Heavy armor needs buffed already.

Ffastyl · February 2016

The issue with that is Heavy Armor is (kind of) a hybrid armor. Both Stamina and Magicka builds use it. In Update 5 and prior, increasing Weapon Damage was fine as all weapon skills and melee attacks (regardless of resource consumption) scaled off Weapon Damage. Now, the bonus has to be either Minor Berzerk or an increase to melee damage, benefiting both Stamina and Magicka users.

Forestd16b14_ESO · February 2016

Ffastyl wrote: »

The issue with that is Heavy Armor is (kind of) a hybrid armor. Both Stamina and Magicka builds use it. In Update 5 and prior, increasing Weapon Damage was fine as all weapon skills and melee attacks (regardless of resource consumption) scaled off Weapon Damage. Now, the bonus has to be either Minor Berzerk or an increase to melee damage, benefiting both Stamina and Magicka users.

Well IDK about you but when I hear of berserker I think of giant warrior wielding a giant sword in plated armor and yes that cause of the anime.

Ffastyl · February 2016

I think the same.
But that's not what the buff by the same name does ingame.

dodgehopper_ESO · February 2016

Ffastyl wrote: »

Ah, and a big thing they mentioned is decoupling Max Resource from ability power (Max Stamina/Magicka =/= more power), but it requires a big overhaul of the background systems and equations so it's just on the whiteboard for now.

They said this! FINALLY! What a relief. At least they are talking about it, because this has been the elephant in the room for a year.

NoMoreChillies · February 2016

with heavy armor suffering my attention to ESO is dwindling.
The Division looks fun

dodgehopper_ESO · February 2016

EdmundTowers wrote: »

Prolly already mentioned in thread, but I think heavy armor should provide a bonus to melee power attacks. More weight to go behind the attack.

The 5 piece bonus is just reduced stamina cost when blocking. Pretty lame. How about this? X% increased damage and X% increased stamina return when landing power attacks with a melee weapon.

That problem with heavy armor is that you sacrifice damage and resources for tankiness. The above bonus would counter act that sacrifice if you can throw in some power attacks while tanking.

What do you guys think?

Heavy armor use to have this, then it took an arrow to the knee.

Teridaxus · February 2016

Apparently they have the time to improve bows while ignoring heavy armour.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2708612/#Comment_2708612

...
Wasn't this update just class balance?

hrothbern · February 2016

FYI

For all people that tagged this thread,
ZOS has started an official thread on tanking.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/248921/official-tanking-feedback-thread#latest

Forestd16b14_ESO · March 2016

hrothbern wrote: »

FYI

For all people that tagged this thread,
ZOS has started an official thread on tanking.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/248921/official-tanking-feedback-thread#latest

Then i'll just post a link there to this thread.

hrothbern · March 2016

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

hrothbern wrote: »

FYI

For all people that tagged this thread,
ZOS has started an official thread on tanking.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/248921/official-tanking-feedback-thread#latest

Then i'll just post a link there to this thread.

Forestd16b14_ESO · March 2016

Immovable
-cost: 2500 stamina
-requirements: 5+ heavy armor pieces equip
-duration: 25 seconds.
-effect: gain major resolve and major ward increasing physical and spell resistance by 5500 amount and gain full immunity to CC and knockdown/back for entire duration

~Immovable brute
-cost:2500 stamina
-requirements: 5+ heavy armor pieces equip
-duration: 25 seconds.
-effect: gain major resolve and major ward increasing physical and spell resistance by 5500 amount and gain full immunity to CC and knockdown/back for entire duration. Also have a 30% when attacked to set enemies either off balanced or concussed for 7 seconds.

~Unstoppable
-cost: 2000 stamina
-requirements: 5+ heavy armor pieces equip
-duration: 30 seconds.
-effect: gain major resolve and major ward increasing physical and spell resistance by 5500 amount and gain full immunity to CC and knockdown/back for entire duration. Reduce cost and last longer.

Constitution.
-Increases health recovery by 5% per piece of heavy armor equip and allows stamina regen while blocking if wearing 5+ pieces of heavy armor. Decreases magicka and stamina cost by 5% when wearing 5+ pieces of heavy armor.

Resolve
-Increases physical and spell resistance by 2% per piece of heavy armor equip and increases critical resistance by 4% per piece of heavy armor equip. Reduce all sources of damage by 10% when wearing 5+ pieces of heavy armor

Juggernaut
-Increases max health by 3% per piece of heavy armor equip. Reduce cost of break free by 35% when wearing 5+ pieces of heavy armor. When effect by stun, CC, knock back, or root effects reduce damage dealt to you by 10%

Bracing
- reduce cost of blocking by 35% and block additional 5% damage (regardless if using a shield or not) and reduce physical/spell penetration effect by 40% when wearing 5+ pieces of heavy armor.

