Battle Spirit / Shield Absorbs

Levo18

This game is more and more becoming an NB paradise its disgusting. And thats just because its the favorite class of the pvp dev leader.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

A bit of math is needed here Shields were already nerfed 15%, damage was nerfed 0% then they jumped down the damage output by 50% and same to damage but with the change to Battle Spirit Shields only got a 35% nerf while damage took a 50% nerf.

So in a way this new Battle Spirit buffed shields.

Shield Breaker is a complete joke you loss 8% crit and 166 Weapon damage if you wear Hundings Rage and really what other good stamina sets do we have. Just to do 2k damage to one thing near 100% unless vs other stamina builds and not ever every Mage spams shields.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

Levo18 wrote: »

This game is more and more becoming an NB paradise its disgusting. And thats just because its the favorite class of the pvp dev leader.

Spoken like someone that don't play a Stamina Nightblade in beta or ever till 1.6 made us more useful and 2.0 made all the cheese I can hit two buttons and never die while killing you builds harder to run.

RoxyPhoenix

I strongly believe the battle spirit damage reduction was implemented not because some folks cried they ware one shooted, I think that when IC came up, devs realized that ppl would be simply annihilated by any high damage skill regardless of a build they got.

I am amazed how much spell/weapon damage can some ppl achive. Someone said a sorc in orsinium can get up to a 5.4k SD, some1 else posted a 20k frags tooltip, some high CP glass cannon builds can already nearly one shoot you and ppl still complaining about damage reduction buff from battle spirit. Dont you ppl see that without it u'll be eating 40k frags and 35k snipes in ur face?

With every update and despite every nerf to class/skill/equipment ppl are getting stronger and stronger, the battle spirit toned it down a bit but its coming back. Just one more update and we'll see ppl dropping from one shoot skills again, mark my words.

zornyan

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO wrote: »

A bit of math is needed here Shields were already nerfed 15%, damage was nerfed 0% then they jumped down the damage output by 50% and same to damage but with the change to Battle Spirit Shields only got a 35% nerf while damage took a 50% nerf.

So in a way this new Battle Spirit buffed shields.

Shield Breaker is a complete joke you loss 8% crit and 166 Weapon damage if you wear Hundings Rage and really what other good stamina sets do we have. Just to do 2k damage to one thing near 100% unless vs other stamina builds and not ever every Mage spams shields.

Damage had a 20% reduction in the last patch, it was never 0

k2blader

Can you people please stop crying about sorc shields as if every sorc is stacking 30k shields (or whatever number you want to pull out of your a**) and turn your attention to the real problem which is the CP system.

Sorcs who have a high number of CPs and put at least 100 CPs into Bastion are the ones you're probably crying over. Not all sorcs are at that level-- those who aren't are the ones who've been hurt most by the last nerfs to shields and healing. Couple that with the fact that any way you slice it, the CP system currently favors stamina when it comes to both damage and mitigation potential.

Oh, but you're mad you couldn't kill that sorc. Do you know how many CPs he has, how much experience he has, if his gear's really great, did you note if he used counters/pots effectively, etc.? You can't kill every opponent all the time, so suck it up, learn from it. Don't start calling for even more blanket nerfs to an entire class' defense mechanism just because you couldn't kill a sorc.

Don't claim you're seeking balance if you choose to ignore the underlying problem.

FrozenAnimal

CrowsDescend wrote: »

Battle Spirit (PvP Perma-buff)

You gain the following bonuses:
• Increases Health by 5000
• Reduce damage taken by 50%
  
• Reduce healing received and damage shield strength by 50%
• Increase range of abilities with greater than 28m rang by 8m in Cyrodiil.

No comment...

Forestd16b14_ESO

Yea that "nerf" didn't do anything I still see plenty of players able to shield stack there entire health bar twice over and still able to tank 6 players beating on them and IMO I think it's cause of the champion passive bastion that increases effectiveness of shields. Let's be honest the warrior tree doesn't have to many useful skills and the only skills players probably pool all there points into is either bastion, block expert, or that on that increases healing done to you. So if all a shield stacker does is pool all there warrior points into bastion that 50% shield reduction becomes like 30% or 20%.

So if any thing shield stacking needs to be removed so that players only get 1 or 2 shields (thus making ZOS remove the "shield nerf") or the shield reduction needs to be bumped up to 70%. But IMO of course.

