This is one of my favorite new sets in the game, because it is the only thing in the game that brings balance to shield recasting/stacking.

pelennor_fields wrote: »

BrassRazoo wrote: »

eNumbra wrote: »

BalticBlues wrote: »

14548"]let's also give us the Cloak Breaker set turning cloaked NBs into sitting ducks as well. The Cloak Breaker set would be one of my favorite new sets in the game, because it would the only thing in the game that brings balance to cloak recasting. Good players will adapt [...] No more cloaking out of face-to-face battles. Finally fair fights. [...] Stop crying NBs and learn 2 play.

Oh you mean:
Detect pots?
Sentry Set?
Radiant Magelight?
Any AOE?
Revealing Flare?

You could certainly add a Cloak Breaker set to the game, but 6 anti-cloak options vs 1 (5 piece set) anti-shield option: the scales still aren't balanced.

Oh you mean:
Detect pots? = Useless
Sentry Set?
Radiant Magelight? = Useless
Any AOE? = Useless
Revealing Flare? = Useless

phaseadept wrote: »

^^ those aren't useless

Radiant magelight - confirmed... Completely useless.

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

#removeshieldstacking?

Stacked shields are rediculous right now but shieldbreaker is just poor game design that punishes me more when i´m using only hardenedward when compared to using hardened + healing + harness. It does not make sense the way it´s currently implemented.

I don't think shield stacking is really the problem.

The fact that you can't crit them is.

I don't find shield breaker to be OP at all. It just doesn't add up to being as big of a deal as made out to be, it's not nearly represented in kills at a level it's even worth using (and in cyro it's useless).

I only find it worth having with annoying sorcs that try to reset when they get low by fleeing with healing ward up or when you get them low in combat and they try to shield stack to survive. The other use for it, like I said earlier, is to induce panic... and for that it's actually quite useful as a fair % of sorcerers will react to it defensively instead of offensively.

But to reiterate... uncrittable shield is the problem. Not shield stacking.

Derra wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

#removeshieldstacking?

Stacked shields are rediculous right now but shieldbreaker is just poor game design that punishes me more when i´m using only hardenedward when compared to using hardened + healing + harness. It does not make sense the way it´s currently implemented.

I don't think shield stacking is really the problem.

The fact that you can't crit them is.

I don't find shield breaker to be OP at all. It just doesn't add up to being as big of a deal as made out to be, it's not nearly represented in kills at a level it's even worth using (and in cyro it's useless).

I only find it worth having with annoying sorcs that try to reset when they get low by fleeing with healing ward up or when you get them low in combat and they try to shield stack to survive. The other use for it, like I said earlier, is to induce panic... and for that it's actually quite useful as a fair % of sorcerers will react to it defensively instead of offensively.

But to reiterate... uncrittable shield is the problem. Not shield stacking.

Critable shields just opens up a whole new box of balancingpandora. Currently if you don´t stack shields they´re balanced around not being critable.
If they were made to be critable you would have to rebalance every shields power (buff) under the presumption that there are builds with over 70% critchance for magica and stamina builds - so the shields remain vaible if used without combining them with other shields.

Critable shields would be the worst approach they could possibly take.

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

#removeshieldstacking?

Stacked shields are rediculous right now but shieldbreaker is just poor game design that punishes me more when i´m using only hardenedward when compared to using hardened + healing + harness. It does not make sense the way it´s currently implemented.

I don't think shield stacking is really the problem.

The fact that you can't crit them is.

I don't find shield breaker to be OP at all. It just doesn't add up to being as big of a deal as made out to be, it's not nearly represented in kills at a level it's even worth using (and in cyro it's useless).

I only find it worth having with annoying sorcs that try to reset when they get low by fleeing with healing ward up or when you get them low in combat and they try to shield stack to survive. The other use for it, like I said earlier, is to induce panic... and for that it's actually quite useful as a fair % of sorcerers will react to it defensively instead of offensively.

