Sun Shield rework… when?

Tyrant_Tim

Billium813 wrote: »

Basically, old Blazing Shield PvP builds were so bad that ZOS nerfed the skill into Oblivion just to make sure it won't happen again and they've never looked back.

Feels like a time-out. Really. 😂

If the skill can’t be buffed to values that make it worth slotting without over-tuning it, it needs to be reworked to do something else entirely, maybe within the same image as an ability that punishes over-aggressors, but in a different way.

mmtaniac

Arcanist have shields that is nice and usefull we have shields that is garbage and useless ,everything is in place it's balanced.

Tyrant_Tim

mmtaniac wrote: »

Arcanist have shields that is nice and usefull we have shields that is garbage and useless ,everything is in place it's balanced.

Right, I brought it up awhile ago, Arcanist has a better Blazing Shield, if the battle spirit problem wasn’t known, that shield wouldn’t send a flat damage reflection and instead reflect a percentage… not to mention the shield has a heal built into it.

Tyrant_Tim

Just edited the OP to include the challenge I issued to anyone interested in changing Sun Shield.

Any ideas are welcome!

Turtle_Bot

Damage shields as a mechanic needs a complete rework to the mitigation they get.

Currently the mitigation of damage shields is simply your current armor value and nothing else (so breach is essentially the same as reverting the shielded players armor value for that shield to be practically 0, especially when accounting for built in pen and other sources of pen from abilities, sets, passives, CP etc).

I'd rework the damage shields mitigation to equal (1 * current armor mitigation value) + (0.5 * (named percentage mitigation buffs + mitigation CP)) + (0.25 * block mitiagtion).

This way shields would cap out at roughly 75% mitigation and actually be able to survive more than 1 attack (as long as you invest into mitigation CP and also block that attack as well) while not being able to reach the cap of 95%+ that straight up blocking can reach.

As for sun shield specifically, I'd give it 2 distinct morphs similar to how bubble works and increase its size to cap out at around 9k with the radius in which it counts nearby enemies increased to reach the cap easier.

1 morph would deal damage to melee attackers who hit you with direct attacks and heal you for half the amount of damage it inflicts.

Radiant Ward:

Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4500 damage for 6 seconds. Each nearby enemy on cast increases the size of this shield by 25% up to 100%. This portion of the ability scales off your max health. While active, nearby enemies that attack you directly will take 2242 magic damage and you will heal for 50% of the damage done.

The idea is that this shield caps out at around 9 to 10k in size (in PvP) when you have 45k+ health. This morph will provide some healing and would likely be useful for brawler plars that just want to sit there and brawl it out in the house they build.

The other morph would have a weaker max shield size, but it blinds each enemy that hits you with a direct attack causing their next attack to miss (once per enemy per cast of this ability).

Blazing Ward:

Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4500 damage for 6 seconds. Each nearby enemy on cast increases the size of the shield by 12.5% up to 50%. This portion of the ability scales off your max health. While active, nearby enemies that attack you directly are struck by a blinding ray that deals 2242 magic damage and causes them to miss their next direct damage ability.

This shield would aim to cap out at around 7k in size at a similar amount of health, but to make up for the smaller size, it causes each enemy that hits you with a direct attack to have their next direct damage ability automatically miss (really disruptive against burst combos) and as such while not as good for in your face brawling, it would certainly shine for plars who want to play slightly more squishy and mobile.

Billium813

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

So here is my challenge, if you had to completely rework Sun Shield and its morphs, and envision them around their ability names, what would you consider for them?…

• Sun Shield
• Radiant Ward
• Blazing Shield

I think it's tough going purely based off of the names. ZOS has shown time and again they are open to changing names freely to fit any mechanical changes... However, to me, comparing "Radiant" to "Blazing" implies buff vs damage. Radiance emits light from the center, pervading the area with glory and judgement. Blazing implies strength from the center, burning outward with power and damage.

• Sun Shield:

  Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4800 damage for 6 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Max Health.
  
  If the shield breaks, you restore 1000 Stamina. If the shield expires, you restore 1000 Magicka.

