BUG: Hardened Ward/Healing Ward partially not affected by Battle Spirit

FMonk

I did some testing with shields on the PTS, and found a bug that I believe is the source of all the complaints about sorcs/shields we've been seeing. To summarize it, the extra bonus percentages on hardened ward/healing ward are not affected by the Battle Spirit 50% nerf to shield strength. For testing purposes, I have no champion points in Bastion, Quick Recovery, or Blessed, and no heavy armor or anything else that would affect shield strength or healing done/received.

Before I get to the to the screenshots from in Cyrodiil, here are a set of screenshots taken outside of Cyrodiil that show the tooltip values and actual shield strength for Hardened Ward, Harness Magicka, and Healing Ward.









Outside of Cyrodiil, everything behaves as expected according to the tooltips. However inside of Cyrodiil the extra 33% shield strength on Hardened Ward, and the up to 300% shield strength from Healing Ward on a low health target seem to be calculated off of the base value of the shield before the Battle Spirit 50% reduction is applied, leading to larger than expected shield values.



My Hardened Ward shield strength is 7701, while the correct value according to the tooltip should be 4639*1.33=6185. The extra 33% bonus is actually calculated off the base shield strength before Battle Spirit, 9278 (seen in the screenshots taken outside of Cyrodiil above). So the math looks like 4639+(9278*0.33)=7701



Harness Magicka behaves exactly as expected, with both the tooltip value and actual shield strength being exactly half of their value outside Cyrodiil.



At full health, Healing Ward also works as expected, with both the shield strength and initial heal value being half of what they are outside Cyrodiil. (Though the tooltip is incorrect for the initial heal)


The maximum shield value on a low health target should be 2082+(2082*3)=8328, but the shield strength shown exceeds that, indicating that the extra shield strength based on missing health is also calculated in the same way as the 33% bonus on Hardened Ward.


The final heal does seem to be working as intended, it is reduced by 50%, but the bugged shield value causes it to be larger than it should be.


There have been a lot of complaints about shields on the PTS, and before a knee-jerk reaction to the complaints is made (like allowing shields to be crit), this bug needs to be fixed so we can test shields as they were intended to be in this patch.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_EricWrobel @ZOS_RichLambert

RoyJade

That is THE test. Thanks, I know that there was a bug somewhere.
Without this bug, I think damage shield won't cause trouble anymore.

Illumous

Nice work on these tests!

I do think the Healing Ward, however, shouldn't get the 50% healing reduction when the Shield strength is already getting the 50% nerf (when it's working as it should be that is). It should still heal the person for 100% of the remaining shield, not 50%.

If this is all fixed, I would be fine with them keeping bubbles uncritable as they have been.

RoyJade

Illumous wrote: »

I do think the Healing Ward, however, shouldn't get the 50% healing reduction when the Shield strength is already getting the 50% nerf (when it's working as it should be that is). It should still heal the person for 100% of the remaining shield, not 50%.

Like all other double-nerfed abilities, I agree.

Dracane

Well, now where they make shields critable, leave us the bit shield that we have. If this is a bug, then leave it
I would say, make it possible to crit on shields, but maybe lift this shield nerf. More shield, but critable.

sabresandiego_ESO

Dracane is the most biased poster on the PTS boards lol. Stop trying to keep your sorc unkillable

FMonk

Apparently ZoS is aware of the healing ward bug, but not sure if they know hardened ward is the same.

kaithuzar

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_EricWrobel @ZOS_RichLambert
Please fix this!
@OP Awesome work!

Xsorus

Great test mate

Mawgusta

Dracane wrote: »

Well, now where they make shields critable, leave us the bit shield that we have. If this is a bug, then leave it
I would say, make it possible to crit on shields, but maybe lift this shield nerf. More shield, but critable.

It doesn't matter. They aren't leaving anyone alone until you die in 3 seconds to the zerg. You think it's sustain 1v1 crowd looking to make sure you can't defend yourself longer than 5 seconds? Its the people who are gonna load cool videos of 40 of there guildies racing HEADLONG over dah bridge into 40 other awesome aoe'rs.. Small group players, solo'ers.. Goodbye.

Darnathian

Thank you for your time you put into this. Fixes the bug in PTS but not the problem in PVP.

Make no mistake. The problem and root cause of all the complaints started when they changed sorc's shields to scale off magicka. Don't make shields critable.

Change it back to scale of health.

FMonk

Hardened ward has always scaled off magicka. Prior to 1.6, there was a softcap on magicka, so sorcs didn't have as high of a magicka pool relative to other resources as they do now.

Faulgor

FMonk wrote: »

Hardened ward has always scaled off magicka. Prior to 1.6, there was a softcap on magicka, so sorcs didn't have as high of a magicka pool relative to other resources as they do now.

