Lets have a chat about damage shields

asneakybanana

Currently it seems that the meta for any magicka based build in the game is to put 2 or 3 damage shields on your off bar and whenever you get low just swap to that bar put on 3k points of damage shields and then pop an extra healing ward for the free 1.5k+ heal. Even with the nerf to harness magicka people have no problem stacking shields and then just heavy attacking twice and getting their magicka back while the other player would take 3 or 4 heavy attacks to break through all the shields they just put up. While I have tried this type of build and been very successful with it, it does not feel how ZoS intended the game to be for me. I feel as though people rely on the shields to be an almost win button now a days to either survive long enough for backup because they have a weak build or until their opponent runs out of magicka. However when 2 of these shield stacking builds come together it turns into a stalemate if both players know what they're doing and the fight can go on for 10+ minutes until both players either call it off or one player slips up. Now it seems pretty much everywhere you go in cyrodiil you run into at least one person in a group spamming some type of damage shield whether its healing ward to have unlimited health or blazing shield to do 500+ single target DPS and take 0 damage. While I dont think damage shields should be taken out of the game all together I think they need to be changed to allow some variety in magicka based builds and play styles.

One of the biggest problems i see with damage shields right now is how they are stacked and then spammed allowing a full light armor staff wielder to be more tanky than a full heavy armor sword and board wielder. One fix to this would be a system where only one damage shield can be on you at a time barring damage shields granted from ultimates. So you would be able to have a barrier, a protective shell, and a harness magicka shield on at the same time, but would not be able to have a hardened ward, healing ward, and harness magicka on at the same time. This would prevent users from basically taking 0 as the opponent is dumping magicka into them. Another change that could possibly help stop the spamming of it is adding a mechanic similar to the sorcerers streak ability where the cost of it doubles every time it is cast. So lets say that blazing shield costs 300 points base to cast the next cast would be 600 and so on and so forth so a single templar could not do almost 3000 AoE DPS while taking next to no damage. Same would apply for the healing ward bug so it would take 1200 magicka to use the bug for a self heal. Hopefully with these changes it will cause players to think about their builds more than lets make a glass cannon that has 3 damage shields to tank my enemies entire magicka pool.

Just my 2c.

Teargrants

Tip, the way to poop on shield stackers:
1. Deplete their stamina
2. Knock them down
3. ???
4. Profit

Varicite

Teargrants wrote: »

Tip, the way to poop on shield stackers:
1. Deplete their stamina
2. Knock them down
3. ???
4. Profit

You are depleting their stamina through their shields.... how?

Until you run them out of magicka, you won't be touching their stamina, period. Not if they have even half a clue what they're doing.

My personal way to deal w/ shield stacking? Use a 2hander, rip shields apart faster than they can keep putting them up.

Don't have a 2 hander? Well, I hope you're prepared for a long fight then.

Tintinabula

Also burst their shields with dps and use them up in a couple of seconds.

Teargrants

Vari, are we even playing the same game? It's called CC. If they don't block hard CC they still get knocked down/stunned/disoriented. Even if they do block you can spam roots. All of this will deplete their stamina from block/CC break and/or give you free time to bash away at the shields.

Pro tip, fear is the best.

If they are rotating immovable, you just have to constantly root + get behind them. Shield stacking takes a lot of resources, it isn't free.

Xsorus

Roots really do nothing to a Sorc....

Either way Healing Ward is bugged right now, and will be fixed next week.

Varicite

Teargrants wrote: »

Vari, are we even playing the same game? It's called CC. If they don't block hard CC they still get knocked down/stunned/disoriented. Even if they do block you can spam roots. All of this will deplete their stamina from block/CC break and/or give you free time to bash away at the shields.

Pro tip, fear is the best.

If they are rotating immovable, you just have to constantly root + get behind them. Shield stacking takes a lot of resources, it isn't free.

Are you spamming hard CC abilities or something?

Roots can be broken w/ a quick tap of Efficient Purge, though it will work on people running gank builds or something not really prepared for a sustained fight.

I do agree that fear is the best, though.

