a Templardsin. Or a Sorcardasin. On an assplarden. Okay... I'll stop now.

ioResult · October 2

It is fascinating how, with subclassing, so many people are now beginning to realize how ridiculously unbalanced some class abilities can be compared to other classes in PvP - especially a pay to win class like Warden. It's exactly why some people eye roll when those that we know play and have played Warden in PvP forever complain here about things like Cloak. Things are more unbalanced in PvP now than ever before and threads like this make it more obvious to more players that such is the case. This is a good thing IMHO, but I still won't hold my breath waiting for ZOS' devs to admit such.

ioResult · October 2

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Spamming status effects and DOTs is already pretty low-tier gameplay.

It's always wonderful to hear judgements on playstyle from people who spend all their time running around in a ball group as if that takes any skill level at all to do.

ArctosCethlenn · October 2

Dot builds are already on the weaker side, and purges just make them a joke. Other games usually remedy it with some kind of dot protection, the closest things eso has to that are plaguebreak, which isn't an issue in solo/smallscale, and jerall mountain, which is still countered by the cleanse cp and purify.

Removing the initial purge from jellyfish might be a good idea, at least so there isn't a free one to spam. I'd personally remove the initial rack of status debuffs from ele sus as well, since free damage is just as problematic as free healing and utility.

TankHealz2015 · October 2

Love to see status effects and DoTs both much less prevalent and much more viable as a play style.

Right now it seems status effects and DoTs are everywhere even without trying, but also they are constantly purged and are super non-effective compared to current meta - Crit is King.

Something along the idea of remove status effects and DoTs from existing skills and replace with some other options....

Then add a third morph to skills which would be for status effects and or DoTs.

Perhaps add something like - the more DoT skills slotted the more powerful they are... Something like that...

YandereGirlfriend · October 3

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

Love to see status effects and DoTs both much less prevalent and much more viable as a play style.

Right now it seems status effects and DoTs are everywhere even without trying, but also they are constantly purged and are super non-effective compared to current meta - Crit is King.

Something along the idea of remove status effects and DoTs from existing skills and replace with some other options....

Then add a third morph to skills which would be for status effects and or DoTs.

Perhaps add something like - the more DoT skills slotted the more powerful they are... Something like that...

DOTs themselves could definitely stand to be stronger and the playstyle better defined.

The main issue is the negative effect spam that has been stapled onto most of the game's abilities, especially newer or redesigned abilities. Something like basic Ele Sus is a prime example of such mindless design: free cost, long duration, repeatedly and automatically spams its effects and the effects of those effects, like Concussed, Brittle, etc.

And that is hardly the only skill where like one button press attaches 5, 6+ negative effects. Which is completely stupid. And is also why having relatively easy access to Cleanse is necessary. See also when they buffed the duration of sticky DOTs to 20-30 seconds. That was another completely random and unnecessary change that clogs players up with heaps of negative effects for relatively little effort.

Perhaps a better world would be where these random negative effects are reigned-in and the underlying damage of the DOTs is buffed. So you have fewer but more powerful effects on you. Do that and then the conversation can be had about nerfing access to Cleanses.