Heavy Attack builds are currently rather badly designed
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/628011/heavy-attack-builds-are-currently-rather-badly-designed
This title will be quite provocative as, currently, HA builds are quite popular especially for lower skill, less abled and newer players.
I want to assure you, I do not mean harm in general to HA builds. I was once a HA build onetrick for a long time and tried to push them to their limit before they got popular with the u35 buffs.
I wish to point out the problems currently plagueing this playstyle, parts that most players (both people for and against HA builds) do not see.
First: what makes HA builds tick:
1. Sergeant's Mail.
this is the heart of HA builds currently. It was the worst HA set before u35 but they giga buffed it and now it seems to be performing better than anything by a vast margin. It also introduces the neccesity to heavy attack constantly due to its very low duration uptime (5s). This makes it so that 1bar builds get an insane bonus. for basically being able to drop a cinder block on m1 and queue up skills inbetween. The 2bar variants of these HA builds only outparse the 1bar variants by a few % (like 10k dps in the best case, more often less than 5k) and requires a lot more thinking for pretty much no reward.
2. Empower.
This is another large component of the buffs, but its less powerful than sergeant, still neccesary though. It's very simple ridiculous % buff that only a few classes have easy access to, the rest having to resort to mages guild passives, introducing weird clutter into the build. Skinny cheeks' recent suggestion:
''Nerf empower 80% -> 60%''
''Dealing damage with a light attack increases your damage against monsters by 2% for 10 seconds. This can stack up to 5 times.''
3. Lightning heavy attack and heavy attack duration.
This is a bit of a 2 sided blade, on the 1 side lightning heavy takes long, meaning it makes your rotation a lot slower. However on the other side, it makes skill casts simply not line up. Especially short lasting dots/skills due to its very unusual length.
The other issue with the heavy attack itself is that the only weapon that HA builds actually work on are lightning HA builds. This is because they double dip into the bonuses, getting more damage for free due to the higher ticks. If HA builds are such an accessibility option why do they pigeonhole you into using only 1 weapon? very play how you want lol. The other HA weapons should be altered to deal more damage imo. but i wont go into more changes on that since its too much of a headache (I feel sympathy for the devs when thinking about possible ways to change this ngl lol)
Now, my suggestion/direction to fix these issue:
(lower effort fixes)
First, HA sets should be altered to fit within the DPS set norm, meaning their stat lines should be fixed quite a bit.
pretty much all HA sets currently are a very odd family, having really weird stat lines (max magicka x2, or stamina x2, stamina recovery, max health, health recovery, healing taken %, being heavy etc) Fixing these stat lines to make more sense with their 5pc effects would let them fit more into the ''dps build'' norm, and allow us to make the second part of this change work:
Change all current HA set 5 piece bonuses.
Nerf the higher end flat HA damage by a decent bit. (for example, sergeant mail 2580 -> 1500-2000, however infallible aether should be buffed a bit I feel)
Introduce the same flat light attack damage bonus for all of these sets (This is to encourage weaving as a skill progression for these builds, as it currently stands, weaving between HA's on the top builds is literally a dps deficit despite the much higher skill it requires)
Change some of the proc conditions these sets require:
Sergeant mail should be significantly extended considering HA channels take much longer.
Storm master should not proc based on a fully charged HA crit, especially considering how little crit chance HA builds get.
Infiltrator/Unweaver could probably just be flat boosts as they're in a weird ''opposite skill cost'' niche that is just weird to work with.
Long lasting Empower should also be granted to the other 4 classes other than templar (solar barrage) and DK (molten armaments) Note that this should not replace any existing buff, that would be cringe zos.
Lightning heavy attack channel should also be reduced to 2 seconds total to better fit in weaving skills between heavy attacks.
Lightning heavy attack Tri Focus passive should also be reduced to deal less cleave damage, possibly nerfing it to 80-60% instead of 100% as it's simply too powerful.
Also there is a bug where in pvp the full damage you deal against monsters will be dealt against players near the monster instead of being reduced by the ''against monsters only'' rule. Should quickly point out that this is being abused mainly in imperial city, you can recieve up to 40k ticks per second as an enemy if you stand near a high health enemy being heavy attacked.
What does this accomplish:
First, we need to get out of the way the fact that even 2 bar HA builds get almost 70% of their damage PURELY from heavy attacks. This promotes an extremely lazy playstyle with no real path to improving skill when mastering the build. Assuming you have the proper gear you will effectively already be at the peak of this build's effectiveness.