Rapid mending
- increase healing receive by 2% per piece of heavy armor equip and increases health recovery by 75% when health falls below 30% in addition reduce snare effects by 25% when wearing 5+ pieces of heavy armor.

Few minor changes I figure could work out.

Here's hopeing ZOS actually takes back every ones feed back and adds the to HA buffs in U10. Keep the ideas coming got 3 months.

ClockworkArc · March 2016

Just continuing the conversation.

When I look at LA and MA I see that their bonuses give:

Passive Mitigation - Armor and Spell Resist, and it isn't the worst amounts.
Resource Regen -% Magicka or Stamina Regen which scales with builds.
Cost Reduction on Primary Resource
Damage - In the form of Crit, Weapon Damage, or Spell Pen
Active Mitigation - With LA this is in the form of Crits (for healing) and cost reduction on the numerous defensive magicka spells. With MA this is in the form of dodge roll but bonuses are also there for sneaking which is a way of actively avoiding combat.

HA has

Passive Mitigation - which again is just okay in the unbuffed form.
Constitution Health Recovery - which is great and can scale with your build
Constitution dual resource return - which doesn't really scale.
Cost reduction on blocking which is one specific defensive tool and does not give offensive opportunities but does help active mitigation.
Greater Resources - Which is unique but these bonuses are more tertiary than build altering.

The things that HA doesn't have are Damage and scale-able ability-based resource sustain.

I'd recommend changes that looks like this.

Passive Mitigation - Maybe raise the average mitigation of HA by 5% overall (3000 more armour/sr for a 5-piece user). This way tanks can focus less on building full defense and can choose to use other armour sets like Seducer or even build damage while being able to stay alive.

Constitution.
Buff the on-hit return maybe 50%? Then black rose starts to look like a nice choice. For the most part I think this passive is good.

Resolve
Probably fine the way it is but the idea of making it a % increase instead of flat could help build variety for everybody including 2-piece HA builds.

Juggernaut
5-piece bonus: Grants 6% increased weapon and spell damage. Also grants 25% Tenacity (Heavy Attack Resource Return).

I think that Heavy Armour, as a primarily passive defensive measure needs to grant active gameplay opportunities. Blocking to me is fun when it is done only in specific situations and not for every attack. So if HA could passively soak up a bit more damage, I'd like to be able to participate in actively dealing damage or mitigating damage / burst through some abilities but still blocking when needed. The price of this is that HA users then have to actively sustain their resources by channeling heavy attacks. This also makes the Weighted Trait more desirable and provides tanks an element of risk/reward for not blocking.

Bracing
- reduce cost of blocking by 25% (also then the SnB should be nerfed to 25% so that some power is taken out of snb block and put into heavy armour). Then also add about 10% impen. I'm personally okay with there being no stamina regen on blocking.

Vitality
Increase Healing Received by 2% per piece, increase max health by 2% per piece.
These buffs both seem somewhat low to me so doubling them into one passive seems fine, also making them a bit stronger. With adding one more 5-piece bonus into the tree this still helps to provide incentive for 2-piece HA builds.

Ffastyl · March 2016

These are good suggestions and nothing to add besides pointing out a behaviour of Weighted that will still make it undesirable.

Weighted decreases the cooldown on basic attacks. Given most players weave attacks, the cooldown is often consumed performing an ability. Weighted does not decrease the wind up time for basic attacks so this trait will only prove useful if using consecutive basic attacks with no abilities in between.

Forestd16b14_ESO · March 2016

Ffastyl wrote: »

These are good suggestions and nothing to add besides pointing out a behaviour of Weighted that will still make it undesirable.

Weighted decreases the cooldown on basic attacks. Given most players weave attacks, the cooldown is often consumed performing an ability. Weighted does not decrease the wind up time for basic attacks so this trait will only prove useful if using consecutive basic attacks with no abilities in between.

That is a good point that weighted does need changed to be a better choices against say precision or sharpen. Maybe decrease charge time for heavy attacks too along with making light attacks faster and maybe have the values as 12%, 14%, 16%, 18% 20% on all forms of weapons.

xellink · March 2016

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

EdmundTowers wrote: »

Prolly already mentioned in thread, but I think heavy armor should provide a bonus to melee power attacks. More weight to go behind the attack.

