Should Sorc shields scale of health?

zornyan

Ezareth wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

@Ezareth, I was just thinking about this a little while ago after looking at Fengrush's discussion. I realize if Hardened Ward became health based they would need to do some balancing to make up for the loss. I get that. What if Surge landed a much more reliable heal, even versus other shields? My position in this whole discussion is that they really need to simplify the design of their system, in large part because failure to do so will make Spellcrafting really difficult for them to implement (or worse it would completely ruin the balance of the game). I could be wrong but I think the overall design should try to make greater parity between comparable abilities. By doing this I think it will make it a lot easier for the developers to balance things overall. Please understand that when I voted yes to the possibility of HW being scaled off of health, I fully realize that other things would need to be brought into line for the Sorc. I personally think the function of Surge as a self heal could be part of that consideration. I know that my Nightblade does quite well keeping topped off on his health, based purely upon flinging the right amount of siphoning abilities. I reckon HW + a better functioning surge + dark magic passive could very well do the trick for this class. I'm also of the opinion that the way armor passives function could be better. Light armor could be stronger toward magic damage and weaker toward physical. Medium armor could be stronger toward physical and weaker toward magic damage. Heavy armor would just be the turtle that doesn't get all the more aggressive bonuses of the other two. I realize most Sorcs problem with Surge particularly in pvp right now is the way in which crits deal with damage shields, perhaps that is the core of what needs to be looked at.

There are a lot of things that would need to be looked at if the value of hardened ward were to be reduced. There are many issues with the combat system right now. The mobility of sorcs has been completely gimped lately. You can totally lock a sorc down with roots and the only thing he can do is sit there an spam hardened ward if he's unable to roll out. Crit surge not healing on damage shields isn't a huge problem for magicka sorcs, but relying on your attacks needing to actually *hit* a target in order to heal is the biggest issue.

I recently fought Sabre Ali who IMO is currently the best Stamina NB that I've faced and he cut through my hardened ward as it stands today effortlessly and always kept me on the defensive. Only 1 out of my 4 or 5 overloads would hit him and he'd block the ones that did, virtually all of a Sorc's abilities are dodgeable except Velocious curse + AoE abilities. I use both Crit Surge and Degeneration for healing on my sorc yet he would cloak off the degeneration and I could never crit him so I had zero chance to heal myself. I went through every possibility in my head of what I could do to beat him I really couldn't have done anything better.

Then he equipped shield breaker (he was using reactive armor) and made fighting me a joke. No heals, and constant stead damage to my heal pool and there was nothing I could do. If hardened ward is ever reduced then a lot of these things would need to be changed.

The only thing I think that's fair is

Shields stay as they are, but become crittable and apply major/minor system.

Shield gets reduced, but leave uncrittable and remove shield breaker.

I personally don't even use mine now, it gimp me too much in other area, and it'd not even an option for any other magicks builds.

Derra

No...

zornyan wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

@Ezareth, I was just thinking about this a little while ago after looking at Fengrush's discussion. I realize if Hardened Ward became health based they would need to do some balancing to make up for the loss. I get that. What if Surge landed a much more reliable heal, even versus other shields? My position in this whole discussion is that they really need to simplify the design of their system, in large part because failure to do so will make Spellcrafting really difficult for them to implement (or worse it would completely ruin the balance of the game). I could be wrong but I think the overall design should try to make greater parity between comparable abilities. By doing this I think it will make it a lot easier for the developers to balance things overall. Please understand that when I voted yes to the possibility of HW being scaled off of health, I fully realize that other things would need to be brought into line for the Sorc. I personally think the function of Surge as a self heal could be part of that consideration. I know that my Nightblade does quite well keeping topped off on his health, based purely upon flinging the right amount of siphoning abilities. I reckon HW + a better functioning surge + dark magic passive could very well do the trick for this class. I'm also of the opinion that the way armor passives function could be better. Light armor could be stronger toward magic damage and weaker toward physical. Medium armor could be stronger toward physical and weaker toward magic damage. Heavy armor would just be the turtle that doesn't get all the more aggressive bonuses of the other two. I realize most Sorcs problem with Surge particularly in pvp right now is the way in which crits deal with damage shields, perhaps that is the core of what needs to be looked at.

