Defensive play is worthless

noobfury

Why is there no reward for health and heavy armor ? Defensive play is completely neglected . It's all about who can out damage the next guy as quickly as possible. What a dumbed down boring approach to pvp. Offense>defense . There is simply no thought on the part of the devs regarding survivability . Anything more than a 1v1 forget it unless you have an escape which really is just nothing more than running away from a fight anyway.

All people want to do is argue about how doge roll or sorc shields are op because everyone has been forced in to the same 2 choices. This game gives a good illusion of depth but when it comes down to it , pvp is totally cookie cutter and quite bland. At the end of the day everyone is really a glass cannon and there is no option to be anything else.

Septimus_Magna

noobfury wrote: »

Why is there no reward for health and heavy armor ? Defensive play is completely neglected . It's all about who can out damage the next guy as quickly as possible. What a dumbed down boring approach to pvp. Offense>defense . There is simply no thought on the part of the devs regarding survivability . Anything more than a 1v1 forget it unless you have an escape which really is just nothing more than running away from a fight anyway.

All people want to do is argue about how doge roll or sorc shields are op because everyone has been forced in to the same 2 choices. This game gives a good illusion of depth but when it comes down to it , pvp is totally cookie cutter and quite bland. At the end of the day everyone is really a glass cannon and there is no option to be anything else.

Last time I checked the Juggernaut passive from heavy armor increases max health and the Constitution passive gives health regen per HA piece. Most good pvp builds are made for sustain (resources sustain=survival) and burst damage, glass canon wont work against good players. And there are a lot of defensive pvp builds designed to drain their opponents resources so they can be killed.

But with only defending you wont kill anyone, so you need some form of outgoing damage.

Saft

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Last time I checked the Juggernaut passive from heavy armor increases max health and the Constitution passive gives health regen per HA piece. Most good pvp builds are made for sustain (resources sustain=survival) and burst damage, glass canon wont work against good players. And there are a lot of defensive pvp builds designed to drain their opponents resources so they can be killed.

But with only defending you wont kill anyone, so you need some form of outgoing damage.

Its just not not being able to kill, i believe OP poster would have been fine just being able to stand his ground against max dpser if he invisted heavily in defense. But with current game meta of burst its no way to defend.

I agree Topic starter, someone investing fully in defense should be unkillable if he play cards well in a 1 vs 1 situation. Defensive skills/amor need big big bost.

Bashev

The damage should scale only from weapon and spell damage. Not from magicka and stamina. Now in PvP is better to stack resources then you have high DPS and you have resources for spamable skills. With the soft cap removal the whole meta changed. Now ZoS has to rebalance the itemization. Before 1.6 the resource management was so important. Then if you play defensive you can survive long enough before the resources of your opponent are over.

Soris

Max amount of you can mitigate with armor and spell resist before blocking, is capped at 50%. Plus, there are tons of ways to reduce someone's armor&resist to a laughtable level, like he/she is wearing nothing at all.

The amount of burst and sustain you can reach, is not hard capped within the limits of game mechanics.
Softcaps were balancing this issue in some way. Without softcaps, there is a big gap beween offence & defence.

^Here is the start point @ZOS . Take a look.

Cogo

Um. My play style is very defensive and based on long combat. Everything available to me works quite nicely. I don't really understand the question? You looking for heavy armor that have the effects of light and medium to burst damage?

Seams that just overview your play style, choices in gear, effects and what not would help.

Cogo

Bashev wrote: »

The damage should scale only from weapon and spell damage. Not from magicka and stamina. Now in PvP is better to stack resources then you have high DPS and you have resources for spamable skills. With the soft cap removal the whole meta changed. Now ZoS has to rebalance the itemization. Before 1.6 the resource management was so important. Then if you play defensive you can survive long enough before the resources of your opponent are over.

Your damage is scaled on your weapon/spell damage. The "power" scales on either Stamina or Magika, depending on what source the skill/weapon is based on. Also buffs/debuffs and other effects on you. Then you need to add in your targets resist/defense.

I think by looking only at the numbers and not your actual play in game, confuses most players and trying to increase X number instead of their personal skill.

Look around here and see who many posts there are for "best class". The class don't win battles. You do. Kinda like saying the car brand wins races, when its the driver who does.

Lorkhan

yeah, ttk is low now.....
better than this:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yVXVxIeFuTs

jrkhan

Many of my 1 v 1 fights that do not end in a few seconds, never end. (Or after a minute or two someone gets a lucky string of crits)

The kind of burst needed to ever kill some builds, is necessary or they will never die.

