Can defense (tanking) ever be equal to burst damage ( DPS,shield stacking, dodge roll)

Forestd16b14_ESO

So it's kinda clear they best plan in PvP besides zerging is burst damaging and magicka builds with shield stacking or stam builds with dodge roll and there real no use or plan for heavy armor or shields. So there any way for ZoS to balance defencive play and plans? Cause DPSing has much much more options and easier to do than defencive play. As far as I can tell best way to get the most out of defence is heavy armor shield and a one handed with the defencive trait and a few defencive skills that's it but DPS on the other hand has sharpen and that broken nirnhond trait and the jewlerly enchantment the adds weapon damage and there is alot more DPS skills than defence skills that do scale off weapon and attribute points.

For tanks you have to balance out all 3 attributes for self heals blocking and of course health apose to DPS where you really do is pool all your points into a of one attribute cause your DPS build scales off that but no defence scales off health either though health does get buffed from heavy armor. So is there any way for those players who want to be that heavy armor warrior be able to actually take the damage cause yes you can amazing tank I am a 2H tank and I excel at it and have impressed some players with it but it took me awhile to perfect it. But when come to PvP its just as simple as DPS >>>> tanking cause you can have goddess like DPS that deals massive damage due to the fact DPS has alot more options and choices apose to tanking which only really has a few options and choices.

Like some DPS options is duel weapons with the sharpen traits and 3 Acc. with the increase weapon damage enchantment and along with weapons enchamnets like deal XX unres damage. So again is there any way for ZoS to boost up defence to actually be equal to burst damage cause as right now what's the point if shield stacking and roll dodge is just as good if not better than defence and taking the damage.

Derra

Tanking (passive mitigation) should in my opinion not be able to compete with builds that rely on active mitigation to stay alive.
If the tanks finger slips of the right mouse button for some reason (yeah not going to happen) it can hurt but you´re most likely still alive. A NB missing a dodge or a sorc missing a shield is dead meat immediatly.
For grp play the ability to tank dmg is valuable enough in itself.

olsborg

In pve I can see the need of a tank in a group, in pvp I do not. Smart ppl just ignore the tank because their dps is pretty much noneexistant.

Ive met players in in cyrodiil that I cannot kill, simply because they are turtles that hold block infinitely and all of them have been using nirnhoned. And me as a sorc simply dont stand a chance at killing them alone (due to nirnhoned) I do not see the need for further defencive abilities (even after nirnhoned is fixed). Players can get tanky enough already.

noobfury

Currently offense>defense in pvp . OP is correct in pointing out the lack of rewards for HP and HA .

This subject has been discussed extensively in a thread I made not to long ago .

HA and defensive play are not as viable in the current version thus making it difficult to utilize a strategy of outlasting your opponent . The damage is just to high.

And yes it should be an option to get a return on the points you invest in HP and HA since your not getting the benefits of MA and Stamina but you don't . Damage can be avoided but not absorbed.

I would look to certain Champion trees to enhance existing stats as an option and always use a shield .

Zargorius

Take away the TAB targeting and heavily armored tanks in the fron will become much more important. Would also solve various issues with the tab targeting that allow to circumvent game mechanics and such.

iseko

I've seen DK's and templars dive into enemy raids alone lately. Not only surviving for an impressive time by tanking dmg but at the same time dishing out enough damage to kill a few people of the enemy raid.

So... Yea tanky builds can be succesfull I guess. All those DK's/templars seemed to be magicka builds btw. Blockcasters in heavy armor.

Forestd16b14_ESO

iseko wrote: »

I've seen DK's and templars dive into enemy raids alone lately. Not only surviving for an impressive time by tanking dmg but at the same time dishing out enough damage to kill a few people of the enemy raid.

So... Yea tanky builds can be succesfull I guess. All those DK's/templars seemed to be magicka builds btw. Blockcasters in heavy armor.

Yes they can be but that's only with the help shield stacking / dodge rolling. This is about heavy armor and defence in general cause defense shouldn't be this heavy dependent on magical shields / dodge rolling which as a reminder are suited for LA and MA and not HA. HA is meant to take the magical freeze ray that freezes you and less than a second later break out of your icey statue shrug off the frost and laugh at the guy. What's the point if shield stacking in LA armor and rolling out of the way in MA is much more useful cause MA and LA give massive DPS boost too. Cause that's the problem HA only give defensive bonuses while MA and LA give defensive and offensive bonuses.

iseko

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

I've seen DK's and templars dive into enemy raids alone lately. Not only surviving for an impressive time by tanking dmg but at the same time dishing out enough damage to kill a few people of the enemy raid.

So... Yea tanky builds can be succesfull I guess. All those DK's/templars seemed to be magicka builds btw. Blockcasters in heavy armor.

Yes they can be but that's only with the help shield stacking / dodge rolling. This is about heavy armor and defence in general cause defense shouldn't be this heavy dependent on magical shields / dodge rolling which as a reminder are suited for LA and MA and not HA. HA is meant to take the magical freeze ray that freezes you and less than a second later break out of your icey statue shrug off the frost and laugh at the guy. What's the point if shield stacking in LA armor and rolling out of the way in MA is much more useful cause MA and LA give massive DPS boost too. Cause that's the problem HA only give defensive bonuses while MA and LA give defensive and offensive bonuses.

Errr... I meant people wearing heavy armor and blocking... Using BoL and gdb heals to stay alive while dropping bats/nova/standard and block casting. They might be wearing 2M or 2L but most of it was definetly HA...

Dositheus

iseko wrote: »

I've seen DK's and templars dive into enemy raids alone lately. Not only surviving for an impressive time by tanking dmg but at the same time dishing out enough damage to kill a few people of the enemy raid.

So... Yea tanky builds can be succesfull I guess. All those DK's/templars seemed to be magicka builds btw. Blockcasters in heavy armor.