  Developer Note
  I went with some novel resource management for lower level players to help get them acquainted with how the shield functions. Radiant Ward will be a basic upgrade on this base.
  • Radiant Ward: I would assume this morph either buffs allies nearby, or debuffs enemies nearby in some way. Perhaps allies in the area get their own weaker shields, while the owner's shield is weakened based on how many allies are nearby? Perhaps the shield blinds enemies, debuffing them in some way? The key IMO is the "Radiance" of the name; implying that something is emitting out from the shield in a way that doesn't imply simple damage and is more nuanced.
    
    Example:

    Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4800 damage for 6 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Max Health. Each enemy within 5 meters increases the shield's strength by 20%, up to a maximum of 6 enemies.
    
    If the shield breaks, you restore 1000 Stamina and enemies nearby receive Minor Cowardice for 6 seconds. If the shield expires, you restore 1000 Magicka and allies nearby receive Minor Courage for 6 seconds.

    Developer Note
    I decided to drop the damage element of the shield in favor of more group utility and resource management. The intention is to make this morph more traditionally PvE Tank aligned. The scaling off enemies nearby is already less PvP focused.
    
    Currently, when using Radiant Ward, the damage feels basically inconsequential and seems to only serve as a good indication of how many enemies are buffing the shield. The animation can stay as is though without needing the actual damage.
  • Blazing Shield: I would assume this morph is more damage oriented, more selfish. Perhaps there is just a constant AOE of damage around the owner; strengthened by the enemies nearby? Maybe the owner is buffed in some way with damage buffs or even prevented from receiving debuffs as they burn away. Either way, the key is that this morph should be more concerned with the self and less group oriented.
    
    Example:

    Create a tether of solar rays to a nearby enemy with the highest Max Health and gain a damage shield that absorbs up to 4800 damage for 6 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Max Health. The shield's strength is increased by 20% of the Max Health of the tethered enemy, up to a maximum of 120%.
    
    While tethered, you cannot receive debuffs from the enemy and the enemy takes 30% of the damage the shield takes. The tether is broken if the enemy moves 8 meters away from you, goes invisible, or if the shield ends.

    Developer Note
    I went with a tether for a couple reasons. 1) I think it helps to capture the "sacred ground" mentality of the Templar without just being another ground based AOE. Tethered enemies have the option of moving outside the Templar "House", thus interrupting the Templar gameplay. 2) I think it fits the Templar visual. It's essentially a beam of holy fire emanating from the user, binding the enemy.
    
    I think this design leans for more PvP applications, but could be applicable to PvE Tank builds as well. It focuses less on many ads near by and more on boss level monsters, who will always be targeted. The tether serves as a good indication to the Tank of the highest hitting NPC the Tank needs to taunt, the shield is OK in size, and the inability to receive debuffs once tethered could be a skill based aspect with timing in certain fights.
    
    Alternatively, the damage could just be a simple AOE Flame Damage similar to Embershield, except that felt too similar to Solar Barrage and felt too simple.

Tyrant_Tim

I have yet to read one version of Sun Shield on this thread that sounds worse than the original.

If that doesn’t speak volumes about the situation…

notyuu

The rework can not come soon enough, I'd be in the camp for completely reworking the skill from the ground up, maybe..gives you a buff when cast that sheilds based on healing done?

Tyrant_Tim

notyuu wrote: »

The rework can not come soon enough, I'd be in the camp for completely reworking the skill from the ground up, maybe..gives you a buff when cast that sheilds based on healing done?

Just gotta keep spreading the word. It’s a forgotten ability after all, I can’t tell you how many times I mention it and people are like, “Sun… Shield?”

mmtaniac

We need shield that is just shield no damage only shield and it's effective way to block damage. One scaled from max hp with some effect and other from stamina or magicka.

bar_boss_A

An idea for blazing shield morph: Every second blazing shield is active it inflicts the burning status effect on nearby enemies. Each enemy afflicted will add 4-10% of the initial shield strength as damage shield.

