Armor Passives (suggested fixes)

Lyall84

The way this game, and most others, is laid out is that light is for casters (be it healing or DPS), medium for melee DPS (unless you are using a bow) and heavy for tanks.

The problem with this game, is that the passives are currently lopsided for light armor to be all DPS. If you look at the passives, there are two big passive sets that point out where the issue is.

Here are the passives for each armor as they stand:

Light Armor

• Evocation - Reduces Magicka cost of spells by 3% per piece of Light Armor equipped. Max bonus: 21%.
• Recovery - Increases Magicka recovery by 4% per piece of Light Armor equipped. Max Bonus: 28%.
• Spell Warding - Increases base Spell Resistance by 8% per piece of Light Armor equipped. Max bonus 32% (shows as the actual value in game, even though the character sheet does not show how much that value actually helps).
• Prodigy - Grants 10% chance for spells to cause Critical Damage while a Light Armor set of 5 or more pieces is equipped.
• Concentration - Player's spells ignore 6% of enemy Spell Resistance per piece of Light Armor equipped. Max bonus 42%.

Medium Armor

• Dexterity - Increases Critical Strike chance with physical attacks by 3% per piece of Medium Armor equipped. Max bonus: 21%.
• Wind Walker - Increases Stamina Recovery by 4% per piece of Medium Armor equipped. Max bonus: 28%.
• Improved Sneak - Decreases the detection area size by 5% and the cost of sneaking by 7% per piece of Medium Armor equipped. Max bonus 35% detection area decrease, 49% Sneak cost decrease.
• Agility - Increases attack speed by 10% when a Medium Armor set of 5 or more pieces is equipped.
• Athletics - Increases sprint move speed by 3% and decreases the stamina cost of roll dodge by 4% per piece of Medium Armor equipped. Max bonus 21% Sprint speed, 28% dodge roll reduction.

Heavy Armor

• Resolve - Increases Armor by 3% and base Spell Resist by 3% for each piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Max bonus 21% Armor, 21% Spell Resist (shows as the actual value in game, even though the character sheet does not show how much that value actually helps).
• Constitution - Increases Health Recovery by 4% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Max bonus 28%.
• Juggernaut - Increases Weapon Damage with melee attacks by 1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Max bonus 7%.
• Bracing - Decreases cost of blocking by 20% when a Heavy Armor set of 5 or more pieces is equipped.
• Rapid Mending - Increases healing received by 1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Max bonus 7%.

If you look at these, for the most part they follow a pattern.

• First Passive - Increases efficiency of the general role based on the armor type, Light reduces magicka cost, Heavy reduces received damage(the armor increase should be a little more in my opinion, see my other post: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/111194/suggestion-on-fixing-melee-or-weapon-skills-vs-magicka-based-skills#latest ), Medium increases critical chance?...This is where I have an issue. Stamina is, for every role, a defensive resource, so for medium armor using weapon skills it is also their offensive as well as defensive resource. So why does medium armor not reduce stamina cost of spells and abilities. Dexterity needs to be changed to reflect that, so stamina abilities can be used with the same efficiency as magicka ones.
• Second Passive - Increases Magicka, Stamina, and Health recovery respectively. Fits the pattern across the board.
• Third Passive - Because Light is pointed down the direction of casters (DPS or healing, not directly taking damage) this is a defensive passive (opposite of the rest of the passives for this skill line), increase spell resist, that way they do not take as much damage from other casters behind the enemy lines, or from AOE during PvE encounters. Because Heavy is pointed down the direction of tanks, this is an offensive passive (opposite for said reasons above), increases damage with melee weapons, so they can play a DPS role or a PvP tank role and still dish out some damge...though the 7% is weak, it should be 2% per piece for 14% total, this only effects melee damage, therefore weapon skills, not class skills. This will help even the balance. Because Medium is geared towards melee DPS (or bow for ranged), it increases sneak efficiency...wait...this is only good out of combat or prior to the fight starting, so, more of an offensive boost. This is where Athletics needs to be. Move Athletics down here so it can act as a real defensive boost for Medium Armor, increased sprint and reduced dodge cost, especially seeing how stamina is pulling double duty in this tree.
• Fourth Passive - 5 set bonuses, each one is good, each one applies to the stereotype for the armor. This follows the pattern.
• Fifth Passive - HUGE DPS increase for Light Armor, ignore 42% of enemy spell resistance? Unless your enemy is also wearing Light Armor, that will crush the amount of damage offered by the increased critical chance offered by medium armor, not to mention unless they change how critical works, see my other post linked above, light armor can make up for that critical with mage light morph. So they can have the critical and the spell penetration. Medium armor...yeah, this is where your defensive passive is instead of where it is compared to the rest of the armors pattern of passives. Athletics needs to be moved to where improved sneak is, and a new passive to add armor penetration needs to be added here, with the same % as spell penetration that light armor gets. This passive difference is the biggest reason for the disparity between light magicka and medium stamina builds DPS in both PvP and PvE. The reduction of costs being a close second. Heavy armor, increased healing. I have not heard of any issues with keeping tanks up in PvP or PvE, so i would not touch this because if you increased it, tanks would become PvP monsters.

My suggestion. Change Dexterity to reduce Stamina costs. Move Athletics to third tier Medium. Add a armor reduction passive to fifth tier Medium. Increase the amount of armor granted to heavy in tier 1 (6% armor and 3% spell seems good to me, just enough to make up for the medium armor increase in penetration). Remove the stealth and critical bonuses from medium. Save those for the Thief Guild and Dark Brotherhood skill lines for when they are released.

For the Thief guild, I would put in the reduction to detection as one, decreased cost as a separate one.

For the Dark Brotherhood, put in a critical rate passive, and a critical magnitude passive.

Phantorang

Looks nice, sent it to ZoS? These forums doesnt count, even though they are official, it isnt here the devs gets their feedback...

Lyall84

Phantorang wrote: »

Looks nice, sent it to ZoS? These forums doesnt count, even though they are official, it isnt here the devs gets their feedback...

No I have not, care to point me in the right direction?

Phantorang

Send it as feedback in an Email, click Support in the bottom of this site, there you will find an email you can send it to

Lyall84

Phantorang wrote: »

Send it as feedback in an Email, click Support in the bottom of this site, there you will find an email you can send it to

Thank you.

Lyall84

People on other threads have pointed out to me that weapons each have their own skill that reduces stamina costs by 20%. The issue I have with this is what about the armor skills that cost stamina, or everything in the fighters guild line? Neither have stamina reductions to their abilities. Not to mention that stamina is also the defensive resource (roll, CC break, sprint). So magicka can spend 3 skill points and get a 21% reduction across the board in addition to any skill line passive reductions, while stamina has to spend 2 skills per weapon and still has skill lines that do not have any reduction. That reduction should be moved to medium armor, and maybe the weapon skill for passives reduced to 5/10% instead of 10/20%.