But to reiterate... uncrittable shield is the problem. Not shield stacking.

Critable shields just opens up a whole new box of balancingpandora. Currently if you don´t stack shields they´re balanced around not being critable.
If they were made to be critable you would have to rebalance every shields power (buff) under the presumption that there are builds with over 70% critchance for magica and stamina builds - so the shields remain vaible if used without combining them with other shields.

Critable shields would be the worst approach they could possibly take.

How about this @Derra?

1) Crits can be landed on shields at half chance. Example: If Tom had a crit chance of 70%, he would have a 35% chance to crit on Jerry's shield.

2) Shields become bleedable, though bleed damage taken is reduced by 33%

3) Shields inhert the Armor value of the user. This balances out the disparity between shields casted by a magicka scaling shield and a health scaling shield, as the user of the health scaling shield is more likely to have better Armor. Example: Jerry is wearing light Armor, Spike is wearing heavy. Spike casts obsidian shield on both of them. Spike's shield inherts Spike's Armor value while Jerry's shield inherts Jerry's Armor value.

4) Shieldbreaker is replaced with 20% bonus damage to shields (Counterpart to Sentry Set).

Currently, shields Negate 2 types of builds (Crit and DoT) and make Armor a useless stat for the caster. What these proposed changes does is that it doesn't completely Negate those builds, but allows them to function abeilt at a lower effectiveness. You cannot simply increase shield value to compensate for critable shields without completely breaking PvE. This is because mobs cannot crit in the first place.

Derra wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

#removeshieldstacking?

Stacked shields are rediculous right now but shieldbreaker is just poor game design that punishes me more when i´m using only hardenedward when compared to using hardened + healing + harness. It does not make sense the way it´s currently implemented.

I don't think shield stacking is really the problem.

The fact that you can't crit them is.

I don't find shield breaker to be OP at all. It just doesn't add up to being as big of a deal as made out to be, it's not nearly represented in kills at a level it's even worth using (and in cyro it's useless).

I only find it worth having with annoying sorcs that try to reset when they get low by fleeing with healing ward up or when you get them low in combat and they try to shield stack to survive. The other use for it, like I said earlier, is to induce panic... and for that it's actually quite useful as a fair % of sorcerers will react to it defensively instead of offensively.

But to reiterate... uncrittable shield is the problem. Not shield stacking.

Critable shields just opens up a whole new box of balancingpandora. Currently if you don´t stack shields they´re balanced around not being critable.
If they were made to be critable you would have to rebalance every shields power (buff) under the presumption that there are builds with over 70% critchance for magica and stamina builds - so the shields remain vaible if used without combining them with other shields.

Critable shields would be the worst approach they could possibly take.

How about this @Derra?

1) Crits can be landed on shields at half chance. Example: If Tom had a crit chance of 70%, he would have a 35% chance to crit on Jerry's shield.

2) Shields become bleedable, though bleed damage taken is reduced by 33%

3) Shields inhert the Armor value of the user. This balances out the disparity between shields casted by a magicka scaling shield and a health scaling shield, as the user of the health scaling shield is more likely to have better Armor. Example: Jerry is wearing light Armor, Spike is wearing heavy. Spike casts obsidian shield on both of them. Spike's shield inherts Spike's Armor value while Jerry's shield inherts Jerry's Armor value.

4) Shieldbreaker is replaced with 20% bonus damage to shields (Counterpart to Sentry Set).

Currently, shields Negate 2 types of builds (Crit and DoT) and make Armor a useless stat for the caster. What these proposed changes does is that it doesn't completely Negate those builds, but allows them to function abeilt at a lower effectiveness. You cannot simply increase shield value to compensate for critable shields without completely breaking PvE. This is because mobs cannot crit in the first place.