The 5 piece bonus is just reduced stamina cost when blocking. Pretty lame. How about this? X% increased damage and X% increased stamina return when landing power attacks with a melee weapon.

That problem with heavy armor is that you sacrifice damage and resources for tankiness. The above bonus would counter act that sacrifice if you can throw in some power attacks while tanking.

What do you guys think?

As much as some players would like that that would be bad cause the point as a tank as said before is to take the damage not deal it. Before all the way back at PC launch I think HA did give a weapon damage bonus but was scrapped cause it was more useful to have HA instead of MA for DPSing.... or was the immovable brute that had that skill.....

Tanks don't need damage. They need powerful utility, punishment, crowd control. That will synergise well with other players who want to exclusively deal damage.

ClockworkArc · March 2016

Ffastyl wrote: »

These are good suggestions and nothing to add besides pointing out a behaviour of Weighted that will still make it undesirable.

Weighted decreases the cooldown on basic attacks. Given most players weave attacks, the cooldown is often consumed performing an ability. Weighted does not decrease the wind up time for basic attacks so this trait will only prove useful if using consecutive basic attacks with no abilities in between.

Wow, I never knew that. That sounds so pointless... Haha, I've never used weighted but faster heavy attacks always seemed like the reason why someone would use it.

ScooberSteve · March 2016

I agree. I think health regen is way too low still in heavy armor. Needs to be at least 1k in heavy armor

Fizzlewizzle · March 2016

I don't think heavy armor should boost any form of damage. If anything, maybe boost shields a bit.

My few cents:

Block cost reduction is alright.

Resolve: Should be quite a bit higher.

Constitution: decent increase in Health regen.
Secondary effect could be the same as it is now, though i would suggest making it so it recovers your Magicka and Stamina equal to your health regen every 8/4 seconds (if you are blocking).
It would tie both bonuses to each other, make the second bonus more useful and also put the focus more on defensive gameplay (as well as help tanks with resources).

Juggernaut: Increase damage reduction by 0.5/1% for each piece of armor you have equiped once your HP drops below 66% and by 1/2% for each piece of heavy armor you have equiped once your hp drops below 33%. (no HP bonus).

Rapid mending: double this.

Forestd16b14_ESO · March 2016

Seeing some of the new post and ideas some changes to make HA more tanky. Yes it may seem OP but look at DPS players.

Immovable
-cost: 2500 stamina
-requirements: 5+ heavy armor pieces equip
-duration: 20 seconds.
-effect: gain major resolve and major ward increasing physical and spell resistance by 5500 amount and gain full immunity to CC effects such as roots and knock back and knock down for entire duration

~Immovable brute
-cost:2500 stamina
-requirements: 5+ heavy armor pieces equip
-duration: 20 seconds.
-effect: gain major resolve and major ward increasing physical and spell resistance by 5500 amount and gain full immunity to CC effects such as roots and knock back and knock down for entire duration and now when you block a enemys attack decrease their weapon and spell damage by 25 points stacking up to 10X for 10 seconds. Effect refreshes timer with each hit even when at cap.

~Unstoppable
-cost: 2000 stamina
-requirements: 5+ heavy armor pieces equip
-duration: 30 seconds.
-effect: gain major resolve and major ward increasing physical and spell resistance by 5500 amount and gain full immunity to CC effects such as roots and knock back and knock down for entire duration and now also grants full immunity to snare effects and allies in a 15 meter radius also gain minor ward and minor resolve increasing their physical and spell resistance by 2000 points for 30 seconds.

Now a choice can be made to either debuff your attacker by 250 points or buff your allies. What it be tanks make your enemies life a living hell or be a guardian to your allies ? Ideas are welcomed.

Dubhliam · March 2016

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

...gain full immunity to CC effects such as roots and knock back and knock down for entire duration...

You keep pushing this idea, but it is a definite overkill.

We all agree HA passives need a buff.
Hell, even the skill can use a buff.
But your suggestions are way too drastic.

Simply make Unstoppable grant additional 1,5 sec of immunity per HA equipped. Max 15,5 sec immunity.

Eirikir · March 2016

I would like to see Bracing changed...

Bracing 1 - With 5 or more pieces of heavy armor, decreases Stamina cost of blocking by 10%, bashing while blocking grants a 5 second taunt.

Bracing 2 - With 5 or more pieces of heavy armor, decreases Stamina cost of blocking by 20%, blocking prevents knockback.

Forestd16b14_ESO · March 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

show previous quotes

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

...gain full immunity to CC effects such as roots and knock back and knock down for entire duration...

You keep pushing this idea, but it is a definite overkill.