There are definitely some magika based DK's right now, who are as unkillable as they were back before 1.6. IE, able to fully tank 5 to 6 people beating on them, and get kills. I was chatting with one after he nuked 3 of the 4 of us (all vr14) trying to kill him, and went off into the sunset unscathed after he and the other tank (dk) he was fighting figured neither could kill the other. Apparently he had 290 CP, but yeah... utterly unkillable. ONLY way we killed him last night, was when I feared him, and 6 of us jumped and dpsed the *** out of him while he was feared. Even then, he ALMOST was able to heal himself after breaking free from the fear. If not for fear, he'd have probably wiped all 6 of us. And he was doing decent damage with his flame whip hitting consistent 5k hits while he was blockcasting. Defensive play is very viable right now for DK at the least, and to a lesser degree Templar. But the utterly unkillable (by usual means) are DKs. I'm fine with it though frankly, I like that each class has a build or two that are annoying as all hell. I'm expecting DK's to start getting some hell once people catch on to this though. Truly the only class that I don't expect to have constant "nerf this, nerf that" threads for, are Templars. But, people do despise Jesus Beam, so... yeah. The hate flows strong, for everyone.

Forestd16b14_ESO

Every one seems to be missing the point. The point is you should feel confident enough in HA alone to do defensive play not still be heavy dependent on your class or broken mechanics to play defensive cause HA offers no other bonuses but health ones. But with how DPS is much more powerful thank defense it throws heavy armor out the window and were you have to use broken mechanics like shield stacking or block casting .

This goes out to every one not just one class or one play style but to every one who is using or want to use heavy armor but don't want to cause it offers little bonuses cause LA and MA have just as good defense with shielding and rolling and offer more DPS power.

paulsimonps

I play a dunmer dk with full heavy with sword and shield, in pve as well as pvp. My role in pvpmfor my group is debuff and take dmg. A surprising amount of people will attack me before the others leaving tthem open to attacks from my NB friends, and while using the reverbeating bash and deep slash on them they heal less and do less dmg. I have seen some effective HA dps but forme thats not what a tank in pvp should do. CC and debuff works wonder and with say duroks bane any melee that attacks you has a 20% chance per hit to get 50% less heals for 5 sec, and duroks bane has no cd, its quite fun to see those stupid enough to attack me first try and heal themselves when my dps then goes for them.

Samuel_Bantien

Heavy Armor requires a buff. A buff that was once mighty and powerful, but is now a shallow husk that has turned into a morph for Immovable. A morph for Immovable that requires a slot on both bars to work to its max potential. - CC Break cost reduction was a huge advantage for Heavy Armor back in 1.5. It allowed Heavy Armor to be able to keep up with their stamina. 1.5 Heavy Armor + Arena? NICE STAM SUSTAIN BRUH. Now it is 7/7 Heavy + Immovable Brute slotted on both bars + Arena (NICE STAM SUSTAIN BUT YOU LOSE 2 WHOLE SLOTS BRUH). At the moment there are several abilities that require the player to CC break, dodge roll or meet inevitable doom: Fear, Petrify, AoEs, and the cursed and annoying Caltrops (that will cost stamina when blocking inside of it w/ the Snare). Heavy Armor could also use a defensive buff, because without it, players are only looking at 16k armor/spell resist in full 7/7 heavy without Reinforced or Nirnhoned. Heavy Armor should again... be tanky.

Not only should Heavy Armor be tanky - and a passive that should be restored to its former glory, there is a certain passive that requires a look at: Increases Health Regeneration by %/% per piece of Heavy Armor - USELESS - in most cases as this is arguably the WORST stat to stack. There are also 0 passives that would make Heavy Armor be used offensively - Light Armor; 5k spell pen, 10% spell crit, & cost reductions for spells. Medium Armor has the following; 21% weapon crit, 12% weapon damage & cost reductions for stamina abilities and other necessities that scale with stamina. Heavy Armor has; Block Reduction by 20% - which can be argued if offensive or defense, but check this: BLOCK COST REDUCTION ENCHANTS (A.K.A. 200 cost reduction per block & 300 cost reduction for shield bash) and these enchants even work for light and medium armor too, AMAZING! Don't have enough block cost reduction? Try Defensive Posture! 8% less cost of block with 8% more damage mitigated! 30% passive block cost from S&B added with 8% - 38% Block Cost Reduction! Why bother wearing Heavy Armor for PvP when your resources deplete faster than everyone else's? OMG: Constitution, meh passive, 4 second cooldown, would rather run Light Armor. Meh, atleast Heavy Armor has Health Regeneration - which is also really, REALLY good for vampires. Heavy Armor used to have a weapon damage passive that granted 1% more damage per piece of Heavy - atleast the very lease garbage passive, but it was an offensive - kind of.

Enough ragging about Heavy Armor there is still some advantages even with the QQ. Bracing is still a huge role for Heavy Armor PvP Tanking, although it can be argued with Block Cost Reduction Jewelry enchants there is still hope! With a sword and shield you have a passive 50% less block cost without Defensive Posture - 58% w/ Defensive Posture which is a good amount if you run it. Constitution is at the very best - decent - if you just want to be a turtle, not that much help if you're getting CC locked, or players can just flat out ignore you cause they know you'll just hold block and not do anything else. Resolve is nice and all, but Medium Armor is just wearing cowhides and it has 3/4ths the Armor we have? Keep the armor stats of Medium, but buff Heavies a bit - Heavy Armor is supposed to feel tanky which is why players want to use it. Stam builds still shreds through tanks if the tank does not block - possibly not enough armor even when hard capped?

Small List to keep things for Heavy in check without going too overboard.
1. Return the infamous CC cost reduction passive for heavy armor.
2. Increase the armor and spell resist of Heavy Armor while keeping other armors (Light & Medium) the same. - Tanks gotta tank.
3. Repeat step 1, maybe toss it in with the glorious Constitution passive.
4. Repeat step 2, maybe toss it in with the Juggernaught passive - names do make sense.
5. Redo the constitution passive, maybe instead of 4% health regeneration per piece, we could have 1% or 2% regeneration for each stat. - Just a little bit more survivability - Tanks gotta tank.
6. Add a sustain, Constitution is not enough and does not allow Heavy Armor users to use as much abilities as we would like to - i.e. LA has 3% spell cost reduction to all spells, MA has 4% cost reduction to all stam abilities, HA has take damage get .5% of your resources back every 4 seconds. 1% or 1.5% cost reduction for both stam/magic abilites would be enough with this Constitution's take damage passive.
7. Rapid Mending? May as well have Swim Speed. 7% more heals taken is a little low considering most healers can spam healing springs forever and/or spam their other heals for a long burst period and even that, that is 7/7 Heavy just for 7% more heals. Most players in heavy would run 5 heavy, 1/2 of a different armor piece. Maybe bring back one our old friends of 1.0.2, the 600 damage bashes on players with 1.8k hp - ye' olde Bash Damage Jewelry Enchant stack! Except, bashes shouldn't kill players with 6k bashes, that'd be a little absurd. Add 50% or 100%, even 200% when wearing a full set of heavy, A.K.A. 5 piece (like Light Armor's Concentration passive). Two 5 piece passives? - Yikes Light Armor! Maybe this could be our only offensive passive. - 60 More Bash Damage per Jewelry Enchant, really? Can't tell if kidding or... MOST FABULOUS ENCHANT! 180 more bash damage on top of my 500! That'd surely kill their 23067 HP in no time!