Introducing proper flat stat lines (crit, weapon and spell damage), increasing the light attack flat bonuses, and nerfing the total HA damage you gain from these sets would promote 2 bar HA builds much more, since using skills would no longer be a question of ''why cast a skill when you can do 100k dps with a HA channel anyway?'' and instead transform the HA channel into a more accessible slower spammable, emulating normal build gameplay except just with a slower easier spammable.
This would, however, nerf the 1 bar variant where you mainly just hold M1 to deal damage. This is intentional. While I don't have a problem with HA builds being good, currently you can get up to 92k dps purely from holding m1 and ulting when you have ult. Well over 90% of the playerbase struggles to get over 90k dps trying their absolute best. You can call that a skill issue but the fact that a build exists that just lets you do 90k+ dps both single target and AOE (tri focus does 100% aoe dmg) is insulting to any player who has grinded to get to the skill level they're at.
This sounds quite rude to anyone using that variant, but my changes would still not really super nerf this type of gameplay and its not intending to sledgehammer it. I still think it's a good accessibility option and it should exist. Though, it shouldn't top out so high, instead I'd nerf the pure holding M1 variant to about 60-80k dps range instead of 80-90k.
The top parses for people who try to still use the 1bar variant but also weave skills, possibly light attacks with my changes, should remain roughly at the same level, just requiring more skill.
The 2 bar variant would gain a lot more dps but also require more skill. Which I would argue is.. good design.
Now, for the more insane changes, which I would prefer but are much more difficult to implement:
This will build off of the first suggestion, however with one rather big twist:
Introduce either a cap or rapidly diminishing returns on HA damage.
Buff all HA 5 piece bonuses by a decent margin (from where they currently stand, except sergeant as it is just too powerful already, it can stay at 2580)
This sounds simple but introduces a very big thing HA builds lack: build diversity.
Currently, HA build users are pretty much throwing themselves off a cliff if they opt to use only 1 HA 5 piece instead of 2. It's estimated that storm master alone adds over 10k dps (to a 100k parse) making pretty much any other option a useless damage reduction.
If you reduce the raw power you can inject into HA alone, while not completely compromising the damage of such a build, different 5 pieces can be used to build on top of a heavy attack set.
My total aim for these changes, and for HA builds as a whole is to incorporate them more into the general playstyle of the game. They are very out of place, looked down upon etc right now.
I would aim for the absolute highest end of HA builds to hit 120k dps if you incorporate clean light and heavy attack weaving, rotation usage etc, just like a normal build would.
But I also wish to nerf the ridiculously overtuned low effortness of the current high parsing builds.
(quickly though, the 120k dps would be assuming the empower buff from skinny cheeks is introduced aswell, so normal buiilds would hit even higher, HA builds would still ultimately parse lower even at the highest end)
The skill expression of HA builds is currently very low and I just want to change that.
If the combat team reads this, I highly suggest not making any rash decisions trying to implement these or similar HA changes, because of 1 thing:
This is not intended to be provocative or insulting but the combat team does not understand how HA damage/builds work from what I can tell over the last few years. Ascending tide was supposed to buff HA builds but almost destroyed their damage. Update 35 introduced only a few relevant changes that overtuned only 1 set and introduced empower, while reverting the nerfs you did in ascending tide.
Test it extensively: here's some tips.
Heavy attack scales really badly with weapon and spell damage. 1 flat HA bonus damage equals to like 5 weapon/spell damage (estimation, but it is still very apparent)
Consult me because i know pretty much most things there are to know about HA builds. (hope this doesnt come off as braggy etc but it's just very clear the devs are at the very least not very understanding of how HA builds actually function)
Don't rely on oakensoul. It is a weak mythic only made to seem powerful by empower and HA sets.
Do not design HA builds with the intent to make them accessibility only. They should indeed offer a higher skill floor and damage floor (starting out higher) but they should not be almost flat like how it is currently. Introducing skill expression is key to incorporating HA builds into eso's combat system without angering anyone.
lastly
feel free to comment any suggestions ideas or disagreements with these ideas. I am by no means perfect and some ideas (especially what to do with empower) is still a bit iffy to me, not sure if it should be done like that.
