Dizzy Swing has a long history in ESO's pvp scene. I was disappointed to read about its change with Elsweyr's PTS, but even more disappointed to see how little reaction this skill is getting now.
To understand what position this skill is in now, we must examine its purpose, how it was used in the past and where it's still applied now to further understand why the proposed changes to Dizzy Swing will further kill the skills usefulness and solidify stamina to exclusively relying on Sword and Board Reverberating Stun as their main reliable CC.
Dizzy Swing is designed around hitting once, and hitting HARD. The skill leaves the caster highly vulnerable, as they have to be in melee range and enter a cast time that can be easily dodged and easily blocked. It has existing counterplay. The skill was a very high risk, very high reward play style that allowed players to maximize that play style of raw damage. This skill was widely viable for a long time during this ESO's lifetime, between Stamina Dragonknight Wrecking Blow into Leap combo, Stamina Sorcerer's high damage amping the damage of Dizzy Swing, Stamina Templar Roundhouse, to Stamina Wardens Dizzy, Shalks, Dawnbreaker combo. This skill rewarded leaving yourself open with a high burst window if the skill was successful. This is vastly different from the meta that exists now among stamina.
Between the rise of player HP, player resistances in general and the rise in the effectiveness of debuffs and DoT effects, Dizzy Swing has been left in the dust compared to what it once was and what other play styles exist for Stamina. The reasons to run dizzy swing over sword and board or duel wield already leave you to wonder why even slot the skill. It may average 4-6k damage against most armored PvPers that know how to properly build, but the risk for that little damage does not justify using it now for anything but killing players that do not know anything about the game or how to build their characters for PvP.
The changes announced in Elsweyr will devastate the Dizzy Swing play style and remove any reason to slot this skill over reverb and heroic slash for Stamina. With a damage nerf and an attempt to reconcile this by making the animation slightly faster, a skill that already does lack luster damage now does atrocious damage compared to what it once was.
The greatest travesty however is the fact that it will kill this style of play that revolves around pure, raw burst damage. A skill once designed to promote a high risk, high reward play style suddenly has no reward, but all the risk as before. A play style different from most of what Stamina is, and is slowly being forced into becoming a play style that revolves around bleeds and defile to whittle down opponents resources as the only viable option.
To Zenimax- Please re think your intentions with this skill, look at its past uses, what it was: A skill that promoted both timing burst, landing combos, leaving yourself vulnerable while also promoting enemies to counter the skill either by blocking or dodging it.
Don't make Dizzy Swing into the next Rapid Strikes.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, any opinions or insights would be appreciated.
