Detailed Explanation of Block Cost Changes

Armitas

Ok. I have a had enough time to let this sink in....

When I heard heavy armor was going to be buffed I got excited. This is not what I expected though. The constitution was rebalanced around the new costs, and Wrath was a flat trade. The only real buff was health and inc healing. That really wasn't what I was expecting. I wasn't expecting to have to make a sacrifice for buffs that were justified on their own. This whole process seems like an enormous project just to give "sturdy" a purpose. It doesn't seem primarily for the sake of tanking, or the sake of heavy armor wearers. It seems primarily to be a means to an end for the sturdy trait.

You see I PvP in this heavy armor. The mDK has had most of it's survival gutted so I retreated into heavy armor to get what I should be getting from the class. I never permablocked but I did brake my damage with short bursts of blocking. Now I will have to sacrifice crit resistance traits for block reduction. When just about everyone in cyrodiil is running around with at least 30% armor penetration crit resistance becomes one of the most important parts of your defense.

Lets think about the effects these changes have on PvP and add some crit resistance to heavy armor to make up for the loss. It will only help in PvP. And if you can please do something about the enormous amount of armor penetration in Cyrodiil that easily negates the entire purpose of Heavy Armor.

Throw us a bone here. You are giving stam builds perma-dodge rolls now, shields on top of that which already has shuffle and snare immunity. At least give us some actual defense that isn't completely destroyed the minute you enter cyrodiil.

Personofsecrets

zerosingularity wrote: »

Just ran some numbers. With 3 block cost jewelry, 7 heavy and full Block Reduction CP, things balance out between live and DB. This is what is shown in the above post.

If we take a 5/1/1 setup with 2 block cost jewelry and ~10% reduction from CP, it does NOT balance out, the resource drain is greater. Substantially. After constitution is factored in, we get 759 (with the setup I just mentioned) vs on live 625 block cost. The above setup would need about 4 gold Sturdy pieces to break even (16% reduction using the posted formula), which is losing 4 Reinforced/Divines pieces. Just food for thought.

and it's for that reason that the health buff to Heavy Armor is small potatoes. we might have to wear 7 heavy armor in the future and that mean losing undaunted passive stats and even spell cost reduction amongst other losses

Personofsecrets

Woeler wrote: »

Seems like there was a lot of drama over nothing then. My gut feeling on the pts wasn't that far off after all.

Your "gut feeling," might have been right, but if you read and understand the full scope of the OP post by @Wrobel and this post by @Asayre , then you will come to understand why the "drama" is spot on.

You seemed to understand what the drama was over when you wrote the following post that 20 other people agreed with

Woeler wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS, BASE GAME PATCH

Champion System

• The Steed
  • Block Expertise:
    • Renamed this Champion ability to Shadow Ward.
    • This Champion ability has been switched with the Elusive ability from The Shadow constellation.
• The Shadow
  • Elusive:
    • Renamed this Champion ability to Ironclad.
    • This Champion ability has been switched with the Block Expertise ability from The Steed constellation.

What the actual ***? And if you have to make this completely unnecessary change, at least move shield expert with it. This change really falls under the "If it ain't broken, lets break it!" mentality.

Somehow the developer post has pulled the wool back over your eyes, but I hope you understand now why I was asking about your build that you said to not feel a big difference between live and PTS while using. It isn't because I was just being belittling, but because I thought it showed us a bigger picture of how exactly the changes acted as nerfs.

It turns out that your build, with block cost reduction numbers close to what @Wrobel bases his calculations off of, but are far from optimal due to diminished returns within the block cost reduction stat, it turns out that your build is biased towards not feeling the full impact of the resource nerfs that have occurred.

That is why there was some skepticism about your gut feeling - your inherent bias would be to find that the changes are not a big deal.

Turelus

Thanks so much for this post Eric.

This is exactly what myself and many others have been asking for over the last couple of years. I really hope we see more work from you all like this so we can bother understand your thinking and help you understand our problems with your workings going forward.

Personofsecrets

laced wrote: »

Lets also not forget that you guys implemented non CP campaigns into PVP, which just so happen to be the most popular ones in the EU, and this whole focusing on CP in order to block is just hurting the campaign that YOU implemented.