（补充说明↓）
I definetely did not emphasize the results of these changes enough, so I will outline them here:
The top end dps HA builds should be able to reach will be much higher and more situationally flexible due to the addition of a secondary 5pc without cutting down on the HA damage much. This means you can maintain a HA rotation while doing much more damage than you would previously as long as you put more effort into a rotation and/or light attack weaving.
However, most people that use HA builds right now are using oakensoul 1bar HA builds.
The lower end of these, I emphasize this point: the purely M1 holding HA build variant will be negatively impacted.
With the introduction of better 2-4 piece stat lines your actual skill damage will drastically increase.
Many players don't realize this but a lot of your damage actually also comes from those 2-4 piece lines.
It's the reason why storm master is the best secondary set after sergeant. It has almost the lowest HA bonus damage but it's 2 crit stat lines make up for this difference. Noble duelist has almost 400 higher flat damage (and as I explained earlier, weapon and spell damage scales a lot slower with HA than flat stats) so just those 2 crit lines are making up a signfiicant difference.
The total nerf to damage with 80% -> 60% empower, and lower total HA damage does eventually mean you will do less damage if you choose to spec purely HA holding.
My ultimate goal is basically:
Increase skill expression while also trimming the low effortness of the build slightly.
A higher top end damage means HA builds are respected more, especially if they are not seen as a goofy side build by endgame as much, meaning HA build users can more easily get into dungeon/trial groups without being stigmatized and treated differently.
And lastly, the main point:
I wish for HA builds to be a possible stepping stone by incorporating light attack weaving as a viable option. This may sound elitist, but hear me out.
Currently, HA builds literally punish the use of light attacks due to no LA bonus existing on sergeant. It used to not be this way, before ascending tide, the meta sets for HA builds were the undaunted sets, noble duelist and infallible aether. If you used a combination of undaunted/noble duelist sets you would get an immense bonus to light attacks. This lead me to learning how to light attack weave without putting too much pressure onto me as a relatively new player to completely rely on them, since my baseline damage was still heavy attacks and it was high enough as to where I wasn't shooting myself in the foot with my bad weaving.
My damage ended up being about 20% light attacks and 30-40% heavy attacks.
However, back then, HA builds damage were well over 20% lower than even the highest point right now.
I intend for the current oakensoul 1bar builds to still be viable for almost all content (which is pretty much where it currently stands), while increasing the flexibility in sets that these builds can use and simaltaneously promoting imrpoving one's skill and mastery of the build with the possibility of moving on to the higher end of gameplay without having to almost re-learn the game completely.
I will emphasize once again: I want to buff HA builds in a general sense, but increase the possibility of mastery at the very high end of them.
If you have more questions i'm fine to answer them. I tried my hardest to emphasize on the point that these are not nerfs to HA builds as a whole but rather buffs, and this notion was clearly not put out well enough by me.
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原文最先发表于 discord “OakenHA Research”，后来在官方论坛又发了一遍。Lucht 是国外的一名solo高手，早年用重击流solo过不少DLC四人本，后来转用了轻击流并以三合一作为新目标（这是他最新的成果：https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1wY411y7FM/）。文章太长了我实在是没有能力翻译，但会聊点个人的记忆（不是在总结文章要点）：
不知各位还记不记得橡木Empower出来以前的重击流是什么样子的？不同于目前的“一直按左键重击，并在重击过程中queue一个技能”，老版重击流更类似于在双栏轻击流的基础上，将填充技能换成重击，在补其他技能时依然是要卡轻击（当然也可以不卡）。这也是我过去一直很讨厌重击流的原因，重击当spam极大地破坏了轻击流一秒为单位的节奏感。老版重击流不同的地方还有，轻击、技能的伤害占比跟橡木重击相比要高不少，当时的重击套meta组合均对轻击有加成，轻击、DoT的伤害也还没被削，但 Empower 不如现在的强。
下面是CP1.0时代的solo大神 PaddyVu 的龙骑重击流6M桩：


接着是 Kortekk 的橡木重击龙骑的21M桩：


放到一起不是要拿来直接比较（当然也不可能），只是供大家直观感受一下老版重击流的样子。
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TL;DR 橡木重击在作为一个无脑BD这个前提下，算得上非常强，但不等同于说，达至这种“输出/操作”性价比的这个战斗系统是良性、健康的。（所以还是推荐各位读读原文吧）