This would be a morph to help the templar move out of his "house". A relocation service

mmtaniac

I just want defense option that work on no tank build and it's not healing.

Tyrant_Tim

mmtaniac wrote: »

I just want defense option that work on no tank build and it's not healing.

Funny enough, the class most dependent on healing doesn’t even have a significant health-based heal.

Dragonknight has the best health based burst heal, and Warden has the best health based heal-over-time.

You’re absolutely right though, being completely dependent on heals because of how non-mobile the class kit is, or non-ellusive it is, and how it pales in comparison to the outright mitigation of other classes, leads to a very horrible, and easily countered defense.

Now all anyone has to do to kill any Templar is throw on that new unique defile monster set, regardless of how spec’d into defense they are.

Sun Shield could be the in-class remedy we need, it just needs to actually do something, first.

mmtaniac

I just can't trust templar healing spells enough. For me they are weak especially in pvp.
I need something that block damage ,mitigate it somehow, Sun shield is nice option but current state of this thing is useless and required tons of health, wchich means it's usefull only on high health build.
Templar burst heal is ok ,but not good enough for defense. If this heal will heal from my lower health, we can have heal option like dk we have healing ritual and one morph should be burst heal from your max health .
Healing ritual is useless spell. We have soul gem passive wchich can be new passive i would like to remove whole sun shield and give it as a passive to templar , something like Overhealing mechanic if you heal yourself on 100% hp you will get this healing as extra health shield this can be Sunshield. This way we can have sun shield as a good mechanic and use finally healing as a viable defense .
Sun shield slot remake completly to some offensive ability or aoe cc ability.

Tyrant_Tim

Here’s to hoping Update 41 is our time to shine.

Tyrant_Tim

Heads up!

Anyone interested in the future of this skill, that would like to give their opinion regarding possible alterations to it. This is the time to do so.

While we more than likely won’t see anything regarding Sun Shield by the end of this PTS, I have been told that this thread will be passed along for feedback, so get your voice heard.

Billium813

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Heads up!

Anyone interested in the future of this skill, that would like to give their opinion regarding possible alterations to it. This is the time to do so.

While we more than likely won’t see anything regarding Sun Shield by the end of this PTS, I have been told that this thread will be passed along for feedback, so get your voice heard.

It seems a bit sad that specific forum threads, especially in the PTS section, need to be passed along for feedback. Does no one that actually designs and works on the game have 30 minutes to skim over forum discussions? Such a waste.

Tyrant_Tim

Billium813 wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Heads up!

Anyone interested in the future of this skill, that would like to give their opinion regarding possible alterations to it. This is the time to do so.

While we more than likely won’t see anything regarding Sun Shield by the end of this PTS, I have been told that this thread will be passed along for feedback, so get your voice heard.

It seems a bit sad that specific forum threads, especially in the PTS section, need to be passed along for feedback. Does no one that actually designs and works on the game have 30 minutes to skim over forum discussions? Such a waste.

If all you saw when you got on the forums were people getting nasty about your work, would you be enthusiastic to make appearances?

In a perfect world people would voice their opinion in a way that’s constructive, we’re far from that, so I don’t blame devs for relying on community managers to pass along our feedback.

Jaraal

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

If all you saw when you got on the forums were people getting nasty about your work, would you be enthusiastic to make appearances?

If the majority of feedback on my work was negative and offered logical solutions, I might take a look at how I could improve it. I might consider that making my customers happy should trump my pride and stubbornness to "be right." Or at the very least, I would tell them why I was sticking to my changes to somebody else's work that worked fine for the previous 10 years. I mean, I could go on social media and tell my customers that they were overreacting, but what good would that do me? Better if I try to get the customers on my side, rather than trying to alienate them.

Necrotech_Master

i think the one skill that works similar to this shield that is what people would hope it worked like is the arcanist ultimate sanctum of the abyssal sea

that one the shield gives 60% dmg reduction, and retaliates with all of the dmg absorbed in a radius around the caster, and it is arguably effective when you are running a high hp build

now i do see that the one is an ultimate and the other is a skill, but i think thats the kind of effect that people are looking for with blazing shield

Tyrant_Tim

Jaraal wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

If all you saw when you got on the forums were people getting nasty about your work, would you be enthusiastic to make appearances?

