Side note: Annulment is not an Ultimate ability (as they state in the patch notes), and it should not be "balanced" as though it were an ultimate.

So Annulment had two parts to it:

1) Reduce the Base damage of all spells against you by 50%

2) Give you a Damage Shield that absorbed ~350 damage. This Damage shield was unique in that for any given attack it would only absorb 50% of that attack's damage.

For example, let's say an imp starts shooting fireballs with base damage 100 at you, your Spell Resistance reduces spell damage by 20% so you take 80 damage. You then cast Annulment and get a 300 pt shield. With the old Annulment the 100 damage would be reduced to 50 by part 1 of the ability, the Damage shield would absorb 25 (and now have 275 remaining) and the last 25 would be dealt to you - subject to your Spell Resistance (-20%) meaning you take 20 damage.

As a result it would take 12 Fireballs to fully break the shield - those 12 fireballs would have had a total of 1200 base damage, reduced to 600 by part 1 of annulment, 300 was absorbed by the shield and the other 300 was mitigated by 20% to mean you took 240.

New Annulment also has two parts to it:

1) Reduce the Base damage of all spells against you by 50%

2) Give you a Damage Shield that absorbed ~350 damage. This Damage shield now works just like any other damage shield and absorbs 100% of each attack until it is depleted.

Using the same example as above, 20% Spell Resistance, fireballs with 100 base damage each, 300 point Damage Shield. The first fireball hits, part 1 reduces the base damage to 50 and then part 2 absorbs all 50 damage.

It takes only 6 fireballs to fully break the shield, and you would have taken 0 damage. However - in the same case of you casting it once for 12 fireballs (1200 damage) you actually end up taking more damage:

The first 6 fireballs (600 damage) are completely mitigated by part1/part2 but the next 6 fireballs hit you and are only mitigated by your 20% SR so you take 80 damage each - 480 damage total.


Make sense?

1500 Base Damage, so with your 20% SR you'd take 1200 normally. Part 1 lowers base damage by 50% to 750, Part 2 absorbs 300 points of that, the other 450 goes through to you and after your 20% SR you take 360.

Wait what? You can now mitigate part of the damage with your spell resistance before the shield starts absorbing? No other damage shield has ever worked that way, I believe.

Mystborn wrote: »

So Annulment had two parts to it:

1) Reduce the Base damage of all spells against you by 50%

2) Give you a Damage Shield that absorbed ~350 damage. This Damage shield was unique in that for any given attack it would only absorb 50% of that attack's damage.

For example, let's say an imp starts shooting fireballs with base damage 100 at you, your Spell Resistance reduces spell damage by 20% so you take 80 damage. You then cast Annulment and get a 300 pt shield. With the old Annulment the 100 damage would be reduced to 50 by part 1 of the ability, the Damage shield would absorb 25 (and now have 275 remaining) and the last 25 would be dealt to you - subject to your Spell Resistance (-20%) meaning you take 20 damage.

As a result it would take 12 Fireballs to fully break the shield - those 12 fireballs would have had a total of 1200 base damage, reduced to 600 by part 1 of annulment, 300 was absorbed by the shield and the other 300 was mitigated by 20% to mean you took 240.

New Annulment also has two parts to it:

1) Reduce the Base damage of all spells against you by 50%

2) Give you a Damage Shield that absorbed ~350 damage. This Damage shield now works just like any other damage shield and absorbs 100% of each attack until it is depleted.

Using the same example as above, 20% Spell Resistance, fireballs with 100 base damage each, 300 point Damage Shield. The first fireball hits, part 1 reduces the base damage to 50 and then part 2 absorbs all 50 damage.

It takes only 6 fireballs to fully break the shield, and you would have taken 0 damage. However - in the same case of you casting it once for 12 fireballs (1200 damage) you actually end up taking more damage:

The first 6 fireballs (600 damage) are completely mitigated by part1/part2 but the next 6 fireballs hit you and are only mitigated by your 20% SR so you take 80 damage each - 480 damage total.


Make sense?