There are a lot of things that would need to be looked at if the value of hardened ward were to be reduced. There are many issues with the combat system right now. The mobility of sorcs has been completely gimped lately. You can totally lock a sorc down with roots and the only thing he can do is sit there an spam hardened ward if he's unable to roll out. Crit surge not healing on damage shields isn't a huge problem for magicka sorcs, but relying on your attacks needing to actually *hit* a target in order to heal is the biggest issue.

I recently fought Sabre Ali who IMO is currently the best Stamina NB that I've faced and he cut through my hardened ward as it stands today effortlessly and always kept me on the defensive. Only 1 out of my 4 or 5 overloads would hit him and he'd block the ones that did, virtually all of a Sorc's abilities are dodgeable except Velocious curse + AoE abilities. I use both Crit Surge and Degeneration for healing on my sorc yet he would cloak off the degeneration and I could never crit him so I had zero chance to heal myself. I went through every possibility in my head of what I could do to beat him I really couldn't have done anything better.

Then he equipped shield breaker (he was using reactive armor) and made fighting me a joke. No heals, and constant stead damage to my heal pool and there was nothing I could do. If hardened ward is ever reduced then a lot of these things would need to be changed.

The only thing I think that's fair is

Shields stay as they are, but become crittable and apply major/minor system.

Shield gets reduced, but leave uncrittable and remove shield breaker.

I personally don't even use mine now, it gimp me too much in other area, and it'd not even an option for any other magicks builds.

Thats because you play a templar and get a massive on demand heal...

zornyan

Derra wrote: »

zornyan wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

@Ezareth, I was just thinking about this a little while ago after looking at Fengrush's discussion. I realize if Hardened Ward became health based they would need to do some balancing to make up for the loss. I get that. What if Surge landed a much more reliable heal, even versus other shields? My position in this whole discussion is that they really need to simplify the design of their system, in large part because failure to do so will make Spellcrafting really difficult for them to implement (or worse it would completely ruin the balance of the game). I could be wrong but I think the overall design should try to make greater parity between comparable abilities. By doing this I think it will make it a lot easier for the developers to balance things overall. Please understand that when I voted yes to the possibility of HW being scaled off of health, I fully realize that other things would need to be brought into line for the Sorc. I personally think the function of Surge as a self heal could be part of that consideration. I know that my Nightblade does quite well keeping topped off on his health, based purely upon flinging the right amount of siphoning abilities. I reckon HW + a better functioning surge + dark magic passive could very well do the trick for this class. I'm also of the opinion that the way armor passives function could be better. Light armor could be stronger toward magic damage and weaker toward physical. Medium armor could be stronger toward physical and weaker toward magic damage. Heavy armor would just be the turtle that doesn't get all the more aggressive bonuses of the other two. I realize most Sorcs problem with Surge particularly in pvp right now is the way in which crits deal with damage shields, perhaps that is the core of what needs to be looked at.

There are a lot of things that would need to be looked at if the value of hardened ward were to be reduced. There are many issues with the combat system right now. The mobility of sorcs has been completely gimped lately. You can totally lock a sorc down with roots and the only thing he can do is sit there an spam hardened ward if he's unable to roll out. Crit surge not healing on damage shields isn't a huge problem for magicka sorcs, but relying on your attacks needing to actually *hit* a target in order to heal is the biggest issue.

I recently fought Sabre Ali who IMO is currently the best Stamina NB that I've faced and he cut through my hardened ward as it stands today effortlessly and always kept me on the defensive. Only 1 out of my 4 or 5 overloads would hit him and he'd block the ones that did, virtually all of a Sorc's abilities are dodgeable except Velocious curse + AoE abilities. I use both Crit Surge and Degeneration for healing on my sorc yet he would cloak off the degeneration and I could never crit him so I had zero chance to heal myself. I went through every possibility in my head of what I could do to beat him I really couldn't have done anything better.