TheBull

Ezareth wrote: »

My shield is still over 12K in Cyrodiil. That's 12K on a 1 second GCD with something that can't be crit and receives magickal defense bonuses from CP. There isn't an ability in the game that comes close to 1-shotting my shield and you want to buff it?

I think Sorc shields are in a good place right now, if they are buffed we'll be back in 1.6 again.

I'd be OK with Templars and DKs getting a slight (10-15%) buff to their shields but those classes should never be as reliant on damage shields as a sorc is because they have their own defensive options available to them.

I just can't get over how much you've change since playing NB. Before you started in on NB, 1.6 shields were perfectly fine and who didn't agree needed to l2p. Now it's Shield Breaker is perfectly fine and sorcs who can't adjust need to l2p.

Keep on keeping it real

Ezareth

TheBull wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

My shield is still over 12K in Cyrodiil. That's 12K on a 1 second GCD with something that can't be crit and receives magickal defense bonuses from CP. There isn't an ability in the game that comes close to 1-shotting my shield and you want to buff it?

I think Sorc shields are in a good place right now, if they are buffed we'll be back in 1.6 again.

I'd be OK with Templars and DKs getting a slight (10-15%) buff to their shields but those classes should never be as reliant on damage shields as a sorc is because they have their own defensive options available to them.

I just can't get over how much you've change since playing NB. Before you started in on NB, 1.6 shields were perfectly fine and who didn't agree needed to l2p. Now it's Shield Breaker is perfectly fine and sorcs who can't adjust need to l2p.

Keep on keeping it real

@TheBull

Early 1.6 everyone was sitting at 70 CPs and it was a completely different game. I pointed out the fact that permanent dodge roll was a major issue (and it was) and that unlimited resources via regen was a huge issue and quit the game for a good month. I came back and switched to Nightblade to show just how stupid permarolling was and by then most of the top sorcs had 100 points into Bastion. I knew early on from testing that Bastion and Hardened Ward/Dampen/Healing ward were only additive with the 15% Shield nerf but I didn't account for the high amount of magicka that could be gained through itemization and especially CPs. I also didn't expect the meta to develop into Sorcs who never use stamina on anything other than breaking free. This is really what allowed Sorcs to just min/max shields to an absurd level. With the extra Nerf to shields and the fixes to Battle spirit I feel shields can still be very powerful, but not really more powerful than other class defenses. I still think Healing ward is too powerful but since Magicka Nightblades rely on it so much I'm fine with it being as powerful as it is.


I don't think playing a NB has made be lose any sort of Bias or anything if that is what you were implying, but it did give me some additional insight into some of the weaknesses to the class and it opened up my knowledge to stamina abilities and limitations. I've always pointed out things I felt for way too strong when I saw them, even though nerfing them would hurt me.

I was one of the original players who pointed out how stupid Impenetrable was and explained it to countless people on the forums until it was pretty much used by everyone decent who PvPed. I pointed out the absurdity of Healing Spring spam actually *giving* you magicka while topping your whole group off in PVP (this is something I used to do early on with my Sorc to take keeps in a 4-5 man group back when that was more difficult.

I'd have been pushing to fix the Battle Spirit buffs had I remained playing my sorc, the reason I stayed playing my NB until 1.7 is primarily because I saw that sorc had become easy mode stupid.

I'll generally always support fixing bugs that are not obviously intended and fixing abilities that can be spammed permanently with no cost. Beyond that, I don't think I've ever supported a class nerf in my history. I still think the Bolt Escape stacking cost is stupid, I'd much rather they just increased the base cast a bit and adjusted the insane regen values available to everyone (which they did by nerfing drink stacking with CPs and WW/Vamp regens without slotting abilities).

Xeven

I really dislike Annulment stacking. I think removing shield stacking would go a long way towards quieting some of these concerns about sorcerer shields.

I also think that damage overall is a bit low. Every class has really strong defenses right now. I might even argue that sorc is no longer on top of that list.

Hadan_of_Rift

Just NO. Shields can't be critically hit so that makes them crazy strong right there

dodgehopper_ESO

Ezareth wrote: »

My shield is still over 12K in Cyrodiil. That's 12K on a 1 second GCD with something that can't be crit and receives magickal defense bonuses from CP. There isn't an ability in the game that comes close to 1-shotting my shield and you want to buff it?

I think Sorc shields are in a good place right now, if they are buffed we'll be back in 1.6 again.