The change too annulment was supposed too be 100% spell midgation while shilled was active is 100% . That's still means it's not working

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

The change too annulment was supposed too be 100% spell midgation while shilled was active is 100% . That's still means it's not working

This is the confusion - you are thinking the part 1 got changed from 50% to 100%, it didn't, it was part 2 that got changed from 50% to 100%. I don't blame you, the patch note wasn't very clear.

To be honest it would be absolutely ridiculous if part 1 was 100% because it would reduce all spell damage to 0, which would mean there would be no damage left to break the shield so the shield would last the full 30 seconds or whatever and make you immune to spell damage the entire time. Yes, yes, physical damage could break it but in a lot of PvE group content there is little to no physical damage done by the boss to anyone other than the Tank.

smercgames_ESO wrote: »

Does Annulment work on all magicka skills or is it only skills that use spell resistance since some spells go against armor (veil strike and assassins blade)? The whole some skills use magicka/armor and others use weapon dmg/spell resist makes things confusing.

Good question and unfortunately one I don't think I was able to test since it requires a volunteer from another faction to come hang out in Cyrodil.

Baphomet wrote: »

Wait what? You can now mitigate part of the damage with your spell resistance before the shield starts absorbing? No other damage shield has ever worked that way, I believe.

Nope, your Damage Shield absorbs damage unmitigated by blocking and armour/spell resistance - but Annulment is unique in that it applies this 50% reduction in spell damage prior to anything else (including Damage Shields). For extra fun, since Damage Shields work on a FIFO (First In, First Out) basis you can cast a bigger shield like Barrier first, then cast Annulment and Annulment will reduce spell damage by 50% and then any leftover spell damage will go against the Barrier first.

You do get your Blocking/Armour/Spell Resist mitigation against any portion of damage that makes it past your Damage Shield and in to your face.

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

And that is still cant be totally correct the whispmother AoE still dose huge amounts if damage while using that spell

It is correct, what is happening with Wispmother (if you check your combat log or the Death Recap) is there are actually 2 AoE's. I forget the name of the first one but she does that regardless of the number of adds up and then she does another one called "Combustion" (I think) immediately afterwards that is 1200 damage per add, and appears to ignore Armour/Spell Resistance.

The first AoE is large enough (aka more than 700 damage) to completely wipe out your Annulment shield even after it has been reduced to 50% of its base. This means you don't have the Annulment shield up (and so don't have the 50% less spell damage) for the Combustion so it does full damage to you.

I'll be honest here, I'm not 100% sure that the Annulment 50% reduction in spell damage applies to the Combustion since it does seem to ignore Spell Resistance but I'm about 95% sure it does based upon some basic rough testing and eyeballing the amount of health I lost. Unfortunately I wasn't running CLS for that fight and since I didn't die I didn't see the Death Recap.

Hope that clears everything up!

Btw I have a video I made back on the PTS before release that covers some basics on shields here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wlvHyYjrkM

The only major change to remember is that Annulment no longer only absorbs half the damage.

I don't really understand your question. Where do you see that? Is it an addon? Damage Shields on tanks are generally not very good as they absorb pre-mitigation damage and tanks (should) have pretty good mitigation.

No, we leave one up. You can kill them all but that means more time on adds, less time on the boss. We typically kill 2 of the 3 adds on the first wave then ignore all the adds on the 2nd wave and just kill her before she explodes.

Obviously you need good enough dps to kill her by the 2nd explosion if you ignore all the adds in the 2nd wave because if she pops with 4 adds up...

It'll be no good!

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

So! Here's the break-down on the change to Annulment:

Before the change: When you were hit by an ability, 50% of the damage would hit you and 50% of it would be absorbed.

After the change: When you're hit by an ability, 100% of the damage is absorbed.

In both cases the amount of damage done by a spell is reduced by 50%. In the changed version, that reduction occurs before the absorption.

but we still get damaged by the whispmother

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

So! Here's the break-down on the change to Annulment:

Before the change: When you were hit by an ability, 50% of the damage would hit you and 50% of it would be absorbed.

After the change: When you're hit by an ability, 100% of the damage is absorbed.