This was how 1.0 was like for Heavy PvP:

EXCEPT LESS SKIMPIER.

This is how 1.6 is like for Heavy PvP:



#BuffTheHeavy

Edit - Saw something wrong with #7, CORRECTED!

Tankqull

Samuel_Bantien wrote: »

Heavy Armor requires a buff. A buff that was once mighty and powerful, but is now a shallow husk that has turned into a morph for Immovable. A morph for Immovable that requires a slot on both bars to work to its max potential. - CC Break cost reduction was a huge advantage for Heavy Armor back in 1.5. It allowed Heavy Armor to be able to keep up with their stamina. 1.5 Heavy Armor + Arena? NICE STAM SUSTAIN BRUH. Now it is 7/7 Heavy + Immovable Brute slotted on both bars + Arena (NICE STAM SUSTAIN BUT YOU LOSE 2 WHOLE SLOTS BRUH). At the moment there are several abilities that require the player to CC break, dodge roll or meet inevitable doom: Fear, Petrify, AoEs, and the cursed and annoying Caltrops (that will cost stamina when blocking inside of it w/ the Snare). Heavy Armor could also use a defensive buff, because without it, players are only looking at 16k armor/spell resist in full 7/7 heavy without Reinforced or Nirnhoned. Heavy Armor should again... be tanky.

Not only should Heavy Armor be tanky - and a passive that should be restored to its former glory, there is a certain passive that requires a look at: Increases Health Regeneration by %/% per piece of Heavy Armor - USELESS - in most cases as this is arguably the WORST stat to stack. There are also 0 passives that would make Heavy Armor be used offensively - Light Armor; 5k spell pen, 10% spell crit, & cost reductions for spells. Medium Armor has the following; 21% weapon crit, 12% weapon damage & cost reductions for stamina abilities and other necessities that scale with stamina. Heavy Armor has; Block Reduction by 20% - which can be argued if offensive or defense, but check this: BLOCK COST REDUCTION ENCHANTS (A.K.A. 200 cost reduction per block & 300 cost reduction for shield bash) and these enchants even work for light and medium armor too, AMAZING! Don't have enough block cost reduction? Try Defensive Posture! 8% less cost of block with 8% more damage mitigated! 30% passive block cost from S&B added with 8% - 38% Block Cost Reduction! Why bother wearing Heavy Armor for PvP when your resources deplete faster than everyone else's? OMG: Constitution, meh passive, 4 second cooldown, would rather run Light Armor. Meh, atleast Heavy Armor has Health Regeneration - which is also really, REALLY good for vampires. Heavy Armor used to have a weapon damage passive that granted 1% more damage per piece of Heavy - atleast the very lease garbage passive, but it was an offensive - kind of.

Enough ragging about Heavy Armor there is still some advantages even with the QQ. Bracing is still a huge role for Heavy Armor PvP Tanking, although it can be argued with Block Cost Reduction Jewelry enchants there is still hope! With a sword and shield you have a passive 50% less block cost without Defensive Posture - 58% w/ Defensive Posture which is a good amount if you run it. Constitution is at the very best - decent - if you just want to be a turtle, not that much help if you're getting CC locked, or players can just flat out ignore you cause they know you'll just hold block and not do anything else. Resolve is nice and all, but Medium Armor is just wearing cowhides and it has 3/4ths the Armor we have? Keep the armor stats of Medium, but buff Heavies a bit - Heavy Armor is supposed to feel tanky which is why players want to use it. Stam builds still shreds through tanks if the tank does not block - possibly not enough armor even when hard capped?

Small List to keep things for Heavy in check without going too overboard.
1. Return the infamous CC cost reduction passive for heavy armor.
2. Increase the armor and spell resist of Heavy Armor while keeping other armors (Light & Medium) the same. - Tanks gotta tank.
3. Repeat step 1, maybe toss it in with the glorious Constitution passive.
4. Repeat step 2, maybe toss it in with the Juggernaught passive - names do make sense.
5. Redo the constitution passive, maybe instead of 4% health regeneration per piece, we could have 1% or 2% regeneration for each stat. - Just a little bit more survivability - Tanks gotta tank.
6. Add a sustain, Constitution is not enough and does not allow Heavy Armor users to use as much abilities as we would like to - i.e. LA has 3% spell cost reduction to all spells, MA has 4% cost reduction to all stam abilities, HA has take damage get .5% of your resources back every 4 seconds. 1% or 1.5% cost reduction for both stam/magic abilites would be enough with this Constitution's take damage passive.
7. Rapid Mending? May as well have Swim Speed. 7% more heals taken is a little low considering most healers can spam healing springs forever and/or spam their other heals for a long burst period and even that, that is 7/7 Heavy. Most players in heavy would run 5 heavy, 1/2 of a different armor piece. Maybe bring back one our old friends of 1.0.2, the 600 damage bashes on players with 1.8k hp - ye' olde Bash Damage Jewelry Enchant stack! Except, bashes shouldn't kill players with 6k bashes, that'd be a little absurd. Add 50% or 100%, even 200% when wearing a full set of heavy, A.K.A. 5 piece (like Light Armor's Concentration passive). Two 5 piece passives? - Yikes Light Armor! Maybe this could be our only offensive passive. - 60 More Bash Damage per Jewelry Enchant, really? Can't tell if kidding or... MOST FABULOUS ENCHANT! 180 more bash damage on top of my 500! That'd surely kill their 23067 HP in no time!

This was how 1.0 was like for Heavy PvP:

EXCEPT LESS SKIMPIER.

This is how 1.6 is like for Heavy PvP:

[to much text]
#BuffTheHeavy

you should definatly take some lessons by the heavy dk tanks out there completly impossible to be killed as a mag user and a 15+ min fight as a stam user wich then is a 50/50 chance to either end dead...

