About Shield Stacking

Lorkhan

I always have difficulty understanding Gorthax' logic

Gorthax

Lorkhan wrote: »

I always have difficulty understanding Gorthax' logic

I sometimes have a difficult time as well

EDIT: Even gave you an agree too ^_^ @Lorkhan‌

umagon

Gorthax wrote: »

McDoogs wrote: »

Gorthax wrote: »

umagon wrote: »

I think the shields should only stop 1-3 attacks completely then be dropped, requiring the player to recast. And each re-cast afterwards for 6 or so secs costs more. I would like to see them move away from the whole "spam" skills system and make things more tactical.

ok so apply that to GDB, RS, and all the other really annoying skills people use to stay alive.

You do realize the gameplay differences between mitigation abilities that scale off of a damage resource pool as opposed to the health pool don't you?

Yes I do. But do you realize he is calling for a penalty for using shields? So because someone plays defensively until there is an opening for offensive, then they should be penalized for playing that way. Which is why I said do the same to everything people spam if he wants to go that route.

I mean come on. The shield is recast to stay alive. GDB is recast to stay alive (as needed) RS is the same way. Only using those two as a clear example. So to call for the penalty he is calling for it would have to be applied to ALL skills people use to stay a live.

I would be fine with that. Honestly I would like the combat be more like the elder scrolls games, you know where movement and things alike were more important. ESO plays like many other mmo were everything comes down to spamming skills and cc. With shield stacking the problem is that players can play full set and off at the exact time. Right now on pdf there is a player who runs around with shields up almost 100% of the time while spamming 14k attacks.

You can't do much about it because the shields seem stop all procs and there isn't much of a counter. I think there should be hard counters for everything, no one person's build should dominate everything.

Gorthax

umagon wrote: »

Gorthax wrote: »

McDoogs wrote: »

Gorthax wrote: »

umagon wrote: »

I think the shields should only stop 1-3 attacks completely then be dropped, requiring the player to recast. And each re-cast afterwards for 6 or so secs costs more. I would like to see them move away from the whole "spam" skills system and make things more tactical.

ok so apply that to GDB, RS, and all the other really annoying skills people use to stay alive.

You do realize the gameplay differences between mitigation abilities that scale off of a damage resource pool as opposed to the health pool don't you?

Yes I do. But do you realize he is calling for a penalty for using shields? So because someone plays defensively until there is an opening for offensive, then they should be penalized for playing that way. Which is why I said do the same to everything people spam if he wants to go that route.

I mean come on. The shield is recast to stay alive. GDB is recast to stay alive (as needed) RS is the same way. Only using those two as a clear example. So to call for the penalty he is calling for it would have to be applied to ALL skills people use to stay a live.

I would be fine with that. Honestly I would like the combat be more like the elder scrolls games, you know where movement and things alike were more important. ESO plays like many other mmo were everything comes down to spamming skills ans cc. With shield stacking the problem is that players can play full set and off at the exact time. Right now on pdf there is a player who runs around with shields up almost 100% of the time while spamming 14k attacks.

You can't do much about it because the shields seem stop all procs and there isn't much of a counter. I think there should be hard counters for everything, no one person's build should dominate everything.

and now the elitist will rip you apart for saying "no one person's build should dominate everything" R.I.P my good friend lol

Varicite

Make the shields smaller and slightly more costly. Make them unstackable (one shield overwrites the next).

If you are shielding for survival, you should be able to do this still, but not indefinitely.

Problem solved?

Shielding should exist in the game as a defensive mechanism, sure, but they are over the top in their 1.6 state.

Thejollygreenone

Varicite wrote: »

Make the shields smaller and slightly more costly. Make them unstackable (one shield overwrites the next).

If you are shielding for survival, you should be able to do this still, but not indefinitely.

Problem solved?

Shielding should exist in the game as a defensive mechanism, sure, but they are over the top in their 1.6 state.

I don't think they should reduce size AND make them unstackable, that nerfs the same area twice it feels. I'm strongly of the opinion that damage absorbs shouldn't be as powerful as they are, but maybe going that far is a little much.

