Skill Change Request(s): Heavy Armor skill tree

CaptainSilverbrow

pinstripesc wrote: »

I'd really like to see an AoE in 1H/shield. It doesn't even have to be a taunt or 180 degrees, maybe just an arc, but one that pulls from stamina instead of magicka. As a NB I have 1 AoE, 2 if I want to morph Volcanic Rune the other way and have no AoECC whatsoever.

Kinda offtopic, but it's hard to talk about heavy armour and not relate 1H+shield.

Tanking was sort of broached earlier. I agree whole-heartedly, S&S could do with a "Battle Roar" AoE taunt for certain, make it medium or high cost, about 5-8 seconds so a tank at least has a means to reliably pull trash mobs onto himself, but not be a one-button;gg taunt he can spam. It should be situational and useful, but not an effective tanking coup de grace. It's strange to me that the S&S tree's skills seem to focus more on DPS than tanking.

EDIT:

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Balorah wrote: »

Being an idiot, I just found this thread and this forum..... I am heavy armor, using dual wield and splitting armor between two forges. Level 45 and I have to say, I can deal with npc's at my level, up to 3 non daedra beasts, but cannot deal with a mob plus boss beyond about 5 levels below. I have no area denial weapons other than twirling. I need to find these trees being spoken of, or make some up, or somehow get a comparison going that isn't full of acronyms, which I have a serious problem decrypting. Thanks
Balorah

As a Templar, I used DW up to my faction's VR1 equivalent area, at which point I off-handed and started raising my Bow skill (still main DW), to tremendous effect throughout my VR1-12 leveling experience. However, prior to that, I still had no issue killing things alone. Is it a survivability issue, or DPS issue? For survivability, if your stamina is reasonable, I'd recommend Whitestrake's and Song of Lamae. I didn't start using those until VR6, but they synergize well (if Whitestrake's works). If you're a Templar, Honor the Dead is finally working, and Puncturing Sweep is mandatory against packs, particularly in conjunction with Empowering Sweep.

EDIT 2: Looks like the two'll no longer be miscible after the next update, so ride that while you can if you want. I've noticed, though, that Whitestrake's is being buffed enormously in return for its old versatility, so it might, alone, edge out over Song of Lamae.

Neutronium_Dragon

GTech_1 wrote: »

Horrum wrote: »

I definitely agree that Armor skill lines of all types should give benefits to all builds.
Survival absolutely benefits all builds, so that part of the Heavy tree comes rather easily, imo.

Actually, I think the issue is the flip side of that. All of the armor trees provide survivability in various ways, but both medium and light armor also provide strong offense/utility, while heavy... doesn't. That's its real problem, and that's what it needs help with if it's going to be competitive.

CaptainSilverbrow

Neutronium_Dragon wrote: »

Actually, I think the issue is the flip side of that. All of the armor trees provide survivability in various ways, but both medium and light armor also provide strong offense/utility, while heavy... doesn't. That's its real problem, and that's what it needs help with if it's going to be competitive.

This is being accomplished somewhat with soft caps being raised in the next update. That isn't to say, however, that Heavy Armor shouldn't be redesigned. With so many different systems being reworked entirely,-- from gear set bonus paradigms taking on a whole new philosophy, to the lifting of soft caps across the board and even talk of Provisioning getting a lot more than just a tummy tuck-- I think now is the best time for a more liberal approach to the Heavy Armor tree. If ever there were a time to campaign for real changes to stamina-based skill trees, armor passives, and class revamps, now certainly seems the most apropos to be the most pervasive and insistent we've heretofore ever been.

Ghostnight013

For Resolve, I think we just need to bump the bonus from 1/2/3 to 1/3/5% bonus armor/spell resist and heavy will be in a good place as far as this stat goes.

I like the idea of mixing in Rapid Mending with Constitution to help boost the relative benefit of constitution currently, I mean come on... even at 100% bonus health regen it's basically useless.

Change Blockade: After a sucessful block, your next attack gains 10% bonus attack power(spell and weapon) when wearing 5 pieces of heavy armor.

I would then change the final passive to:
Defensive Manuvers: Reduce the cost of Block, Dodge Roll and CC Break by 1/2% per piece of heavy armor.