Samuel_Bantien

Tankqull wrote: »

Samuel_Bantien wrote: »

Heavy Armor requires a buff. A buff that was once mighty and powerful, but is now a shallow husk that has turned into a morph for Immovable. A morph for Immovable that requires a slot on both bars to work to its max potential. - CC Break cost reduction was a huge advantage for Heavy Armor back in 1.5. It allowed Heavy Armor to be able to keep up with their stamina. 1.5 Heavy Armor + Arena? NICE STAM SUSTAIN BRUH. Now it is 7/7 Heavy + Immovable Brute slotted on both bars + Arena (NICE STAM SUSTAIN BUT YOU LOSE 2 WHOLE SLOTS BRUH). At the moment there are several abilities that require the player to CC break, dodge roll or meet inevitable doom: Fear, Petrify, AoEs, and the cursed and annoying Caltrops (that will cost stamina when blocking inside of it w/ the Snare). Heavy Armor could also use a defensive buff, because without it, players are only looking at 16k armor/spell resist in full 7/7 heavy without Reinforced or Nirnhoned. Heavy Armor should again... be tanky.

Not only should Heavy Armor be tanky - and a passive that should be restored to its former glory, there is a certain passive that requires a look at: Increases Health Regeneration by %/% per piece of Heavy Armor - USELESS - in most cases as this is arguably the WORST stat to stack. There are also 0 passives that would make Heavy Armor be used offensively - Light Armor; 5k spell pen, 10% spell crit, & cost reductions for spells. Medium Armor has the following; 21% weapon crit, 12% weapon damage & cost reductions for stamina abilities and other necessities that scale with stamina. Heavy Armor has; Block Reduction by 20% - which can be argued if offensive or defense, but check this: BLOCK COST REDUCTION ENCHANTS (A.K.A. 200 cost reduction per block & 300 cost reduction for shield bash) and these enchants even work for light and medium armor too, AMAZING! Don't have enough block cost reduction? Try Defensive Posture! 8% less cost of block with 8% more damage mitigated! 30% passive block cost from S&B added with 8% - 38% Block Cost Reduction! Why bother wearing Heavy Armor for PvP when your resources deplete faster than everyone else's? OMG: Constitution, meh passive, 4 second cooldown, would rather run Light Armor. Meh, atleast Heavy Armor has Health Regeneration - which is also really, REALLY good for vampires. Heavy Armor used to have a weapon damage passive that granted 1% more damage per piece of Heavy - atleast the very lease garbage passive, but it was an offensive - kind of.

Enough ragging about Heavy Armor there is still some advantages even with the QQ. Bracing is still a huge role for Heavy Armor PvP Tanking, although it can be argued with Block Cost Reduction Jewelry enchants there is still hope! With a sword and shield you have a passive 50% less block cost without Defensive Posture - 58% w/ Defensive Posture which is a good amount if you run it. Constitution is at the very best - decent - if you just want to be a turtle, not that much help if you're getting CC locked, or players can just flat out ignore you cause they know you'll just hold block and not do anything else. Resolve is nice and all, but Medium Armor is just wearing cowhides and it has 3/4ths the Armor we have? Keep the armor stats of Medium, but buff Heavies a bit - Heavy Armor is supposed to feel tanky which is why players want to use it. Stam builds still shreds through tanks if the tank does not block - possibly not enough armor even when hard capped?

Small List to keep things for Heavy in check without going too overboard.
1. Return the infamous CC cost reduction passive for heavy armor.
2. Increase the armor and spell resist of Heavy Armor while keeping other armors (Light & Medium) the same. - Tanks gotta tank.
3. Repeat step 1, maybe toss it in with the glorious Constitution passive.
4. Repeat step 2, maybe toss it in with the Juggernaught passive - names do make sense.
5. Redo the constitution passive, maybe instead of 4% health regeneration per piece, we could have 1% or 2% regeneration for each stat. - Just a little bit more survivability - Tanks gotta tank.
6. Add a sustain, Constitution is not enough and does not allow Heavy Armor users to use as much abilities as we would like to - i.e. LA has 3% spell cost reduction to all spells, MA has 4% cost reduction to all stam abilities, HA has take damage get .5% of your resources back every 4 seconds. 1% or 1.5% cost reduction for both stam/magic abilites would be enough with this Constitution's take damage passive.
7. Rapid Mending? May as well have Swim Speed. 7% more heals taken is a little low considering most healers can spam healing springs forever and/or spam their other heals for a long burst period and even that, that is 7/7 Heavy. Most players in heavy would run 5 heavy, 1/2 of a different armor piece. Maybe bring back one our old friends of 1.0.2, the 600 damage bashes on players with 1.8k hp - ye' olde Bash Damage Jewelry Enchant stack! Except, bashes shouldn't kill players with 6k bashes, that'd be a little absurd. Add 50% or 100%, even 200% when wearing a full set of heavy, A.K.A. 5 piece (like Light Armor's Concentration passive). Two 5 piece passives? - Yikes Light Armor! Maybe this could be our only offensive passive. - 60 More Bash Damage per Jewelry Enchant, really? Can't tell if kidding or... MOST FABULOUS ENCHANT! 180 more bash damage on top of my 500! That'd surely kill their 23067 HP in no time!

This was how 1.0 was like for Heavy PvP:

EXCEPT LESS SKIMPIER.

This is how 1.6 is like for Heavy PvP:

[to much text]
#BuffTheHeavy

you should definatly take some lessons by the heavy dk tanks out there completly impossible to be killed as a mag user and a 15+ min fight as a stam user wich then is a 50/50 chance to either end dead...