Make them unstackable, MAYBE cost a little bit more, and allow procs to go through including ultimate (but not crits). If it still seems to strong after that then we can continue brainstorming solutions.

Furthermore, hopefully quite obviously, we have to take into account the general potential defense of those who are using damage absorbs in this manner, many out of necessity.

If making damage absorbs less prevalent is too much of a detriment in this respect to said builds, then other forms of staying alive need to be made available and viable for them.

Certainly not to the defensive extent that damage absorbs are currently at, but we can't leave such builds in the dirt is all I'm getting at. To anyone who is against making any changes to damage absorbs, please make sure to keep this concept of due compensation in mind.

sabresandiego_ESO

Snit wrote: »

Shields shouldn't stack. Just make it so only one shield (the strongest) can be active at a time.

Stacking shields is not the problem. If you remove shield stacking, then people will slot just 1 shield, like hardened ward and spam that repeatedly. With high magicka and high magicka regen, the same problem will remain. Shields should remain stackable. The problem here is that these shields should not be scaling off magicka, which is the same stat sorcs are using to min max their dps. There needs to be tradeoffs.

sabresandiego_ESO

Shields have to be stackable, otherwise nobody will use something like annulment, and will only use their class shields or healing ward.

Damage shields need to scale off a defensive stat like health, spell resistance, or armor, otherwise min maxed magicka builds get not only the best offense but also the best defense.

This isnt the only fix needed. Templar sun shield scales off health, and they still have an extremely overpowered stamina build right now. And they can spam sun shield and vigor to survive practically forever.

The solution here isnt simple, its gonna take many fixes.

-Stacking shields is fine, it encourages build diversity

-Shields should only scale in strength off defensive stats

-Shields should be crittable

-Shields should allow people to gain ultimate

-Shields should not prevent interrupts from venom arrow

-Shield strength should be reduced by healing debuffs

Thejollygreenone

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Snit wrote: »

Shields shouldn't stack. Just make it so only one shield (the strongest) can be active at a time.

Stacking shields is not the problem. If you remove shield stacking, then people will slot just 1 shield, like hardened ward and spam that repeatedly. With high magicka and high magicka regen, the same problem will remain. Shields should remain stackable. The problem here is that these shields should not be scaling off magicka, which is the same stat sorcs are using to min max their dps. There needs to be tradeoffs.

Indeed, I'm inclined to agree, and this also hits on a major issue regarding the lack of a difference between defensiveness vs offensiveness in general.

There has never been enough of a tradeoff in choosing defensive options in this game. Using a resto staff doesn't decrease ones offensive capability except insofar as the lack of an ability to use other weapon abilities while your resto staff is out, same goes for sword and shield.

For the magicka side of this issue (stamina has the issue as well with 1h/shield but to a much less severe degree), I absolutely LOVE your idea of separating spell power into to two parts of spell damage and spell healing, or whatever the label may be.

I think that would solve a lot of issues regarding the lack of a tradeoff for choosing certain major defensive options, but that leaves the 1h/shield stamina side of the issue untouched, and in my eyes you can't do one without the other, even if in varying degrees of change.

However that's getting a bit too off topic so I'll leave that particular line of discussion for another day on another thread. What IS on topic is the spell damage vs spell healing idea.

I honestly see no downsides in such a mechanic implementation, and would like to hear any reasons why this wouldn't work; I think it's a notably constructive line of discussion.

EDIT: Also, sorry for missing your edit, a bit late to go back and change my response now though ^.^ Regardless, your edit didn't state anything I don't agree with so it's all gravy for me

Lionxoft

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

-Stacking shields is fine, it encourages build diversity

Brb. Gotta go die from laughter. You're killing me these days.

Xsorus

All shields should scale off health, and health alone...Igenous Shield for DK's works this way and its not overpowered...hardened ward is...because it scales off Magicka

Gorthax

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

All shields should scale off health, and health alone...Igenous Shield for DK's works this way and its not overpowered...hardened ward is...because it scales off Magicka

I seriously must be missing something because my shields dont last longer than 2 attacks before I have to reapply. I have high spell reduction, magicka regen, and dumped into magicka all points. Still people get through my shields and wear my magicka down until I just drop.

