Who needs defense anyway? ESO:GO

MyGTX · April 19

Hello everyone.
I want to address a critical issue that has been bothering me for years.. the systematic and illogical nerf of all defensive layers in PvP.

It started with the loss of major mitigations and healing bonuses (the nerfs to Protection, Mending, and Vitality) i know this started much earlier but it is most critical nerf imo. Now, for several years running, we’ve seen a consistent reduction in Critical Resistance. The intent is clear ZOS wants to make it easier for new players to kill veterans who maintain high buff uptime and are "stacked" with defenses buffs.
However, in practice, while veteran players have become less tanky, they remain just as hard for a novice to kill. Meanwhile, the newbies themselves have become even more fragile. Nerfing defensive buffs hits every skill bracket, and the lower floor suffers the most.

Right now, even with 30k+ resistances and 3,000+ crit resistance, you can still get hit by a Whip, Merciless Resolve, or Crystal Frag for 15-20k damage. If a seasoned player with high-end defense takes that kind of burst, imagine the numbers a casual player sees. I’ve personally witnessed a 25k Merciless Resolve and a 23k Incapacitating Strike. Experienced players adapt - as long as there are pillars to kite around, the 1vX tryhards will survive (mostly joking). But the newcomers are left as "glass cannons" with high accidental damage and zero survivability.

The upcoming PTS notes show even more nerfs to Crit Resist (Rallying Cry, Transmutation). This solves nothing. It won't help casuals; it will only make them die faster. Why not implement better in-game tutorials instead? Telling a player that "30k Health, 30k Resistances, and 2,700 Crit Resist is the baseline for PvP" would do wonders. Many beginners ignore their gear, get deleted in one second, and immediately go to the forums to scream "Nerf Warden/DK/Sorc!". It’s frustrating to say, but I’ve seen the Battleground logs and the gear some people are running - if they even have a full "set" of blue-quality trash drops, it’s already a miracle. Most of them aren't using actual sets at all, just a random collection of whatever they found on the ground.
Why punish players who actually theorycraft and optimize their builds just to cater to those who refuse to learn?

Conclusion: The game is turning into an FPS. Whoever lands their burst combo first wins. Why bother with defense or sustain? Just stack 10k Weapon Damage and 120% Crit Damage and one-shot people.
There is also another way.
Right now, many of my friends are seriously entertaining the idea that "Impenetrable" might cease to be the absolute meta, and are increasingly looking toward "Sturdy" and other block-mitigation setups. Hello, 2014! But this is not descition this delay - because if the block becomes meta, they'll nerf it later. That’s where we are headed.
I am surprised by the silence of the PvP community. If we don’t speak up with constructive feedback, ZOS will never listen.

Ideas?

Militan1404 · April 19

Yeah they ruins the combat and the game more and more each update. If i wanted a FPS this is not the game i would go for. Its just so much more rewarding going for dmg than survieability right now, should be more balanced out. Also its time for health recovery to make a comeback and get un-nerfed in battle spirit

Ostonoha · April 19

This game has always had a low TTK, but yes now it has become even more ridiculous. Part of the issue is how easy it is to get buffs now. Between subclassing and scribing the power creep has become insane. Weaknesses given to certain classes have been essentially been removed. I would hate to be a new player and not knowing what buffs to stack or not knowing where to get them from.

Urzigurumash · April 19

Well for one I think it's popular. Many people seem to prefer FPS over Fighting Game, and I think many people prefer that encounters resolve within 1 or 2 globals. It's always been a popular theme on this forum that Defense should not exist, and that people who don't want to play a Burst Sorc or Burst NB are a lower class of player.

But, impartially, I think we cannot reconcile any difference of opinion on this until the MASSIVE disparity in TTK between Grey Host and Battlegrounds is resolved.

Either it's all CP, or none of it is. People still talk like GH is THE PVP and BGs is a sidegame, but GH is mostly an empty wasteland while BGs are teeming with action. So I'm skeptical the "defer to CP balance" paradigm satisfies the most players.

Urzigurumash · April 19

In other words, TTK is basically always too long in GH, and too short in BGs, since the era of exteme volatility that began after the release of Necro in 2019.

And the other dimension, to clarify my shade, people who chose Sorc or NB at launch tend to always see TTK as too long, people who chose DK or Templar tend to always see TTK as too short. I believe these are biases created through our success and failures in the first 5 years of this game when many of us mained one class.

Militan1404 · April 19

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Well for one I think it's popular. Many people seem to prefer FPS over Fighting Game, and I think many people prefer that encounters resolve within 1 or 2 globals. It's always been a popular theme on this forum that Defense should not exist, and that people who don't want to play a Burst Sorc or Burst NB are a lower class of player.

But, impartially, I think we cannot reconcile any difference of opinion on this until the MASSIVE disparity in TTK between Grey Host and Battlegrounds is resolved.

Either it's all CP, or none of it is. People still talk like GH is THE PVP and BGs is a sidegame, but GH is mostly an empty wasteland while BGs are teeming with action. So I'm skeptical the "defer to CP balance" paradigm satisfies the most players.

Not eso players, everytime zos tried before to buff dmg to hard in pvp it always ended in a tank meta. And like i said above, if fast paced FPS like combat is your style the why do eso when so many other games does that better. It just takes away what makes eso unique, and ruins playstyles.