@ZOS_RichLambert , the problem with sweeping changes such as the ones that are being, besides that they are nerfs, is the collateral damage.

None of these changes have to happen. If they do, then they will impact many players in a negative way (unless we use sturdy, a bunch of CP into block expertise, 3 block-cost reduction jewelry, and 7/7 heavy armor it turns out). I hope that you see these incoming changes are sort of similar to the stamina regeneration while block nerf and that you have some mercy on us the day before DB launch.

Liofa

We still didn't get any response to the increased base block cost . Will you increase it or not ? In the patch notes it says ''increased slightly'' for core mechanics ( block , roll dodge , CC break etc. ) We know that skill costs increased by around 10% even though 4.2.0 Patch Notes say ''Most abilities will cost about the same'' . Is this going to happen to block cost as well ? If it is , you will have to write all those equations again , I am afraid . Give us a clear answer so we can start theorycrafting and testing in PTS accordingly .

You are going to release the DLC end of this month , right ? I think you must already have decided if you are going to increase block cost or not .

Woeler

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Woeler wrote: »

Seems like there was a lot of drama over nothing then. My gut feeling on the pts wasn't that far off after all.

Your "gut feeling," might have been right, but if you read and understand the full scope of the OP post by @Wrobel and this post by @Asayre , then you will come to understand why the "drama" is spot on.

You seemed to understand what the drama was over when you wrote the following post that 20 other people agreed with

Woeler wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS, BASE GAME PATCH

Champion System

• The Steed
  • Block Expertise:
    • Renamed this Champion ability to Shadow Ward.
    • This Champion ability has been switched with the Elusive ability from The Shadow constellation.
• The Shadow
  • Elusive:
    • Renamed this Champion ability to Ironclad.
    • This Champion ability has been switched with the Block Expertise ability from The Steed constellation.

What the actual ***? And if you have to make this completely unnecessary change, at least move shield expert with it. This change really falls under the "If it ain't broken, lets break it!" mentality.

Somehow the developer post has pulled the wool back over your eyes, but I hope you understand now why I was asking about your build that you said to not feel a big difference between live and PTS while using. It isn't because I was just being belittling, but because I thought it showed us a bigger picture of how exactly the changes acted as nerfs.

It turns out that your build, with block cost reduction numbers close to what @Wrobel bases his calculations off of, but are far from optimal due to diminished returns within the block cost reduction stat, it turns out that your build is biased towards not feeling the full impact of the resource nerfs that have occurred.

That is why there was some skepticism about your gut feeling - your inherent bias would be to find that the changes are not a big deal.

And I got an explanation from @Wrobel, and I'm satisfied with that explanation. I sadly also have to mention that that particular post you quoted was kind of in the heat of the moment. Now that I read it back it's quite shameful actually. They are evaluating the CP changes, thinking about moving shield expert. I can see this all working out, at least for me. It may well be that my build is not optimal (well that is until the 31st), but it has served me well the last few months. However, if playing with a block cost enchant makes me biased in favour of this change, doesn't not playing with such enchants make you biased against this change? Or can we just agree that different play styles create different opinions?

Oh, right, and do me a favour. If you feel the need to reply to my general comments, lose the attitude, will you? It will then at least simulate the effect that two people with different opinions can have a decent conversation.

Panth141

Asayre wrote: »

Thank you @Wrobel for the detailed explanation. I've a few comments

Typo

Wrobel wrote: »

Constitution gives 247 stamina every 4 seconds, which equates to 43 every half second.

I think you meant

Constitution gives 346 stamina every 4 seconds, which equates to 43 every half second.

And this is with 7 pieces of Heavy Armour.

Block Cost Formula
You suggest that the block cost formula on the PTS is

I would instead suggest

I compared both models to the block cost on the PTS and found my proposed formula to be slightly more accurate. I’ve included video evidence showing the block cost on the PTS for 0, 1 and 7 pieces of Sturdy (https://sendvid.com/o29cfk6c). There is some rounding to 3 significant figures going on with the base cost of 2160, the Sturdy part and Shadow Ward so I have to figure out a more accurate formula.


Stamina Loss on Block
Using your method of comparing stamina loss on block on Live and on PTS, I’ve extended to include a wider span of parameters. I used the following equations to draw the plots below. I used the following to determine the stamina loss on block and plotted the difference for a range of parameters.



