5 Piece Heavy Tanks and their role in PvP

Gumpnstein

I made this video to raise the a few points to discuss. Not as a look at me 1vX video.
1) Is heavy armor much more viable than the general idea that it is not?
2) Given that most guilds strategies really don't make use of heavy armor tanks, and instead rely more on light armor, shield stacking, immovable, and destro AOE, are there some organized guild strategies that we are missing out on because of the lack of heavy armor users?
3) Is the perception that heavy armor is not viable, a result of it not "fitting" into guild strategies, thus creating the perception itself?
4) Does the fact that for the majority of us, this is our first mmo, so many of the ideas, strategies and builds copy each other as we learn a type of game from each other?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuONqEXMxMw

Cody

HA sucks in PvP due to poor resource management compared to LA.

a LA tank can get a shield and make use of the ridiculous block-cast system and put out high DPS, and the superior resource management of LA, coupled with the fact one can just use enchants to make up the armor gap provides the defense; which is why most people in PVP use LA to tank.

It will change with 1.6(or is supposed to)

Gumpnstein

Cody wrote: »

HA sucks in PvP due to poor resource management compared to LA.

a LA tank can get a shield and make use of the ridiculous block-cast system and put out high DPS, and the superior resource management of LA, coupled with the fact one can just use enchants to make up the armor gap provides the defense; which is why most people in PVP use LA to tank.

It will change with 1.6(or is supposed to)

Most people's build's though ignore the fact of what heavy armor reduces costs on. So for instance, I see people shield stack heavy, but you get block cost? I see people running immovable, yet break free costs far less. Perhaps the resource management is a lack of build synergies with regard to what your getting reductions toward. Also, perhaps people don't make use of both stamina and magic skills to offset the high cost of both, by using both instead of all magic or all stam helped me in getting to where I am with HA. I know im a DK, but obviously I am doing pretty well in HA with regards to resources. I'm not disagreeing, just adding to the conversation.

ToRelax

Gumpnstein wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

HA sucks in PvP due to poor resource management compared to LA.

a LA tank can get a shield and make use of the ridiculous block-cast system and put out high DPS, and the superior resource management of LA, coupled with the fact one can just use enchants to make up the armor gap provides the defense; which is why most people in PVP use LA to tank.

It will change with 1.6(or is supposed to)

Most people's build's though ignore the fact of what heavy armor reduces costs on. So for instance, I see people shield stack heavy, but you get block cost? I see people running immovable, yet break free costs far less. Perhaps the resource management is a lack of build synergies with regard to what your getting reductions toward. Also, perhaps people don't make use of both stamina and magic skills to offset the high cost of both, by using both instead of all magic or all stam helped me in getting to where I am with HA. I know im a DK, but obviously I am doing pretty well in HA with regards to resources. I'm not disagreeing, just adding to the conversation.

People also use block cost reduction glyphs in light armor.

Immovable costs far less when you are otherwise constantly being CCed as soon as CC immunity ends - also you dont even need the time to brake free in a critical moment, you know when the effect ends and renew it right away.

People use mainly magicka abilities, so they can concentrate on that resource, giving them more and more efficient uses of their skills.

Heavy armor is being used, but a tank who does not do damage and CC as well, will just be ignored.

timidobserver

Their role is laying on the ground improving the scenery.

IxSTALKERxI

In my opinion it is viable in a small group (8 or less) to have one player as a tank (the leader). However 7 light with 3 block cost reduction rings works out better then 5 heavy unless you are running a specific heavy armor set.
In groups larger then 8 a tank isn't needed, it's better just to run as a tight group and pump out heals & DPS, leader still needs to have good survivability though.
When i'm solo or in a small group I use 5 heavy because I run sets unique to heavy armor. Oh and also it varies greatly depending on the class.

Panda244

Three gold block cost reduction enchants and blocking cost the same in light as in heavy, currently I use one stamina regen enchant, and one block cost reduction enchant, and one overall stamina ability cost reduction enchant. I can block for as long as a heavy armor user and have more resource management due to light armor passives and warlock set, in 1.6 my bet is HA will be alot more viable, I intend to get my two piece undaunted to either be medium or heavy, prolly medium cause I like muh resources, but we'll have to wait and see. Currently all HA tanks can do in PvP is draw attention and let their allies kill people easier, which is, don't get me wrong, an awesome idea. Because most pvpers are idiots and will bang their faces against a HA tank even though they can't kill it... I use to do it on my sap tank all the time, still remember the day I snuck around Alessia bridge and tanked 10-15 reds for a full minute until I died, and then they all got shrekt by the AD that pushed through them seeing my distraction....

