Tenacity and PvP meta

gweddry

For a while now, PvP has had general flow issues. Two major problems are very high amount of healing (combination of multiple sources) and very high burst damage. Fights among high end builds are usually either extremely short, a matter of one rotation or even less, or very long – stalemates or near that. There is no middle ground and it is clear that killing with 3 encounters or less takes about as much skill as standing in an OP sigil with a full tank build.

This is hardly the first time the game has seen such a problem, though it has usually been about too much healing. That is why in mod 2 tenacity was implemented. For quite a while after, every character had a base tenacity value that could be increased by wearing equipment purchased with glory. The added effect was that PvE gear was made less viable for most builds; whether that was a good move or not is a separate discussion.

Tenacity originally had 4 parts (or technically 5): damage resistance, control resistance, critical damage resistance, armor penetration resistance. Importantly, healing depression was also introduced alongside with it. Here is an interesting quote from the NW.14.20140224a.7 patch notes:

The combined effect of [tenacity and healing depression] these two additions is to reduce the occurrence of exceptionally short and exceptionally long PvP encounters, resulting in combat with a more normal length where strategy and player skill play a larger role.

In mod 16, tenacity was (mostly) removed as a part of the game rework. That was a correct move – tenacity was a band aid fix put in place to combat the aforementioned problems because PvP and PvE powers could never be entirely separated. However, because of how PvE works, we are facing the same issues again.

Implementation

Damage resistance is likely not needed as high burst damage comes mostly from critical strikes (an exception to this is arbiter DC, but that's a class balance topic).

Control resistance is needed. The newer iterations of tenacity use a stack system instead, where each cc effect adds a stack and upon reaching a certain number of stacks, the player becomes immune to cc. Unfortunately this system has never worked properly as such has been completely unreliable. Furthermore, I believe this was made to counter some specific builds such as trapper HR or oppressor CW. As those builds are not coming back, I do not believe such a system is needed anymore. Instead, players should have a flat amount of control resistance.

Critical damage resistance is something that should be reintroduced for reasons described previously. I would start with perhaps 30%.

Armor penetration resistance is not necessary.

Healing depression is perhaps the most important part. There currently is some amount of healing depression in place, I believe around 20%, perhaps somebody can correct me here. This is absolutely insufficient and should probably be increased to 50% to begin with. Some specific items, such as OP sigil and Providence, should be nerfed in addition.

The key here is to observe the situation and make quick adjustments accordingly using the approach of frequent small patches. Those are after all a few number changes; something similar to the mod 18 class adjustments, just much simpler.

Conclusion

The goal of these changes would be to change PvP flow via removing extreme (both ends of the spectrum) time-to-kill values. Damage and healing should mostly come in DPS/HPS, not high bursts. Those should still be present, but to a lesser degree. Self-sustain should be limited. This would increase the skill needed as there would be more room for error and subsequently counter play.

Please share your thoughts.

kalina311

I think this post should be in
COLLABORATIVE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (CDP) forums for the new producers attention
was going to write something along similar lines ..