In the image above, I'm showing slices corresponding to 0, 1, 2 and 3 purple block cost enchantments when wearing 7 pieces of Heavy Armour. The colour scale used changes at around 0 to accentuate the changeover. With 7 pieces of Heavy Armour, I find that unless a lot of block cost mitigation is used or with a low rate of attacks per second the stamina loss on the PTS is greater than on Live. This is even more true when considering 5 pieces of Heavy Armour, where the stamina loss on PTS is almost always greater than on Live. Due to the altered ability cost formula, 5 pieces of Heavy Armour is more strongly preferred as cost reduction from Light and Medium Armour are more valuable (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/262631/impact-of-change-in-ability-cost-formula-on-pts-gameplay). So I would argue that 5 pieces of Heavy Armour should be considered instead of 7. It also leads me to the conclusion that my block cost will be higher on the PTS than on Live, if I keep using the same gear.

But I do like the changes to the Sturdy trait as it will now be a reasonable idea to use Sturdy on small pieces instead of Infused as I'll be trading 81 Health or 70 Magicka/Stamina for somewhere between 30-50 stamina block cost reduction.

Clarification on average ability cost

Wrobel wrote: »

The average ability cost is 2700 resources.

Could you provide more explanation for this number? I created a histogram of the cost of all magicka based abilities with a non-trivial cost and came up with the following

The mean magicka cost is 3259 and the median is 3166. This is from Live. On the PTS, my testing suggest that the base cost of all abilities has increased by 10.8% meaning that mean is 3610 and the median is 3508. If I were to just consider some iconic tanking abilities the cost on Live and PTS are:


Increased ability cost
It seems that the base ability cost has increased by 10.8% on the PTS. It is not clear whether this is factored in when you discussed the Champion system.

Edit:
Bonus graphs, how many pieces of Sturdy do you need to have roughly the same stamina loss on block as on Live

Negative 1 here means you're already better off in DB than on Live and no Sturdy is required.

Great post, @Asayre

Sorry to throw another request at you, but:

Could you re-run the three-variable model with a constant value for Shadow Ward (perhaps 75) and @Wrobel suggestion of 1 piece sturdy, but instead vary the resource return from the constitution passive along your current Shadow Ward axis? Perhaps buffing the stamina return by 5% per division to show how much more resource return would be required to give some semblance of Live-PTS balance. Ideally, as you state, this should be run for both 7 and 5 piece heavy.

The reason I suggest this is the fact that - as the constitution buff is a new change - I feel that it would make sense that that this may require some tweaking to have the desired effect.

The changes to the champion points look like they will make tanks tankier, though - as others have noted - this may be at the expense of other passive boosts, such as regen/ability cost reduction, in the Thief constellations.

Also, noting your points on the disparity between @Wrobel quoted magicka ability values and your suggestions, buffing constitution a little more somewhat mitigate this cost increase. It would also show the effect of the Black Rose set and its innate buff to constitution

Just wanted to also add my voice to the others stating that this kind of dev communication is fantastic.

Jar_Ek

@Wrobel Please do the same treatment for all highly controversial changes such as ward changes.

On topic, what about the non dedicated tanks that have a hybrid champion point setup and switch between dps and tanking. How do they fair with the changes?

jeeves3krwb17_ESO

Wrobel wrote: »

Live - Warrior
100 Block Expertise – 25% Block Cost Reduction.
33 Hardy – 11.5% Reduced Poison, Disease, and Physical Damage.
34 Elemental Defender – 11.8% Reduced Flame, Frost, Shock, and Magic Damage.
Unique unlocks the PTS build does not have (Invigorating Bash, Phase, Shield Expert)

Live - Thief
100 Warlord – 16% Cost Reduction Stamina abilities
67 Magician – 12.6% Cost Reduction Magicka abilities
Unique unlocks the PTS build does not have (Mara’s Gift, War Mount)

PTS - Warrior
83 Hardy – 21.9% Reduced Poison, Disease, and Physical Damage reduction.
84 Elemental Defender – 22.1% Reduced Flame, Frost, Shock, and Magic Damage.
Unique unlocks the Live build does not have (Critical Leech, Unchained)

PTS - Thief
100 Block Expertise – 25% Block Cost Reduction.
67 Warlord - 12.6% Cost Reduction Stamina abilities.
Unique unlocks the Live build does not have (Fortune Seeker, Merchant Favored, Treasure Hunter)

[/list]

Thanks for taking the time to make this thread. I appreciate the effort and time you have put in to it, however, I believe your comments do not adequately reflect how I and a lot of other tanks play.