I'd be OK with Templars and DKs getting a slight (10-15%) buff to their shields but those classes should never be as reliant on damage shields as a sorc is because they have their own defensive options available to them.

The Templar shield use to represent a mix of hardened ward (with a health magnitude) and melee range damage pressure (akin to boundless storm). Rune focus is more or less analogous to Boundless Storm but does damage in a reliable fashion unlike the Templar Shield, and its protections carry with the player no matter where they go, and grant a long 7.5 second speed buff. On top of this Sorcs have bound armaments which is always with you, raises your stamina and therefore damage, and improves heavy attack damage significantly. Sorcs have better resource management innately, so the small magica regen from the Rune is minimal. Templars heal better, granted, but Sorcs can burst heal via dark abilities, pets, and crits. I'm actually pretty happy with my ability to self heal as a Sorc, and not entirely sure why other Sorcs seem to feel they have none. Finally you have the fact that a Sorc can exceed Templar magic/weapon damage with changes made to the passives.

DK's have Spike Armor which is very analogous to Boundless Storm, but does reactive damage and instead of a movement buff gives a minor shield buff for very brief duration (Does anyone use razor armor?). Obsidian shield is nice, particularly in what it does for DK's stamina regen/ultimate, but bear in mind this is really the only resource recovery system DK's have. Admittedly it allows the DK to buff the team. Hardened ward tends to be stronger and pulls from the resource that makes magic-sorc's also hit very hard. Dragon Blood is also arguably a lot weaker than the options of Crit Surge, passive regens and cost reductions, Pet-heals, and dark exchange. Reflective Scales are a big equalizer versus single target magic attacks, countering a sorc mage while, but doing nothing vs. Stamina Based sorcs.

Up until recently (TU? IC?) Templars and DK's were pretty reliant on their damage shields. The difference here is that its just no longer very useful for them to do so, even if they are magical builds. Templar durations are too short (they've always been so), and the damage return is too low. DK magnitude is just too weak, although its still helpful in building stam resources. As I've been saying for a while though its a flaw in the game systems themselves here. I'm hopeful ZoS will fix them.

I realize you're quite aware of how the systems work, I'm just stating the case why I think ZoS needs to revisit some mechanics.

Armitas

Yeah, this shield nerf was a heck of a way to reach sorcs or shield stacking while crushing everyone along the way.

Ezareth

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

My shield is still over 12K in Cyrodiil. That's 12K on a 1 second GCD with something that can't be crit and receives magickal defense bonuses from CP. There isn't an ability in the game that comes close to 1-shotting my shield and you want to buff it?

I think Sorc shields are in a good place right now, if they are buffed we'll be back in 1.6 again.

I'd be OK with Templars and DKs getting a slight (10-15%) buff to their shields but those classes should never be as reliant on damage shields as a sorc is because they have their own defensive options available to them.

The Templar shield use to represent a mix of hardened ward (with a health magnitude) and melee range damage pressure (akin to boundless storm). Rune focus is more or less analogous to Boundless Storm but does damage in a reliable fashion unlike the Templar Shield, and its protections carry with the player no matter where they go, and grant a long 7.5 second speed buff. On top of this Sorcs have bound armaments which is always with you, raises your stamina and therefore damage, and improves heavy attack damage significantly. Sorcs have better resource management innately, so the small magica regen from the Rune is minimal. Templars heal better, granted, but Sorcs can burst heal via dark abilities, pets, and crits. I'm actually pretty happy with my ability to self heal as a Sorc, and not entirely sure why other Sorcs seem to feel they have none. Finally you have the fact that a Sorc can exceed Templar magic/weapon damage with changes made to the passives.

DK's have Spike Armor which is very analogous to Boundless Storm, but does reactive damage and instead of a movement buff gives a minor shield buff for very brief duration (Does anyone use razor armor?). Obsidian shield is nice, particularly in what it does for DK's stamina regen/ultimate, but bear in mind this is really the only resource recovery system DK's have. Admittedly it allows the DK to buff the team. Hardened ward tends to be stronger and pulls from the resource that makes magic-sorc's also hit very hard. Dragon Blood is also arguably a lot weaker than the options of Crit Surge, passive regens and cost reductions, Pet-heals, and dark exchange. Reflective Scales are a big equalizer versus single target magic attacks, countering a sorc mage while, but doing nothing vs. Stamina Based sorcs.