IxSTALKERxI

Panda244 wrote: »

I use to do it on my sap tank all the time, still remember the day I snuck around Alessia bridge and tanked 10-15 reds for a full minute until I died, and then they all got shrekt by the AD that pushed through them seeing my distraction....

Yeah that's what I do alot. As emp it worked really well, everyone was wasting their time trying to kill me as emperor while I was practically invincible, meanwhile an AD zerg of pugs came along and killed them all.

Poxheart

You claimed no shield stacking, but there are a number of times when something that looks like a shield appears under your health bar. What was causing that?

Also, it's easy to tank enemy pug zergs when you've got an organized zerg behind you.

Domander

Cody wrote: »

HA sucks in PvP due to poor resource management compared to LA.

a LA tank can get a shield and make use of the ridiculous block-cast system and put out high DPS, and the superior resource management of LA, coupled with the fact one can just use enchants to make up the armor gap provides the defense; which is why most people in PVP use LA to tank.

It will change with 1.6(or is supposed to)

I don't know, I think heavy armor is still going to be worse for resource management, but it should be worse than light armor.

The armor should be more noticeable though, sounds like.

Panda244

Poxheart wrote: »

You claimed no shield stacking, but there are a number of times when something that looks like a shield appears under your health bar. What was causing that?

Also, it's easy to tank enemy pug zergs when you've got an organized zerg behind you.

Happens alot of the time with FTC, don't get me wrong, could totally be a damage shield, but from watching Sypher's build I've seen that FTC likes to say you have a damage shield. And then have your healthbar drop to 20%

Forestd16b14_ESO

Well here's hopeing that 1.6 makes HA valid in PvP ..... It will also help if ZoS made the heavy armor skill require oh i don't you to actually wear heavy armor (mainly 5 pieces). From what I seen about LA tanks it... shield stacking, hiding behind a shield, block casting, and of course CC/stun spamming.

Karamis_Vimardon

I yearn for the day player collision is turned on in PvP and we see actual formations of players with squishy casters on the inside and HA tanks on the outside. Roman turtle, anyone?

Gumpnstein

Poxheart wrote: »

You claimed no shield stacking, but there are a number of times when something that looks like a shield appears under your health bar. What was causing that?

Also, it's easy to tank enemy pug zergs when you've got an organized zerg behind you.

Shield charge is the shielded charge if u wanna count that, maybe that is what your seeing.

Ghostbane

Having at least 1 piece of HA is beneficial as you get access to the passives, same with medium.

Having 5 light, 1 med, 1 ha, and being on Undaunted 9 is a 6% stat increase on all resources.

Gumpnstein

Panda244 wrote: »

Three gold block cost reduction enchants and blocking cost the same in light as in heavy, currently I use one stamina regen enchant, and one block cost reduction enchant, and one overall stamina ability cost reduction enchant. I can block for as long as a heavy armor user and have more resource management due to light armor passives and warlock set, in 1.6 my bet is HA will be alot more viable, I intend to get my two piece undaunted to either be medium or heavy, prolly medium cause I like muh resources, but we'll have to wait and see. Currently all HA tanks can do in PvP is draw attention and let their allies kill people easier, which is, don't get me wrong, an awesome idea. Because most pvpers are idiots and will bang their faces against a HA tank even though they can't kill it... I use to do it on my sap tank all the time, still remember the day I snuck around Alessia bridge and tanked 10-15 reds for a full minute until I died, and then they all got shrekt by the AD that pushed through them seeing my distraction....

Three enchants all dedicated to block cost reduction? That is a ALOT of stuff your giving to get that, I would say our DPS is about the same in your light vs my heavy build which rocks a minimum 120 spell damage and max magic. And at one block cost ring, your block cost is 212-21. Which is 191. Block cost for heavy armor without any rings, without 1hShield, and without defensive stance, is 149. That is an astronomical difference in cost. So no, you can't block even close to the same amount with light and 1 glyph. Not even in the same ball park. Especially zergs of 10+ where your getting hit rapidly. And a HA user can run warlock so warlock is a wash between the two. I also notice noone ever mentions the fact that heavy armor users also get 5% increased healing received, and inside an organized group, is a lot of extra healing. Thanks for responding.