Then he equipped shield breaker (he was using reactive armor) and made fighting me a joke. No heals, and constant stead damage to my heal pool and there was nothing I could do. If hardened ward is ever reduced then a lot of these things would need to be changed.

The only thing I think that's fair is

Shields stay as they are, but become crittable and apply major/minor system.

Shield gets reduced, but leave uncrittable and remove shield breaker.

I personally don't even use mine now, it gimp me too much in other area, and it'd not even an option for any other magicks builds.

Thats because you play a templar and get a massive on demand heal...

So that means gear sets should be useless?

Even my stamina templar doesn't use it, it gives up too much compared to hundings etc.

Or what about magicka dk? How are they supposed to burst shields down? With DoTs?

Derra

No...

zornyan wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

zornyan wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

@Ezareth, I was just thinking about this a little while ago after looking at Fengrush's discussion. I realize if Hardened Ward became health based they would need to do some balancing to make up for the loss. I get that. What if Surge landed a much more reliable heal, even versus other shields? My position in this whole discussion is that they really need to simplify the design of their system, in large part because failure to do so will make Spellcrafting really difficult for them to implement (or worse it would completely ruin the balance of the game). I could be wrong but I think the overall design should try to make greater parity between comparable abilities. By doing this I think it will make it a lot easier for the developers to balance things overall. Please understand that when I voted yes to the possibility of HW being scaled off of health, I fully realize that other things would need to be brought into line for the Sorc. I personally think the function of Surge as a self heal could be part of that consideration. I know that my Nightblade does quite well keeping topped off on his health, based purely upon flinging the right amount of siphoning abilities. I reckon HW + a better functioning surge + dark magic passive could very well do the trick for this class. I'm also of the opinion that the way armor passives function could be better. Light armor could be stronger toward magic damage and weaker toward physical. Medium armor could be stronger toward physical and weaker toward magic damage. Heavy armor would just be the turtle that doesn't get all the more aggressive bonuses of the other two. I realize most Sorcs problem with Surge particularly in pvp right now is the way in which crits deal with damage shields, perhaps that is the core of what needs to be looked at.

There are a lot of things that would need to be looked at if the value of hardened ward were to be reduced. There are many issues with the combat system right now. The mobility of sorcs has been completely gimped lately. You can totally lock a sorc down with roots and the only thing he can do is sit there an spam hardened ward if he's unable to roll out. Crit surge not healing on damage shields isn't a huge problem for magicka sorcs, but relying on your attacks needing to actually *hit* a target in order to heal is the biggest issue.

I recently fought Sabre Ali who IMO is currently the best Stamina NB that I've faced and he cut through my hardened ward as it stands today effortlessly and always kept me on the defensive. Only 1 out of my 4 or 5 overloads would hit him and he'd block the ones that did, virtually all of a Sorc's abilities are dodgeable except Velocious curse + AoE abilities. I use both Crit Surge and Degeneration for healing on my sorc yet he would cloak off the degeneration and I could never crit him so I had zero chance to heal myself. I went through every possibility in my head of what I could do to beat him I really couldn't have done anything better.

Then he equipped shield breaker (he was using reactive armor) and made fighting me a joke. No heals, and constant stead damage to my heal pool and there was nothing I could do. If hardened ward is ever reduced then a lot of these things would need to be changed.

The only thing I think that's fair is

Shields stay as they are, but become crittable and apply major/minor system.

Shield gets reduced, but leave uncrittable and remove shield breaker.

I personally don't even use mine now, it gimp me too much in other area, and it'd not even an option for any other magicks builds.

Thats because you play a templar and get a massive on demand heal...

So that means gear sets should be useless?

Even my stamina templar doesn't use it, it gives up too much compared to hundings etc.

Or what about magicka dk? How are they supposed to burst shields down? With DoTs?