These changes clearly make heavy the defensive armor, while maintaining some attempt at parity on cost savings for each armor type Light saves on magicka abilities, Med. on stamina abilities, Heavy on anti-CC abilities.

mar1ano1987nrb18_ESO

I like the idea of changing heavy armor . But I will agree with some of the comments here, heavy armor shoulnt be a "tank only" kind of armor . Give heavy armor some dps passives, (I like the idea of heavy armor as a melee option)

Sunrock

GTech_1 wrote: »

It is pretty likely that we have all read the hubbub about the viability, or rather the lack of viability, of the Heavy Armor skill tree.
So let's talk about some (hopefully) sensible changes.

My suggestions:

• Resolve: Change to: "Reduces all incoming damage by 1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped." This would improve to 2% and 3% per piece, respectively, for the second and third points in the skill. Max benefit: 21% reduction to all incoming damage.
• Constitution: Roll-in the benefits of the Rapid Mending passive, below, increasing healing received.
• Juggernaut: Replace this ability with:
  1. Retaliation: "When you block a single target attack, the attacker suffers damage equal to 0.5% of the damage blocked per piece of Heavy Armor equipped." This would improve to 1% per piece for the second point. Max benefit: 7% of blocked damage returned to the attacker.
• Bracing: Leave as is, I see no issue here
• Rapid Mending: The benefits of this ability have been rolled-in to the Constitution passive above. Replace with:
  1. Threatening Presence: "Block-slams and Shield slams taunt the target for 1 second per piece of Heavy Armor equipped." This would improve to 2 seconds per piece for the second point. Max benefit: 14 second taunt.
• Immovable: Change this ability to require 5 pieces of Heavy Armor, in order to prevent "cherry-picking", and to bring this ability in-line with the weapon abilities. Weapon based abilities require the use of the weapon they are connected with. Armor actives should receive the same treatment. The other two Armor skill line active abilities should be changed to fit this as well.

The suggestion regarding immovable is quite good. Like it.

However most of your suggestion will mean that heavy armor is only for "tanking". If you want to make a "berserker Warrior" build or a classic D&D "Paladin" build wearing heavy armor I don't think they should change anything in the heavy armor passives.

Ramasee

Ghostnight013 wrote: »

For Resolve, I think we just need to bump the bonus from 1/2/3 to 1/3/5% bonus armor/spell resist and heavy will be in a good place as far as this stat goes.

Except as the game currently stands and even after patch 1.3, a person wearing full legendary quality heavy armor without any points in resolve, will be 99% of the way towards the armor softcap. With the passive, or with a shield, he reaches overcharge which is quite punishing for armor and spell resistance. This purposed increase will not do much to increase the defensive capabilities of a full heavy armor user. However, it would help those who mix.

Ghostnight013 wrote: »

Change Blockade: After a successful block, your next attack gains 10% bonus attack power(spell and weapon) when wearing 5 pieces of heavy armor.

I would then change the final passive to:
Defensive Maneuvers: Reduce the cost of Block, Dodge Roll and CC Break by 1/2% per piece of heavy armor.

These two are great ideas that can be considered as well. Defensive Maneuvers you would have to remove the cost reduction on dodge roll, that falls under medium armor uniqueness.

arnaldomoraleseb17_ESO

I like your changes except this:

"Threatening Presence: "Block-slams and Shield slams taunt the target for 1 second per piece of Heavy Armor equipped." This would improve to 2 seconds per piece for the second point. Max benefit: 14 second taunt."

I don't think we should have one passive 100% PvE oriented.

timidobserver

Everything looks good except the change to unstoppable. All non-clasd actives are available to everyone with no restrictions.

I would add a 40% chance to remove all negative effects when taking damage on a 5-10 second cooldown to the 5 piece Heavy Passive.

CaptainSilverbrow

arnaldomoraleseb17_ESO wrote: »

I don't think we should have one passive 100% PvE oriented.

Or tank-oriented, for that matter.