Gumpnstein

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

In my opinion it is viable in a small group (8 or less) to have one player as a tank (the leader). However 7 light with 3 block cost reduction rings works out better then 5 heavy unless you are running a specific heavy armor set.
In groups larger then 8 a tank isn't needed, it's better just to run as a tight group and pump out heals & DPS, leader still needs to have good survivability though.
When i'm solo or in a small group I use 5 heavy because I run sets unique to heavy armor. Oh and also it varies greatly depending on the class.

So there is one cookie cutter strategy in this game for groups larger than 8 to run, and outside that, your hurting yourself by doing something different, which is the main thing I'm asking. This game has 1 way to play as a guild? I hope that isn't true? I havn't really ever seen anyone try anything different in the past 6 months. I go to one guild, stack on crown, immovable, charge, negate, impulse, ulti dump, go to the next guild and repeat, go to the next and repeat, the next and repeat. If we actually have exhausted all strategies, then that is sad.

ThyIronFist

You can be a true tank, go 7 heavy and stack health and block reduction glyphs. You can become a true PvE tank with 4.2k hp if you want, downside is you wont be able to kill anything.

Soris

ThyIronFist wrote: »

You can be a true tank, go 7 heavy and stack health and block reduction glyphs. You can become a true PvE tank with 4.2k hp if you want, downside is you wont be able to kill anything.

Roll Templar
Have 4k health
Spam blazing shield
Rekt everything near you

technohic

Soris_ESO wrote: »

ThyIronFist wrote: »

You can be a true tank, go 7 heavy and stack health and block reduction glyphs. You can become a true PvE tank with 4.2k hp if you want, downside is you wont be able to kill anything.

Roll Templar
Have 4k health
Spam blazing shield
Rekt everything near you

Pretty much the same thing you would do with light armor if you are going to be melee range. Except then, you can hit it a lot more and charge a lot more to make sure they can't get away.

themdogesbite

Heavy armour is kinda cool indeed, biggest downside imo is the fact that you have litteraly 0 spell penetration and thus deal very low damage. I tried on somethign similar 2 months back or so and had a lot of fun with it for a little bit, i'll just refer to 2.42 in the video to skip mediocre stuff.

youtu.be/Qdv_plNhOqk?t=2m42s

Soris

technohic wrote: »

Soris_ESO wrote: »

ThyIronFist wrote: »

You can be a true tank, go 7 heavy and stack health and block reduction glyphs. You can become a true PvE tank with 4.2k hp if you want, downside is you wont be able to kill anything.

Roll Templar
Have 4k health
Spam blazing shield
Rekt everything near you

Pretty much the same thing you would do with light armor if you are going to be melee range. Except then, you can hit it a lot more and charge a lot more to make sure they can't get away.

Yeah but in at least 5 piece heavy armor it works better. You have block cost and cc break cost reduction, soft capped armor and spell resist, plus 30-35 magic&stamina on every 2 sec when taking damage.
And blazing sheild doesn't require spell damage or max magicka

technohic

Soris_ESO wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

Soris_ESO wrote: »

ThyIronFist wrote: »

You can be a true tank, go 7 heavy and stack health and block reduction glyphs. You can become a true PvE tank with 4.2k hp if you want, downside is you wont be able to kill anything.

Roll Templar
Have 4k health
Spam blazing shield
Rekt everything near you

Pretty much the same thing you would do with light armor if you are going to be melee range. Except then, you can hit it a lot more and charge a lot more to make sure they can't get away.

Yeah but in at least 5 piece heavy armor it works better. You have block cost and cc break cost reduction, soft capped armor and spell resist, plus 30-35 magic&stamina on every 2 sec when taking damage

I'm actually running that right now with 5 piece. I'm not so sure that I am getting the resources when taking damage while Blazing Shield is up.

I also tend to use immovable as well though rather than just block as all you are doing blocking under Blazing Shield is taking the stamina hit and preventing CC but not really affecting the damage under the shield. This at leasts frees me up to do heavy hits for stamina recovery and to add a little damage.