Critable shields without stacking would be op and you´d have to BUFF shields to compensate for that.
Reduced shields would only help stamina builds who *should not have a problem against them in the first place (as stacking is mainly a magica thing).

The only balanced approach would be removing stacking of shields entirely alongside with a rework of harness + healing ward. Afterwards have a look if the sorc shield is truely onbalanced.

Artheiron

Yes it should scale of health like 'every other class'

before 1.7 yes. now they totally screwed up the class balance. I'd wait until spellcrafting's release for discussing these stuff.

Tankqull

Artheiron wrote: »

before 1.7 yes. now they totally screwed up the class balance. I'd wait until spellcrafting's release for discussing these stuff.

this game is brought offline before spellcrafting will be implmented
it´ll be a balancing nightmare - and their lack of mathskills proven by previous updates does not make me anticipate it either...

Ezareth

No...

Yeah Spellcrafting is a pipe dream. Just look at how many balance issues were introduced by removing soft and hard caps from the system. Spell crafting is just not feasible in a game with no caps and no real cooldowns on abilities.

Secondly, let me say this about Harness magicka. I normally run vMSA with only Hardened Ward. When I die it is almost always an insta-gib through my hardened ward and health bar in one go. I decided to add Harness magicka to my bar for the final boss and WOW was it a joke. I was actually *making* magicka by using that shield. It's been a long time since I've looked at the scaling on harness and I haven't really used it since 1.5 when it was absurdly OP.

Harness Magicka costs me 3024 Magicka with a character that has no cost reduction enchants and only has 5 pieces of light armor. It returns to me *1800* magicka each hit it takes which means that every time I cast it and stack it with Hardened Ward I'm actually getting 2400 Magicka and a free shield that absorbs 19,000 damage for casting it. I normally have to carefully conserve my magicka for that fight and use a lot of heavy attacks at times but last night I was full magicka the entire time (with only 905 magicka regen).

*This* is what is broken and what really needs fixed. . If I were wearing 7/7 Light armor my Harness would be returning over *double* what it cost me.

I honestly don't think stamina players right now are having a huge problem facing an equally skilled sorc, only magicka builds and this I feel is the #1 issue.

Maulkin

No...

Ezareth wrote: »

I honestly don't think stamina players right now are having a huge problem facing an equally skilled sorc, only magicka builds and this I feel is the #1 issue.

Not only do they not have huge problems, it's the opposite. We're having a duel tourney in 10 days in EU and I'm wondering if I should even bother bringing the Sorc to it. With so many skillful stamblades and stam DKs that have incorporated shield breaker into already extremely strong builds.... it's most likely to end in embarrassing defeats.

Derra

No...

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

I honestly don't think stamina players right now are having a huge problem facing an equally skilled sorc, only magicka builds and this I feel is the #1 issue.

Not only do they not have huge problems, it's the opposite. We're having a duel tourney in 10 days in EU and I'm wondering if I should even bother bringing the Sorc to it. With so many skillful stamblades and stam DKs that have incorporated shield breaker into already extremely strong builds.... it's most likely to end in embarrassing defeats.

This ^ along with the fact that switching skills/gear before/between duels is alowed makes me not participate. It´s just wrong. Against someone competent with shieldbreaker you have to use LOS. But LOSing is not allowed while switching gear/skills according to opponents class is? - Bullcr*p if you´re asking me.

Inb4 every stam player equipping shieldbreaker + defensive stance against every magica sorc.

dodgehopper_ESO

Yes it should scale of health like 'every other class'

Derra wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

I honestly don't think stamina players right now are having a huge problem facing an equally skilled sorc, only magicka builds and this I feel is the #1 issue.

Not only do they not have huge problems, it's the opposite. We're having a duel tourney in 10 days in EU and I'm wondering if I should even bother bringing the Sorc to it. With so many skillful stamblades and stam DKs that have incorporated shield breaker into already extremely strong builds.... it's most likely to end in embarrassing defeats.