If you are building for passive damage mitigation, and expecting to be tanky without without some way of also healing/sustainng your resource pools, you won't do well.

I ran into the same trouble earlier, wondering why my 30k hp and 30k resists weren't enough.
Defensive play is very heavily rewarded - it's just that you need to focus on more than your passive mitigation to make it work.

reften

As a NB, I have massive counters against heavy armor. I have a weapon enchant that reduces armor, I have an attack (surprise attack) that reduces their armor, I have marked target that reduces armor, I have a trait on my mace (sharpened) that bypasses armor, oh and did I mentioned I use a mace which bypasses 10% of armor?

By the way, you holding block? Hear comes the fear.

On the flip side, I don't believe any of the stuff I mentioned above helps penetrate a shield buff. which...is kinda silly. Better off with light armor and popping shields than heavy armor.

I feel for you heavy armor wearers.

ToRelax

That's a pile of...

Seriously, yes, burst is the way to go, yes TTK can be pretty low, but offense is not stronger than defense. If you build as a tank you can not expect to win a fight on your own except against very bad players. Of course, if you tank a group long enough that more people show up you may die if you're now to heavily outnumbered - or win the fight if you got some allies.
Sure, escape skills are nice, but how does that make offense stronger? Death in this game is meaningless. It does not do anything other than you have to ride a minute. And with some luck even get a nice fight on the way.

In a group, a tank is useful. You have to make a compromise between the individual playtyles in a group obviously, and that can mean a tank or a kiter or w/e is not always what you need now, but a tank can have it's use.

I have a very balanced build on my Sorc - mobility, defense, offense, support, regen, I have some of each of them and it works very well unless people use a lot of nirnhoned armor (wich will be changed).
I could deal a LOT more damage if I invested into it at the expense of defense for example. But it's not needed.

The problem that I think makes people speculate about things like these are the "infinite resources" - basically, with the removal of softcaps you are able to invest a lot more into specific attributes you favoured before already or you invest actually less and add other things to your build. For example my magicka regen is a good bit lower than it was in 1.5, but I got more cost reduction and max magicka, giving me much higher sustain and yet can use the Arena set instead of Seducer, thus gain stamina management on top of it.

A player who focuses purely on damage, will have a hard time against good players who simplay outlast him, as well as multible bad players because he often won't have the time to kill them one by one, since he is very squishy himself.
A player who focuses purely on regen, will have less damage and so on (even a build with 2500-3000 magicka/stamina regen and a lot of cost reduction will usually also have some damage, in sets and CP).
It simply wouldn't be a problem if you couldn't have to much attributes in total.

Hope someone understands what I mean, not the best post I ever wrote ^^.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

I've been testing out Spiked Boneshield past couple days. Works pretty well for my setup as a NB using 5 medium/2 heavy, with 2h/Bow. I play a tank in PvE so my health is 30k+, with ~2k stamian regen and 19k stamina pool. Since it is based off max hp, Spiked Boneshield gives me a ~10k damage shield and reflects back ~33% of damage. Against high burst builds it was reflecting a lot of 2-4k dmg hits back to the attacker, which seemed pretty good considerings it's also protecting me and stacking with my own damage dealing. Maybe give that a try OP.

Xsorus

In 1.5 I played a Defensive Medium Armor build that focused mostly on Block... My damage wasn't as high as other specs as I relied on things like Dots to slowly wittle away the Target.

This doesn't work anymore..Dots are pretty much useless

The two classes right now that do the most burst pretty much laugh at Dots.

Dark Cloak cures them for Nightblades, and Dots pretty much will not even Phase a Sorc Shields.

So going the slow tanky route really doesn't work anymore..except if you wanna play a meat shield in a zerg ball

Oughash

Xsorus wrote: »

In 1.5 I played a Defensive Medium Armor build that focused mostly on Block... My damage wasn't as high as other specs as I relied on things like Dots to slowly wittle away the Target.

This doesn't work anymore..Dots are pretty much useless

The two classes right now that do the most burst pretty much laugh at Dots.

Dark Cloak cures them for Nightblades, and Dots pretty much will not even Phase a Sorc Shields.

So going the slow tanky route really doesn't work anymore..except if you wanna play a meat shield in a zerg ball

I have found that the only way for a magicka-based DK to deal with the current Sorc and Stam NB meta is build for block play.