We all agree HA passives need a buff.
Hell, even the skill can use a buff.
But your suggestions are way too drastic.

Simply make Unstoppable grant additional 1,5 sec of immunity per HA equipped. Max 15,5 sec immunity.

@Dubhliam How is it overkill the skills was like before the nerf. Before Immovable and it's morphs granted full immunity through the entire duration of the skill that's how it was before. They only reason players screamed OP and nerf is cause as still seen now is any one can use it even with out wearing armor at all let alone the correct armor. What I am saying and many others are saying is what ZOS should have done to begin with and make it require 5+ pieces to wear instead of nerfing it to be nearly useless. HA and its skills are meant to be tanky and what's more tanky than being immune to CC spam which as we all know is so very popular in PvP.

And for the DPS players who don't like the idea I am sorry but I personally have had it with your crying and saying tanks are fine and don't need buffed or don't belong in PvP and it is time that tanks become a actual and prefer play style again and not some laughing stock.

Dubhliam · March 2016

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

Dubhliam wrote: »

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

...gain full immunity to CC effects such as roots and knock back and knock down for entire duration...

You keep pushing this idea, but it is a definite overkill.

We all agree HA passives need a buff.
Hell, even the skill can use a buff.
But your suggestions are way too drastic.

Simply make Unstoppable grant additional 1,5 sec of immunity per HA equipped. Max 15,5 sec immunity.

@Dubhliam How is it overkill the skills was like before the nerf. Before Immovable and it's morphs granted full immunity through the entire duration of the skill that's how it was before. They only reason players screamed OP and nerf is cause as still seen now is any one can use it even with out wearing armor at all let alone the correct armor. What I am saying and many others are saying is what ZOS should have done to begin with and make it require 5+ pieces to wear instead of nerfing it to be nearly useless. HA and its skills are meant to be tanky and what's more tanky than being immune to CC spam which as we all know is so very popular in PvP.

And for the DPS players who don't like the idea I am sorry but I personally have had it with your crying and saying tanks are fine and don't need buffed or don't belong in PvP and it is time that tanks become a actual and prefer play style again and not some laughing stock.

1. I am not a dps player, I am a tank.
2. I don't cry for anything.
3. HA passives are NOT fine
4. You suggestions have nothing to do with old Immovable skills apart from the CC immunity, also I suggested to buff Unstoppable to have a longer CC immunity.
5. Armor skill should not have "requirements", they should rather get more powerful with each of that armor type slotted.

If your ideas got implemented, Cyrodill would become a Heavy armor fest.

Lucius_Aelius · March 2016

I'd just like to add my two cents to this conversation, a description of my setup and experience is between the dotted lines, my suggestions for heavy Armor are below that. Wall of Text inbound:

............................................................

I've been wanting to play a Tanky DPS since before this game came out (I despise playing as Glass Cannons in any game but I still like dealing damage, even if it's not quite as much damage as a normal DPS) on Console (Xbox player) and was profoundly disappointed to learn when I got the game that Hybrid Builds were widely considered no longer viable as a result of softcaps being removed.

Disappointed but undeterred I have since been doing my best to devise my own build that plays in a way I enjoy that also successfully lets me be a Tanky DPS, and the struggle has been real. I've gone back and forth from Medium to Heavy too many times, respeccing my character every time at increasing expense as I leveled up, and since I've leveled up my crafting to 6 Traits of both Medium and Heavy it has allowed me to try a variety of sets of both armor types, making a set of Hundings and Whitestrake's etc for both and comparing their effectiveness.

My biggest problem has been that with this Meta being what it is, I'm pigeonholed into being a glass cannon by min/maxing like everyone else if I want to be a DPS in PvE groups, which since I won't do that means I'm forced to mark myself down as a tank, and in the process I have to be a good tank because I'm not going to intentionally gimp my team by not being properly prepared to do my job.

I was a Sergeant in PvP on my vet character (Imperial Dragonknight) before I ever even tried my first Dungeon, which should indicate just how big PvP is for me in this game, and when I tried being a Tank with my build I quickly realized how ineffectual I was in that roll and that I needed to rethink everything. So what I need to do is be a good Tank in PvE but also be able to kill things and players in PvP, not talking about doing a crazy amount of DPS but just enough to be able to kill people.

As you'd probably imagine, I've been able to get good at either one thing fairly easily, but doing both has been a challenge. If I focus too much on PvP effectiveness then I suffer in PvE and cannot be an effective tank, and that's not an option as long as min/maxing is required to be a proper DPS. By using a different combination of skills for each I can make up some of that gap, but not enough.