This ^ along with the fact that switching skills/gear before/between duels is alowed makes me not participate. It´s just wrong. Against someone competent with shieldbreaker you have to use LOS. But LOSing is not allowed while switching gear/skills according to opponents class is? - Bullcr*p if you´re asking me.

Inb4 every stam player equipping shieldbreaker + defensive stance against every magica sorc.

Shieldbreaker shouldn't have been their solution to begin with.

Derra

No...

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

I honestly don't think stamina players right now are having a huge problem facing an equally skilled sorc, only magicka builds and this I feel is the #1 issue.

Not only do they not have huge problems, it's the opposite. We're having a duel tourney in 10 days in EU and I'm wondering if I should even bother bringing the Sorc to it. With so many skillful stamblades and stam DKs that have incorporated shield breaker into already extremely strong builds.... it's most likely to end in embarrassing defeats.

This ^ along with the fact that switching skills/gear before/between duels is alowed makes me not participate. It´s just wrong. Against someone competent with shieldbreaker you have to use LOS. But LOSing is not allowed while switching gear/skills according to opponents class is? - Bullcr*p if you´re asking me.

Inb4 every stam player equipping shieldbreaker + defensive stance against every magica sorc.

Shieldbreaker shouldn't have been their solution to begin with.

Well it´s something i´ve learned to deal with - but i need to utilize terrain.

Not going to make a fool of myself in a setting where i´m not allowed to

Sentinel

Yes it should scale of health like 'every other class'

@Ezareth

Say, for example, hardened ward was changed to provide a shield equal to 55% of your health given to you and your summoned creatures, the shield additionally being 30% stronger on you. It is effectively 70% of your total health being given as a shield. If one has 20k health (which I'd say is average), then the shield provided would be something like 14.3k outside of Cyrodiil. Would this effectively destroy sorcerers viability and balance?

Making the % health scaling = to other classes health shields isn't the way to go. As was said, ward is a sorc's main form of up- front defense, and the class does not have much other healing to go for it. Therefore, its % health it covers should be much more than other classes %health shields.

If, say, shields did scale to health, what would be the best value so as to be in line with the current defensive capabilities of Sorcs in your opinion? Would the fact that health scaling shields not being affected terribly by the power creep instilled with VR & CP level caps, unlike our current form in which the power creep benefits a shield based off of max magicka, be considered too harsh a nerf? I look at total class based balance, and tbh, if power creep could be taken away again through softcaps and/or smarter class building (such as making a choice between offensive vs defensive rather than stacking into one to get both), then this would be just one step in the right direction.

Tankqull

Sentinel wrote: »

@Ezareth

Say, for example, hardened ward was changed to provide a shield equal to 55% of your health given to you and your summoned creatures, the shield additionally being 30% stronger on you. It is effectively 70% of your total health being given as a shield. If one has 20k health (which I'd say is average), then the shield provided would be something like 14.3k outside of Cyrodiil. Would this effectively destroy sorcerers viability and balance?

Making the % health scaling = to other classes health shields isn't the way to go. As was said, ward is a sorc's main form of up- front defense, and the class does not have much other healing to go for it. Therefore, its % health it covers should be much more than other classes %health shields.

If, say, shields did scale to health, what would be the best value so as to be in line with the current defensive capabilities of Sorcs in your opinion? Would the fact that health scaling shields not being affected terribly by the power creep instilled with VR & CP level caps, unlike our current form in which the power creep benefits a shield based off of max magicka, be considered too harsh a nerf? I look at total class based balance, and tbh, if power creep could be taken away again through softcaps and/or smarter class building (such as making a choice between offensive vs defensive rather than stacking into one to get both), then this would be just one step in the right direction.

well as it is the main, and shields in general are the only way of defending on a sorc it needs to prevent atleast from one attackround respectively more when you count additional attackers to it - so it should contain sth like the templar shield beeing increased by the nubers off attackers to keep sorcs viable in a crowded situation or BE needs to be rebuffed to allow sorcs to get out of the thick again (or gapclosers significantly nerfed)
having that in mind the average (uncrit) 2h attack round is sth like 7k+ WB + 3-7(if dk) heavyattack weaved into it. so it must provide atleast 10k in pvp. the problem though is the more cps player have the weaker shields become as it is rather quick to have bastion capped but it takes some time for a DD to have all its dmg increasing CPs capped...

