Heavy Armor: Why even bother?

Lava_Croft · March 2015

It seems to barely protect you any more than Medium Armor does, while it lacks any of the nice passives you get from wearing Medium Armor.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · March 2015

Medium armor protects 75% of what heavy armor does, so your point is valid, but some people may like the different passives from heavy armor more. To each their own, I guess.

asteldian · March 2015

When tanking the 'nice' passives are only regen and cost reduction. The heavy passive that gives resource back when hit once every few seconds should work out as good or better than the regen. As for cost reduction, it mostly only helps for puncture. Most tanks use a fair bit of magicka so the extra gain there is more useful than reduction cost to stamina in most cases.
You miss out on dodge reduction but reduce break free cost and have increased health and healing.
You have 25% more armor in heavy. This increases with champ points (as % increase from heavy focus and spell shield will have a larger impact than the medium focus due to higher base numbers)
Unless specifically building a tank/dps hybrid I would argue there is little reason to go medium.

Crunch · March 2015

Heavy armor passives are superior for tanking imo. Though personally, I'd like to see a little boost in the magica/stamina returns every 4 secs. Resource management and sustainability are still lackluster if you're trying to do a lot of DPS in it, at least with my current Champion Points.

Roechacca · March 2015

havent seen many build videos with heavy armor yet .

EnOeZ · March 2015

Everything has been predicted...

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/148711/1-6-pts-heavy-armor-feedback/p1

And...

"Constitution" passive does not work when not taking damage (no stamina/magicka back)
Shields (I mean the bubbles) do not take into account your armor rating (but do your health it seems for some like igneous) and shields are just OP in PVP (no bleeds and some CC do not even work on them) and.... You have less resources to shield yourself.
with 20000 amor rating (7 epic heavies + passives) it's only 20k*0.0015= 30% damage mitigation when medium is 15000*0.0015=22,5% damage mitigation for much better passives (apart from pure tanking)
When you factor in the average 50% armor penetration from major fracture debuff, that 7,5% difference is only down to 3,25%.

HA only good for pure tanking/damage soaking while being healed, which is sad since you can either avoid (roll dodge with medium...) or bubble (light) that damage.

So it is slightly better in terms of passive mitigation indeed than the two others but not that much while being much weaker in active mitigation and avoidance mechanisms.

eliisra · March 2015

Lava_Croft wrote: »

It seems to barely protect you any more than Medium Armor does, while it lacks any of the nice passives you get from wearing Medium Armor.

Because you dont have much of a choice as a magicka user in PvP.

Full Light Armor = Melt in seconds unless you play sorc

Medium Armor = Mostly synergy and passives for a stamina user

Only Heavy Armor left

aco5712 · March 2015

i will try to record some heavy armour pvp tank footage this coming weekend or so. Im usually the sole tank for my group (MBF) and for some reason, all 25-30 enemy pugs love to target me instead of the squishies behind me.

technohic · March 2015

I was running some heavy just to be different prior to 1.6 but eventually changed it to medium and switch to light depending on what Im doing and how much protection I wanted. Have had some weird builds with all but you definitely are better off if you are a DPS to go light or medium to match your chosen resource pool. Heavy is more for just tanking with group support rather than being a superstar making a video.

Cuyler · March 2015

I wear 2 pc Heavy as the passives give me a slight boost to health which allows me to allocate more points to mag/damage whereas I would of needed them for HP.

PhillipJokar · March 2015

HA is there to look badass.

eventide03b14a_ESO · March 2015

Lava_Croft wrote: »

It seems to barely protect you any more than Medium Armor does, while it lacks any of the nice passives you get from wearing Medium Armor.

With the passives, the protection becomes exceptionally significant.

eliisra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

It seems to barely protect you any more than Medium Armor does, while it lacks any of the nice passives you get from wearing Medium Armor.

Because you dont have much of a choice as a magicka user in PvP.

Full Light Armor = Melt in seconds unless you play sorc

Medium Armor = Mostly synergy and passives for a stamina user

Only Heavy Armor left

^ What he said. Only reason for magicka user to take medium is if they do a lot of sneaking.

Cody · March 2015

You have more armor

you have more spell resistance

you have passives that are meant for tanking

you don't have ability cost reductions, but you would regan X amount of resources every few seconds when hit, if you take the right passive(refers back to my second point)

you get block cost reduction

the skillline has a skill that, when wearing HA, can make it really hard for people to CC and take you down. That is far superior to a 20% dodge chance

its mainly the fact that you would have more armor and spell resistance. HA is meant for tanking, not DPSing.

Fizzlewizzle · March 2015

I don't have any problems with heavy.
I run 7/7 heavy armor while using a lot of spells.

In heavy armor i get a bit over 2K magicka regen, 2.1K when i swap my axe (with leveling trait) for a dagger with the needed set effect.
I got the best of both world. Good defence, good healing and good offense.
If i use Restoring Focus i can spam Puncturing sweep for about 15-20 times before running out of magicka.

I want to see any Light armor user do that (or medium armor user), without dying.

byrom101b16_ESO · March 2015

Lava_Croft wrote: »

It seems to barely protect you any more than Medium Armor does, while it lacks any of the nice passives you get from wearing Medium Armor.

As a LA wearer, I'd take HA's spell resistance any day of the week! lmfao

olsborg · March 2015

In pvp, tanks in heavy armor are permblockers and are impossible to kill 1v1 or even 3v1 sometimes, not true on a general basis, but there are certainly alot of players out there that are extremely efficient tanks. It would be alot harder to do this in medium armor.