Up until recently (TU? IC?) Templars and DK's were pretty reliant on their damage shields. The difference here is that its just no longer very useful for them to do so, even if they are magical builds. Templar durations are too short (they've always been so), and the damage return is too low. DK magnitude is just too weak, although its still helpful in building stam resources. As I've been saying for a while though its a flaw in the game systems themselves here. I'm hopeful ZoS will fix them.

I realize you're quite aware of how the systems work, I'm just stating the case why I think ZoS needs to revisit some mechanics.

I'm not quite sure why you rattled off a list of Sorc abilities and compared them to similar DK/templar abilities unless you were trying to argue that Templars and DKs have inferior alternative defensive methods compared to sorcs as well.

Templar survivability is in their burst healing ability. Crit surge and the 4% heal per each dark ability hit and pets (lol) are not reliable heals that you can spam when you have people beating on you. I regularly run with a templar and groups tend to focus on her first. She can actually survive burst damage that would flat out kill my Sorc because of the tools she has at her disposal. She'll die if they focus her for very long but my sorc would have already been a corpse or long fled by then.

Bound armaments is just a terrible ability. I don't know why anyone would use 2 slots on their bar for it.

I think buffing the base shield value of DKs and Templars would make sense due to the inherent nerfs to health beggining in 1.6

Septimus_Magna

So all the massive shields should come back because there is a broken and unbalance set like shield breaker? Barriers are already very hard to burst through so I dont think shield should become smaller.

I do think some shields need buffs, like the DK and Temp shields for example.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

zornyan wrote: »

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO wrote: »

A bit of math is needed here Shields were already nerfed 15%, damage was nerfed 0% then they jumped down the damage output by 50% and same to damage but with the change to Battle Spirit Shields only got a 35% nerf while damage took a 50% nerf.

So in a way this new Battle Spirit buffed shields.

Shield Breaker is a complete joke you loss 8% crit and 166 Weapon damage if you wear Hundings Rage and really what other good stamina sets do we have. Just to do 2k damage to one thing near 100% unless vs other stamina builds and not ever every Mage spams shields.

Damage had a 20% reduction in the last patch, it was never 0

Ohh thanks didn't know that.

zornyan

Ezareth wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

My shield is still over 12K in Cyrodiil. That's 12K on a 1 second GCD with something that can't be crit and receives magickal defense bonuses from CP. There isn't an ability in the game that comes close to 1-shotting my shield and you want to buff it?

I think Sorc shields are in a good place right now, if they are buffed we'll be back in 1.6 again.

I'd be OK with Templars and DKs getting a slight (10-15%) buff to their shields but those classes should never be as reliant on damage shields as a sorc is because they have their own defensive options available to them.

The Templar shield use to represent a mix of hardened ward (with a health magnitude) and melee range damage pressure (akin to boundless storm). Rune focus is more or less analogous to Boundless Storm but does damage in a reliable fashion unlike the Templar Shield, and its protections carry with the player no matter where they go, and grant a long 7.5 second speed buff. On top of this Sorcs have bound armaments which is always with you, raises your stamina and therefore damage, and improves heavy attack damage significantly. Sorcs have better resource management innately, so the small magica regen from the Rune is minimal. Templars heal better, granted, but Sorcs can burst heal via dark abilities, pets, and crits. I'm actually pretty happy with my ability to self heal as a Sorc, and not entirely sure why other Sorcs seem to feel they have none. Finally you have the fact that a Sorc can exceed Templar magic/weapon damage with changes made to the passives.

DK's have Spike Armor which is very analogous to Boundless Storm, but does reactive damage and instead of a movement buff gives a minor shield buff for very brief duration (Does anyone use razor armor?). Obsidian shield is nice, particularly in what it does for DK's stamina regen/ultimate, but bear in mind this is really the only resource recovery system DK's have. Admittedly it allows the DK to buff the team. Hardened ward tends to be stronger and pulls from the resource that makes magic-sorc's also hit very hard. Dragon Blood is also arguably a lot weaker than the options of Crit Surge, passive regens and cost reductions, Pet-heals, and dark exchange. Reflective Scales are a big equalizer versus single target magic attacks, countering a sorc mage while, but doing nothing vs. Stamina Based sorcs.