Apfelkuchen

The change you suggest for using Immovable would greatly balance the game and make it more viable to wear heavy armor. So simple but effective.

semp3rfi

I would like to see a spiked armour or spiked shield added that either returns a flat damage each time you are struck, or a percentage of a successful block

Ramasee

@GTech_1 maybe you should edit the original post with all of the good ideas stated so far in the thread. That way people do not have to read as many posts to see them. (Human nature causing most to not read past the first few posts and all)

Ramasee

timidobserver wrote: »

Everything looks good except the change to unstoppable. All non-class actives are available to everyone with no restrictions.

This is not entirely true. You can only use weapon abilities when you have that weapon equipped. So for instance, I could not use grand healing unless I had my restoration staff out. All the OP is stating, and several of us are agreeing with is that to use any of the armor skill line trees that you actually need to be wearing a piece of that armor.

timidobserver wrote: »

I would add a 40% chance to remove all negative effects when taking damage on a 5-10 second cooldown to the 5 piece Heavy Passive.

This is another interesting idea that would fit into a heavy armor scheme, if we modify and balance the numbers of course.

timidobserver

Ramasee wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

Everything looks good except the change to unstoppable. All non-class actives are available to everyone with no restrictions.

This is not entirely true. You can only use weapon abilities when you have that weapon equipped. So for instance, I could not use grand healing unless I had my restoration staff out. All the OP is stating, and several of us are agreeing with is that to use any of the armor skill line trees that you actually need to be wearing a piece of that armor.

timidobserver wrote: »

I would add a 40% chance to remove all negative effects when taking damage on a 5-10 second cooldown to the 5 piece Heavy Passive.

This is another interesting idea that would fit into a heavy armor scheme, if we modify and balance the numbers of course.

A piece sounds good, but what I read in the Op was 5 pieces. A 5 gear piece skill restriction is a bit much. Those would easily become the most restrictive skills in the game and neither of them are good enough to merit such restrictions. 1 or 2 sounds good though.

As far as balance on my idea goes, I leave it to ZOS to come up with balance and numbers. The main point is the idea of removing negative effects and not on some kind of crazy cooldown since a tank is going to be fairly spammed with negative effects.

Tobiz

GTech_1 wrote: »

My suggestions

very good suggestions. This would be a great start with combined efforts to the weapon trees and improved synergies between them.

Cyrdemaceb17_ESO

Heavy Armor wasn't even mentioned on the Quakecon. Maybe they do something but I wouldn't bet on it.
They showed a lot of new armor looks and especially the heavy ones looked cool. But nothing about changes or improvements.

timidobserver

Cyrdemaceb17_ESO wrote: »

Heavy Armor wasn't even mentioned on the Quakecon. Maybe they do something but I wouldn't bet on it.
They showed a lot of new armor looks and especially the heavy ones looked cool. But nothing about changes or improvements.

They didn't talk about balance at all during Quakecon. It was mostly about major features/content.

Cyrdemaceb17_ESO

They did mention medium armor and that it's good as it is now for support of stamina builds.

Cyrdemaceb17_ESO

And they added something to Juggernaut on PTS. Didn't notice this one yet. 7-pieces worn reduce Break Free stamina cost by 28%. Makes 3% with 1 point or 4% with 2 points in Juggernaut for each hvy armor piece worn.

Good change for PvP.

Bashev

It is not enough for PvP and totally useless for PvE. My problem in PvP is not that I am CC because most of the time I use block, the problem is that I take almost the same damage when I block in light and heavy armor. Then the question is why should I use heavy armors when I can manage my resources better with light armors?

timidobserver

Cyrdemaceb17_ESO wrote: »

And they added something to Juggernaut on PTS. Didn't notice this one yet. 7-pieces worn reduce Break Free stamina cost by 28%. Makes 3% with 1 point or 4% with 2 points in Juggernaut for each hvy armor piece worn.

Good change for PvP.

Yeh, with the right sets and full heavy armor, I am pretty sure the break free cost can be reduced pretty close to nothing. This will be really useful once they make CC immunity apply to all CCs.

However, I still don't think it would be worth it. It would be better if Heavy Armor had it's on automatic passive that mitigates CC. The break free animation is too slow sometimes.

ianangelospreub18_ESO

Ramasee wrote: »

Those are some good ideas. Here are some of mine and what I agree with.

Resolve being changed to 0.5% damage reduction per piece is very similar to what myself and others have been saying in game.