I agree 100% on all dots (including bleeds) working on shields. The mechanics on what´s working and what is not are just too shady - that said - i think everything should apply through block too (this would open up to removing or altering the current block penalty as bleed/dot builds would be a vaible counter).

Shields being critable but having armor value might work - i don´t think halving crit or anything would be my choice - i´m all for simple mechanics. Still i think with this approach you´d still have to make them not stackable (or rework harness + healing ward) - magica builds would still suffer against harness + hardened stacking otherwise even with crits.

One problem i could see though is magica (light armor 5-1-1 builds) are able to achieve relatively high armor values. WIth 1h shield builds they can go up to ~20k armor without any further investment. Someone running harness magica + armor master + armor buff would be insanely tanky (10k wards alongside ~45% mitigation does not sound like a good idea).

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Hello @Wrobel

Nice to see that you have finally decided to step foot in web based Cyrodiil. You asked for suggested changes, and here are my suggestions

1) Restore miss chance as a valid stat. Abilities like Blinding Flashes, Sparks and Cinder Storm will go a long way in improving the survivabilty of melee based stamina fighters which do not have the luxury of damage shields to soak up damage for them. If we cannot absorb damage, perhaps we can avoid it with evasion + miss chance? (Also, sparks really fit the theme of dirty melee for Dual Wield very well)

2) Change damage shields to function more like bonus health. Damage shields currently Negate three styles of builds, that of being uncrittable, undottable and not receiving the caster's Armor value, which gives damage shields an effective 25-35% damage mitigation, due to negating all crits and bleeds. This value scales up the more the attacker is invested into crit. 25-35% mitigation is incidentally more mitigation then most heavy Armor builds have after factoring in Armor Penetration. Allow damage shields to inhert the Armor value of the user, to make Armor a valid stat to invest in for shield users.

3) Change shieldbreaker to deal bonus damage to shielded targets instead of unresistable damage on light attack. Shieldbreaker in it's current form encourages it's wearers to stand back at range and plink away with a weighted Bow rather then actually using abilities. Bonus damage against shielded targets will aid the wearer in ripping apart shields, while not turning it into an I win button against shield builds.

4) Replace the empower on Wrecking Blow with Major Fracture, and add a range check to the end of the animation. Wrecking Blow is dealing far too much damage for too little risk, and encourages spamming of just Wrecking Blow and nothing else due to empower. A change to Major Fracture will give an Armor debuff to the two hander line (Which currently lacks one) as well as encouraging the use of other abilities into the mix. In addition, the complete lack of a range check at the end of the Wrecking Blow has resulted in 15+m Wrecking Blows as long as the target is within 7m after 0.4 seconds have passed since the start of the channel. The lack of a range check at the end ensures that the Wrecking Blow will connect. This also applies to the Base ability uppercut and it's other morph dizzying swing.

5) Lower the damage of abilities from the One Handed and Shield line while increasing it's protective qualities. This weapon line is meant to be a defensive choice, but instead it's being used as the go-to Offensive weapon of choice in Cyrodiil (Mainly due to Low Slash and Puncture). In addition, due to the changes to stamina regeneration while blocking, users of the weapon line are gimped when trying to use the defensive properties of the line. This can be remedied by making a change to the "Fortress" passive to reduce block costs for the first 1.5/3 seconds of blocking, to encourage timed blocks instead of just simply holding block.

6) Allow the Destruction Staff passive penetrating magic to apply to all sources of magic damage, as well as slightly increasing the bonus that the passive gives. This will allow the destruction staff to be the weapon of choice by Offensive magi who are seeking to bypass enemy spell resistance.

7) Change healing ward to instead of having 300% bonus ward strength on low health targets to 100%, but increase the heal granted when the ward expires by 250%. A healing ward Spammer cannot be executed, and this change will allow enemies to have a chance of executing the caster, but rewarding the caster with an even larger heal should the caster be able to protect the ward till it expires.