Against the Stam NB, you have to block his burst while retaining enough stam to eat the inevitable Fear. Yeah, you'll die some when Fear won't break, BUT you can whip him through his rolls. Basically, stay on his ass when he tries to disengage after the burst, bust his clock with inhale and talons and whip. Prevent bow play by utilizing Wings proactively.

Against the magicka Sorc my play is to simply not die. That is -- the magicka DK is not properly set up (skill or burst) to defeat the perma-streaking, ranged assault which is protected by mines and Storm Atronauch. At the moment, it simply not a fair fight. So I simply don't try to win that fight, just block and eat the dmg to to just bore the Sorc till he runs away. The fight is a resource-management game.

noobfury

Some really great replies.

I've been experimenting with different heavy builds for quite some time.

The main point is that the overall return on what you invest isn't on par with other builds. If a build gives up the option of high damage for defense they should have the reward of more survivability which they don't.

Think of it this way. What if you put all of your effort and resources in to a pure damage build and when you hit someone you barely scratched their hp. This is how it is with defensive resource focused builds in reverse. With players that know what their doing , you really will die that fast.

I can run a dk in full heavy with all passives maxed , set hp bonuses , mundus hp regen , unstoppable , igneous shield , volatile armor , rally , gdb and all 1 H and shield passives maxed with racial passives maxed and still die in about 2 seconds from NB burst or any situation where there is more than one semi competent sorc or bow user hitting me at the same time.

This is while using a shield and defensive posture and don't even get me started on fear. Some NB with 2H running around out there with armor penetration skills amaze me with how fast they can kill me. The only plus here is that there are not as many skilled NB but their starting to catch on.

Bottom line is the damage output is way to high for any type of absorption or mitigation. Evasion however, is king.

Even the CP passives in the Lord are gimped compared to medium or light trees. Absorb damage after drinking a potion? Seriously. Compare that to unchained or shield expert. Yes you can use whatever you want but it's like some lazy dev took that tree and just said "whatever".

Someone has a serious love affair with medium armor , stamina building and evasion to the point where their completely neglecting everything else and creating an obvious imbalance. Do we all have to run the same fom to stay competitive?

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Ishammael wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

In 1.5 I played a Defensive Medium Armor build that focused mostly on Block... My damage wasn't as high as other specs as I relied on things like Dots to slowly wittle away the Target.

This doesn't work anymore..Dots are pretty much useless

The two classes right now that do the most burst pretty much laugh at Dots.

Dark Cloak cures them for Nightblades, and Dots pretty much will not even Phase a Sorc Shields.

So going the slow tanky route really doesn't work anymore..except if you wanna play a meat shield in a zerg ball

I have found that the only way for a magicka-based DK to deal with the current Sorc and Stam NB meta is build for block play.

Against the Stam NB, you have to block his burst while retaining enough stam to eat the inevitable Fear. Yeah, you'll die some when Fear won't break, BUT you can whip him through his rolls. Basically, stay on his ass when he tries to disengage after the burst, bust his clock with inhale and talons and whip. Prevent bow play by utilizing Wings proactively.

Against the magicka Sorc my play is to simply not die. That is -- the magicka DK is not properly set up (skill or burst) to defeat the perma-streaking, ranged assault which is protected by mines and Storm Atronauch. At the moment, it simply not a fair fight. So I simply don't try to win that fight, just block and eat the dmg to to just bore the Sorc till he runs away. The fight is a resource-management game.

This. Flame Lash spamming DKs are near unstoppable I've found, especially in small combat encounters (1v1, 2v1, etc). I play a tanky NB (5M/2H armor with bow and 2h), so I don't have the insane burst others do, but so far that is the hardest build for me to take down. Like Xsorus, prior to 1.6 I also used to run a tankier setup, using 1h/shield and bow with 5 Heavy and 2 Medium; what I thought was a nice balance of defense and offense.

But even with a more damage-heavy build, between Invasion, Flame Lash, GDB, Igneous Shield, and Reflecting Flappy Wings, there is literally nothing I can do against many DKs. Normally their weakness would be ranged attacks, but Invasion closes that gap and Flappy Wings negates ranged attacks (including my ranged DoTs/HoTs, so losing utility there as well). On top of that, Flame Lash appears to have greater range than Magnum Shot (I was desperately spamming it and was being hit the whole time the ability was pushing me back). Fear is the only option to get their block to drop, but most of the time CC immunity is up from other abilities, and Flame Lashes also appears to go through Dark Cloak. Flame Lash+GDB does way more healing than I can generate for myself with 3 HoTs going (Rally, Swallow Soul, Degeneration), and on top of Igenous, makes it very difficult to dent their health. Game set match. That's how you beat us NBs!