Urzigurumash · April 19

Yeah that's been a consistent theme, many players, probably mostly newer player, tank up when they can no longer survive to their satisfaction because dying instantly in GH all the time is very boring. Much more boring than playing a Necro Meatbag. This dynamic is MUCH weaker in BGs since it's only 3 seconds from respawn to fight.

I think Elsweyr was the perfect TTK, I prefer a Fighting Game like experience to an FPS. It was fun when slotting different DoTs or even Soft CCs was something to consider. Now the only worthwhile skill to practice is timing burst.

But again, GH main Sorcs and NBs have a much different opinion than me, I'm a BGs main who plays every class EXCEPT Sorc and NB.

Urzigurumash · April 19

But the simpler read of history is just that Power Creep destroyed the old way of learning a class and practicing complicated multi-skill rotations and reactive gameplay. It won't come back without a Stat Squish that everyone will despise when they first experience it.

Now we get another layer of power with the Class Masteries, like many are saying maybe back to a Jabs meta, I'm not sure what to expect. Of course I'm a huge fan of this new layer however, like everyone else, I want all the Power I can get.

Militan1404 · April 19

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Yeah that's been a consistent theme, many players, probably mostly newer player, tank up when they can no longer survive to their satisfaction because dying instantly in GH all the time is very boring. Much more boring than playing a Necro Meatbag. This dynamic is MUCH weaker in BGs since it's only 3 seconds from respawn to fight.

I think Elsweyr was the perfect TTK, I prefer a Fighting Game like experience to an FPS. It was fun when slotting different DoTs or even Soft CCs was something to consider. Now the only worthwhile skill to practice is timing burst.

But again, GH main Sorcs and NBs have a much different opinion than me, I'm a BGs main who plays every class EXCEPT Sorc and NB.

Had a long break from the game when Elsweyr came out, so didnt get to try that period. High isle was when the game peaked for me. think it was the most balanced the game ever been between classes, and had a perfect balance between beeing tanky and doing dmg, you could be a glass cannon and literally nuke players but if they got a hit in you where scewed, and you could be a tany brawler. But of course the game is always changing.

Urzigurumash · April 19

Militan1404 wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Yeah that's been a consistent theme, many players, probably mostly newer player, tank up when they can no longer survive to their satisfaction because dying instantly in GH all the time is very boring. Much more boring than playing a Necro Meatbag. This dynamic is MUCH weaker in BGs since it's only 3 seconds from respawn to fight.

I think Elsweyr was the perfect TTK, I prefer a Fighting Game like experience to an FPS. It was fun when slotting different DoTs or even Soft CCs was something to consider. Now the only worthwhile skill to practice is timing burst.

But again, GH main Sorcs and NBs have a much different opinion than me, I'm a BGs main who plays every class EXCEPT Sorc and NB.

Had a long break from the game when Elsweyr came out, so didnt get to try that period. High isle was when the game peaked for me. think it was the most balanced the game ever been between classes, and had a perfect balance between beeing tanky and doing dmg, you could be a glass cannon and literally nuke players but if they got a hit in you where scewed, and you could be a tany brawler. But of course the game is always changing.

Remind us of the meta then? DK in Daedric Trickery or something? I forget

Militan1404 · April 19

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Militan1404 wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Yeah that's been a consistent theme, many players, probably mostly newer player, tank up when they can no longer survive to their satisfaction because dying instantly in GH all the time is very boring. Much more boring than playing a Necro Meatbag. This dynamic is MUCH weaker in BGs since it's only 3 seconds from respawn to fight.

I think Elsweyr was the perfect TTK, I prefer a Fighting Game like experience to an FPS. It was fun when slotting different DoTs or even Soft CCs was something to consider. Now the only worthwhile skill to practice is timing burst.

But again, GH main Sorcs and NBs have a much different opinion than me, I'm a BGs main who plays every class EXCEPT Sorc and NB.

Had a long break from the game when Elsweyr came out, so didnt get to try that period. High isle was when the game peaked for me. think it was the most balanced the game ever been between classes, and had a perfect balance between beeing tanky and doing dmg, you could be a glass cannon and literally nuke players but if they got a hit in you where scewed, and you could be a tany brawler. But of course the game is always changing.

Remind us of the meta then? DK in Daedric Trickery or something? I forget

It had lots of diffrent metas, templars had old jabs still, bow sorc was really strong, and DK in corrosive and trickery like you said but also plaugbreak, Nercos did their bombing as usual. Think NB was both good as brawlers and gankers if i remeber correctly, and oakensoul was very popular i remember.

albertberku · April 19

One thing i want to add is that there are no sacrifices you have to make in the builds anymore. Damage, Healing, Sustain, Defence, Mobility. You should be able to afford 2 of these together or a combination but not the best of all. All builds have everything currently. So, sustain is never an issue, mobility is easy to achieve, healing comes from damage, and defence comes from easy to achieve high hp and healing.

Medium armor subclass builds with Streak that can move at speed cap, have abnormal damage output, have enough sustain for streaking two - three times and then running at speed cap in between. Never run out of ressources, can sprint indefinitely, never run out of healing, have quite high hp, extreme healing due to high dmg and crits.

If you have high dmg that is ok, if you have mobility that is also ok. But then you have to be squishy. If you have dmg and defence, then you have to be slow. How it is currently doesnt make sense at all.

They are going to bring pure classes to the Subclass level but it should be the other way around. No need for sustain anymore, no need for defence. Everyone will push dmg even more.