Zsymon · March 2015

olsborg wrote: »

In pvp, tanks in heavy armor are permblockers and are impossible to kill 1v1 or even 3v1 sometimes, not true on a general basis, but there are certainly alot of players out there that are extremely efficient tanks. It would be alot harder to do this in medium armor.

I wouldn't say impossible, they can't fight back or do any noticable damage, so eventually they'd run out of resources. Just standing there and blocking and nothing else seems like a boring way to play. A tree or a rock can tank like that too. Blocking costs more stamina now, so I'm not sure how long they can block countless hits.

aco5712 · March 2015

Zsymon wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

In pvp, tanks in heavy armor are permblockers and are impossible to kill 1v1 or even 3v1 sometimes, not true on a general basis, but there are certainly alot of players out there that are extremely efficient tanks. It would be alot harder to do this in medium armor.

I wouldn't say impossible, they can't fight back or do any noticable damage, so eventually they'd run out of resources. Just standing there and blocking and nothing else seems like a boring way to play. A tree or a rock can tank like that too. Blocking costs more stamina now, so I'm not sure how long they can block countless hits.

It may seem boring to you but some people like being the protector of the group. Being a effective tank isn't as easy as just holding block up. You need to know how to distract enough that your group isn't targeted but also you need to manage resources well because you have a limited use of both. It's evident enough to see who actually know how to tank and who just think it's blocking by the way they play. Countless times I have seen the tank of the other group walk up to us and we just call out to walk past and head for the squishes behind and he just stands and does nothing as we move on. Effective tanking has a learning curve just like everything else.

actosh · March 2015

I actually play a Tank since Beta. I like in 1.6 that u have to get away from Permablocking, at least i do. I just block heavy attacks in Trashpulls and thats it. It is just nice to see how much mitigation is worth now. In fight i always have hardcapped values and my Guildgrp just begs me for Tanking because sadly there are way too much worse Tanks out there who dont interupt and other things.

Bossfights r at least for me most of the time Boring like hell. There are a few exceptions of course. If i find the time i put up a discription how i tank. There r many options available like Shieldtank, Mitigation or Evade.....all of them Work well if u build for them.

I also do like Heavy in Pvp. Sure med or light may be better choices but atm i like heavy the most and do ok there.

RainfeatherUK · March 2015

olsborg wrote: »

In pvp, tanks in heavy armor are permblockers and are impossible to kill 1v1 or even 3v1 sometimes, not true on a general basis, but there are certainly alot of players out there that are extremely efficient tanks. It would be alot harder to do this in medium armor.

Hehe I play heavy Dunmer DK in PvP. So does Lefty Lucy (who is imperial and shamelessly better than me T_T) Its alot of fun, even in 1.6 I can hold 1vX no problem.

You need to define your build around your playstyle. Alot works actually! You dont just have to stick around cookie cutter to win fights, because you know..its boring

Experiment with things :cheer:

technohic · March 2015

RainfeatherUK wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

In pvp, tanks in heavy armor are permblockers and are impossible to kill 1v1 or even 3v1 sometimes, not true on a general basis, but there are certainly alot of players out there that are extremely efficient tanks. It would be alot harder to do this in medium armor.

Hehe I play heavy Dunmer DK in PvP. So does Lefty Lucy (who is imperial and shamelessly better than me T_T) Its alot of fun, even in 1.6 I can hold 1vX no problem.

You need to define your build around your playstyle. Alot works actually! You dont just have to stick around cookie cutter to win fights, because you know..its boring

Experiment with things :cheer:

Yeah, I've been experimenting and thats why I am always broke. That said; glad to hear you have DKs in heavy as I had made an alt DK intending to try a heavy armor build idea I had. Also working on grinding gold to try a templar version I already have leveled that would provide a different function. Nothing worse though than theory crafting an idea, getting all set up, only to be disappointed. lol

Skafsgaard · March 2015

eliisra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

It seems to barely protect you any more than Medium Armor does, while it lacks any of the nice passives you get from wearing Medium Armor.

Because you dont have much of a choice as a magicka user in PvP.

Full Light Armor = Melt in seconds unless you play sorc

Medium Armor = Mostly synergy and passives for a stamina user

Only Heavy Armor left

pretty much this

Zsymon · March 2015

aco5712 wrote: »

Zsymon wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

In pvp, tanks in heavy armor are permblockers and are impossible to kill 1v1 or even 3v1 sometimes, not true on a general basis, but there are certainly alot of players out there that are extremely efficient tanks. It would be alot harder to do this in medium armor.

I wouldn't say impossible, they can't fight back or do any noticable damage, so eventually they'd run out of resources. Just standing there and blocking and nothing else seems like a boring way to play. A tree or a rock can tank like that too. Blocking costs more stamina now, so I'm not sure how long they can block countless hits.

It may seem boring to you but some people like being the protector of the group. Being a effective tank isn't as easy as just holding block up. You need to know how to distract enough that your group isn't targeted but also you need to manage resources well because you have a limited use of both. It's evident enough to see who actually know how to tank and who just think it's blocking by the way they play. Countless times I have seen the tank of the other group walk up to us and we just call out to walk past and head for the squishes behind and he just stands and does nothing as we move on. Effective tanking has a learning curve just like everything else.

Point taken, I withdraw what I said.