If the majority of feedback on my work was negative and offered logical solutions, I might take a look at how I could improve it. I might consider that making my customers happy should trump my pride and stubbornness to "be right." Or at the very least, I would tell them why I was sticking to my changes to somebody else's work that worked fine for the previous 10 years. I mean, I could go on social media and tell my customers that they were overreacting, but what good would that do me? Better if I try to get the customers on my side, rather than trying to alienate them.

Offering constructive criticism backed by numbers is a lot different than providing opinions stated as fact and thrown around with hostility, which is the majority of comments regarding balance in these forums.

Now for clarification, nobody said that threads aren’t getting read, and just because this one is getting attention due to a request, doesn’t mean that it didn’t receive any prior. Our community managers do a great job of sifting through posts, and have to make judgment calls on which are actionable. That is their job.

When you apply for a Developer role, nowhere in that job description does it insinuate that you need to read walls of text all day, something most people don’t care to do, regardless of feedback.

Tyrant_Tim

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i think the one skill that works similar to this shield that is what people would hope it worked like is the arcanist ultimate sanctum of the abyssal sea

that one the shield gives 60% dmg reduction, and retaliates with all of the dmg absorbed in a radius around the caster, and it is arguably effective when you are running a high hp build

now i do see that the one is an ultimate and the other is a skill, but i think thats the kind of effect that people are looking for with blazing shield

Good example, when I was looking over the Arcanist skills before launch, I couldn’t help but notice similarities with how their shields function.

Those abilities were the inspiration for the OP, although I feel like Arcanist stole our skill, I wouldn’t be opposed to having something different entirely.

Necrotech_Master

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i think the one skill that works similar to this shield that is what people would hope it worked like is the arcanist ultimate sanctum of the abyssal sea

that one the shield gives 60% dmg reduction, and retaliates with all of the dmg absorbed in a radius around the caster, and it is arguably effective when you are running a high hp build

now i do see that the one is an ultimate and the other is a skill, but i think thats the kind of effect that people are looking for with blazing shield

Good example, when I was looking over the Arcanist skills before launch, I couldn’t help but notice similarities with how their shields function.

Those abilities were the inspiration for the OP, although I feel like Arcanist stole our skill, I wouldn’t be opposed to having something different entirely.

yeah i think because its an ultimate thats why it actually gives the magnitude of shield needed to make it effective (even on my dps arcanist i still get a tooltip of like 50-60k shield, and thats with like 22k max hp)

since that is scaled on max hp, can imagine what that shield size is like on a 50-60k hp tank with the shield cp buffing it even further (ive seen some of those kind of tanks using it in cyrodiil, which is getting 50% reduction of that shield size lol, but its still effective)

a lot of the problem with blazing shield is that its too small, and the reflection rate is too low, if they did change the reflection up to the same as the arcanist ultimate (60%), it would still be double the effectiveness that it is now

Jaraal

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

If all you saw when you got on the forums were people getting nasty about your work, would you be enthusiastic to make appearances?

If the majority of feedback on my work was negative and offered logical solutions, I might take a look at how I could improve it. I might consider that making my customers happy should trump my pride and stubbornness to "be right." Or at the very least, I would tell them why I was sticking to my changes to somebody else's work that worked fine for the previous 10 years. I mean, I could go on social media and tell my customers that they were overreacting, but what good would that do me? Better if I try to get the customers on my side, rather than trying to alienate them.

Offering constructive criticism backed by numbers is a lot different than providing opinions stated as fact and thrown around with hostility, which is the majority of comments regarding balance in these forums.

Now for clarification, nobody said that threads aren’t getting read, and just because this one is getting attention due to a request, doesn’t mean that it didn’t receive any prior. Our community managers do a great job of sifting through posts, and have to make judgment calls on which are actionable. That is their job.