Right now I have a pretty even split between Health/Stamina, running Whitestrake's, Endurance, Agility and Engine Guardian, Recovery drinks, Two Handed on one bar (Agility Sword with two pieces of jewelry) and Sword and Shield (Endurance Sword and Shield and Ring) on the other. My skills in PvE are Executioner, Rally, Brawler, Wrecking Blow, Stampede, Ferocious Leap on my DPS bar, and Coagulating Blood, Hardened Armor, Igneous Shield, Pierce Armor, Shielded Assault and Magma Shell on my Tanking bar. For PvP I swap out Brawler for Retreating Maneuvers on my DPS bar and use Reverberating Bash and Resolving Vigor instead of Pierce Armor and Sheilded Assault, while everything else (including Gear) remains unchanged. For solo PvE content I use Retreating Maneuvers and Vigor instead of Pierce Armor and Shielded Assault. When I'm in the Arena I use Radiant Magelight instead of Retreating Maneuvers on my DPS bar.

My Two-Hander and Jewelry are all Weapon Damage glyphs, One Handed has Stamina recovery glyph, Shield has a Health glyph, and everything else has Stamina or Health but I was thinking Prismatic would be a good fit, but I only just hit V16 on my now First Sergeant and have only just started making my endgame gear, three pieces of V16 Whitestrake's left to craft (and an Updated Engine Guardian set for my level, Helmet is Light Armor V10 with Crit Resistance and Shoulders are Heavy V13 Infused, not my first choices but they're what RNGesus has blessed me with so I make do) and I'll have all V16 Purple or better gear.

I use Reinforced on my Chest and Legs, and will be using a combination of Reinforced and Impenetrable on the rest, not sure what I'll go with exactly yet but I'm thinking 3 Reinforced and 4 Impenetrable is what I'll go with. And not to forget, I use The Warrior Mundus Stone, and I use a wide range of potions to suit various situations, so many that I can't slot them all at once, which is frankly rather annoying but beside the point right now. Those potions are Health/Magicka/Stamina, Weapon Damage/Crit/Stamina, Crit/Health/Stamina, Unstoppable/Expedition/Stamina, Unstoppable/Health/Stamina, Detection/Spell Crit/Magicka, and Invisibility/Expedition, which when I also have my Drink and a Siege item slotted means I have one more potion than room to slot them.

I also have an Agility Bow that I can swap to when I need Ranged attacks for anything in either PvP or PvE, not enchanted yet because I barely use it and only have Snipe and a few points in passives right now, I'm a crafter of everything with maxed out crafting skills so I've been focusing on getting all my points I need everywhere else before investing more in my Bow that I barely use, but I have everything else I need and upgrading my Bow skills is next on my to-do list.

My precise current stats (unbuffed) are:
Two Handed:
9298 Magicka, 514 Recovery
23738 Health, 672 Recovery
19595 Stamina, 619 Recovery

2207 Weapon Damage, 22% Crit

23,233 Spell Resist, 15,945 Physical Resist
540 Crit Resist

One Hand and Shield (all the same except the following):
27,060 Health
843 Stamina Recovery
2107 Weapon Damage
28,074 Spell Resist
20,249 Physical Resist

Champion Points (260):
12 Warlord
75 Mooncalf
86 Mighty
38 Block Expertise
37 Spell Shield
12 Bastion

This set up has granted me the greatest success I've had yet, being just Tanky enough in PvE and PvP to suit my liking (and necessity) while also being able to Duel in PvP and be able to kill anyone besides the toughest to kill people, which is usually just Shield Stackers but I've had all classes give me a run for my money and I also win against all classes a fair amount. Generally the people I can't kill can't kill me either, and I'm good with that. I've had some epic fights lately that go on for minutes before one of us kills the other, and even when I lose, those fights are awesome and make me wish Dueling was an official thing, though I love the massive PvP and would play that more than Dueling anyway.

For me, as much as I'd love Heavy Armor to make me more Tanky in PvP than I am now (and I don't feel it's as good as it should be and only makes me slightly more Tanky than Medium), my main problem is PvE, where Heavy Armor does not give me enough Mitigation to be able to be as effective a tank as I should be, and I'm a firm believer that no one should ever mark themselves down for a roll if they're not prepared to do that roll effectively as if it was the sole focus of their build, which right now I'm worried I may not be doing as well as I should.

...............................................................