Derra

No...

Sentinel wrote: »

@Ezareth

Say, for example, hardened ward was changed to provide a shield equal to 55% of your health given to you and your summoned creatures, the shield additionally being 30% stronger on you. It is effectively 70% of your total health being given as a shield. If one has 20k health (which I'd say is average), then the shield provided would be something like 14.3k outside of Cyrodiil. Would this effectively destroy sorcerers viability and balance?

Making the % health scaling = to other classes health shields isn't the way to go. As was said, ward is a sorc's main form of up- front defense, and the class does not have much other healing to go for it. Therefore, its % health it covers should be much more than other classes %health shields.

If, say, shields did scale to health, what would be the best value so as to be in line with the current defensive capabilities of Sorcs in your opinion? Would the fact that health scaling shields not being affected terribly by the power creep instilled with VR & CP level caps, unlike our current form in which the power creep benefits a shield based off of max magicka, be considered too harsh a nerf? I look at total class based balance, and tbh, if power creep could be taken away again through softcaps and/or smarter class building (such as making a choice between offensive vs defensive rather than stacking into one to get both), then this would be just one step in the right direction.

The only thing this would change is reducing build variety (in terms of gear) a lot for sorcs and reduce dmg output a tiny bit (~5 to 10% on min max builds).
In addition you would see atrocities with shieldsizes on tankbuilds you can only dream of now in pvp. In the ballpark of 20k+ instant cast shields.

Edit: In addition it would make skills like bound aegis completely unattractive and they´re already relatively niche.

Ezareth

No...

Sentinel wrote: »

@Ezareth

Say, for example, hardened ward was changed to provide a shield equal to 55% of your health given to you and your summoned creatures, the shield additionally being 30% stronger on you. It is effectively 70% of your total health being given as a shield. If one has 20k health (which I'd say is average), then the shield provided would be something like 14.3k outside of Cyrodiil. Would this effectively destroy sorcerers viability and balance?

Making the % health scaling = to other classes health shields isn't the way to go. As was said, ward is a sorc's main form of up- front defense, and the class does not have much other healing to go for it. Therefore, its % health it covers should be much more than other classes %health shields.

If, say, shields did scale to health, what would be the best value so as to be in line with the current defensive capabilities of Sorcs in your opinion? Would the fact that health scaling shields not being affected terribly by the power creep instilled with VR & CP level caps, unlike our current form in which the power creep benefits a shield based off of max magicka, be considered too harsh a nerf? I look at total class based balance, and tbh, if power creep could be taken away again through softcaps and/or smarter class building (such as making a choice between offensive vs defensive rather than stacking into one to get both), then this would be just one step in the right direction.

Even though the name of this thread is that very question I think you're asking the wrong question.

What is it about Sorc's shields currently that you feel necessitates a change? Many people have been parroting around these various ideas and catch phrases for some time and I think people have really lost site of whatever the root of the real problem may be.

Does a max shield max magicka sorc do too much damage? In my experience as this very Sorc I don't find this to be the case.

Is a Sorc too survivable right now? Once again I don't find this to be the case as I know other top players from other classes who are *more* survivable than I am right now.

Do you know that *Healing Ward* right now scales off of health? And that by changing Hardened Ward to health, you'd end up giving us insanely large healing wards relative to what we have now.

I think as others and I have pointed out the benefits of Shield stacking are the things that need fixed before you should consider changing the primary sorc defense.

If a single spammable damage ability every exceeds the spammable shield value then Sorcs are simply dead meat.90% of my deaths in PVP happen while I still have over half of my magika. This alone should tell you that if hardened ward was too strong then I would be dying with 0 magicka from spamming it instead.