8) Change annulment to absorb only half of incoming magic damage instead of 100%, while retaining the current ward strength. Annulment is blatantly overpowered against magicka builds, and is the main reason physical damage is preferred in Cyrodiil due to not having to deal with the horror that is annulment. This change will allow the ward to last longer, and reduces it's effectiveness while not rendering it useless.

9) Turn Proximity Detonation into a high damage delayed DoT with a cast time like flaming oil, while keeping Inevitable Detonation as it currently is. Proximity Detonation is currently the best single target magicka based nuke there is. This ability should only be effective against groups, and not against single targets. Example: "Cast time: 1.5 seconds. After channel is over, inflicts all nearby enemies with a DoT, dealing 2a damage over 6 seconds. Ticks come in at every 2 seconds". "a" being the current damage of Proximity Detonation.

10) Remove the execute component of Steel Tornado, and increase the execution damage of Whirling Blades. Steel Tornado is a huge AoE execute with the highest range of any PBAoE in the game, along with it's low cost and high Base damage has resulted in players spamming this in any situation, from large group fights to 1v1 battles. Removing the execute component and buffing the execute component of the other morph will encourage more variety in morph choices, as well as balancing Steel Tornado.

11) Decrease Camouflaged Hunter damage from stealth, and reduce Dawnbreaker bonus damage on Daedra and undead to 40% from the current 60%. Camo Hunter is the main reason why instagibs from stealth is possible, and Dawnbreaker can instakill players with a single hit out of stealth. Being a vampire or a werewolf should have it's penalties, but being a prime target for instakills is a bit over the top.

12) Buff Templar's "Restoring Spirit" passive. They have a ton of resource issues with expensive skills as it is, and they need all the help they can get.

I know this list is rather long, so I'll stop here. I hope that you would consider the suggestions posted as I feel the changes would make for a more varied environment rather then the static and stale meta we have today.

Valencer wrote: »

For sorcerers, it might also be time to consider not putting every single enchantment, attribute and set bonus into max magicka and instead adding some more health...

Yes, 2.6k spell damage and 35k max magicka is nice, but low health leaves you very little breathing room. Honestly, I think it's a good thing they added a set like this... maybe the number needs tweaking, but the idea is solid.

Derra wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

#removeshieldstacking?

Stacked shields are rediculous right now but shieldbreaker is just poor game design that punishes me more when i´m using only hardenedward when compared to using hardened + healing + harness. It does not make sense the way it´s currently implemented.

I don't think shield stacking is really the problem.

The fact that you can't crit them is.

I don't find shield breaker to be OP at all. It just doesn't add up to being as big of a deal as made out to be, it's not nearly represented in kills at a level it's even worth using (and in cyro it's useless).

I only find it worth having with annoying sorcs that try to reset when they get low by fleeing with healing ward up or when you get them low in combat and they try to shield stack to survive. The other use for it, like I said earlier, is to induce panic... and for that it's actually quite useful as a fair % of sorcerers will react to it defensively instead of offensively.

But to reiterate... uncrittable shield is the problem. Not shield stacking.

Critable shields just opens up a whole new box of balancingpandora. Currently if you don´t stack shields they´re balanced around not being critable.
If they were made to be critable you would have to rebalance every shields power (buff) under the presumption that there are builds with over 70% critchance for magica and stamina builds - so the shields remain vaible if used without combining them with other shields.

Critable shields would be the worst approach they could possibly take.

How about this @Derra?

1) Crits can be landed on shields at half chance. Example: If Tom had a crit chance of 70%, he would have a 35% chance to crit on Jerry's shield.

2) Shields become bleedable, though bleed damage taken is reduced by 33%

3) Shields inhert the Armor value of the user. This balances out the disparity between shields casted by a magicka scaling shield and a health scaling shield, as the user of the health scaling shield is more likely to have better Armor. Example: Jerry is wearing light Armor, Spike is wearing heavy. Spike casts obsidian shield on both of them. Spike's shield inherts Spike's Armor value while Jerry's shield inherts Jerry's Armor value.