Personally I tank on both my Templar and DK and favour magicka over stamina as a priority. This even equates to absolutely 0 stacking of stamina stats, regen or cost reduction abilities. The strength of my tanking (especially on the DK) requires the absolute minimum of stamina skill use (other than heroic slash / shuffle) allowing the pool to be free for blocking.

On my DK I have 18k stamina which is generated purely by tri-stat food and haejko enchantments, I don't place a single stat point into stamina. I can currently hold block 100% of the time and restore all the stamina I need with pots, and the helping hands and battle roar class passives on my DK.

By moving Block reduc cost to the Thief trees you are robbing me of 100 CP into magicka regeneration / magicka cost reduction abilities, in effect severely reducing the efficiency of my build. Reducing my current ability to manage my magicka effectively 'nerfs' my ability to taunt, generate ultimate, restore stamina, heal, CC - heck everything. Instead it means I can use less support abilities and will have to save proportionally more of my magicka to cast earthen heart abilities to restore stamina..... how exciting that is.

I understand you have increased the constitution passive to try and rectify this, but lets be honest.... barely anyone wears 7 heavy armour. I can reach max resistance in light armour (most people wear 5/1/1) so your 'fix' based on constitution doesn't add anywhere as much benefit as you think it does...

On that basis I kindly ask you to stop changing things.

(I think the majority of the tank community agrees with me that while we appreciate the effort, please leave us alone and forget we exist)

Kind Regards

A Magicka Tank.

Hutch679

Kwivur wrote: »

Or we can up the CP cap to 601 and be done with this.

601 isn't divisible by 3... It would have to be 600 or 603

Kwivur

Hutch679 wrote: »

Kwivur wrote: »

Or we can up the CP cap to 601 and be done with this.

601 isn't divisible by 3... It would have to be 600 or 603

Whatever.. Just up the cap.

Deltia

I dislike the change and feel it should be back in the other tree. However, these are the type of explanation players want when something mechanical changes in the game (.5 second block cost). Please, please continue to give us this type of information regardless if we agree or not.

Rex-Umbra

Great job Wrobel, thanks for explaining this thoroughly.

TheBull

Better Wrobel. You have a lot make up though.

Electroheadz

I would like to just post my a bit modified quote from another thread. Mostly from a PVP perspective but not entirely:

"I know i am repeating myself here but i feel i have to point it out again:

1. Getting a strong shield does not require to hinder Your damage since they come along with Your primary stat so there are no downsides of using it.
2. Unlike blocking, when You cast a shield You do not lose Your regeneration.
3. When You cast a shield You gain 100% damage mitigation for a set amount of time.
4. Unlike blocking, when You cast a shield You retain 100% of Your mobility
5. Some abilities will make You drop Your block and leave You open to incoming damage - unlike casting a shield on Yourself and not worrying about anything like that.
6. Shields cannot be crited."

Also:

"They are killing variety with each patch. Only cookie cutter builds will be viable. The differences not only between roles but between classes are slowly fading. Stamina, magicka, DK or Sorc it does not matter now. Everyone will run with damage shields and stack deeps+regen.

You all probably know that players are already waiting 30+ min in queues just to get into dungeons or do dailies cause there is a tank shortage atm. But this problem is just slowly piling up. ZOS will sooner or later feel the impact of new players not coming into this game and vets leaving. If things keep going like that for tanks next thing will be a "playerbase shortage" and then it will be a tad bit too late cause there won't be anybody to waste their time on forums or PTS trying to resolve issues made by devs. Just my 2 cents."


To summarize it all now:

Spamming strong heals, casting large damage shields, ability to dodge more often, having great regen numbers, having high damage output - all of these benefits can be achieved simply by being a DPS . There are LITERALLY no downsides of being a damage dealer in this game. And with Annulment and Bone shield changes ? Hah ! Don't get me even started.

Mgicka DPS ? Cast that shield and heal and hope You burst down that other dps.