So because sorcs actually have something useful to help us out it needs to be reworked?

EDIT: Not trying to sound like I am being a a hole, I am just having one heck of a time figuring out why shields need to go away in a new game where people can hit for 16k+ with skills.......

Snit

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

The problem here is that these shields should not be scaling off magicka, which is the same stat sorcs are using to min max their dps. There needs to be tradeoffs.

The tradeoff is this: If you max magicka, that shield is your only mitigation. Your hit points, armor and spell resist are all low, relative to other builds.

Active defenses require constant management, and that requirement would be increased if you could only have one up at a time. Such a limit would also prevent the "Shield + Harness Magicka" combination that is so effective.

Snit

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

All shields should scale off health, and health alone...Igenous Shield for DK's works this way and its not overpowered...hardened ward is...because it scales off Magicka

Keep in mind that DK's have a really good class heal. Sorcs do not. Magicka-based sorcs also have low HP, as they're going to be in at least five pieces of light armor.

Thejollygreenone

Snit wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

All shields should scale off health, and health alone...Igenous Shield for DK's works this way and its not overpowered...hardened ward is...because it scales off Magicka

Keep in mind that DK's have a really good class heal. Sorcs do not. Magicka-based sorcs also have low HP, as they're going to be in at least five pieces of light armor.

Then changes need to be made to allow sorcs and whoever else anyone mentions would get boned with a change to damage absorbs to be able to survive without using damage absorbs out of necessity.

It should be a choice, not so strong that it's basically mandatory for such builds. That's my particular issue with it.

Elendor

Snit wrote: »

The tradeoff is this: If you max magicka, that shield is your only mitigation. Your hit points, armor and spell resist are all low, relative to other builds.

Active defenses require constant management, and that requirement would be increased if you could only have one up at a time. Such a limit would also prevent the "Shield + Harness Magicka" combination that is so effective.

From a pvp perspective, I would expect everything to require constant management. Whether it's your shields, or your health, your resources, your heals over time if that's how you're tanking, your ultimates, your rotation to keep immovable up, or whatever. PvP is about constant management, and probably not just pvp.
It still seems to me though like that would be no reason to tolerate broken mechanism about any of these aspects, so why would we tolerate it with shields?

And shields are broken. As I was explaining originally, they are broken because they can't be critted, procced, because they prevent the enemy from building ultimate. Not because they can be stacked.
So as it is, the trade off to maxing out your magicka and damage output is that it also comes with the best mitigation available in the 1.6? As trade offs go, it certainly isn't so bad.

Because the result is that a guy in full light armor with 20K HP and a 25K shield stack has, in effect, much more "effective HP" than let's say a tank with heavy armor and 45K HP. He will mitigate much more. To me, in terms of balancing, it seems wrong.

It's pretty easy to see the real worth of "Shields HP" and how they mitigate much more than actual HP. Taking down a 20K shield stack will take some time, which may vary between 5 to 15sec depending on build, circumstances, etc. More than enough time to manage these shields and reapply them.
But once the light armor character's shields drop, and we get to the 20K of actual "naked" HP, then those 20K melt in roughly 2-3 sec. That shows how much these shields actually mitigate.

It also shows that obviously, light armor characters do need some mitigation, and i'm fine with shields being stacked to help with that. I'm not fine with the shields themselves mitigating so much, and being in effect the best possible damage mitigation, due to broken mechanisms.

This mitigation is due to the impossibility of crits, procs and such. But also, could partly be due to some hidden mitigation values (spell resist / armor penetration) for shields.

Which leads me to answer to this:

Derra wrote: »

If you want to crit on shields (they already have zero mitigation) i want to be able to cast critical shields that are 50% stronger.

1. You're wrong, shields don't have zero mitigation. As in, they don't have 0 armor / spell resist
2. You will be able to get shields more than 50% stronger, and won't even need to crit for that.

Why: there is a perk in the champion system, unlocked at 75 points in "The Steed", called Shield Expert, which "increases the Armor and Spell Resistance of Shields by 75%".

So, this perk would have no sense if shields mitigation was zero. 175% of 0 would be 0, it's pointless.
And yes, it seems shields are gonna get even stronger.