Up until recently (TU? IC?) Templars and DK's were pretty reliant on their damage shields. The difference here is that its just no longer very useful for them to do so, even if they are magical builds. Templar durations are too short (they've always been so), and the damage return is too low. DK magnitude is just too weak, although its still helpful in building stam resources. As I've been saying for a while though its a flaw in the game systems themselves here. I'm hopeful ZoS will fix them.

I realize you're quite aware of how the systems work, I'm just stating the case why I think ZoS needs to revisit some mechanics.

I'm not quite sure why you rattled off a list of Sorc abilities and compared them to similar DK/templar abilities unless you were trying to argue that Templars and DKs have inferior alternative defensive methods compared to sorcs as well.

Templar survivability is in their burst healing ability. Crit surge and the 4% heal per each dark ability hit and pets (lol) are not reliable heals that you can spam when you have people beating on you. I regularly run with a templar and groups tend to focus on her first. She can actually survive burst damage that would flat out kill my Sorc because of the tools she has at her disposal. He's die if they focus her for very long but my sorc would have already been a corpse or long fled by then.

DKs have some great synergies with both

Bound armaments is just a terrible ability. I don't know why anyone would use 2 slots on their bar for it.

I think buffing the base shield value of DKs and Templars would make sense due to the inherent nerfs to health beggining in 1.6

But but templars must sucks cause ya know, heals ain't OP enough. Lol


My templar can use 1 breath of life (with purifying or channeled focus layer down) and go from the tiniest spec of health to full hp in that single cast.

As well as having an aoe/dot/snare and dark flare, an ability that deals very good damage, and heal debuffs the enemy.

My templar basically never dies, because I can just keep healing over and over and over, as well as hitting bloody hard, enough to rip through any NB that tries to gank, I mean sorcs are a pain atm due to jabs not applying damage to shields, so require a bit more thought, but even then I just keep heals and debuffs up, and they either run or die.

I personally think templars are in such a good spot, you walk into any zone, lay down channeled focus and purifying light, and that is your zone, anyone that enters dies or runs, but they've got bugger all chance of bringing you down.

Ezareth

zornyan wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

My shield is still over 12K in Cyrodiil. That's 12K on a 1 second GCD with something that can't be crit and receives magickal defense bonuses from CP. There isn't an ability in the game that comes close to 1-shotting my shield and you want to buff it?

I think Sorc shields are in a good place right now, if they are buffed we'll be back in 1.6 again.

I'd be OK with Templars and DKs getting a slight (10-15%) buff to their shields but those classes should never be as reliant on damage shields as a sorc is because they have their own defensive options available to them.

The Templar shield use to represent a mix of hardened ward (with a health magnitude) and melee range damage pressure (akin to boundless storm). Rune focus is more or less analogous to Boundless Storm but does damage in a reliable fashion unlike the Templar Shield, and its protections carry with the player no matter where they go, and grant a long 7.5 second speed buff. On top of this Sorcs have bound armaments which is always with you, raises your stamina and therefore damage, and improves heavy attack damage significantly. Sorcs have better resource management innately, so the small magica regen from the Rune is minimal. Templars heal better, granted, but Sorcs can burst heal via dark abilities, pets, and crits. I'm actually pretty happy with my ability to self heal as a Sorc, and not entirely sure why other Sorcs seem to feel they have none. Finally you have the fact that a Sorc can exceed Templar magic/weapon damage with changes made to the passives.

DK's have Spike Armor which is very analogous to Boundless Storm, but does reactive damage and instead of a movement buff gives a minor shield buff for very brief duration (Does anyone use razor armor?). Obsidian shield is nice, particularly in what it does for DK's stamina regen/ultimate, but bear in mind this is really the only resource recovery system DK's have. Admittedly it allows the DK to buff the team. Hardened ward tends to be stronger and pulls from the resource that makes magic-sorc's also hit very hard. Dragon Blood is also arguably a lot weaker than the options of Crit Surge, passive regens and cost reductions, Pet-heals, and dark exchange. Reflective Scales are a big equalizer versus single target magic attacks, countering a sorc mage while, but doing nothing vs. Stamina Based sorcs.

Up until recently (TU? IC?) Templars and DK's were pretty reliant on their damage shields. The difference here is that its just no longer very useful for them to do so, even if they are magical builds. Templar durations are too short (they've always been so), and the damage return is too low. DK magnitude is just too weak, although its still helpful in building stam resources. As I've been saying for a while though its a flaw in the game systems themselves here. I'm hopeful ZoS will fix them.