Maulkin

johan.danielsson1994b16_ESO wrote: »

Heavy armour is kinda cool indeed, biggest downside imo is the fact that you have litteraly 0 spell penetration and thus deal very low damage. I tried on somethign similar 2 months back or so and had a lot of fun with it for a little bit, i'll just refer to 2.42 in the video to skip mediocre stuff.

youtu.be/Qdv_plNhOqk?t=2m42s

Well at 2:42 you could have done a lot better if you had potions in your "Q" slot instead of siege, you nubcake :P

themdogesbite

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

johan.danielsson1994b16_ESO wrote: »

Heavy armour is kinda cool indeed, biggest downside imo is the fact that you have litteraly 0 spell penetration and thus deal very low damage. I tried on somethign similar 2 months back or so and had a lot of fun with it for a little bit, i'll just refer to 2.42 in the video to skip mediocre stuff.

youtu.be/Qdv_plNhOqk?t=2m42s

Well at 2:42 you could have done a lot better if you had potions in your "Q" slot instead of siege, you nubcake :P

I never have my potions on the actual slot, i tend to waste them then!

Lionxoft

Panda244 wrote: »

Poxheart wrote: »

You claimed no shield stacking, but there are a number of times when something that looks like a shield appears under your health bar. What was causing that?

Also, it's easy to tank enemy pug zergs when you've got an organized zerg behind you.

Happens alot of the time with FTC, don't get me wrong, could totally be a damage shield, but from watching Sypher's build I've seen that FTC likes to say you have a damage shield. And then have your healthbar drop to 20%

That's because of harness magicka. It only absorbs damage from spells.

Poxheart

Gumpnstein wrote: »

Poxheart wrote: »

You claimed no shield stacking, but there are a number of times when something that looks like a shield appears under your health bar. What was causing that?

Also, it's easy to tank enemy pug zergs when you've got an organized zerg behind you.

Shield charge is the shielded charge if u wanna count that, maybe that is what your seeing.

Shielded charge gives you a small shield; the yellow indicator should only go 1/4 of the way across his bar. The indicator I'm referring to goes across his entire bar. I'll watch again, but it could be the shield morph that absorbs a spell & gives health.

Lionxoft

Has no one heard about the new Alliance War toggle ability named "Guard"? Footman+Hist Bark and take/dodge all the incoming projectiles aimed at your group to yourself. That sounds pretty important for all group pvp.

Lionxoft

Poxheart wrote: »

Gumpnstein wrote: »

Poxheart wrote: »

You claimed no shield stacking, but there are a number of times when something that looks like a shield appears under your health bar. What was causing that?

Also, it's easy to tank enemy pug zergs when you've got an organized zerg behind you.

Shield charge is the shielded charge if u wanna count that, maybe that is what your seeing.

Shielded charge gives you a small shield; the yellow indicator should only go 1/4 of the way across his bar. The indicator I'm referring to goes across his entire bar. I'll watch again, but it could be the shield morph that absorbs a spell & gives health.

Def posture when cast also is considered a 5000 point shield.

Maulkin

Lionxoft wrote: »

Panda244 wrote: »

Poxheart wrote: »

You claimed no shield stacking, but there are a number of times when something that looks like a shield appears under your health bar. What was causing that?

Also, it's easy to tank enemy pug zergs when you've got an organized zerg behind you.

Happens alot of the time with FTC, don't get me wrong, could totally be a damage shield, but from watching Sypher's build I've seen that FTC likes to say you have a damage shield. And then have your healthbar drop to 20%

That's because of harness magicka. It only absorbs damage from spells.

Nope, that's because damage shields in all add-ons are bugged. Same with ggFrames as FTC. You can tell you have no actual shield cause the visual cue is missing. Harness Magicka is clearly visible to me.

If more than two addons have the same issue, it's probably the API that mucks it up.

Lionxoft

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Lionxoft wrote: »

Panda244 wrote: »

Poxheart wrote: »

You claimed no shield stacking, but there are a number of times when something that looks like a shield appears under your health bar. What was causing that?

Also, it's easy to tank enemy pug zergs when you've got an organized zerg behind you.

Happens alot of the time with FTC, don't get me wrong, could totally be a damage shield, but from watching Sypher's build I've seen that FTC likes to say you have a damage shield. And then have your healthbar drop to 20%

That's because of harness magicka. It only absorbs damage from spells.

Nope, that's because damage shields in all add-ons are bugged. Same with ggFrames as FTC. You can tell you have no actual shield cause the visual cue is missing. Harness Magicka is clearly visible to me.

If more than two addons have the same issue, it's probably the API that mucks it up.

If the damage shield is covering the entire bar it can be the def posture or it's morphs. It is also considered a "Damage shield" however it only takes one spell projectile.

And yes, multiple add-ons do on occasion mess up the damage shield meters. I personally prefer "Shield Info" by Garkin for a numeric value provided instead of a progress bar. That doesn't change the fact that harness only absorbs spell damage.