Stamina DPS ? Keep dodging, spam a heal and now ALSO cast a shield if needed. And of course better burst that target.

And what about Tank ? No regen, small heals, just hold that block and wait to be killed in that 7 gold pieces heavy armored coffin.

It will just be a burst damage/heal contest until one person makes a mistakes smashing buttons or gets latency problem.

caperon

[snip] Asayre At least we would have a developer that knows maths and know the real costs of the skills. [snip]

[edited for flaming]

Flaming? Its not my fault that wrobel balance sweeps are more dangerous that a monkey with guns and should be fired. And the numbers in wroble calcs are not consistent with the patch notes nor the average skill costs. Get your *** together ZOS.

Rickter

It looks like hes saying tanks should be magicka tanks. Seriously no trolling. He continuously goes on about how youre getting more magicka, and youll have more magicka for ​defenses


Idk overall i can now finally see his reasoning. Which is what i was harping on about earlier that they made an out of left field change and didnt explain it. This actually makes more sense


Looks like blocking isnt going to actually cost that much more BUT the skill cost is going to hurt. Bad. How does wrobel think tanking works in this game? Like, does he think tanks generally only tank 2-3 things in a pull of 8 or more?


The problem isnt block cost. The problem is the skill cost to grab/ hold/ survive/ dps the enemies, AND THEN have the stamina to be able to block.


From a DK 5 med 2 heavy perspective with 34k stam, 18k mag - Throw out 5 inner fires, a vigor, 2-3 steel tornadoes and youre below 25% stam. Hit igneous shields, obsidian shard, whatever earthen heart skill 4 times and youre out of magicka and all that did was keep your head above water so youre still below 25% stam and then you have to block.

If ZOS really wants tanks to go down this route, then they just need to put a massive skill cost reduction passive in the 1h/shield tree and disable it while in cyro


or like @Kwivur aptly said in the thread: "just increase CP to 601 and be done with it"

Armitas

americansteel wrote: »

mentions balance yet cyrodiil is lop sided by a huge margin.

Nerfed dragon knight and templar drastically since launch and mentions balance.

is zos a learn as we go company or do we have a few experiencied employees?

this game is getting worse by every update.

Yeah the restraint that zos shows for things is completely arbitrary and hypocritical. There is no over all vision of balance. Balance in this game just shows up suddenly with no concern over anything else but what it has in its sights.

Is it balanced that I can get hit from over 40meters away at 70% health and full mitigation for 21k on top of -50% battle spirit damage reduction? Is it balanced that almost everyone in cyrodiil has 0 armor rating even in full heavy armor and shield? Is it balanced that you are giving perma-dodge roll to stam builds on top of these new shields and in addition to shuffle, and snare immunity for an entire defensive package that has no direct counter?

ZOS has no overall interest in balance, what we perceive to be balance from them would more correctly be characterized by the word obsession.

If I'm being unfair, then I'm sorry ZOS, but I can't help but feel this way from the things I see.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Assuming the worst case scenario where you get hit exactly every half second, you only need 1 piece of Sturdy gear equipped to keep the current block costs.

Yea but right now on Live I manage block cost just fine without having to slot Defensive Stance, put 100 CP into block cost reduction, and without using up my jewelry enchants on block cost. Because of the current Bracing passive, I can focus my CP and jewelry enchants on spell damage and magicka cost reduction/regen, which actually helps my Argonian magicka NB tank tank by giving me stronger heals and being able to pump out more damage and utility to the group. So now it appears as if I will have to forego all that (as well as bring up the issues stated below) in order to keep roughly the same block cost.

And not only that, given the new changes to CP, I'm going to have to choose between block cost reduction and magicka regen and magicka ability cost reduction, instead of being able to have both as I currently do. He only partly addresses this issue in the paragraph discussing the Magician star. This change especially hurts NB tanks because Siphoning Attacks restores a flat value (a value that will be further diminished now because of the 6% increased cost to all abilities that is coming with the removal of vet ranks), which makes cost reduction very important. Further, this means I'm going to have to pigeonhole my Nightblade into a tank-only role for PvE AND PvP. Currently, I can swap gear to swap roles while keeping CP in constellations that help both roles. Now with block cost reduction in the Green constellation, I will have to sacrifice non-tanking capability and thus my ability to 'play the way I want' (which is often 'play as what is most effective in the situation') in PvP or when doing non-tank PvE.

