PVP Testing for IC DLC: Heavy Armor Useless?

Evaflys

Just a side-note, this is just observation and most likely not accurate.

Hello everyone!

So, a friend and I decided to do a few testings in Cyrodiil on the IC PTS, poking each other with certain skills and seeing how much damage we do. I placed on a 5 heavy/2 light magicka templar build while my friend did a 5 med/2 heavy stamina dragonknight build.

Here's the thing. When we first did a few practice duels, I saw how much I was getting hurt even in decent heavy armor. Decided to switch to mostly light (6 light/1 heavy) and had my friend do light attacks to compare.

My friend did around 1.5k two-hander normal non-crit light attack hits on me with my light armor getup. Switched back to my heavy, and he did pretty much the exact same damage to me: 1.5k damage light attacks.

We tested this out further by me using Channeled Focus and he using Volatile Armor, both skills that increase our spell/armor resistance. We both did light attacks to each other, and it was still the same damage even with the increased armor/spell resistance.

Has anyone else noticed this when testing Imperial City PTS PVP? It seems like it was pre-1.6 where light armor was king and heavy armor meant nothing. Right now in 1.6, I am wearing my 5 heavy/2 light sets and am able to withstand hits. On the PTS, I saw no difference between using my heavy set than with my light set.

xaraan

Haven't seen this yet, but haven't looked for it. Do notice a big difference when I don't block a shot. I wonder if there is some armor protection loss with the reduced damage? idk, I'll get the guys I run with tomorrow to try and test this out.

olemanwinter

I think it's broken. Even if armor is reduced along side damage, healing, and shields......Heavy would still give more than light.

Zsymon

Possibly a bug?

Personofsecrets

Well the problem with heavy armor is that when armor was made to "feel like it should" heavy armor was, too my understanding, nerfd.

You can even test this on live. Have a player snipe you for 19k in light armor, then put on heavy armor, and have their snipe now hit you for 16k instead. The damage mitigation from heavy armor isn't broken per se, damage is just so high, that an attack mitigated by 20% is still a large damage number.

That being said, damage numbers will be less on the PTS, but the mitigation from heavy armor, unless it was changed or broken, will be as unimpressive of a proportion as it is on live.

SkylarkAU

Enough penetration will cause an attack to completely ignore resistance and give full damage btw

Personofsecrets

Thank you @SkylarkAU that literally slipped my mind, but could definitely be causing the disparity that OP is noticing.

olemanwinter

Personofsecrets wrote: »

That being said, damage numbers will be less on the PTS, but the mitigation from heavy armor, unless it was changed or broken, will be as unimpressive of a proportion as it is on live.

It's not just about "armor" but total physical resistance right? I mean, there are buffs, sets, etc that increase physical resistance.

It's more than just swapping out 5 pieces of medium Hundig's rage for 5 piece of heavy of the same set.

There are builds that maximize resistance WAY higher than that.

So, I'm very concerned if they have somehow actually nerfed heavy armor for 2.1 I certainly didn't read anything about it in the patch notes.

ginoboehm

is he using a sword or a mace? the armor penetration of a mace could still be bugged and with that making heavy useless

olemanwinter

SkylarkAU wrote: »

Enough penetration will cause an attack to completely ignore resistance and give full damage btw

I'm not sure this is accurate.

Are you saying this is new on PTS or existing on Live now.

I have max penetration and I hit like a truck (not bragging) and I still don't truly 1-shot people.

I've tested my damage in PvE and it can exceed 2 or 3 times as much as the health people have in PvP and so if there was a way to bypass all damage I think I would have either 1 shot someone or at least been 1 shot by someone since I run low health and medium armor.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't understand it.

Running around with 20k health and the only time I've been 1-shot is by the Camo Hunter bug and technically that's not a 1 shot.

Evaflys

ginoboehm wrote: »

is he using a sword or a mace? the armor penetration of a mace could still be bugged and with that making heavy useless

Using swords. Didn't use a mace or anything for armor penetration.

We are pretty much just doing basic light attacks to one another in either light or heavy. No other skills rather than using skills that buff our armor/spell resistance to test further. And we didn't see a difference in our light attacks even with buffed defenses.

Will do some more testing tomorrow. It could be an error on our part with certain conditions, but it still feels odd to me.

SkylarkAU

olemanwinter wrote: »

SkylarkAU wrote: »

Enough penetration will cause an attack to completely ignore resistance and give full damage btw

I'm not sure this is accurate.

Are you saying this is new on PTS or existing on Live now.

I have max penetration and I hit like a truck (not bragging) and I still don't truly 1-shot people.

I've tested my damage in PvE and it can exceed 2 or 3 times as much as the health people have in PvP and so if there was a way to bypass all damage I think I would have either 1 shot someone or at least been 1 shot by someone since I run low health and medium armor.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't understand it.

Running around with 20k health and the only time I've been 1-shot is by the Camo Hunter bug and technically that's not a 1 shot.

That's probably because damage is turned down in PvP vs PvE?

Rinmaethodain

They already nerfed stamina regen to 0 They are removing combat health regen mundus stone. I wouldnt be suprised that they are nerfing heavy armor just to make less people use it.

Apparently large health and health regen is another thing (after false accusation that tanks are OP in PVP) that ticks off PVP DPS who find it annoying someone might survive their one shot kill attempt and he dares to even fight back, so ZOS decided to cater to every PVPer in this update and do everything to just please them not looking what consequences changes will have in PVE.

Zsymon

Heavy Armor has been long in need of a massive buff. The passives are all but one completely useless, and the mitigation is so small, and so hard to achieve that anyone is better off using medium or light armor.

Yuke

Dunno if some1 else noticed this, but they buffed Armorvalue of Lightarmor. Im sitting on 12k buffed Armor with 7 lightarmor parts (on live it would be around 6-8k).

17k buffed on my 5 medium + 2 heavy char.

So there shouldnt be such a big difference between the different armortypes anymore.

tinythinker

MaximusDargus wrote: »

Apparently large health and health regen is another thing (after false accusation that tanks are OP in PVP) that ticks off PVP DPS who find it annoying someone might survive their one shot kill attempt and he dares to even fight back, so ZOS decided to cater to every PVPer in this update and do everything to just please them not looking what consequences changes will have in PVE.

Many people who PvP thought TTK was too high, so this makes no sense. That's why they reduced damage so much in 2.1. Not everyone who spends time in Cyrodiil wants the same thing, and quite a few of them wish heavy armor was buffed to be useful.