So I tried using heavy armor...

jrgray93

This past weekend, I made a full set of heavy armor and switched my skills accordingly. I wanted to try a more survival-based stamina build in PVP just to have a little fun with it. I was mostly just curious as to how it would work out and if it could be done.

Well, that sucked. It took all of a few seconds for my resource pools to be depleted. Having only about 1400 magicka and little cost reduction, I went OOM in no time. This was only using magicka for utility. My stamina value was over 2k, but it went down just as fast. I couldn't land heavy attacks to restore stamina because PVP doesn't cater to that in the slightest. Even with heavy armor on, I felt as paper thin as I did in light. There is very little love for stamina in the armor sets you can craft, and only medium armor gives you something worthwhile in that respect, so my abilities remained costly.

The restoration value of Constitution is laughable. I loved that this was added, but the value is so pathetically low, it may as well not even be there. My health value is pretty middle-of-the-road, at ~2600 unbuffed in PVP, but even at 3000+, it would hardly matter.

I was really hoping I could make heavy armor work out well enough to justify using it. Mostly because it looks so much better than most light armor, but also for a change of pace. Having been playing since beta, I guess I should have known better.

Heavy armor is a complete joke. It will never be competitive so long as resources are a factor. Light and medium provide huge cost reductions. Without ability cooldowns, spamming attacks is the name of the game. Heavy armor, with virtually no resource management, makes that impossible.

Generally, as a Templar, your biggest strength in PVP is outlasting your enemy. There isn't much explosive damage potential outside of Blazing Shield bug abuse, so you basically just stay alive and wear down the enemy with a steady stream of damage. This requires, above all else, resource management. Something both Templars and heavy armor lack in. Combine the two, and it's a recipe for disaster. In fact, so many Templar spells lack use without high magicka values, that I have a hard time coming up with anything useful for a stamina-based Templar to do. With other classes, I have a much easier time mixing in magicka abilities for their utility, instead of needing that magicka for a higher heal or damage value.

I see no clear solution to this problem, but I have a suggestion. Cut the cost reductions out of light / medium armor. At least cut them down to a much smaller bonus. Simultaneously, cut the cost of all spells and abilities. Keep everyone on the same general page for ability costs. Keep light armor with bonus magicka regen, medium armor with stamina regen, and buff Constitution in heavy armor to make it a solid balance of the two.

The cost reduction of spells that medium / light armor get are just absurdly potent in comparison to anything heavy armor offers.

AshySamurai

Heavy sucks in PvP, but did you tried it in PvE? It's pretty ok for tank with cost block reduction and adding a small % of resource back (in 7/7 heavy with 3k hp you get ~30 magika and stamina back). Not so much, but IMO this is nice feature and heavy armor still not OP. Also you get more healing.
IMO heavy could be valiable in PvP when taunt will work in PvP, so you can tank in PvP.

And about your solutions - don't make heavy OP. And why light and medium shouldn't provide cost reduction? This is the only reason to wear it, because I can cap stam regen in heavy.

jrgray93

I tried in PVE as well. I was having similar issues. In light, I can solo dolmens and world bosses, as well as blaze through quests with ease. I cannot do this in heavy.

I do not think my proposed solution would come close to making heavy OP. There are other benefits to light / medium that cater to those play styles, and some of them will be emphasized when soft caps are removed.

AshySamurai

I use heavy and all fine in PvE. Also tried PvP - not so good, but at least I don't die from NB snipe+poison. Maybe you just need to change play style? Try to level new alt in full heavy, it could help.

jrgray93

I've done that as well. Actually, I frequently played my friend's DK in heavy armor prior to making my own alts.

Rune_Relic

This is one of the things I just dont get about the current balance.
Enchanted armour and jewellery with +stamina regen and +stamina ?
Theres a knockback @ 30% health armour too.

They could have had weapon damage and armour scale off health, as spell damage and spell resists scale off magicka, using stamina as endurance.
That way you'd be a granite tank, that hits like nuke....but not many times (health).
A master mage that hits hard and teleports out of danger.
A stealthy character that wouldnt hit as hard with spells or weapons but has access to both and gets lots of hits of hits in.