In both cases the amount of damage done by a spell is reduced by 50%. In the changed version, that reduction occurs before the absorption.

but we still get damaged by the whispmother

Alex, I already explained this to you earlier in the thread:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/981784/#Comment_981784

Axer wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

So! Here's the break-down on the change to Annulment:

Before the change: When you were hit by an ability, 50% of the damage would hit you and 50% of it would be absorbed.

After the change: When you're hit by an ability, 100% of the damage is absorbed.

In both cases the amount of damage done by a spell is reduced by 50%. In the changed version, that reduction occurs before the absorption.

Essentially you nerfed an already weak ability.

Thanks ZO.

Please continue to unbalance the game in an obscure way. Im sure you'll do well.

yes, it's a total nerf

instead of it lasting a bit longer before the patch

it now lasts a shorter amount of time since the shield is used up entirely on first hit
(300 unmitigated dmg shield at vr12 luls)

idk wtf they're doing lol

it is an incredibly useless ability

Mystborn wrote: »

rotatorkuf wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

So! Here's the break-down on the change to Annulment:

Before the change: When you were hit by an ability, 50% of the damage would hit you and 50% of it would be absorbed.

After the change: When you're hit by an ability, 100% of the damage is absorbed.

In both cases the amount of damage done by a spell is reduced by 50%. In the changed version, that reduction occurs before the absorption.

this is misleading wording (which is on par for the game's wording and tooltips thus far, terrible)

After the change: When you're hit by an ability, 100% of the damage is absorbed.

^^ implies all damage is absorbed, lolwtfmate

^^ should say:

After the change: When you're hit by an ability, 100% of the shield is used to absorb damage.

edit: upon further review, even the "before" is misleading wording...

Before the change: When you were hit by an ability, 50% of the damage would hit you and 50% of it would be absorbed.

so if i get hit for 3000 damage, the shield absorbs 1500?...ugh....

It is a complicated and intricate ability to explain succinctly, I already posted the lengthy version of exactly how it works, Jess gave a summary. If you read her explanation with a basic understanding on how shields work (i.e. they can absorb damage only until they are depleted) it is accurate, no shields in this game absorb more than their shield amount.

To be honest, even your rewording of the ability is flawed:

rotatorkuf wrote: »

^^ should say:

After the change: When you're hit by an ability, 100% of the shield is used to absorb damage.

Both before and after the change 100% of the shield was used to absorb damage. If you had a 300pt shield then before the change if you were hit with a 1600pt attack the special ability of the shield would half that damage to 800, then 400 damage would be directed to the shield and the other 400 damage would be directed to your face. The shield would absorb 300 of the 400 damage directed to it, and the remaining 100 damage that couldnt be absorbed (due to the shield being depleted) would join the other 400 damage in hitting you in the face. You would, of course, then apply any mitigation due to blocking or spell resistance to that 500 damage before it came off your health.

My point here is not to nitpick your explanation but to highlight that this ability is(was) a pain in the behind to explain - and that confusion is probably why they decided to change it. Which is a shame because as you pointed out, the fact the shield only took half damage meant it had a chance to survive more than one hit.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌, One possibility for this ability might be to have the shield only absorb spell damage? I know from when I used it while leveling, if I was pulling a pack with a caster and a melee or archer mob it always sucked to put up your Annulment to try to mitigate the caster damage and then have the melee or archer strip it right off with their physical attacks.

lol you're right i suppose, i've never actually used this ability, as it never seemed attractive, worse after patch

i was going off what i read....and, unfortunately, the game's tooltip (which as we learn more and more, we can't trust these game tooltips)

this ability's tooltip just needs a whole new rewording imo

or even better, a whole rework

the fact that shields are unmitigated means that this is gone in almost always one hit....meaning, why would you waste a precious hotbar spot for this ability, when there are so many other better abilities?

unless you only have dots ticking on you, then maybe the dots will make the shield last longer

but honestly, when is that ever the situation?

It's not complicated at all.

It has an amount of spell damage it absorbs (say 400). It will absorb that much of a spell after it first reduces said spell's damage by 50% (so if something is going to hit you for 1k, it will not hit you for 500-400 = 100 dmg).

It's still a pretty garbage ability all around.