I realize you're quite aware of how the systems work, I'm just stating the case why I think ZoS needs to revisit some mechanics.

I'm not quite sure why you rattled off a list of Sorc abilities and compared them to similar DK/templar abilities unless you were trying to argue that Templars and DKs have inferior alternative defensive methods compared to sorcs as well.

Templar survivability is in their burst healing ability. Crit surge and the 4% heal per each dark ability hit and pets (lol) are not reliable heals that you can spam when you have people beating on you. I regularly run with a templar and groups tend to focus on her first. She can actually survive burst damage that would flat out kill my Sorc because of the tools she has at her disposal. He's die if they focus her for very long but my sorc would have already been a corpse or long fled by then.

DKs have some great synergies with both

Bound armaments is just a terrible ability. I don't know why anyone would use 2 slots on their bar for it.

I think buffing the base shield value of DKs and Templars would make sense due to the inherent nerfs to health beggining in 1.6

But but templars must sucks cause ya know, heals ain't OP enough. Lol


My templar can use 1 breath of life (with purifying or channeled focus layer down) and go from the tiniest spec of health to full hp in that single cast.

As well as having an aoe/dot/snare and dark flare, an ability that deals very good damage, and heal debuffs the enemy.

My templar basically never dies, because I can just keep healing over and over and over, as well as hitting bloody hard, enough to rip through any NB that tries to gank, I mean sorcs are a pain atm due to jabs not applying damage to shields, so require a bit more thought, but even then I just keep heals and debuffs up, and they either run or die.

I personally think templars are in such a good spot, you walk into any zone, lay down channeled focus and purifying light, and that is your zone, anyone that enters dies or runs, but they've got bugger all chance of bringing you down.

Yup, pretty much my experience as a good sorc fighting a good templar as well.

And The darn autosave butchered my message above, I can't remember everything I typed but ahh well.

Runkorko

CrowsDescend wrote: »

Battle Spirit (PvP Perma-buff)

You gain the following bonuses:
• Increases Health by 5000
• Reduce damage taken by 50%
• Reduce healing received and damage shield strength by 50%
• Increase range of abilities with greater than 28m rang by 8m in Cyrodiil.

Who else thinks that 50% is a little too harsh on 'damage shield strength'? considering that we now have a set like Shieldbreaker which is designed to obliterate shields?

I think it should be at least 20%, not 50%.

Dragonknights Absorb shields, Healing Ward (Resto Staff) and Templar's for example, have been hit HARD by this. Templar's hardly use Blazing Shield/Radiant Ward anymore because since it scales off of 15% of our Max Health (without CP points in Bastion) and with 50% less damage shield strength, we're basically only able to absorb a poke with a rubber spoon, and nothing more, unless one stacks over 40k health for it to even be effective, I don't know, do the math, but you get what I mean.

I get that Sorcerers shields were too strong, but we now have a counter; Shieldbreaker, so..... maybe it's time to reconsider, @ZOS?

so because of ONE class all others /even magicka builds/ must run with shield breaker? nonsense ... make shields unstacable or 1.5 sec cast time/ or if you lower BS efect on shields just remove all sets but shieldbreaker.

zornyan

Ezareth wrote: »

zornyan wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

My shield is still over 12K in Cyrodiil. That's 12K on a 1 second GCD with something that can't be crit and receives magickal defense bonuses from CP. There isn't an ability in the game that comes close to 1-shotting my shield and you want to buff it?

I think Sorc shields are in a good place right now, if they are buffed we'll be back in 1.6 again.

I'd be OK with Templars and DKs getting a slight (10-15%) buff to their shields but those classes should never be as reliant on damage shields as a sorc is because they have their own defensive options available to them.

The Templar shield use to represent a mix of hardened ward (with a health magnitude) and melee range damage pressure (akin to boundless storm). Rune focus is more or less analogous to Boundless Storm but does damage in a reliable fashion unlike the Templar Shield, and its protections carry with the player no matter where they go, and grant a long 7.5 second speed buff. On top of this Sorcs have bound armaments which is always with you, raises your stamina and therefore damage, and improves heavy attack damage significantly. Sorcs have better resource management innately, so the small magica regen from the Rune is minimal. Templars heal better, granted, but Sorcs can burst heal via dark abilities, pets, and crits. I'm actually pretty happy with my ability to self heal as a Sorc, and not entirely sure why other Sorcs seem to feel they have none. Finally you have the fact that a Sorc can exceed Templar magic/weapon damage with changes made to the passives.