Sorry, I kill those a majority the time, do not know what you're talking about. If those Heavy DKs do not die in a (hardly ever) 1v1 situation, just run away, they can't do anything but block. I've yet to die from one either playing as a glass cannon. Some of them do not die, because of LoS bunnies, and again, can't do damage when hiding behind a pillar, tree, rock, or house. If you want to stay and fight one of those tanks, then you're wasting your time. 1v1s show the true colors of a player, and some will not always win against someone else - If you have 15+ minutes to fight 1 guy, then yeah, you're wasting your time. I can spam GDB too w/ 12k magicka when I have to. The tanks you are talking about do not stay in 1 spot - as if this was PvE, they move around and use the landscape (i.e. again LoS). Built for pugging - 0 damage. #NerfNirnhoned
Oh yeah, I only play Magicka on all my characters. Light Armor is just as tanky as heavy and you have more resources to go off of. The only true sustain a heavy armor tank has is... TRIPOTS! In which case, yes they do still run out of magicka/stamina with enough CCs. Nightblades have fear to dwindle their stamina to 0 or dual shades if you use those, DKs have petrify, - just like a nightblade unblockable, undodgeable CC, if you play Sorcs that's a secret , templars having biting jabs to dwindle stamina, force a CC break? Try a power of the light. If you light/heavy attack/use attacks that can be perma-blocked, you feed these DKs with ult to get battleroar up - do not want this to happen = ultra turtle mode. Resto Heavy Attacks usually make the turtles cry and wish they had more damage to do to you instead of just blocking nothing.

More of a "L2P" issue - if you do not know the mechanics and which mechanics can be exploited to kill them, if you decide to be baited by a turtle mode build and fail to kill them as you know they will not be able to kill you by themselves and will just be ending up with a lot of wasted time and effort for nothing to happen.

0 Offensive capabilities, may as well wear medium for the 1/4th less Armor/Spell Resistance or Light Armor for more damage and magicka sustain.

#BuffTheHeavy

Edit- Read through, 0 mention of templars. Fixed that. Fixed some spacings to be a little easier on the eyes.

Tankqull

well heavy armor is not ment to be offensive, its a pure defensive armor type wich it does nearly perfectly fine.
and as you are agreeing with me that heavy armor users are hard to be killed the purpose of heavy armor is fullfilled.

Sensesfail13

There are builds out there that are "Tanky" but still deal a decent amount of dmg... especially as a dk but you really have to build your entire character towards it, Im not going into specifics but a magicka DK now is nothing to mess with. I run a pure stam build tank and am a real pain to kill in pvp and I can also do a good amount of dmg, however, Sorc tanks are just... bad builds now, nb tanks have to go magicka as a sap tank and they are damned near invincible, and DK's have been nerfed into oblivion. There used to be a lot more balance pre 1.6 as far as all around pvp went and Zeni went and kicked that in the gonads and decided that all out zerg brawl warfare was the best way to crash their servers.

As a tank in pvp, I personally have a lot of problems with the fact that even while holding block half the time it will just put my shield down without me letting off the button.... dreams dashed right there, different skills will hit through block that shouldn't i.e. wrecking blow, and most of our CC's are entirely broken. I can take a hit but I also dont have a stamina morph of flame lash or molten whip so my dps is lacking comparative to well... anything but a lvl 10 just starting in pvp.

I see these posts about "heavy" shouldnt do dps and "heavy is made only for defense" sorry, youre wrong, thats why knights were the equivalent of a badass wrecking tank in the middle ages. Im alright with the burst dmg that casters and melee dps have but I think the game should be rebalanced for tanks as a whole again back to nearly what it was before 1.6. Although in a fantasy realm its hard to say this, its very illogical that a man in HEAVY PLATE with a BROADSWORD and shield cant beat the living *** out of things at melee range instead we become crumbling statues getting 40 people beating on us with impervious zerg skills and never ending purging to take away all the boo boos. That is originally what DK's were meant to do, that is why our class wasnt built with any innate executions or burst dmg or ranged abilities (and dont even say chains because it was always pretty worthless, other than chaining people off of keeps which they screwed royally) all melee get within reach of my sword hand and get annihilated.

I think the original view of the classes in game was excellent and the skills just could have been refined but overall the balance was fairly decent and you have a lot more choice pre-1.6 in your builds and styles of play than you do now with this overrated champion system.
Go back to the Templar having awesome heals a little lower offense (keep jesus beam because that was a great way to make them competitive, but make it break on LoS ffs) but incredible defense.
Go back to the original thought of NB's being burst dps and sneak off if in trouble (but fix their invisibility skill, although I think NB's have come a long way in the right direction so far and not much needs to be changed although the sap tank build should be buffed a bit back to nearly what it was before)
Id say go back to sorcs burst damaging and bolting off but that is still how they all play although this class needs a major readjustment because they basically cant do anything other than the light armor magicka dps build well, they need a self heal and a defensive line to really give this class versatility.
And lastly, but certainly not least, go back to what dragonknights were before the witch hunt to see them nerfed to this husk of a class that it is now. I dont need the "execute", the buffing allies skill was excellent, I do need my cc's to work correctly, I do need some sort of defense against ranged attacks (meaning unnerf our wings ffs, what a bs meaningless nerf for whiners that couldnt play) , I do need stamina morphs of our main attack abilities or at least have one scale off of weapon dmg (talking about the flame whip mainly) unnerf our GDB because as countless forum posts have pointed out, our self heal is junk compared to even rally from the two handed line... and that gives you a 20% wep dmg buff as well. unnerf our standard and take the cost back to what it was originally because its too easy to dodge out of in current circumstances rendering it nearly useless in pvp. and go back to the original ash cloud morphs and skills with the miss chance, excellent skill and I wouldnt mind every class having one that is comparable it really brings out the skill in a player to have to avoid skills like this.

Oh, and suggestions on fixing pvp, just abolish purge, take it from the game or make it work on a fixed amount of allies in the area that is RANDOM like 3 people not an entire raid. Make healers work a little harder for their AP rather than spamming healing springs as you run in a herd.

NERF FEAR make this BS skill only work on 1 person, no multiple person morphs, make CC break cost less overall across the board and put a cooldown timer on it.. or make it blockable like it was pre-1.6 because this skill is seriously mental.

Again, Radiant Destruction needs to break on LoS... I know the patches have said its fixed, I assure you, its not, and make it work like every other execute at 20% not 30%. Templars needed an adjustment and I feel this skill is in the right direction but 6 templars running up and using radiant destruction on a guy at 100% health is just stupid, and you see it happen all the time while you dont see nightblades spamming killers blade or sorcs spamming their lightning execute from 100%.

Give light armor a little bit of larger buff as far as defense goes, I feel it needed nerfed astronomically from 1.6, however, I think it was taken a bit too far for the amount of dmg that can be dealt nowadays.