noobfury

The NB's that usually kill me are using a combination of assassination skills , 2 H with critical rush and executioner and armor debuffs. They hit so hard and so fast there is no chance of buffing or healing through it and if you happen to block with a shield before that happens , they pop fear. The good ones know how to use executioner with their other skills at just the right time.

twistedmonk

I've seen tanky types that were hard to kill...but their damage was laughable so they couldn't kill anybody either.

what's the point then?

just so you don't die in 2 hits?

better to be the one killing people in 2 hits and then move to the next person...hence the current stamina nightblade meta

heystreethawk

Xsorus wrote: »

This doesn't work anymore..Dots are pretty much useless

The two classes right now that do the most burst pretty much laugh at Dots.

I gather we have not yet made acquaintance;
I am the falcon skoria

glak

Healing/cleansing is PvP's way of drawing aggro. While I antagonize with heals and use drink instead of food, allies use their burst to peel off angry enemies whom aren't thinking straight.

Chikenuget

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

I've been testing out Spiked Boneshield past couple days. Works pretty well for my setup as a NB using 5 medium/2 heavy, with 2h/Bow. I play a tank in PvE so my health is 30k+, with ~2k stamian regen and 19k stamina pool. Since it is based off max hp, Spiked Boneshield gives me a ~10k damage shield and reflects back ~33% of damage. Against high burst builds it was reflecting a lot of 2-4k dmg hits back to the attacker, which seemed pretty good considerings it's also protecting me and stacking with my own damage dealing. Maybe give that a try OP.

Jeez those pools , imperial?

Cody

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

noobfury wrote: »

Why is there no reward for health and heavy armor ? Defensive play is completely neglected . It's all about who can out damage the next guy as quickly as possible. What a dumbed down boring approach to pvp. Offense>defense . There is simply no thought on the part of the devs regarding survivability . Anything more than a 1v1 forget it unless you have an escape which really is just nothing more than running away from a fight anyway.

All people want to do is argue about how doge roll or sorc shields are op because everyone has been forced in to the same 2 choices. This game gives a good illusion of depth but when it comes down to it , pvp is totally cookie cutter and quite bland. At the end of the day everyone is really a glass cannon and there is no option to be anything else.

Last time I checked the Juggernaut passive from heavy armor increases max health and the Constitution passive gives health regen per HA piece. Most good pvp builds are made for sustain (resources sustain=survival) and burst damage, glass canon wont work against good players. And there are a lot of defensive pvp builds designed to drain their opponents resources so they can be killed.

But with only defending you wont kill anyone, so you need some form of outgoing damage.

stopped reading when you tried to use health regen as evidence for your argument.

PvP is all about quick kills now. It is basically COD in ancient times with a resource mechanic and infinite resource builds accompanying it

LegacyDM

I must be playing a different game. All my offensive burst and combos are mitigated with a single right click and hold. I watch as DKs, Templars, and NB tanks yawn at my pathetic attempted to do damage. No matter how much damage I dish out they seem to have more stamina, spell shields, and health regen then I can keep up with. Sorcs just shield stack and laugh when I tickle them.I am a VR 14 NB magicka sneaky sneaky stabby stabby class. Best I can do is get s finishing blow on someone in a Zerg or whack someone on a horse. This game is designed for nothing but defense! I've invested all points in spell damage and magicka and it's all mitigated by shield stacking and right click and countered with cast blocking. There is a reason this game is called elder shields online.

Baconlad

Yeah I would argue...my defensive templar heal tank build...is beast to put it shortly. Although I will say that FEAR is my bane. That sucker...most 1v1 nightblades I have fought know to play patty cake with me for a minute or so untill my stamina is too low for a break, then pop goes the fear and shortly after pop goes the baconlad...but other than that if the NB doesn't have the knowledge to do that. I can survive about four players beating into me indefinetly, as long as they don't fear me =D. So normally I run with a duo. I derp around while my bud is stealthed and wait to get attacked, then when I get jumped, I buff up, my buddy unstealths, I heal him while healing myself and BAM...bacon wins. You don't really build a tank pvp character for solo pvp...doesnt work nor does it even make sense...NOR SHOULD IT. tanks shouldn't be able to do *** for damage and normally they don't.

golfer.dub17_ESO

I've seen tanky types that were hard to kill...but their damage was laughable so they couldn't kill anybody either.

what's the point then?

just so you don't die in 2 hits?

better to be the one killing people in 2 hits and then move to the next person...hence the current stamina nightblade meta

I've quit stamina DK for the time being, simply because I didn't have enough reliable damage output or survivability. Might change some things and give it another go later.