One of the main problems is that there is no PvE content where tanks truly need to maximize all sources of damage reduction. The resist cap can be reached fairly easily by gear alone, and when combined with blocking is easily enough to tank all content in the game. This means it makes sense to put enchants, traits, and CP into more sustain and DPS-oriented stars, such as regen, cost reduction, damage, etc. Again, this enables players to switch between roles more easily. If there was more actually hard tanking content, and if armor/spell resist wasn't rendered essentially useless in PvP thanks to high damage and penetration values, being able to switch roles wouldn't be as much of a necessity. Either way, right now the changes to the constellations hurt players' ability to change into and out of the tank role.

I also don't know why they are using a character with all legendary gear and 501 CP to explain the changes. ZOS uses the "average player" metric when making changes to PvE content, but then uses elite-level players/gear to map out ability balance. I get the need to look at the upper extreme to combat OP-ness, but doing so disadvantages players who don't have all those resources to min/max everything (which is the vast majority of players).

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

Thanks for the info! Don't have too much time right now to analyze it in detail but a few things to point out or ask. Note that this is mainly coming from the perspective of a stamina DK tank who uses a lot of Magicka abilities and likes to be able to switch out to a DPS role if needed.

• Do your cost analysis include the global +10% increase in abilities? If I lose 67 points in Magician my magicka abilities are 25% more expensive (for example, Igneous goes from ~3200 on live to ~4100 on PTS).
• Losing Magicka/Warlord as a Tank is not a huge deal due to the buff to Constitution as you noted, but more so when I wish to switch to a DPS role. Medium armor means no Constitution and all stamina abilities are 15% more expensive and magicka 25% more. Unfortunately I'm not (yet) rich enough to redo CPs each time I switch roles which is fairly often in some dungeons.
• The 2700 average ability cost seems a little low, especially for a hybrid type build. A lot of my stamina abilities are cheap but as a stamina tank that uses a lot of magic abilities my main concern are those. The Magicka abilities I use as a tank (Ingeous Shields, Choking Talons, Cinder Storm) are all > 3000 magicka on live and are >4000 magicka on PTS without Magician. I believe this means a large net loss in the ability to cast Magicka abilities on PTS (I generall cast more Magicka abilities than stamina as a DK tank), especially when combined with the global +10% ability cost. I'll work out the details when I have time later for comparison with yout calculations.

@Reorx_Holybeard , can you please link the source stating 10% ability increased cost?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/262181/5-7-resource-cost-increase-for-all-my-skills

This person reports it being closer to 6%, but still, that is quite a bit at endgame. And really sucks for classes whose sustain revolves around flat numbers (eg NB's Siphoning Attacks).

Electroheadz

It just occurred to me:

The most simple ideas are the always the best ones right ? So then:

The main reason stamina regen was removed while blocking was due to perma-blocking tanks, block-casting offensive abilities thou they were hard to kill yet they still were able to score kills right ? Then how about this solution to current blocking problem:

1. Return back stamina regeneration back while blocking ( hold Your pitchforks for now ! Just read it all ! )

2. Remove the ability to cancel block-cancel animations while using 1H+S (why only with 1h+s ? To not give other players besides tanks a reason to rage about their animation canceling of course)

3. And here comes the most important part - reduce Your spell/weapon damage by 50% (would need to be adjusted probably) while holding block with 1h+s OR (if animation canceling from point 2 would not be possible to do) reduce Your spell/weapon damage by 50%while holding block with 1h+s and up to 2 seconds (again, adjustments) after releasing it (a sort of Major Debuff to You weapon/spell power).

That would allow Tanks to actually be tanks again and at the same time not being a threat to others while in, let's call it "defensive mode".

That would of course require to probably revert some latest PTS changes but still i think it would be a damn fine solution !

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO

There is one part of this equation that does not add up. Putting 100 points into champion block cost reduction will now cost you a massive loss in stamina regen.

So the calculations does not add up.

Bfish22090

Deltia wrote: »

I dislike the change and feel it should be back in the other tree. However, these are the type of explanation players want when something mechanical changes in the game (.5 second block cost). Please, please continue to give us this type of information regardless if we agree or not.

also i would like to know if this is something that is being implemented in DB or was it in the game forever?