Now, as it is, I haven't done enough testing to know what the value of the shields mitigation is.
At best, it's based on the armor / spell resist of the character, so in most cases, light armor values.
Worse, and it seems likely, shields actually have fixed values in terms of armor and spell resist, and then they can only be better than light armor values. That, and the broken mechanisms, it would certainly explain why shields mitigate so much more damage than actual HP.

Either way, pretty soon shields are get +75% mitigation. Nobody has unlocked the perk so far, but it would happen pretty quick if the patch was released without working on this issue. 75 points in the Steed isn't so hard, and would be a priority for anyone, in the current meta.

Edit: Thinking back about this +75% Perk, i wish I'd know for sure if they mean armor/spell resist of the "damage shields" that we are discussing, or if they actually mean "shields" as in the weapon 1H/Shield.
Without that many champion points, I can't test the perk. In the first case, it seems way too powerful and unbalanced. In the second, it seems odd to have such a high perk at 75 points for just one item in just one specific skill line. That'd be like having a perk which says, "also, frost destro staves now do +75% damage".
I really wished we could have more Champion points to actually test these perks currently impossible to unlock.

Septimus_Magna

McDoogs wrote: »

No, it won't. A small reduction in mitigation amount, or a small increase in cost, or allowing crits on shields, or enabling DoTs on shields, etc will not make LA obsolete. That's total hyperbole.

No, thats true but I was referring a nerf like streak with increased cost and/or reduced magicka regen. I do agree more factors should affect shields like you said. Currently there is very little use for armor and spell resist because most points are in magicka so the shields are big and its the intention to prevent direct health damage.

Septimus_Magna

Elendor wrote: »

1. You're wrong, shields don't have zero mitigation. As in, they don't have 0 armor / spell resist
2. You will be able to get shields more than 50% stronger, and won't even need to crit for that.

It's easy to know: there is a perk in the champion system, unlocked at 75 points in "The Steed", called Shield Expert, which "increases the Armor and Spell Resistance of Shields by 75%".

So, this perk would have no sense if shields mitigation was zero. 175% of 0 would be 0, it's pointless.
And yes, shields are gonna get even stronger.

I do believe this increased percentage is referring to the actual value on the shield. So a shield with 2000 armor rating now has 3500 armor with the perk. If you get an extra 75% on a 12k damage shield people would definitely be unkillable.

Uth

Elder staff's to Elder shields.

Varicite

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

McDoogs wrote: »

No, it won't. A small reduction in mitigation amount, or a small increase in cost, or allowing crits on shields, or enabling DoTs on shields, etc will not make LA obsolete. That's total hyperbole.

No, thats true but I was referring a nerf like streak with increased cost and/or reduced magicka regen. I do agree more factors should affect shields like you said. Currently there is very little use for armor and spell resist because most points are in magicka so the shields are big and its the intention to prevent direct health damage.

I think you may be assuming the adjustments I proposed to be far more heavy-handed than I intended. I can fully understand this concern, as ZOS has erred often on the side of caution.

I absolutely do not wish to create a situation w/ shields like the abomination that Streak became.

I do, however, feel that if the cost of these abilities was adjusted very slightly and they were made to be unstackable, it wouldn't unbalance them terribly.

In essence, I believe that you should be able to pop a defensive shield 3-4 times in a row at the cost of your magicka pool should you need to go on the defensive.

Currently, you can pretty much keep popping them until the cows come home and let your regen take care of the rest, and when your opponent has tired himself out on your stacked shields, you can just switch back to the offensive and kill them now that they are out of resources.

I find this to be against the spirit of the ability, which I believe is intended to allow a person time to escape harm or to mitigate unavoidable damage. I don't think it was intended for "glass cannons" to be able to pop shields out of their huge magicka pool and be more tanky than heavy armor users.

A cannon + great defenses =/= glass cannon, which people seem to be pretending is the case. It isn't.

A cannon + great defenses = a tank.

Xsorus

Snit wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

All shields should scale off health, and health alone...Igenous Shield for DK's works this way and its not overpowered...hardened ward is...because it scales off Magicka

Keep in mind that DK's have a really good class heal. Sorcs do not. Magicka-based sorcs also have low HP, as they're going to be in at least five pieces of light armor.