One of the biggest issues I have with other people's suggestions for fixing Heavy armor has been the people saying the passives should scale off max health, which I vehemently disagree with. For one thing neither Medium nor Light armor have any passives that scall off max Stamina/Magicka, they're all about increased Recovery, reduced Cost and more Damage, and some other bonuses that benefit the people who generally use that armor, improved sneaking and dodge Rolling and whatnot.

Having Heavy Armor be the only armor type that scales off a max resource makes no sense (it already does increase max health by a percentage, albeit a small one, and I'm good with that but no more passives should) and is also a terrible idea which will potentially make Heavy Armor even worse than it is now for people like me using Hybrid builds. I'm not too particular about what I want to see happen with Heavy, but one thing I absolutely feel needs to happen is that it needs to not be made worse than it is now for Hybrid Builds, and also that it should offer improved Damage Mitigation, as much as double that of Medium Armor.

When I'm sacrificing so much Resource management and Damage just to be more Tanky then I should get some bang for my buck, and right now I don't feel like I do, not even close. I could be using Medium and be nearly as Tanky while doing more Damage and having more Resources to work with, and don't even get me started on how messed up it is that Light Armor Sorcs can just stack Shields and be the Tankiest people of all without even a single point into Health, all while having insane DPS, that is so profoundly broken that I can't believe it's been allowed to continue for so long.

Damage Shields stacking off Health is great and would go a long way towards fixing shieldstacking, but I also think with that change that Damage Shields should be un-nerfed in PvP, because all my Damage Shields are relatively garbage right now and I feel like they're almost not worth using, while Sorcs can still stack shields and be nigh invincible even with them being cut in half. But that's a whole other conversation. I also think that damage scaling with resource pools is a terrible idea and should be undone ASAP, and returned to being based on Weapon/Spell Damage and Crit, but that is also another conversation.

Heavy Armor definitely needs to be buffed, but it needs to be buffed in a way that benefits Hybrid Builds as well as Tanks instead of pigeonholing Heavy Armor into the single roll of Tanking as so many people keep thinking it should. Any class and Build that wants to sacrifice some DPS for survivability should be able to wear Heavy and get something worthwhile out of it, not just Tanks. Hybrid Builds need a lot of love, and buffing Heavy Armor in a way that helps them (and doesn't hurt them) would be a great way to start.

Forestd16b14_ESO · March 2016

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

I'd just like to add my two cents to this conversation, a description of my setup and experience is between the dotted lines, my suggestions for heavy Armor are below that. Wall of Text inbound:

............................................................

I've been wanting to play a Tanky DPS since before this game came out (I despise playing as Glass Cannons in any game but I still like dealing damage, even if it's not quite as much damage as a normal DPS) on Console (Xbox player) and was profoundly disappointed to learn when I got the game that Hybrid Builds were widely considered no longer viable as a result of softcaps being removed.

Disappointed but undeterred I have since been doing my best to devise my own build that plays in a way I enjoy that also successfully lets me be a Tanky DPS, and the struggle has been real. I've gone back and forth from Medium to Heavy too many times, respeccing my character every time at increasing expense as I leveled up, and since I've leveled up my crafting to 6 Traits of both Medium and Heavy it has allowed me to try a variety of sets of both armor types, making a set of Hundings and Whitestrake's etc for both and comparing their effectiveness.

My biggest problem has been that with this Meta being what it is, I'm pigeonholed into being a glass cannon by min/maxing like everyone else if I want to be a DPS in PvE groups, which since I won't do that means I'm forced to mark myself down as a tank, and in the process I have to be a good tank because I'm not going to intentionally gimp my team by not being properly prepared to do my job.

I was a Sergeant in PvP on my vet character (Imperial Dragonknight) before I ever even tried my first Dungeon, which should indicate just how big PvP is for me in this game, and when I tried being a Tank with my build I quickly realized how ineffectual I was in that roll and that I needed to rethink everything. So what I need to do is be a good Tank in PvE but also be able to kill things and players in PvP, not talking about doing a crazy amount of DPS but just enough to be able to kill people.

As you'd probably imagine, I've been able to get good at either one thing fairly easily, but doing both has been a challenge. If I focus too much on PvP effectiveness then I suffer in PvE and cannot be an effective tank, and that's not an option as long as min/maxing is required to be a proper DPS. By using a different combination of skills for each I can make up some of that gap, but not enough.