Right now I'm playing a tanky magicka DK similar to full metal dragon, and well, pretty much what you described. I can survive a fairly long time, even against a few people, but I put out very low damage, and outside of a 1v1 all of my resources and attention are going to surviving instead of attacking so my damage output is quite literally nothing.

From time to time I'm able to kill lightly armored opponents with 2.5k lava whips, but anyone else I just do pretty much no damage to at all.

Also in my experience pretty much every single thing Ishamael said is true.

I am a VR 14 NB magicka sneaky sneaky stabby stabby class

Well there's your problem.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Chikenuget wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

I've been testing out Spiked Boneshield past couple days. Works pretty well for my setup as a NB using 5 medium/2 heavy, with 2h/Bow. I play a tank in PvE so my health is 30k+, with ~2k stamian regen and 19k stamina pool. Since it is based off max hp, Spiked Boneshield gives me a ~10k damage shield and reflects back ~33% of damage. Against high burst builds it was reflecting a lot of 2-4k dmg hits back to the attacker, which seemed pretty good considerings it's also protecting me and stacking with my own damage dealing. Maybe give that a try OP.

Jeez those pools , imperial?

Nope, Argonian. I use drinks not food and have all attribute points into health since I tank in PvE. My max Health fluctuates with scroll/keep bonuses, but is usually 29-31k in Cyro. For stamina, I use the Stamina Mundus, all stamina enchants (rings are health tho, set pieces). For Stamina regen I use magicka/stamina drink, have a chunk of points into Mooncalf constellation (as well as stamina cost reduction), regen enchants on jewelry, and then of course NB class and WW passives.

eliisra

joshdm2001_ESO wrote: »

I am a VR 14 NB magicka sneaky sneaky stabby stabby class. Best I can do is get s finishing blow on someone in a Zerg or whack someone on a horse. This game is designed for nothing but defense! I've invested all points in spell damage and magicka and it's all mitigated by shield stacking and right click and countered with cast blocking. There is a reason this game is called elder shields online.

That's because you're a magicka built NB. Almost every player you're attacking will have 50% spell mits or more using a broken trait. Add magic resistance on top of that from CP. Than comes the worse part, Annulment from the Light Armor tree. Big shield that absorbs all skills bases on magicka and spell dmg, including mele class skills since 1.6. Same with your mele magicka based sneak attacks. Gone in 1.6. Spell dmg cant go as high as weapon dmg either, even if you use every buff in the book and all gear pieces possible.

So when fighting, you have like 5 different types of penalties right now being a magicka built NB.

Go play stamblade like everyone else, than you get why people cry about defensive play being unrewarding.

Tankqull

well the two most discussed abilities in terms of overpoweredness are actually defensive abilites (shields/rolling) the only thing in defensiveplay wich is slightly underpowered is passive defense wich is as it should be from my PoV.

Bashev

Tankqull wrote: »

well the two most discussed abilities in terms of overpoweredness are actually defensive abilites (shields/rolling) the only thing in defensiveplay wich is slightly underpowered is passive defense wich is as it should be from my PoV.

And this is the problem. These 2 defensive mechanics (rolling and schields) synergize very well with attacking builds. While all blocking builds lack of DPS. The PvP used to be a resource management game while now it is not. Either you stack stamina or magicka and you have nice defense and strong attack.

Tankqull

Bashev wrote: »

Tankqull wrote: »

well the two most discussed abilities in terms of overpoweredness are actually defensive abilites (shields/rolling) the only thing in defensiveplay wich is slightly underpowered is passive defense wich is as it should be from my PoV.

And this is the problem. These 2 defensive mechanics (rolling and schields) synergize very well with attacking builds. While all blocking builds lack of DPS. The PvP used to be a resource management game while now it is not. Either you stack stamina or magicka and you have nice defense and strong attack.

blocking as as powerfull as those two other abilities but after one year of block dominance none is complaing anymore ...

Forestd16b14_ESO

Here's how pvp basicly is

Burt damage > Defensive
Draining resources > Defensive
DPS >>>> tank

That's how it basicly is right now thanks to shield stacking and rolling heavy armor and health really don't matter as much as DPS cause you can just shield stack 10k or even higher shields or just roll out of everything. Fix rolling and shileds and armor and health would become much much more valid.