You have multiple ways to heal on a Sorc....plus you have this whole other class that is exactly like you, called the Nightblade that doesn't have any class Shield.

pmn100b16_ESO

Seems to me Cyro is going down a path where you're either a full magicka destro crushing shock/elemental drain build with shield stacking, or you're a full stamina 2 hand/bow build. These seem to be the competitive builds and anything in between gets squashed.

trimsic_ESO

@Elendor‌
The problem with the damage shields is that they scale off magicka, thus granting the magicka builds both a great offensive and a great defensive stance.

Damage shields should scale off the maximum health. I.e. the quantity of absorbed damage should be a percentage of the maximum health, instead of a raw value that scales off magicka.

Domander

trimsic_ESO wrote: »

@Elendor‌
The problem with the damage shields is that they scale off magicka, thus granting the magicka builds both a great offensive and a great defensive stance.

Damage shields should scale off the maximum health. I.e. the quantity of absorbed damage should be a percentage of the maximum health, instead of a raw value that scales off magicka.

There are so many people voicing their opinion when they don't even know the game mechanics.

There are 3 damage shields that scale off magicka

annulment
conjured ward (sorc)
and healing ward

igneous = health
blazing shield = health
whitestrakes = stam
bone shield = health
brawler = stam (i think, it's sure not magicka though)
barrier = either
Razor armor = health
shielded assault = health

That said, I think damage shields are great, the only one that I think might need adjusted is harness magicka.

Gorthax

People are worried about shields but neglect to discuss the "the lady" passive that grants 80% stamina cost reduction for 8 seconds after breaking out of any cc...... that stacked with already stamina cost reduction means using any form of cc against a stamina character will result in your death.

let that sink in for a second....

EDIT: medium armor characters will have 100% stamina cost reduction.....yea.....absorb that info for a sec

XEVENEX

OP info is somewhat misleading. From actual testing, Vampire shields DO take 50% more damage from fire, and shields get no benifit from armor or spell resist. They ALWAYS take full damage. Chewing through 10k health is much harder than chewing through 10k shields.

Snit

Gorthax wrote: »

People are worried about shields but neglect to discuss the "the lady" passive...

Good point.

A lot of the shields kerfuffle is due to people viewing magicka-sorcs as targets, not as characters. People expect 'wizards' to be squishy, and it's disappointing when you close on one and they don't explode into gibs.

The view is somewhat different from inside the bathrobe

technohic

Gorthax wrote: »

People are worried about shields but neglect to discuss the "the lady" passive that grants 80% stamina cost reduction for 8 seconds after breaking out of any cc...... that stacked with already stamina cost reduction means using any form of cc against a stamina character will result in your death.

let that sink in for a second....

EDIT: medium armor characters will have 100% stamina cost reduction.....yea.....absorb that info for a sec

isn't that like 120 points into just that constellation alone?

XEVENEX

technohic wrote: »

Gorthax wrote: »

People are worried about shields but neglect to discuss the "the lady" passive that grants 80% stamina cost reduction for 8 seconds after breaking out of any cc...... that stacked with already stamina cost reduction means using any form of cc against a stamina character will result in your death.

let that sink in for a second....

EDIT: medium armor characters will have 100% stamina cost reduction.....yea.....absorb that info for a sec

isn't that like 120 points into just that constellation alone?

It doest matter. Its broken as *** and people will get there soon.

technohic

XEVENEX wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

Gorthax wrote: »

People are worried about shields but neglect to discuss the "the lady" passive that grants 80% stamina cost reduction for 8 seconds after breaking out of any cc...... that stacked with already stamina cost reduction means using any form of cc against a stamina character will result in your death.

let that sink in for a second....

EDIT: medium armor characters will have 100% stamina cost reduction.....yea.....absorb that info for a sec

isn't that like 120 points into just that constellation alone?

It doest matter. Its broken as *** and people will get there soon.

It definitely is over the top, but I don't think people will be there that soon. Eventually they will and it will make it even more ridiculous as an advantage over new players that will not have a single champion point and a long way to go to get there.