And bring the Tanks back to pvp give people something to think about when a heavy armor badass walks through their defenses and starts pounding people, make them the zerg breakers they were pre-1.6 and not the ornaments they are now because this game sorely needs us tanks out there causing havoc amongst the chaos keeping these no skill zerglings from romping over every cyrodiil map at a whim, as much as you might have hated us beating on you before tamriel unlimited, you also had them on your side causing the same trouble for the other side, now its just unmitigated burst dmg, dodge rolls, shield stacking, and zergs. Fix this game, and the players will come ZoS.

Sensesfail13

Samuel_Bantien wrote: »

Heavy Armor requires a buff. A buff that was once mighty and powerful, but is now a shallow husk that has turned into a morph for Immovable. A morph for Immovable that requires a slot on both bars to work to its max potential. - CC Break cost reduction was a huge advantage for Heavy Armor back in 1.5. It allowed Heavy Armor to be able to keep up with their stamina. 1.5 Heavy Armor + Arena? NICE STAM SUSTAIN BRUH. Now it is 7/7 Heavy + Immovable Brute slotted on both bars + Arena (NICE STAM SUSTAIN BUT YOU LOSE 2 WHOLE SLOTS BRUH). At the moment there are several abilities that require the player to CC break, dodge roll or meet inevitable doom: Fear, Petrify, AoEs, and the cursed and annoying Caltrops (that will cost stamina when blocking inside of it w/ the Snare). Heavy Armor could also use a defensive buff, because without it, players are only looking at 16k armor/spell resist in full 7/7 heavy without Reinforced or Nirnhoned. Heavy Armor should again... be tanky.

Not only should Heavy Armor be tanky - and a passive that should be restored to its former glory, there is a certain passive that requires a look at: Increases Health Regeneration by %/% per piece of Heavy Armor - USELESS - in most cases as this is arguably the WORST stat to stack. There are also 0 passives that would make Heavy Armor be used offensively - Light Armor; 5k spell pen, 10% spell crit, & cost reductions for spells. Medium Armor has the following; 21% weapon crit, 12% weapon damage & cost reductions for stamina abilities and other necessities that scale with stamina. Heavy Armor has; Block Reduction by 20% - which can be argued if offensive or defense, but check this: BLOCK COST REDUCTION ENCHANTS (A.K.A. 200 cost reduction per block & 300 cost reduction for shield bash) and these enchants even work for light and medium armor too, AMAZING! Don't have enough block cost reduction? Try Defensive Posture! 8% less cost of block with 8% more damage mitigated! 30% passive block cost from S&B added with 8% - 38% Block Cost Reduction! Why bother wearing Heavy Armor for PvP when your resources deplete faster than everyone else's? OMG: Constitution, meh passive, 4 second cooldown, would rather run Light Armor. Meh, atleast Heavy Armor has Health Regeneration - which is also really, REALLY good for vampires. Heavy Armor used to have a weapon damage passive that granted 1% more damage per piece of Heavy - atleast the very lease garbage passive, but it was an offensive - kind of.

Enough ragging about Heavy Armor there is still some advantages even with the QQ. Bracing is still a huge role for Heavy Armor PvP Tanking, although it can be argued with Block Cost Reduction Jewelry enchants there is still hope! With a sword and shield you have a passive 50% less block cost without Defensive Posture - 58% w/ Defensive Posture which is a good amount if you run it. Constitution is at the very best - decent - if you just want to be a turtle, not that much help if you're getting CC locked, or players can just flat out ignore you cause they know you'll just hold block and not do anything else. Resolve is nice and all, but Medium Armor is just wearing cowhides and it has 3/4ths the Armor we have? Keep the armor stats of Medium, but buff Heavies a bit - Heavy Armor is supposed to feel tanky which is why players want to use it. Stam builds still shreds through tanks if the tank does not block - possibly not enough armor even when hard capped?

Small List to keep things for Heavy in check without going too overboard.
1. Return the infamous CC cost reduction passive for heavy armor.
2. Increase the armor and spell resist of Heavy Armor while keeping other armors (Light & Medium) the same. - Tanks gotta tank.
3. Repeat step 1, maybe toss it in with the glorious Constitution passive.
4. Repeat step 2, maybe toss it in with the Juggernaught passive - names do make sense.
5. Redo the constitution passive, maybe instead of 4% health regeneration per piece, we could have 1% or 2% regeneration for each stat. - Just a little bit more survivability - Tanks gotta tank.
6. Add a sustain, Constitution is not enough and does not allow Heavy Armor users to use as much abilities as we would like to - i.e. LA has 3% spell cost reduction to all spells, MA has 4% cost reduction to all stam abilities, HA has take damage get .5% of your resources back every 4 seconds. 1% or 1.5% cost reduction for both stam/magic abilites would be enough with this Constitution's take damage passive.
7. Rapid Mending? May as well have Swim Speed. 7% more heals taken is a little low considering most healers can spam healing springs forever and/or spam their other heals for a long burst period and even that, that is 7/7 Heavy just for 7% more heals. Most players in heavy would run 5 heavy, 1/2 of a different armor piece. Maybe bring back one our old friends of 1.0.2, the 600 damage bashes on players with 1.8k hp - ye' olde Bash Damage Jewelry Enchant stack! Except, bashes shouldn't kill players with 6k bashes, that'd be a little absurd. Add 50% or 100%, even 200% when wearing a full set of heavy, A.K.A. 5 piece (like Light Armor's Concentration passive). Two 5 piece passives? - Yikes Light Armor! Maybe this could be our only offensive passive. - 60 More Bash Damage per Jewelry Enchant, really? Can't tell if kidding or... MOST FABULOUS ENCHANT! 180 more bash damage on top of my 500! That'd surely kill their 23067 HP in no time!

This was how 1.0 was like for Heavy PvP:

EXCEPT LESS SKIMPIER.

This is how 1.6 is like for Heavy PvP:



#BuffTheHeavy

Edit - Saw something wrong with #7, CORRECTED!

I already made my post above but I just wanted to say that I totally agree with this post, awesome awesome. This is the kind of constructive dialogue we need on the forums and entirely accurate.

SturgeHammer

Samuel_Bantien wrote: »

This was how 1.0 was like for Heavy PvP:

EXCEPT LESS SKIMPIER.

There is portion of the Blackwater Blade player base that wears no armor because the scaling provides defense stats regardless of gear. So occasionally, in BWB, combat is Exaclty that skimpy.