Sentinel

Yes it should scale of health like 'every other class'

@Ezareth
My issue is not about sorcs being OP as people tend to assume voting 'yes' on this topic would imply. I am under the impression that the state in which the game balances its classes is a bit unsteady; Classes are balanced for the situation in which they are in at the moment, and often times these bandaids become more permanent as ZOS continually changed the game (The 'bandaid' I refer to is the nerfs to skills/game mechanics as a result of promoting balance due to the inclusion of the progressive power creep that is the Champion System, such things as the block nerf, dodge nerf, streak, etc).

You could say I have a long term agenda in mind, which I really do. I should specify that I wouldn't quite want this change to be implemented immediately; I would want it in conjunction with many other changes to class balance, and combat balance.

I wish for the game to have a stronger diversity of builds available to all people, and one main 'pro' of health scale-able shields is that not just magicka sorcs will have this utility to be optimal, it will allow stamina builds to have something unique of their own in sorcerer, something that will having been made better the past few updates, could still use some love.

The other part of this, is that I would love to see a build to have an equal choice between offensive and defensive stats to choose from that both, in their function, do not overpower or under power one another. In a nutshell, allow a players build to be more of a spectrum, with tank on one side and glass cannon on the other. What we have now with almost all classes (almost... not all) is that moving towards the glass cannon side of the spectrum also benefits and raises the tankiness side as well, which completely narrows builds into a pinpoint of what is and what isn't viable. This style of gameplay does not employ diversity, it merely asks how high you can push your main offensive stats.

So, this is not a change I'd want immediately. There are many other things that would need to be adjusted, and my ideologies are likely a bit too far fetched for the current game system. But this is a change that I believe will help build diversity, if given the framework behind it (Shield breaker would likely have to be removed/changed)...

I would ask you to please respond to my earlier prompt however, as most of your post seemed to evade it.

In response to:

'Do you know that *Healing Ward* right now scales off of health? And that by changing Hardened Ward to health, you'd end up giving us insanely large healing wards relative to what we have now.'

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted this but... Someone who builds for max health as a sorc with this change would have access to much higher healing wards as well as hardened wards, yes. Under the ideology I've already discussed, this would come with an inherent neglect to damage orientated stats, and thus gives somewhat of a spectrum for someone to build their stats.

If what you're stating is that, someone who currently has 20k health and afterwards still has it, that the change to hardened ward (say, with more or less the same shield value as before) would somehow buff healing ward, how so?

Xeven

No...

It's psychological. People can't immediately see a sorcs health go down after they hit them, and it is extremely disturbing. In their mind, the ability simply MUST be over powered. It gets under their skin. It festers and slowly drives them mad until they rage google the forums and create threads like this one.

Your average spell damage sorc has a 10k hardened ward. That means if they do absolutely zero damage and spend every single global cool down on hardened ward, they can mitigate 10k dps while cc immune. If you cc them once every 8 seconds, their effective damage mitigation becomes 8.75k dps. Let me remind you that this means they are absolutely no threat to anyone. They are spending every single global cooldown on hardened ward.

Compare this mitigated dps to ANY other class. You will find that not only is their effective dps mitigation equal to or better than sorcerer, but that they can also DO DAMAGE at the same time.

Anyone complaining specifically about hardened ward is either brainwashed, misinformed, or has serious L2P issues. There really is no nice way to say it.

Hexys

No...

Derra wrote: »

Well it´s something i´ve learned to deal with - but i need to utilize terrain.

Not going to make a fool of myself in a setting where i´m not allowed to

5/5 Willow's Path, 5/5 Permafrost and 1 Kena seems nice

Edit: stambuilds won't break Harness so enjoy the insane permanent health recovery. Then you have power surge and maybe slot rapid regen.

Derra

No...

Hexys wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Well it´s something i´ve learned to deal with - but i need to utilize terrain.

Not going to make a fool of myself in a setting where i´m not allowed to

5/5 Willow's Path, 5/5 Permafrost and 1 Kena seems nice

Edit: stambuilds won't break Harness so enjoy the insane permanent health recovery. Then you have power surge and maybe slot rapid regen.