TBH I just hit Vet2 and maxed out medium/bow/shield. So just decided to level heavy now and 2h a bit later. I am struggling. I was shocked lol

mar1ano1987nrb18_ESO

I switched my dk to heavy armor in pvp .....and its working really great, at least with sword and shield.
I also use 3 enchanted rings with block reduce ...Almost never run out of stamina while im blocking, so i try to drain my opponent`s stamina firts (its easy, since almost all the people use light armor ) and then I start doing my dps rotations.
Being a redguard also helps a lot, since I can regenerate stamina every 3 secs with a light attack.

now....heavy armor with other weapons? yea ...its not so good

Muizer

But apparently ranged troops now also get stamina restored from heavy attacks. Can't confirm it first hand, but if that's the case that is very bad news for heavy armor melee players.

Samadhi

What sets were you running and how were your Regen attributes?
What weapon were you running?
What skills were you using?

Interested in the setup you were testing.

Vanzen

It can work .. I tried it with a dk/vamp 1h/shield/resto and its great for blocking reduction .. I went 5h/2L. 5 heavy seducer/ 5 warlock. 1H/shield Torugs pact.
I cap maxmag/magregen/spell power... One stam regen enchant, 84 stam regen/1600 stam. This build is really equilibrate and easy to manage, I noticed a huge gain with survivibility. Yes heavy in vpv is viable.
I used to go 5L/2h and I think, at least for me that heavy is better.
I think the trick is, it works but only if you can afford all legendary gear and glyphs ..

Aeratus

There's no point in going all heavy. Instead, just use heavy on the helm and chest pieces. This will fool the opponent into thinking that you are tankier than what you actually are.

david.haypreub18_ESO

It is sad that ZOS have been so inept at trying to solve the armor imbalance. It has seriously been more than SIX MONTHS now and they don't seem to have any clue how to solve it. Same goes for Templars and their mana regen.

I love this game, but at this point I do really have to speak out and say, 'It is time to try a different approach. The slow-and-steady, incremental way has failed.' Everyone can see that plainly, except the developers I guess.

Rune_Relic

david.haypreub18_ESO wrote: »

It is sad that ZOS have been so inept at trying to solve the armor imbalance. It has seriously been more than SIX MONTHS now and they don't seem to have any clue how to solve it. Same goes for Templars and their mana regen.

I love this game, but at this point I do really have to speak out and say, 'It is time to try a different approach. The slow-and-steady, incremental way has failed.' Everyone can see that plainly, except the developers I guess.

Oh I think they know how to fix it.....just that there is no point making major changes that might be incompatible with the champion system. All of this simply has to wait I guess.

Nestor

My Dragon Knight wears Heavy Armor because he is a Knight. If he was wearing something else, he would be something else.

He does just fine in PvE. Have not done PvP with him, but I have little interest in that aspect. Especially as he is DC and that Alliance can't catch a break in the war.

Montanabum

I agree with the OP. We need some love for heavy armor. I know it is coming but just wish it was sooner rather than later.

Maverick827

The problem with this desparity is that most people don't understand when their characters are underperforming. They don't care about that kind of stuff, and that's totally fine, but they'll come here and post "my heavy armor character is doing fine" when what they mean is "I'm still able to solo level 40 quests, therefore there is no problem with heavy armor."

Stroggnonimus

jrgray93 wrote: »

I tried in PVE as well. I was having similar issues. In light, I can solo dolmens and world bosses, as well as blaze through quests with ease. I cannot do this in heavy.

I do not think my proposed solution would come close to making heavy OP. There are other benefits to light / medium that cater to those play styles, and some of them will be emphasized when soft caps are removed.

I think depend on your overall character skills and attributes development and even your, player skills. I'm playing as a tank too and yes they're useless in PVP (that's a very old problem that magicka is much better than stamina) but in PVE I can do anchors, WBs and even whole group dungeons alone or only with 1 friend....

Aeratus

Maverick827 wrote: »

The problem with this desparity is that most people don't understand when their characters are underperforming. They don't care about that kind of stuff, and that's totally fine, but they'll come here and post "my heavy armor character is doing fine" when what they mean is "I'm still able to solo level 40 quests, therefore there is no problem with heavy armor."

This is so true. Many months ago (probably in early May), I used to play a bow NB and I was totally fine leveling up to v4 entirely in the vet zones. I thought my character was pretty good, since many of my guildmates were having trouble in the vet zones (this was before the vet zone difficulty nerf). I did not realize that my character sucked until I played the spindleclutch vet dungeon and couldn't pull enough dps for my group to get past the gargoyle boss. Then I realized that DKs were literally doing up to 4-5x the dps that my bow NB could.

chipputer

The only heavy armor build that I've used where I wasn't running out of resources is my 5 heavy/2 light sorcerer tank, where I only use entropy and lightning form while tanking, with small sprinkles of regeneration and such when I have the time.