4) Shieldbreaker is replaced with 20% bonus damage to shields (Counterpart to Sentry Set).

Currently, shields Negate 2 types of builds (Crit and DoT) and make Armor a useless stat for the caster. What these proposed changes does is that it doesn't completely Negate those builds, but allows them to function abeilt at a lower effectiveness. You cannot simply increase shield value to compensate for critable shields without completely breaking PvE. This is because mobs cannot crit in the first place.

I agree 100% on all dots (including bleeds) working on shields. The mechanics on what´s working and what is not are just too shady - that said - i think everything should apply through block too (this would open up to removing or altering the current block penalty as bleed/dot builds would be a vaible counter).

Shields being critable but having armor value might work - i don´t think halving crit or anything would be my choice - i´m all for simple mechanics. Still i think with this approach you´d still have to make them not stackable (or rework harness + healing ward) - magica builds would still suffer against harness + hardened stacking otherwise even with crits.

One problem i could see though is magica (light armor 5-1-1 builds) are able to achieve relatively high armor values. WIth 1h shield builds they can go up to ~20k armor without any further investment. Someone running harness magica + armor master + armor buff would be insanely tanky (10k wards alongside ~45% mitigation does not sound like a good idea).

@Derra

I wrote this in Wrobel's megathread that he made, what do you think of it?

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Hello @Wrobel

Nice to see that you have finally decided to step foot in web based Cyrodiil. You asked for suggested changes, and here are my suggestions

1) Restore miss chance as a valid stat. Abilities like Blinding Flashes, Sparks and Cinder Storm will go a long way in improving the survivabilty of melee based stamina fighters which do not have the luxury of damage shields to soak up damage for them. If we cannot absorb damage, perhaps we can avoid it with evasion + miss chance? (Also, sparks really fit the theme of dirty melee for Dual Wield very well)

2) Change damage shields to function more like bonus health. Damage shields currently Negate three styles of builds, that of being uncrittable, undottable and not receiving the caster's Armor value, which gives damage shields an effective 25-35% damage mitigation, due to negating all crits and bleeds. This value scales up the more the attacker is invested into crit. 25-35% mitigation is incidentally more mitigation then most heavy Armor builds have after factoring in Armor Penetration. Allow damage shields to inhert the Armor value of the user, to make Armor a valid stat to invest in for shield users.

3) Change shieldbreaker to deal bonus damage to shielded targets instead of unresistable damage on light attack. Shieldbreaker in it's current form encourages it's wearers to stand back at range and plink away with a weighted Bow rather then actually using abilities. Bonus damage against shielded targets will aid the wearer in ripping apart shields, while not turning it into an I win button against shield builds.

4) Replace the empower on Wrecking Blow with Major Fracture, and add a range check to the end of the animation. Wrecking Blow is dealing far too much damage for too little risk, and encourages spamming of just Wrecking Blow and nothing else due to empower. A change to Major Fracture will give an Armor debuff to the two hander line (Which currently lacks one) as well as encouraging the use of other abilities into the mix. In addition, the complete lack of a range check at the end of the Wrecking Blow has resulted in 15+m Wrecking Blows as long as the target is within 7m after 0.4 seconds have passed since the start of the channel. The lack of a range check at the end ensures that the Wrecking Blow will connect. This also applies to the Base ability uppercut and it's other morph dizzying swing.

5) Lower the damage of abilities from the One Handed and Shield line while increasing it's protective qualities. This weapon line is meant to be a defensive choice, but instead it's being used as the go-to Offensive weapon of choice in Cyrodiil (Mainly due to Low Slash and Puncture). In addition, due to the changes to stamina regeneration while blocking, users of the weapon line are gimped when trying to use the defensive properties of the line. This can be remedied by making a change to the "Fortress" passive to reduce block costs for the first 1.5/3 seconds of blocking, to encourage timed blocks instead of just simply holding block.