Aldarenn

Tankqull wrote: »

well heavy armor is not ment to be offensive, its a pure defensive armor type wich it does nearly perfectly fine.
and as you are agreeing with me that heavy armor users are hard to be killed the purpose of heavy armor is fullfilled.

And you can be tanky wearing Medium Armor...

Not sure what part of the balancing issues you're not getting.

Draehl

I would say the issue is less tanky being viable as sustained DPS is. Burst builds have too much sustain to the point that they're crowding out the whole idea of efficient/sustained damage. It's tank or dps pretty much...

Domander

iseko wrote: »

I've seen DK's and templars dive into enemy raids alone lately. Not only surviving for an impressive time by tanking dmg but at the same time dishing out enough damage to kill a few people of the enemy raid.

So... Yea tanky builds can be succesfull I guess. All those DK's/templars seemed to be magicka builds btw. Blockcasters in heavy armor.

If you dont want to rely on shields, and you want to be magicka....

Honestly though, light armor should be half of heavy and not 1/4. Its unbalanced in the opposite way now. Medium is king.

There are even magicka builds using medium armor.

Soris

Tankqull wrote: »

well heavy armor is not ment to be offensive, its a pure defensive armor type wich it does nearly perfectly fine.
and as you are agreeing with me that heavy armor users are hard to be killed the purpose of heavy armor is fullfilled.

Sadly no.
Maybe yes for pure tank builds with extreme block cost reductions. But outside of that, it is just a light armor when you consider the amount of debuffs that coming in your way.
So, wearing 5 piece of heavy armor just to have little more survivability over the battle, is not that good. You can do much better than that with light armor and shield stacking. Shields have no counter, nor limits(hardcaps) like the way you reduce damage with armor, nor they affect by debuffs and dots. You probably will have almost same survivability as that pure tank build with a dps build. (minus block cost) Even more, some classes like sorc can do that much more effectively without sacrificing their damage.
And it's sad

noobfury

Excellent and insightful posts from Samuel_Bantien and Sensesfail13 .

Finally some long awaited input on this subject that tells it like it is.

Docmandu

olsborg wrote: »

In pve I can see the need of a tank in a group, in pvp I do not. Smart ppl just ignore the tank because their dps is pretty much noneexistant.

Depends on the game.. ie. in DAoC you had peel tanks.. their job was to keep (peel) people off the DPS casters which were squishy and unable to cast if being hit on.

Unfortunately, ESO doesn't have this kind of group play mechanic. ESO is much more focussed on solo-ability in PvP imho. It even goes as far as making playing a healer pretty much unbearable, everybody has a gap closer so will be on you in no-time, with your buddies having a hard time CC'ing those people.. and to make matters worse, healers will be permanently in-combat so can't even ride off with their group on a horse.

iseko

I quite enjoy my heavy armor templar. 2.2k spell damage. 1600 spell regen and 29k magicka (buffed stats). Prox det +flawless danwbreak +jabs + BoL. Jump into a train with that and you will kill a few people. Depending on the situation you can make it out alive with block healing. Rinse aaaaand repeat. In 1v1 1v2 it does pretty well as well. Luminous shard, prox det. Jump on em with dawnbreaker and det. Jesus beam to finish. With 30k spell resist and 27k armor resist and cp/enchants to reduce block cost you survive quite well. Sustain is also pretty good... Still in the process of tweaking the build and learbing to play with it. But so far, of all the builds Ive tried with my temp. It has the best balance between offence/defence and sustainability.

The only problem so far is fear. Sometimes it wont let me cc break it with full stamina... And without block up and BoLfor heals a NB burst build kills you in 1second flat. Fear should not necessarily be nerfed (allthough I hate that a hard stun gets through block...) but cc breaking needs to be fixed.

Tankqull

Soris wrote: »

Tankqull wrote: »

well heavy armor is not ment to be offensive, its a pure defensive armor type wich it does nearly perfectly fine.
and as you are agreeing with me that heavy armor users are hard to be killed the purpose of heavy armor is fullfilled.

Sadly no.
Maybe yes for pure tank builds with extreme block cost reductions. But outside of that, it is just a light armor when you consider the amount of debuffs that coming in your way.
So, wearing 5 piece of heavy armor just to have little more survivability over the battle, is not that good. You can do much better than that with light armor and shield stacking. Shields have no counter, nor limits(hardcaps) like the way you reduce damage with armor, nor they affect by debuffs and dots. You probably will have almost same survivability as that pure tank build with a dps build. (minus block cost) Even more, some classes like sorc can do that much more effectively without sacrificing their damage.
And it's sad

so instead of a balanced heavy armor you just want an overpowered jack af all trades with no down side, i see...

regarding shields what do you want?
hardcounter - any type of dmg as
they do not provide any dmg reduction how do you want to debuff them?
they do have a hard cap its called ability cool down - you can only build a certain amount of protection in a given time frame if thats exceeded you are nothing but dead while this amount of prot/time is <10th of that a tank is observing counting his HP+heals while blocking wich you can do indefinitly properly build.
all dots (beside the 3 bleeds) work perfectly fine vs shields play a shield user your self against a dot dk and you are doing nothing but recasting your shields as those 2-3k dot ticks(thx to no mitigation) eat them up faster than anything.
as a shield stacker you cant survive 2 attackers (unless they are total scrubs) while you can tank in heavy with a tank build for quite some time (see that every day on my sorc and my DK).

iseko

Tankqull wrote: »

Soris wrote: »

Tankqull wrote: »

well heavy armor is not ment to be offensive, its a pure defensive armor type wich it does nearly perfectly fine.
and as you are agreeing with me that heavy armor users are hard to be killed the purpose of heavy armor is fullfilled.

Sadly no.
Maybe yes for pure tank builds with extreme block cost reductions. But outside of that, it is just a light armor when you consider the amount of debuffs that coming in your way.
So, wearing 5 piece of heavy armor just to have little more survivability over the battle, is not that good. You can do much better than that with light armor and shield stacking. Shields have no counter, nor limits(hardcaps) like the way you reduce damage with armor, nor they affect by debuffs and dots. You probably will have almost same survivability as that pure tank build with a dps build. (minus block cost) Even more, some classes like sorc can do that much more effectively without sacrificing their damage.
And it's sad

so instead of a balanced heavy armor you just want an overpowered jack af all trades with no down side, i see...

regarding shields what do you want?
hardcounter - any type of dmg as
they do not provide any dmg reduction how do you want to debuff them?
they do have a hard cap its called ability cool down - you can only build a certain amount of protection in a given time frame if thats exceeded you are nothing but dead while this amount of prot/time is <10th of that a tank is observing counting his HP+heals while blocking wich you can do indefinitly properly build.
all dots (beside the 3 bleeds) work perfectly fine vs shields play a shield user your self against a dot dk and you are doing nothing but recasting your shields as those 2-3k dot ticks(thx to no mitigation) eat them up faster than anything.
as a shield stacker you cant survive 2 attackers (unless they are total scrubs) while you can tank in heavy with a tank build for quite some time (see that every day on my sorc and my DK).