ThatNeonZebraAgain

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO wrote: »

There is one part of this equation that does not add up. Putting 100 points into champion block cost reduction will now cost you a massive loss in stamina regen.

So the calculations does not add up.

This is what I tried to get at in my post above. With the upcoming changes I will have to sacrifice regen (probably the most important passive for PvP, and still a fairly important one for PvE) in order to partially get block cost back to what it is now. This hurts my ability to sustain resources as a tank, as well as hurts me when I have to change to DPS or if I want to PvP. The loss of this regen in favor of block cost reduction isn't discussed in his post.

Arthg

Thanks to the devs for taking the time to explain what they have in mind.

My feeling however is that the changes won't exactly make heavy armour desirable, let alone competitive.
I speak from a PvP perspective, and will readily admit that I have L2P issues and that I'm an average player.

But man, come on! LA wearers can spam shields, MA wearers roll and dodge like there's no tomorrow, all the while hitting like trucks because they're hardly tapping into their main resource...
But us HA wearers... Just get to see our stamina depleted in no time when we block for a few seconds, and possibly manage to hit the enemy with a soaked spaghetto before giving up the ghost.

These fellow players hit the nail on the head IMHO:

Electroheadz wrote: »

There are LITERALLY no downsides of being a damage dealer in this game.

Armitas wrote: »

Is it balanced that I can get hit from over 40meters away at 70% health and full mitigation for 21k on top of -50% battle spirit damage reduction? Is it balanced that almost everyone in cyrodiil has 0 armor rating even in full heavy armor and shield? Is it balanced that you are giving perm-dodge roll to stam builds on top of these new shields and in addition to shuffle, and snare immunity for an entire defensive package that has no direct counter?

PLEASE GIVE HEAVY ARMOUR SOME REAL (as in, REEEAAAL) LOVE.

caperon

You want balance the game? Remove the CP system. Put softcaps. Remove dmg scalling from resources OH WAIT!

Lonesniper

Well lets talk vMoL trial tanking... because that's pretty much the thing you need tanks for.
You put 100 points in block cost reduction and 67 Points in stam cost reduction. That's great, you're tanky. But let's take the 2nd boss, that's where most of the groups struggle.
As a tank you're required to use chains / propelling shield / purge - all skills that cost magica. You won't come far with 0 points in magica cost reduction.
Ok let's take 67 Points in mag cost reduction, you have plenty of stamina anyways and there are templar healers with shards.
So say you've finished the 2nd boss and supposed to switch back to DPS on the last boss (or the first boss to start with).
Oh what's that, you have 0 CP points that help your stam management. Ain't that great.
Ok lets forget about the CP passive, keep the green CP as they were and get the block cost reduction with sturdy traits on the smaller gear. Well what's that, where's my magica gone? Oh wait, all the divine parts that were ampifying my atronach mundus are sturdy now...
Might aswell just go 100 stam cost reduction / 30 stam regen / 37 block cost reduction with sturdy / Infused gear and thief as mundus and tell that annoying raid lead to *** off with their chains / shield / purge because you're "pure stamina tank" now.
Have fun standing there blocking attacks. At least you're more or less decent DPS once you switch your gear back to medium.

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO wrote: »

There is one part of this equation that does not add up. Putting 100 points into champion block cost reduction will now cost you a massive loss in stamina regen.

So the calculations does not add up.

This is what I tried to get at in my post above. With the upcoming changes I will have to sacrifice regen (probably the most important passive for PvP, and still a fairly important one for PvE) in order to partially get block cost back to what it is now. This hurts my ability to sustain resources as a tank, as well as hurts me when I have to change to DPS or if I want to PvP. The loss of this regen in favor of block cost reduction isn't discussed in his post.

Yeah and as any experienced tank knows. Passive defenses are irrelevant compared to resource management and active abilities.

So they are making the effective ability to tank weaker and more dependent on passive abilities which also make tanking a lot more boring to play

Jhunn

So it's quite obvious that 1h/shield PvP builds were not taken into consideration. Another indirect nerf to magicka DKs and templars.

Also shoutout to @Asayre for always astonishing me.