Skills from armor tree.

FoJul

So, I've came to the conclusion that they Damage shield from the light armor skill line, is almost completely useless. With this discovery, I might add, that the other armor skill's are just as useless.


Can we remove them/Revamp them/ or update them????

Soarora

Light and heavy armor skills are used in PvE. I’ve never heard of medium being used, however.

SilverBride

FoJul wrote: »

Can we remove them/Revamp them/ or update them????

Not if it means I need to regear and set up new skills for all my characters.

Turtle_Bot

Soarora wrote: »

Light and heavy armor skills are used in PvE. I’ve never heard of medium being used, however.

medium armor skill gets used quite a bit in PvP with the buffs it provides.

Soarora

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Light and heavy armor skills are used in PvE. I’ve never heard of medium being used, however.

medium armor skill gets used quite a bit in PvP with the buffs it provides.

Thank you!

Well, there ya go, all 3 skills get used haha.

Erickson9610

Still, I'd totally love to see new Light/Medium/Heavy Armor skills, possibly in the form of new Grimoire skills added in the future. We've already got Grimoires for each of the 6 Weapon skill lines, so why not Grimoires for each of the 3 Armor skill lines?

Turtle_Bot

All of the armor skill lines (both passives and actives) need a revamp/update/balance pass.

The light armor downsides are currently too detrimental to be worth running outside of busted sets like rallying cry, especially the double dipping of taking additional martial damage on top of their significantly reduced base armor values.

The medium armor passives are too generically strong for both offense and defense, especially considering there are zero penalties for wearing medium armor compared to the penalties that exist for the other 2 armor types.

The heavy armor bonuses just outweigh their downsides, especially when it comes to speed and mobility, causing them to exacerbate the current highly mobile tank meta issues in PvP.

Some ideas for how to change these skill lines:

• Light armor:
  • Passives:
    • Remove the extra martial damage taken penalty.
    • Add bonus to healing done and add a bonus to damage done for magic damage types (shock, frost, flame, magic)
    • Increase bonus penetration granted per piece equipped.
    The increased damage taken is already applied inherently for light armor via the reduced base armor, it doesn't need to double dip on this penalty with the additional martial damage taken.
    Healer sets are all light armor and so are the majority of DPS sets that focus on magic damage types, so it's fitting that light armor should buff those playstyles.
    Increasing bonus pen per piece makes it more desirable in PvP where players stack resistances and mitigation without making it overpowered in PvE where enemies have set armor values.
  • Active skill:
    • Annulment (active skill) Increased duration to 8 seconds and grants bonus to healing done (1%) while it's active.
      • Dampen Magicka morph - Removes bonus to healing done, but instead inflicts Silence for 2 seconds on any enemy that hits the shield with a single target attack while it's active. If an enemy is silenced by this ability, they are immune to the silence debuff for 7 seconds.
      • Harness Magicka morph - The shield will also completely absorb 1 targeted magic damage attack on for the caster (this is a separate absorb from the shield, similar to wardens shimmering shield, but for 1 magic type attack instead of 3 ranged attacks). Also doubles the amount of magicka restored when it absorbs damage, but only restores when absorbing a magic damage type attack.
      To help this ability to stand out, the duration has increased to 8 seconds. This was done because simply increasing the shield size has caused issues in the past. We have kept the duration below the old 10 seconds as that felt too long, but the 6 second duration is too short for a shield that is not that large in size.
      We have focused the effects of the morphs to better reflect their intended lore. The dampen magicka morph will now punish enemies for directly attacking the ward, while the harness magicka morph will now harness the power of those magical attacks to better protect its caster.
  
  
• Medium armor:
  • Passives:
    • Adjust damage bonus (the uncapped stat) to only work for martial damage types (physical, bleed, poison, disease)
    • Remove healing done and increase crit damage bonus.
    • Remove block cost reduction (this should be on heavy armor for tanks, not medium armor for DDs) and replace it with a small roll dodge cost reduction.
    Medium armor has taken over as the generically best in slot armor weight for almost every playstyle. By diversifying some of the bonuses that this armor weight grants and spreading them out into the other armor weights, this aims to better balance this armor type and allow the others to better flourish. Players need to keep in mind that unlike heavy and light armor, medium armor has zero downsides to using it.
    Medium armor will still be the best in slot for martial damage types, it just won't gain that bonus damage for everything now since mages should be wearing light armor, not the armor of rogues, assassins or rangers.
    Since almost all of the sets that are designed for healers are light armor sets, we have removed the healing done bonus from medium armor as it did not make sense to have this passive on an armor weight that is supposed to be for DPS. To compensate for this, we have increased the bonus to critical damage done.
    Only tanks should be sitting there blocking and face-tanking enemies, as such, we have moved the block cost reduction bonus from medium armor to heavy armor.
  • Active skill:
    • Evasion (and morphs) - Now also grants snare/immobilize removal/immunity for 1 second per piece of medium armor worn.
      • Shuffle - Grants Major Expedition for 4 seconds.
      • Elude - Replaces Major Evasion with a new named buff that reduces damage taken from single target attacks by 20%. Grants Minor Expedition while active.
      After seeing some of the drastic power creep for single target attacks, we have reworked 1 morph of elude, to instead focus on eluding targeted attacks, reducing the damage taken from those attacks.
      Shuffle now also grants Major Expedition, to help users escape those AoEs faster, while Elude grants minor expedition to help elude targeted attacks.
      Snare removal/immunity has been added to the base morph since both morphs are supposed to help evade attacks.
  