Right now I have a pretty even split between Health/Stamina, running Whitestrake's, Endurance, Agility and Engine Guardian, Recovery drinks, Two Handed on one bar (Agility Sword with two pieces of jewelry) and Sword and Shield (Endurance Sword and Shield and Ring) on the other. My skills in PvE are Executioner, Rally, Brawler, Wrecking Blow, Stampede, Ferocious Leap on my DPS bar, and Coagulating Blood, Hardened Armor, Igneous Shield, Pierce Armor, Shielded Assault and Magma Shell on my Tanking bar. For PvP I swap out Brawler for Retreating Maneuvers on my DPS bar and use Reverberating Bash and Resolving Vigor instead of Pierce Armor and Sheilded Assault, while everything else (including Gear) remains unchanged. For solo PvE content I use Retreating Maneuvers and Vigor instead of Pierce Armor and Shielded Assault. When I'm in the Arena I use Radiant Magelight instead of Retreating Maneuvers on my DPS bar.

My Two-Hander and Jewelry are all Weapon Damage glyphs, One Handed has Stamina recovery glyph, Shield has a Health glyph, and everything else has Stamina or Health but I was thinking Prismatic would be a good fit, but I only just hit V16 on my now First Sergeant and have only just started making my endgame gear, three pieces of V16 Whitestrake's left to craft (and an Updated Engine Guardian set for my level, Helmet is Light Armor V10 with Crit Resistance and Shoulders are Heavy V13 Infused, not my first choices but they're what RNGesus has blessed me with so I make do) and I'll have all V16 Purple or better gear.

I use Reinforced on my Chest and Legs, and will be using a combination of Reinforced and Impenetrable on the rest, not sure what I'll go with exactly yet but I'm thinking 3 Reinforced and 4 Impenetrable is what I'll go with. And not to forget, I use The Warrior Mundus Stone, and I use a wide range of potions to suit various situations, so many that I can't slot them all at once, which is frankly rather annoying but beside the point right now. Those potions are Health/Magicka/Stamina, Weapon Damage/Crit/Stamima, Crit/Health/Stamina, Unstoppable/Expedition/Stamina, Unstoppable/Health/Stamina, Detection/Spell Crit/Magicka, and Invisibility/Expedition, which when I also have my Drink and a Siege item slotted means I have one more potion than room to slot them.

I also have an Agility Bow that I can swap to when I need Ranged attacks for anything in either PvP or PvE, not enchanted yet because I barely use it and only have Snipe and a few points in passives right now, but I'm a crafter of everything with maxed out crafting skills so I've been focusing on getting all my points I need everywhere else before investing more in my Bow that I barely use, but I have everything else I need and upgrading my Bow skills is next on my to-do list.

My precise current stats (unbuffed) are:
Two Handed:
9298 Magicka, 514 Recovery
23738 Health, 672 Recovery
19595 Stamina, 619 Recovery

2207 Weapon Damage, 22% Crit

23,233 Spell Resist, 15,945 Physical Resist
540 Crit Resist

One Hand and Shield (all the same except the following):
27,060 Health
843 Stamina Recovery
2107 Weapon Damage
28,074 Spell Resist
20,249 Physical Resist

Champion Points (260):
12 Warlord
75 Mooncalf
86 Mighty
38 Block Expertise
37 Spell Shield
12 Bastion

This set up has granted me the greatest success I've had yet, being just Tanky enough in PvE and PvP to suit my liking (and necessity) while also being able to Duel in PvP and be able to kill anyone besides the toughest to kill people, which is usually just Shield Stackers but I've had all classes give me a run for my money and I also win against all classes a fair amount. Generally the people I can't kill can't kill me either, and I'm good with that. I've had some epic fights lately that go on for minutes before one of us kills the other, and even when I lose, those fights are awesome and make me wish Dueling was an official thing, though I love the massive PvP and would play that more than Dueling anyway.

For me, as much as I'd love Heavy Armor to make me more Tanky in PvP than I am now (and I don't feel it's as good as it should be and only makes me slightly more Tanky than Medium), my main problem is PvE, where Heavy Armor does not give me enough Mitigation to be able to be as effective a tank as I should be, and I'm a firm believer that no one should ever mark themselves down for a roll if they're not prepared to do that roll effectively as if it was the sole focus of their build, which right now I'm worried I may not be doing as well as I should.

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One of the biggest issues I have with other people's suggestions for fixing Heavy armor has been the people saying the passives should scale off max health, which I vehemently disagree with. For one thing neither Medium nor Light armor have any passives that scall off max Stamina/Magicka, they're all about increased Recovery, reduced Cost and more Damage, and some other bonuses that benefit the people who generally use that armor, improved sneaking and dodge Rolling and whatnot.