I´d do sth as silly as that - but 5 permafrost with all three jewelry pieces? I´ve completed the arena three times and it drove me nuts already ._.

Hexys

No...

Derra wrote: »

Hexys wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Well it´s something i´ve learned to deal with - but i need to utilize terrain.

Not going to make a fool of myself in a setting where i´m not allowed to

5/5 Willow's Path, 5/5 Permafrost and 1 Kena seems nice

Edit: stambuilds won't break Harness so enjoy the insane permanent health recovery. Then you have power surge and maybe slot rapid regen.

I´d do sth as silly as that - but 5 permafrost with all three jewelry pieces? I´ve completed the arena three times and it drove me nuts already ._.

I got the maelstrom shield with permafrost aswell

Ezareth

No...

Sentinel wrote: »

'Do you know that *Healing Ward* right now scales off of health? And that by changing Hardened Ward to health, you'd end up giving us insanely large healing wards relative to what we have now.'

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted this but... Someone who builds for max health as a sorc with this change would have access to much higher healing wards as well as hardened wards, yes. Under the ideology I've already discussed, this would come with an inherent neglect to damage orientated stats, and thus gives somewhat of a spectrum for someone to build their stats.

If what you're stating is that, someone who currently has 20k health and afterwards still has it, that the change to hardened ward (say, with more or less the same shield value as before) would somehow buff healing ward, how so?

The objective of scaling Hardened Ward off of health instead of magicka is to force a sorc to choose between lowering their damage in order to increase survivability or lose survivability in order to maintain the highest damage. I understand players who look at this single aspect and think that.

Interestingly enough I just tested healing ward and it no longer scales off of health. I'm not sure when this change was made but apparently it only scales off of magicka now as well. That makes all 3 shields scale off of magicka although the healing ward only increased by a .115 magicka coefficient while Hardened ward increased by a .447 coefficient.

Hexys wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Hexys wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Well it´s something i´ve learned to deal with - but i need to utilize terrain.

Not going to make a fool of myself in a setting where i´m not allowed to

5/5 Willow's Path, 5/5 Permafrost and 1 Kena seems nice

Edit: stambuilds won't break Harness so enjoy the insane permanent health recovery. Then you have power surge and maybe slot rapid regen.

I´d do sth as silly as that - but 5 permafrost with all three jewelry pieces? I´ve completed the arena three times and it drove me nuts already ._.

I got the maelstrom shield with permafrost aswell

That is actually one of the builds I'm planning on playing around with. 3 Jewelry + shield + heavy armor chest Permafrost.

Lucky28

No...

Ezareth wrote: »

Sentinel wrote: »

'Do you know that *Healing Ward* right now scales off of health? And that by changing Hardened Ward to health, you'd end up giving us insanely large healing wards relative to what we have now.'

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted this but... Someone who builds for max health as a sorc with this change would have access to much higher healing wards as well as hardened wards, yes. Under the ideology I've already discussed, this would come with an inherent neglect to damage orientated stats, and thus gives somewhat of a spectrum for someone to build their stats.

If what you're stating is that, someone who currently has 20k health and afterwards still has it, that the change to hardened ward (say, with more or less the same shield value as before) would somehow buff healing ward, how so?

The objective of scaling Hardened Ward off of health instead of magicka is to force a sorc to choose between lowering their damage in order to increase survivability or lose survivability in order to maintain the highest damage. I understand players who look at this single aspect and think that.

Interestingly enough I just tested healing ward and it no longer scales off of health. I'm not sure when this change was made but apparently it only scales off of magicka now as well. That makes all 3 shields scale off of magicka although the healing ward only increased by a .115 magicka coefficient while Hardened ward increased by a .447 coefficient.

Sorc shields scaling off health i think would just be a *** idea mostly because of the CP system, it favors Magic Defense greatly over physical, our wards and the ability to focus on Magicka compensates for that. if we were forced to dump points in Health we'd never kill anything and just die all the time.