DK's have Spike Armor which is very analogous to Boundless Storm, but does reactive damage and instead of a movement buff gives a minor shield buff for very brief duration (Does anyone use razor armor?). Obsidian shield is nice, particularly in what it does for DK's stamina regen/ultimate, but bear in mind this is really the only resource recovery system DK's have. Admittedly it allows the DK to buff the team. Hardened ward tends to be stronger and pulls from the resource that makes magic-sorc's also hit very hard. Dragon Blood is also arguably a lot weaker than the options of Crit Surge, passive regens and cost reductions, Pet-heals, and dark exchange. Reflective Scales are a big equalizer versus single target magic attacks, countering a sorc mage while, but doing nothing vs. Stamina Based sorcs.

Up until recently (TU? IC?) Templars and DK's were pretty reliant on their damage shields. The difference here is that its just no longer very useful for them to do so, even if they are magical builds. Templar durations are too short (they've always been so), and the damage return is too low. DK magnitude is just too weak, although its still helpful in building stam resources. As I've been saying for a while though its a flaw in the game systems themselves here. I'm hopeful ZoS will fix them.

I realize you're quite aware of how the systems work, I'm just stating the case why I think ZoS needs to revisit some mechanics.

I'm not quite sure why you rattled off a list of Sorc abilities and compared them to similar DK/templar abilities unless you were trying to argue that Templars and DKs have inferior alternative defensive methods compared to sorcs as well.

Templar survivability is in their burst healing ability. Crit surge and the 4% heal per each dark ability hit and pets (lol) are not reliable heals that you can spam when you have people beating on you. I regularly run with a templar and groups tend to focus on her first. She can actually survive burst damage that would flat out kill my Sorc because of the tools she has at her disposal. He's die if they focus her for very long but my sorc would have already been a corpse or long fled by then.

DKs have some great synergies with both

Bound armaments is just a terrible ability. I don't know why anyone would use 2 slots on their bar for it.

I think buffing the base shield value of DKs and Templars would make sense due to the inherent nerfs to health beggining in 1.6

But but templars must sucks cause ya know, heals ain't OP enough. Lol


My templar can use 1 breath of life (with purifying or channeled focus layer down) and go from the tiniest spec of health to full hp in that single cast.

As well as having an aoe/dot/snare and dark flare, an ability that deals very good damage, and heal debuffs the enemy.

My templar basically never dies, because I can just keep healing over and over and over, as well as hitting bloody hard, enough to rip through any NB that tries to gank, I mean sorcs are a pain atm due to jabs not applying damage to shields, so require a bit more thought, but even then I just keep heals and debuffs up, and they either run or die.

I personally think templars are in such a good spot, you walk into any zone, lay down channeled focus and purifying light, and that is your zone, anyone that enters dies or runs, but they've got bugger all chance of bringing you down.

Yup, pretty much my experience as a good sorc fighting a good templar as well.

And The darn autosave butchered my message above, I can't remember everything I typed but ahh well.

Basically the only player in an entire day PvPing small group and solo in districts was a really well played magicka templar, I couldn't kill him, he couldn't kill me, we would fight for up to 10 minutes sometimes, until I just walked away and he did the same thing (after a quick bow of respect)

Infact when I play with a magicka nb and a dk in full tank formation, the 3 of us take on zergs of 5-7 players quite easily, and vise versa the same templar that I fought earlier teamed up with a sorcerer and the pair of them annihilated a team of 7 DC as I watched from the spawn ( I was eating lunch) our guys kept spawning and they just destroyed them over and over.

But in all honesty I think classes are well balanced, yes the bugs need fixing like jabs not applying damage to shields, and a few animation errors causing a bit of an issue sometimes, I also agree shields need really addressing for all classes, with a simple major/minor system applied to them, and some sort of cap, as I see far too many sorcerers running around with endless shields that cover their entire health bar.

BUT player skill is far more important, I attend dueling events whenever possible, I consider myself average, maybe a tad above, but nothing special, but I've been in duels against some immensely well played characters, an ep dk was so strong it was a joke, he blocked perfectly, he dodged and broke free just at the right time, he managed to drain my resources like no one before, and he honestly kicked me ass, do I come on here and QQ? No, I sent him a message saying how well he played, and actually asked for some tips for my dk as he was whopping ass against many other players.