Constitution agree with having Rapid Mending's benefit rolled in with it. Brings it in line with the change to medium armor's Wind Walker.

Juggernaut could be changed to 7% power. Removing the melee and weapon components. That would make it comparable but still less than the other armors.

Bracing is fine just as you said, and fits in with the scheme of heavy armor.

Rapid Mending would be better replaced with you Retaliation idea and add that the damage returned generates more threat than equal damage(but does not taunt). And the damage would probably need to be capped by some factor so that you cannot return a significant amount of damage.

I am also going to add in some ideas for the armor types to go along with that so that they fit the same mold.

Medium armor given its recent changes is fine as is. (However, the uses of stamina and a lot of the stamina abilities are not. But that's another thread.)

Evocation (for light armor) should be rolled in with Recovery and by effect reduced. It can be replaced with an effect similar to Magnus's Gift 3 piece set bonus to give them back the efficiency lost. Or perhaps something another kind soul comes up with.

I like this a lot if nothing else just for the idea of some more retaliation damage.

heyguyslol

GTech_1 wrote: »

It is pretty likely that we have all read the hubbub about the viability, or rather the lack of viability, of the Heavy Armor skill tree.
So let's talk about some (hopefully) sensible changes.

My suggestions:

• Resolve: Change to: "Reduces all incoming damage by 1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped." This would improve to 2% and 3% per piece, respectively, for the second and third points in the skill. Max benefit: 21% reduction to all incoming damage.
• Constitution: Roll-in the benefits of the Rapid Mending passive, below, increasing healing received.
• Juggernaut: Replace this ability with:
  1. Retaliation: "When you block a single target attack, the attacker suffers damage equal to 0.5% of the damage blocked per piece of Heavy Armor equipped." This would improve to 1% per piece for the second point. Max benefit: 7% of blocked damage returned to the attacker.
• Bracing: Leave as is, I see no issue here
• Rapid Mending: The benefits of this ability have been rolled-in to the Constitution passive above. Replace with:
  1. Threatening Presence: "Block-slams and Shield slams taunt the target for 1 second per piece of Heavy Armor equipped." This would improve to 2 seconds per piece for the second point. Max benefit: 14 second taunt.
• Immovable: Change this ability to require 5 pieces of Heavy Armor, in order to prevent "cherry-picking", and to bring this ability in-line with the weapon abilities. Weapon based abilities require the use of the weapon they are connected with. Armor actives should receive the same treatment. The other two Armor skill line active abilities should be changed to fit this as well.

Fortunately this will never happen because the game was meant to be diverse so that we are not pigeon holed into one or two cookie cutter builds. If zos were to make your changes live it would break a lot of builds going against what they originally designed the game for. If you want cookie cutter then maybe u should look into playing another mmo.

Warraxx

Bashev wrote: »

It is not enough for PvP and totally useless for PvE. My problem in PvP is not that I am CC because most of the time I use block, the problem is that I take almost the same damage when I block in light and heavy armor. Then the question is why should I use heavy armors when I can manage my resources better with light armors?

heavy armor looks cooler.

Gecko

I like some of the ideas, but you have to be careful with taunt in this game. If you have too many ways taunting you can over taunt. If a mob or boss gets taunted 3 times (from any source) over the course of 10 seconds they go nuts and become immune to taunts for 10 seconds or so. (my times may be off).

Saavuj

One thing that might be really beneficial to heavy armor would be to change one of the passives to also raise the soft cap for armor/spell resist per piece of armor. This would go a long way in distinguishing between the mitigation available to light, medium, and heavy armors.

frwinters_ESO

I think all amor abilities shoudl require the person to at least have 1 piece of that armor on. Like Immovable. Heavily used in PvP and everyone wears primarily light armor. Once they unlock the ability never see a piece of heavy again. Since the ability scales with how many pieces of armor you have on, should give the incentive to wear more of it for a better buff.

Sadae

I think the Heavy Armor passives are good the way they are. They make sense when compared to the other armor types. (My character is heavy/stamina btw.) I do agree however that active armor skills should require 5 pieces of that armor type be worn.

timidobserver

I would like to see an ability similar to the GW2 retaliation boon attached to a Heavy Armor passive. For those that didn't play GW2, it basically makes your attacker takes X damage every time they hit you.