He never really dies, but he also is incredibly one track minded and can get to be boring at times. Heavy armor needs work. I love how Breton, Dark Elf, Imperial, and Orcish armor looks, but there's no real reason to use it. I mean, I do anyway, but I know for a fact I'd be better off using light.

superfluke

I love that, @AshySamurai!

Heavy sucks in PvP, but did you tried it in PvE? It's pretty ok

That is so sig-worthy.

wolfydog

I also use heavy in PVE, DK in vet levels and a Templar on the way. I have issues at in PVE. In fact with my tempar I started off light armor and I was dying to much.

I'm a heavy armor guy though, I really only play classes that can wear heavy so its usually tanks or plate healers.

Sablemane

Half of my characters are 7/7 heavy and do fine in PVE, but I think heavy needs a bit more love in the spell damage mitigation department. The passive health benefit is in the right direction. I hope this continues to increase a wee bit in the future. Finally 5/7 should also be required to use any armor active.

Stx

I can see why Heavy Armor would be problematic for a Templar.

As a Nightblade, however, I find Heavy Armor to work very well in PvP. The reason for this is because Nightblades have very good resource regeneration from siphoning attacks, and since weapon damage is so easy to stack, I don't lose much damage.

I also like Heavy because critical strikes are useless against most PvPers due to impenetrable, and so really the only thing you are losing from medium would be cost reduction and regen. So you gain a lower costing Break Free (which is awesome), small resource gain from taking damage, 20% lower stamina cost on blocking, and much higher armor/spell resist. All in exchange for stamina regen(which Nightblades already have a lot of), and cost reduction (this is the biggest loss).

In the end, I think Heavy works well for hybrid builds or stamina builds on a Nightblade. For classes that have less sustain, I can see how it would be hard to use, but for a Templar, all I could recommend would be to use Honor the Dead only when below 50% health, use restoring aura liberally to replenish your stamina, and go from there.

Surfinginhawaii

I've been experimenting with using medium armor instead of heavy armor as a tank. I have the following on my bar: invasion, ransack, elude, cinder storm and green dragon blood. I have a 5 piece set of Hist bark with the other 2 pieces being Hunding's rage. I was able to tank two dungeons in Craglorn but was slaughtered by that damn thunder lizard (I discovered it's best to kite this sucker). This set-up is not bad for PVE but I haven't tried to use it in PVP.

Samadhi

Stx wrote: »

I can see why Heavy Armor would be problematic for a Templar.

As a Nightblade, however, I find Heavy Armor to work very well in PvP. The reason for this is because Nightblades have very good resource regeneration from siphoning attacks, and since weapon damage is so easy to stack, I don't lose much damage.

I also like Heavy because critical strikes are useless against most PvPers due to impenetrable, and so really the only thing you are losing from medium would be cost reduction and regen. So you gain a lower costing Break Free (which is awesome), small resource gain from taking damage, 20% lower stamina cost on blocking, and much higher armor/spell resist. All in exchange for stamina regen(which Nightblades already have a lot of), and cost reduction (this is the biggest loss).

In the end, I think Heavy works well for hybrid builds or stamina builds on a Nightblade. For classes that have less sustain, I can see how it would be hard to use, but for a Templar, all I could recommend would be to use Honor the Dead only when below 50% health, use restoring aura liberally to replenish your stamina, and go from there.

As Nightblade, the Crest of Cyrodiil set is great fun in PvP. 33% reduced target healing for 5 seconds, activates with Melee Class skills and stacks on top of the healing reduction from Death Stroke.
The only issue is the whole set being Reinforced trait costing many slots of Impenetrable. Personally add in a set of crafted gear for 30-40% Impenetrable, but the difference is noticeable and taking Crit damage is painful when trying to be tanky.

My Heavy Armour build gains roughly the same overall KDR in PvP as my Light Armour Warlock/Seducer set does spamming AoEs.
Generates the kills far less quickly, but also dies far less frequently in most circumstances.

Like 5 Heavy/2 Light for a build focused on Class skills.
Currently working on a 5 Heavy/2 Medium build focused on Two Handed with Siphoning toggled. Dual Wielding as a Stamina tank was interesting with Heavy Armour's bonuses to healing interplaying with the low skill cost of Blood Craze though.

There are options for Heavy, but building for fast damage didn't really work for me.
Personally found it best to keep myself alive and with resources while whittling away at the target's health.

jrgray93

*posted this comment in the wrong thread, please ignore*