You'd think by now they could have changed the scaling coefficient, so the Ward is better with very little Magicka (to help Stamina Sorcerers) and not as good as now with high Magicka.

Ahzek

I wonder, does this work the same way with bastion from the CS as well ? If so we might have discovered the very reason shields are so incredibly strong in PvP right now, even if they are not used by sorcs.

ItsRejectz

Just imagine them fixing this and making shields critable......

Dracane

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Dracane is the most biased poster on the PTS boards lol. Stop trying to keep your sorc unkillable

Haha
Nah, I don't want Sorcs to be unkillable. Even I agree, that this thing became very annoying with this damage reduction in pvp.
That's why I enjoy this change. Even though it means, that I will die in no time. But at least I can deal more damage against other people who use shields.

We'll see how it works. But honestly, I think making shields critable destroys them pretty much. That's why I would like to see an overall increae. or even better, make shields critbable as well. Heals can crit, everything can crit. But shields cant.... with the coming changes, allowing shields to crit themselves is not too much to ask for imo.

lathbury

this explains why they are unkillable 1v3 i guess

FMonk

Bumping this because every thread is filled with people who don't know shields are bugged complaining.

Ezareth

FMonk wrote: »

Bumping this because every thread is filled with people who don't know shields are bugged complaining.

This isn't a bug. Hell, I've known this and been reporting this since 1.6.2 when they first implemented the shield "Nerf".

This game is full of Additive tooltips that many people would assumed from reading them are multiplicative.

Have you done any testing on the "-Damage" portion of the cyrodiil buff yet either? I think you'll find it is additive as well.

This is why Healing Ward is far more powerful than any other shield right now...because the -50% affects it the least when it is cast at low health.

ToRelax

Ezareth wrote: »

FMonk wrote: »

Bumping this because every thread is filled with people who don't know shields are bugged complaining.

This isn't a bug. Hell, I've known this and been reporting this since 1.6.2 when they first implemented the shield "Nerf".

This game is full of Additive tooltips that many people would assumed from reading them are multiplicative.

Have you done any testing on the "-Damage" portion of the cyrodiil buff yet either? I think you'll find it is additive as well.

This is why Healing Ward is far more powerful than any other shield right now...because the -50% affects it the least when it is cast at low health.

I would agree, if ZOS didn't appear to have been unaware of it.

ZOS_GinaBruno

Nice, thanks @FMonk! We'll take a looksie.

Snit

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Nice, thanks @FMonk! We'll take a looksie.

Would you consider delaying the planned nerf to shields (making them crittable) until you've fixed these bugs, so you can then reassess things?

Ezareth

ToRelax wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

FMonk wrote: »

Bumping this because every thread is filled with people who don't know shields are bugged complaining.

This isn't a bug. Hell, I've known this and been reporting this since 1.6.2 when they first implemented the shield "Nerf".

This game is full of Additive tooltips that many people would assumed from reading them are multiplicative.

Have you done any testing on the "-Damage" portion of the cyrodiil buff yet either? I think you'll find it is additive as well.

This is why Healing Ward is far more powerful than any other shield right now...because the -50% affects it the least when it is cast at low health.

I would agree, if ZOS didn't appear to have been unaware of it.

Trust me they're very aware of this. They just don't publish the formulas in their attempt to keep the workings of the game secret.

All this has done is create two kinds of players in ESO. The people who read tooltips and make assumptions and build their builds around that, and those who actually test everything and make their builds around their findings. The players who test and understand exactly how game mechanics work have a competitive advantage against those who do not. Most of them try to keep their findings secret so as to keep the advantage for as long as possible. This is why I've tried making as many of my findings public as possible because a lot of these players with the competitive advantage assume their success is based off of "skill" which is often is not. I'd much rather the game was more skill-based than build based and abusing the next OP mechanic.

Erock25

Snit wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Nice, thanks @FMonk! We'll take a looksie.

Would you consider delaying the planned nerf to shields (making them crittable) until you've fixed these bugs, so you can then reassess things?

I'm actually looking forward to shield crits as long as they work with surge. They just really need to fix the unmitigated overflow damage.... If it's even true.

GTech_1

This is a very good find. Well done @FMonk

Glory

@ZOS_GinaBruno I have yet to test other skills with these similar x% damage/shield/heal bonus but I suspect they are doing similar scaling issues.

The main culprit I am thinking of is biting jabs. Its 140% damage increase is likely also doing the same thing.

Dredlord

Darnathian wrote: »

Thank you for your time you put into this. Fixes the bug in PTS but not the problem in PVP.

Make no mistake. The problem and root cause of all the complaints started when they changed sorc's shields to scale off magicka. Don't make shields critable.

Change it back to scale of health.

+1 Change it back to scale off health.

aco5712

nvm.