When you apply for a Developer role, nowhere in that job description does it insinuate that you need to read walls of text all day, something most people don’t care to do, regardless of feedback.

Walls of text or walls of numbers, it's all the same. Just because we think we have a great idea doesn't mean a developer would be more inclined to read a multi-paragraph presentation from one person versus one from someone else. They are all walls of text/numbers to them. So everybody wants to be heard, but the odds of getting listened to are very slim.

I mean, look at the way you started out this whole thing. "Sun Shield rework… when?" If I'm a dev, I see "Hey devs, your skill sucks, when you gonna fix it?" So I would think that in choosing which WOTs to ignore, some may be easier than others. Something like, "Ideas to increase engagement with underutilized Templar skills" would be more eye catching and invite the curious to try and find out what skills you're talking about, and would generate more views.

Tyrant_Tim

Jaraal wrote: »

Something like, "Ideas to increase engagement with underutilized Templar skills" would be more eye catching and invite the curious to try and find out what skills you're talking about, and would generate more views.

I’m not in the business of clickbaiting people.

Having vague titles to threads leads to frustration when trying to relocate them later down the road.

Simply having “Sun Shield rework… when?” as a title expresses exactly what the thread will detail, and makes it easy to reference. The intention for this thread was, and remains, to illustrate a problem that exists for one specific skill, while providing a means for us to talk about what we expect from the skill, whether or not it achieves those goals, and if not, what changes to it sound the most desirable.

Tyrant_Tim

Umm… hello??


I understand this was done to combat an exploit, but now that it’s fixed will we see some improvement to the actual skill?

Outside of that one bug, I haven’t seen one scenario where using Blazing Shield is better than Radiant Ward, a skill that’s still lacking modern standards.

bar_boss_A

There probably was the same bug as with arcanists shield: If you shield stack, all shields will count into the damage done once expired. That would explain the dude earlier who didn't want to see it changed

Billium813

As is, this change can only be considered another nerf. Considering it's a nerf on a dead morph, I have to assume this means they are preparing it for testing in order to buff it.

I'm a bit disappointed because I think it needs a complete redesign. But, Ik that's risky and ZOS doesn't do risky at this stage in the game.

Tyrant_Tim

Billium813 wrote: »

As is, this change can only be considered another nerf. Considering it's a nerf on a dead morph, I have to assume this means they are preparing it for testing in order to buff it.

I'm a bit disappointed because I think it needs a complete redesign. But, Ik that's risky and ZOS doesn't do risky at this stage in the game.

Yeah, maybe we’ll see something interesting next PTS for the skill, and I really hope they revise it completely. After seeing Arcanist, I don’t know if I would say that ZOS are afraid of taking risks, I just hope that whatever decision they make is fair.

It’s consistently been unused or broken… never in between, so I doubt raising the value of the skill will change the cycle.

Billium813

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

As is, this change can only be considered another nerf. Considering it's a nerf on a dead morph, I have to assume this means they are preparing it for testing in order to buff it.

I'm a bit disappointed because I think it needs a complete redesign. But, Ik that's risky and ZOS doesn't do risky at this stage in the game.

Yeah, maybe we’ll see something interesting next PTS for the skill, and I really hope they revise it completely. After seeing Arcanist, I don’t know if I would say that ZOS are afraid of taking risks, I just hope that whatever decision they make is fair.

It’s consistently been unused or broken… never in between, so I doubt raising the value of the skill will change the cycle.

I suppose when I say "doesn't do risky", I mean when they make changes to existing things (sets, classes, ect).

Arcanist, and most newly released content really, is risky, but that risk only exists on initial release. Existing Class, Sets, Skills, ect are another story and what I was referring to when I was eluding to ZOS preferring to take the safe path. They operate with a "well, it's been mostly working until now" mentality, so they usually only make minor changes (adding a buff/debuff, changing damage values). They usually don't rework a Skill from the ground up cause they don't want to rock what they probably see as a stable boat. I think that's a safe approach and I understand it from their perspective! I just also think it's boring -_-