6) Allow the Destruction Staff passive penetrating magic to apply to all sources of magic damage, as well as slightly increasing the bonus that the passive gives. This will allow the destruction staff to be the weapon of choice by Offensive magi who are seeking to bypass enemy spell resistance.

7) Change healing ward to instead of having 300% bonus ward strength on low health targets to 100%, but increase the heal granted when the ward expires by 250%. A healing ward Spammer cannot be executed, and this change will allow enemies to have a chance of executing the caster, but rewarding the caster with an even larger heal should the caster be able to protect the ward till it expires.

8) Change annulment to absorb only half of incoming magic damage instead of 100%, while retaining the current ward strength. Annulment is blatantly overpowered against magicka builds, and is the main reason physical damage is preferred in Cyrodiil due to not having to deal with the horror that is annulment. This change will allow the ward to last longer, and reduces it's effectiveness while not rendering it useless.

9) Turn Proximity Detonation into a high damage delayed DoT with a cast time like flaming oil, while keeping Inevitable Detonation as it currently is. Proximity Detonation is currently the best single target magicka based nuke there is. This ability should only be effective against groups, and not against single targets. Example: "Cast time: 1.5 seconds. After channel is over, inflicts all nearby enemies with a DoT, dealing 2a damage over 6 seconds. Ticks come in at every 2 seconds". "a" being the current damage of Proximity Detonation.

10) Remove the execute component of Steel Tornado, and increase the execution damage of Whirling Blades. Steel Tornado is a huge AoE execute with the highest range of any PBAoE in the game, along with it's low cost and high Base damage has resulted in players spamming this in any situation, from large group fights to 1v1 battles. Removing the execute component and buffing the execute component of the other morph will encourage more variety in morph choices, as well as balancing Steel Tornado.

11) Decrease Camouflaged Hunter damage from stealth, and reduce Dawnbreaker bonus damage on Daedra and undead to 40% from the current 60%. Camo Hunter is the main reason why instagibs from stealth is possible, and Dawnbreaker can instakill players with a single hit out of stealth. Being a vampire or a werewolf should have it's penalties, but being a prime target for instakills is a bit over the top.

12) Buff Templar's "Restoring Spirit" passive. They have a ton of resource issues with expensive skills as it is, and they need all the help they can get.

I know this list is rather long, so I'll stop here. I hope that you would consider the suggestions posted as I feel the changes would make for a more varied environment rather then the static and stale meta we have today.

In your case about Armor Master Magicka builds, I feel that is a decent tradeoff. The AM wearer has sacrificed a 5pc set to get his/her tankiness, and is suffering in offensive power because of it. In addition, the additional armor that AM provides is reduced by armor and spell penetration, so it isn't really as high as you would think. The main issue however is still Annulment, which I have tried to address in my post on Wrobel's megathread.

Sooo much text! Only commenting on shield things before i walk the dog.

Annulment only absorbing half of the damage could potentially be a horrible change. If you spread out dmg between health and shield burst becomes even less of an option to kill users of the skill - alongside hots becoming incredibly potent on such a build. I´d be in favor of reworking annulment to a completely different skill that gives a universial bonus for every build, like evade for medium and armor buff for heavy (8% flat dmg reduction comes to mind - obviously they´d have to work on morphs then).

Healing ward - personally i feel they should not buff the heal provided at the end of it. That would make it useless on non templar healing. I´d be a fan of decreasing the extra shield strengh to 100% down from 300% but increase the initial heal by up to 100% on low health targets (6k crit heals on low health roundabout).


On the armor master thing: I don´t think of it as a tradeoff really. It would basically mean i could go all out 100% offense on everything else because wards with that much mitigation would offer tremendous defensive potential far better than anything i´ve got now (especially with impenetrable working too i would not even take that much issue in crits).