It's pretty clear procs are overperforming in BG's.
Viper is on nearly every stam build in under a week with 0 skillful counterplay available.
Before we jump into it, I'll beat you to whatever you're about to say - yes, I am running two proc sets on my stamblade right now.
Yes I am doing this on stream.
"Why, you hypocrite?"
Why? Because this is best in slot for stamblade bar none. Because to remain competitive, you wear competitive gear. You want to say it's unoriginal or cheesy or whatever else, I agree. It is. I hate when it happens to me, and I hate doing it to other people. It makes for lame, senseless pvp. But if people are going to burst me with proc sets, have free damage and incredible sustain, I will be at a distinct disadvantage to not do the same. If I choose to take the hundings high road, I will take longer to kill people and waste more resources. And because of this, I will have an overall lower chance of success. So it's not that I like it, it's not that I support it. It's just that procs are undeniably effective. As a player who wants to compete, I cannot be expected to knowingly put myself at a disadvantage just because of some intangible video game morality. The set is in the game so it's fair to use. The question of why, whether it should be, and how to deal with it is another story entirely.
This is the dilemma in everyone's mind. To win with procs or remain honorable and lose.
Why am I as a player having to choose between being sportsmanlike and being competitive? Why are these two methods mutually exclusive?
How many years has this community been forced to self regulate?
Instead of relying on ZOS to fix broken, imbalanced mechanics and sets, we've become so accustomed to holding ourselves back from things that are "meta" or "cheese" - LIKE proc sets, LIKE heavy armor, LIKE whatever class is best at the time. The problem with a community self regulating is that only half the community is willing to do this. And as time goes on, more people get frustrated - more people jump to the dark side. Eventually, the entire experience is completely diluted and theorycrafting anything outside this meta is worthless. Build homogenization. Boring PVP with lack of counterplay.
We should not have to self regulate this time.
It's time we look to ZOS to fix what is clearly broken and overperforming instead of trying to force ourselves away from sets that are imbalanced, and yet somehow optimal.
This proc meta is only in its baby stages and viper is already on nearly every death recap of every person I talk to.
It's time ZOS gets in front of this impending meta and fix it before it breaks the integrity of BGs, and ruins their promising growth.
Point blank, it is far too easy to stack damage through proc sets. When you have proc sets, you have enough damage that it doesn't matter what your max stats are. Stats can be crap like my stam nb's (below) and you can still dish out top damage. What's worse, is that it deeply affects sustain as well. Because you don't have to actively choose sets that give you sustain, just change some enchants or mundus around and you are fully optimal. Proc sets open you up to much easier sustain in addition to the easier damage. IE: Why spend 6k stam to do 2-3 different skills when I can use half the stam to do the same damage with just one skill? Proc sets are essentially FREE DAMAGE and thus FREE SUSTAIN. It requires 0 effort, it requires 0 skill, it requires 0 conscious decisions to be made other than to simply equip it. Like playing on autopilot, if you will.
Selene's on my stam nb is hitting for an average of 5-7k and I have 27k max stam and 2300-2500 weapon damage. That is broken. That should never hit that hard with those stats, but it does. Because people are forced into medium and light with new sustain changes, they can barely even mitigate the damage and certainly can't have adequate counterplay to it. They have barely any resistance as it is with sharpened + the major fracture of surprise attack, not to mention the multitude of damage modifiers NB has.
But this isn't about NB. It's about the sets. Because they work too well on DK, Templar, Sorc, and Warden as well. They are just particularly lethal on NB's because the class is designed for damage.
The point of the matter is: procs are ruining any semblance of balance in BGs. Procs are ruining our chance at counterplay. Procs are ruining our fun with theorycrafting because they are so far superior that it is pointless to try to out-optimize them. And it will only get worse the further into this we get. Right now the information of what is best in slot is trickling down to others, people are telling their friends, people are seeing it on their death recaps over and over and considering to themselves if they'd like to equip the same to find some relief from pain of dealing with it.
This procalypse needs to end before this patch goes to open access for the rest of PC and console on June 6th.
This flaw has the potential to ruin the PVP BG experience for thousands of people intent on giving this game another try. As a community we need to demand change, we need to demand ZOS regulate things such as this that are grossly overperforming. It doesn't matter how we go about minimizing their effectiveness, we need to try something.
My suggestion is to add a mechanic to battle spirit that reduces the effectiveness of procs (in BG's, and perhaps in Cyro as well). This way, any PVE builds using proc sets are not made ineffective, and we can find a resolution to this that makes everyone happy. Not sure what the best way to go about nerfing them would be, some suggest that making only one proc set effective at a time is a good place to start. But I highly doubt a change like this would stop anything, seeing as everyone would just run viper. Perhaps putting all proc sets on 1 singular global cooldown, doing an overall % reduction of proc damage, or proc chance, or literally any other method of reducing their effectiveness I am down for.
I am more than willing to hear other people's ideas in terms of bringing these in line with other sets. I'm sure plenty of you have more creative ideas than I ever could. I look forward to discussing this with others and hopefully convincing ZOS devs
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler that these sets need some attention.
I hope that as a community, we can put aside preference for sake of balance, and foster challenging and purposeful PVP going forward.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.
Love,
Jules
PS: A great clip to prove this imbalance.
https://clips.twitch.tv/BravePlayfulMangetoutHeyGuys