  
• Heavy armor:
  • Passives:
    • Rework the reduction of sprint speed to a reduction of all movement speed. Heavy armor is supposed to slow you down all the time, not only when you sprint.
    • Add block cost reduction that got removed from medium armor here.
    Heavy armor is supposed to weigh its wearer down, while providing more protection. To reinforce this aspect, we have increased the speed penalty to apply at all times instead of only when sprinting. The armor is heavy, it is going to slow you down. To counteract this lack of speed, we have added the block cost reduction bonus to this armor weight that was removed from medium armor. Heavy armor means you don't have to put as much effort into blocking incoming damage, and this bonus reflects this ideal.
  • Active skill:
    • Adjust Unstoppable - Grants CC immunity for 6 seconds and Major Resolve for 20 seconds on cast. Also increases amount of damage blocked by 5% while active.
      • Unstoppable Brute - Reduce the duration of the CC immunity to 3 seconds but also reduces the snare to 20% down from its current 65%. Also keeps the 5% increased damage blocked and major resolve from base ability (this snare cannot be removed and ignores snare immunity).
      • Immovable - Grants Major Resolve for 20 seconds. Grants immunity to CC and Major Protection for 6 seconds. Increases the additional damage blocked to 5% per piece of heavy armor worn from the flat 5% of the base morph and reflects the next martial direct damage attack, but snares by 80% (this snare cannot be removed and ignores snare immunity).
      We have decided to split the morphs to facilitate different styles of tanking.
      For those who want to sit that as an immovable fortress, we have added upon the immovable morph, increasing the protection granted while also increasing the potency of its snare to ensure that while the caster is an immovable fortress, they are all but locked into that location.
      Meanwhile, for those tanks who want to remain more mobile to evade those incoming dangerous attacks rather than sit there and absorb them, the reworked Unstoppable Brute morph will now help facilitate that, granting its CC immunity for only half the duration, but reducing the snare it applies to barely be a hindrance.

Turtle_Bot

Soarora wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Light and heavy armor skills are used in PvE. I’ve never heard of medium being used, however.

medium armor skill gets used quite a bit in PvP with the buffs it provides.

Thank you!

Well, there ya go, all 3 skills get used haha.

Honestly, I'm surprised the light armor skill gets used at all, even in PvE.
The heavy armor skill at least provides CC immunity so it has niche uses to prevent being CC'd before a big incoming attack that requires blocking, but the shield size and lack of strong or useful secondary effects on the light armor skill, I just can't see a reason to use it outside of roleplay when other options (such as block healing and just increasing max health) would have the same effect (or do more) than using that ability, especially since it requires 5 light pieces of armor to be worn to even equip the ability.

Soarora

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Light and heavy armor skills are used in PvE. I’ve never heard of medium being used, however.

medium armor skill gets used quite a bit in PvP with the buffs it provides.

Thank you!

Well, there ya go, all 3 skills get used haha.

Honestly, I'm surprised the light armor skill gets used at all, even in PvE.
The heavy armor skill at least provides CC immunity so it has niche uses to prevent being CC'd before a big incoming attack that requires blocking, but the shield size and lack of strong or useful secondary effects on the light armor skill, I just can't see a reason to use it outside of roleplay when other options (such as block healing and just increasing max health) would have the same effect (or do more) than using that ability, especially since it requires 5 light pieces of armor to be worn to even equip the ability.

In some content (such as Bahsei portals or vAS) it is highly encouraged that players slot a shield. Since not all classes have shields, stam users of classes with no shields have to use bone surge or carve while mag users (if they're wearing light armor) have to use the light armor shield. Particularly, I used the light armor shield as a group healer in AS for Olms jumps and fire. In my IR alone I used dampen magic 36 times.

As for heavy armor, honestly I don't think the CC immunity even works in PvE. Would be cool if it did but I'm pretty sure it doesn't really help. The heavy armor is used in PvE on certain classes to maximize block mitigation for certain mechanics (such as the last boss in ERE HM, the cone the bear does).