Having Heavy Armor be the only armor type that scales off a max resource makes no sense (it already does increase max health by a percentage, albeit a small one, and I'm good with that but no more passives should) and is also a terrible idea which will potentially make Heavy Armor even worse than it is now for people like me using Hybrid builds. I'm not too particular about what I want to see happen with Heavy, but one thing I absolutely feel needs to happen is that it needs to not be made worse than it is now for Hybrid Builds, and also that it should offer improved Damage Mitigation, as much as double that of Medium Armor.

When I'm sacrificing so much Resource management and Damage just to be more Tanky then I should get some bang for my buck, and right now I don't feel like I do, not even close. I could be using Medium and be nearly as Tanky while doing more Damage and having more Resources to work with, and don't even get me started on how messed up it is that Light Armor Sorcs can just stack Shields and be the Tankiest people of all without even a single point into Health, all while having insane DPS, that is so profoundly broken that I can't believe it's been allowed to continue for so long.

Damage Shields stacking off Health is great and would go a long way towards fixing shieldstacking, but I also think with that change that Damage Shields should be un-nerfed in PvP, because all my Damage Shields are relatively garbage right now and I feel like they're almost not worth using, while Sorcs can still stack shields and be nigh invincible even with them being cut in half. But that's a whole other conversation. I also think that damage scaling with resource pools is a terrible idea and should be undone ASAP, and returned to being based on Weapon/Spell Damage and Crit, but that is also another conversation.

Heavy Armor definitely needs to be buffed, but it needs to be buffed in a way that benefits Hybrid Builds as well as Tanks instead of pigeonholing Heavy Armor into the single roll of Tanking as so many people keep thinking it should. Any class and Build that wants to sacrifice some DPS for survivability should be able to wear Heavy and get something worthwhile out of it, not just Tanks. Hybrid Builds need a lot of love, and buffing Heavy Armor in a way that helps them (and doesn't hurt them) would be a great way to start.

Interesting. Yes it would be nice if HA could support hybrid builds but then again it was the unkillable tanks that were also a one man army from PC launch that started the year of nerfs for HA and tanks and many DPS players made it clear that "Tanks have no damage and shouldn't be in pvp".

Yes tanks are meant to take damage but there be nothing wrong with tanks having a little bit of damage to atleast help their allies and defend them selves when soloing in PvP such as doing the daily quest.

Lucius_Aelius · March 2016

^I don't know much about what the game was like during whatever time you're talking about, all I know is that I'm not suggesting that I should be unkillable and be killing other people, that would be stupid and would only be entertaining for a few hours before I got bored and wanted a challenge again. I just want a fair tradeoff when I choose Heavy over Medium, and I don't feel like I have it right now. A lot of people I can't kill can still destroy me in almost no time, likely they have lots of Champion points but even so just based on my PvE experience I should be getting more survivability from Heavy than I am when I sacrifice so much to get it.

And being a glass cannon should not be the only way to play the game, if DPS users don't like not being able to one-shot people then tough for them, doesn't change the fact that this game was advertised and supposedly designed to support a wide variety of viable Builds and playstyles, which doesn't seem to be the case at all as the game stands. That advertising was one of the big things that made me interested in this game, and not having ZoS follow through on that as they indeed don't seem to be doing is extremely disappointing, and I would like to see that change.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO · March 2016

My Idea

Immovable:
Add an Armor and Spell penetration resist to the base power.

Resolve:
Add Armor and Spell Penetration 1/3/5% Penetration resist per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Constitution:
Increase Health recovery by 4/8% Also restores Magicka and Stamina each time you are hit, but only once every 4 seconds. Amount restored is increased per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Juggernaut:
Increases Max Health by .5/1%. Decrease the cost of break free 3/5% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Efficient Brace:
Decreases Stamina cost of blocking by 10/20%. Grant 25/50% max stamina recovery with five or more pieces of heavy armor.

Rapid Mending:
Increases healing received by 1/2% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Forestd16b14_ESO · March 2016

@Wrobel Please take a look at what players are suggesting for HA and or tank changes.

Reevster · March 2016

Just add 500 weapon and spell damage to the heavy passive tree with a set of 5 or more and this would help somewhat, every time i decide to play around with a set of heavy on my toons, its always the lack of damage that makes me take it back off and put on med/light.

Dubhliam · March 2016

Reevster wrote: »

Just add 500 weapon and spell damage to the heavy passive tree with a set of 5 or more and this would help somewhat, every time i decide to play around with a set of heavy on my toons, its always the lack of damage that makes me take it back off and put on med/light.

There is a reason behind the term "glass cannon", something that hits like a truck, but is fragile.

If there was a possibility to be a "metal cannon", why would anyone want to be fragile?