Agree with most of what you said. Heavy armor alone should not be god mode without skills. In 1v1 a blocking heavy armor build is already close to immortal (except for fear...). A DK might keep it indefinetely (healing while blocking) since their heals do not scale of magicka and spell dmg. All they need is high regen. A templar however need spell dmg and magicka to make BoL strong enough. So he has to sacrifice regen to do it. Still in 1v1 its usually not a problem. Since the incoming dmg is soo low you only need to heal once every 3-4 seconds. Spamming it is going to be a problem in the long run tho.

That is the ONLY problem that I have with heavy armor. It is very hard to get good sustain with it. Not impossible but hard. I think they should give like a 5-7% regen bonus for all stats. LA and MA get a respective 21% buff for wearing 7 pieces. 3% per piece. So make it 1% for each regen pool per piece of HA (or 0.75%). No, yes, maybe?

Also: by making it 1 or 0.75% per piece, people wearing 5 LA/MA 2HA will also benefit from it. By making HA viable we might lower the TTK a bit.

Soris

Tankqull wrote: »

Soris wrote: »

Tankqull wrote: »

well heavy armor is not ment to be offensive, its a pure defensive armor type wich it does nearly perfectly fine.
and as you are agreeing with me that heavy armor users are hard to be killed the purpose of heavy armor is fullfilled.

Sadly no.
Maybe yes for pure tank builds with extreme block cost reductions. But outside of that, it is just a light armor when you consider the amount of debuffs that coming in your way.
So, wearing 5 piece of heavy armor just to have little more survivability over the battle, is not that good. You can do much better than that with light armor and shield stacking. Shields have no counter, nor limits(hardcaps) like the way you reduce damage with armor, nor they affect by debuffs and dots. You probably will have almost same survivability as that pure tank build with a dps build. (minus block cost) Even more, some classes like sorc can do that much more effectively without sacrificing their damage.
And it's sad

so instead of a balanced heavy armor you just want an overpowered jack af all trades with no down side, i see...

regarding shields what do you want?
hardcounter - any type of dmg as
they do not provide any dmg reduction how do you want to debuff them?
they do have a hard cap its called ability cool down - you can only build a certain amount of protection in a given time frame if thats exceeded you are nothing but dead while this amount of prot/time is <10th of that a tank is observing counting his HP+heals while blocking wich you can do indefinitly properly build.
all dots (beside the 3 bleeds) work perfectly fine vs shields play a shield user your self against a dot dk and you are doing nothing but recasting your shields as those 2-3k dot ticks(thx to no mitigation) eat them up faster than anything.
as a shield stacker you cant survive 2 attackers (unless they are total scrubs) while you can tank in heavy with a tank build for quite some time (see that every day on my sorc and my DK).

Heavy armor has already downsides. You sacrifice from your regen, crit rating and penetration and I'm ok with that.
Though, I'm not 100% sure about the dot issue. Yes bleeds are nonfactor on shields but if iirc certain dots like Poison Injection also have no effect on shields. Maybe they fixed that? Im not sure.
I find your cool down argument funny because animation cancelling. It is not hard to cast 2 shields in a second.
Anyways.
While shields have no mitigation, they are immune to crits as well. And this is what it makes them good imo.
I didn't mean to compare pure tanks a.k.a dummies with shield stackers. My intention was to pointing out that the redundancy of choosing heavy armor over shields just for protection for your "balanced/non extreme" build. Don't mind the hyperbole in my previous post.

From my experience, I have more chance to survive with just cycling Blazing-Harness-Healing Ward in 5 light/2 heavy other than holding block in 5 heavy armor. And I'm free to use my stamina for break free or Immovable spam once every shield rotation or dodge.
And also I don't have to sacrifice my damage nor regen. Dont mind the Blazing Shield, it is just pure templar issue you know. That's why sorcs can do it better.

I don't say nerf light armor or shields. Buff heavy armor instead. At least give back that old break free reduction passive and old constitution.

Tankqull

as i said the only dots not affecting anything when shields are involved are bleeds, none bleed dots do their dmg against shields normally. all other informations were urban legends based on bleed rumors

well guess what blocking does negate criting aswell and makes you ontop immune to any cc but fear and petrify wich both are only possible to be instantly broken when you were allready blocking some how if you were not blocking you have this bloody break delay

Soris wrote: »

My intention was to pointing out that the redundancy of choosing heavy armor over shields just for protection for your "balanced/non extreme" build. Don't mind the hyperbole in my previous post.

and thats the point heavy armor is ment to be used by this extreme tank builds or as a supplemental when used in 5L or medium.

TheBull

Respectfully OP your assertions about pure tank with heavy armor wrong. Heavy armor tanks specifically stam tanks stomp burst specs.

I've played my nightblade just about every way possible. Possible my strongest build is my stam tank build. It's to strong to be ganked and has the heals and regen to beat down burst night blades, and to wear down any magicka build.

What needs to be understood though is that there is now half way doing it. You must commit.

Soris

Tankqull wrote: »

Soris wrote: »

My intention was to pointing out that the redundancy of choosing heavy armor over shields just for protection for your "balanced/non extreme" build. Don't mind the hyperbole in my previous post.

and thats the point heavy armor is ment to be used by this extreme tank builds or as a supplemental when used in 5L or medium.

And that point drags you to that you can't have Warrior type somewhat tanky dps build. Like jack of all trades. It isn't optimal at least. You will not have enough stamina/regen to block all the damage plus break free and you will not have enough burst to kill someone. And if you do not block or cast shield, you will die before you even notice what hit you.
Though it isn't 100% tied to heavy armor for sure. Armor is just one part of that. It is infact just a combination of many things that the new meta brought such as removal of softcaps and block cost increase. It was possible in 1.5.