I think I might be playing the same game as you, but I don't generally go out of my way to make strategies for people who aren't prepared to fight me. : P

Erock25

Who is realistically getting 3k damage shields? I'm stacking 700 magic dmg only on top of 900 dmg shield with variable healing ward shield on top of it. Also please remember that neither blocking dmg reduction or armorer/spell mitigation has any effect with a dmg shield up.

All this Snipe spam is tearing through shields faster than ever.

Teargrants

Oh keep thinking that please, I wish no one would bother to root my sorc. Roots shorten the distance that bolt escape takes you by messing with the elevation the animation gives you. They also prevent you from blinking in any direction other than where you are facing, unless you target someone and use a skill on them to force your character to face them.

That said if we're talking about sorcs stacking shields, two handers pick them apart. Any sorc who tries to just blink away from a two hander is committing suicide to crit rush. I've had an amazingly hilarious time killing other sorcs like this.

Satiar

Teargrants knows of what he speaks.

There are some crazy good sorcs out there, but I have yet to find one I can't get at. Doesn't take too long to get to the juicy bits. Especially if they bolt jusssssst to max charge distance.

Now if we're talking templars, we've got a totally different situation here.

Ifthir_ESO

Satiar wrote: »

Now if we're talking templars, we've got a totally different situation here.

Fear is great for those guys.

Columba

shields are necessary or bows would be wiping everyone. don't get greedy.

Teargrants

Templars are the most problematic. Fear doesn't go through immovable. Templars have crazy stamina sustain so they can keep it up forever. You can't melee them consistently without a bunch of outside heals cuz of blazing shield. Combine this with them pooping out group heals left and right and they become monsters in small group vs group.

Varicite

Columba wrote: »

shields are necessary or bows would be wiping everyone. don't get greedy.

Strange, my bow doesn't seem to have many problems w/ shields most of the time, though blocking can be a pain to deal w/.

I wasn't saying to remove them, though I personally dislike the shield stacking mechanic, just that most of the time it's easier to deplete their magicka pool than it is their stamina (unless I'm running my NBs, of course).

Pixysticks

You shouldn't be able stack shields period, the greater shield should just overwrite the weaker one.

Teargrants

Pixysticks wrote: »

You shouldn't be able stack shields period, the greater shield should just overwrite the weaker one.

That would be nonsensical considering the different timers for different shields. And what would happen when someone pops a healing ward on you that is smaller than your current shield? Nothing? No heals? Heals after 6 sec but no shield? Unable to break through the healing ward to prevent the heal?

Tintinabula

bows ARE wiping most...trust me.

Domander

Anything that does damage eats through shields, they have 0 mitigation. I'd say as far as the healing, what we're seeing is 2 classes that had no direct heal (combat prayer doesn't count imo, doesn't heal enough) are now able to do so. Players are used to quick kills against some builds and now aren't always getting them.

If you're finding it impossible to beat someone, you either need to do more damage or need to look at healing debuffs, or if you're a more tanky build, accept that you won't always do enough damage as a trade off for being more tanky. This is part of the reason many players wear light/medium armor over heavy in pvp, heavy is good for surviving (and block forever) but it's strength is not killing/damage. It's a trade off.

Who doesn't heal while they have enough resources to do so? (if they are able to heal)

I still hope they add a heal to the alliance war skills though, it would be nice for every class to have an option other than the resto staff.

If they change it so that the heal on healing ward is applied after 6 seconds, the 2 things that will happen is that players will renew it when it wears off, and healing debuffs don't work against a shield. (afaik)

If the shield calculation is being applied to the second shield based on the health level before the heal, then I'd say that definitely should be changed so that the new shield calculates based on the new health level. Is this how it's working right now? Has anyone really really tested it?

asneakybanana

Domander wrote: »

Anything that does damage eats through shields, they have 0 mitigation. I'd say as far as the healing, what we're seeing is 2 classes that had no direct heal (combat prayer doesn't count imo, doesn't heal enough) are now able to do so. Players are used to quick kills against some builds and now aren't always getting them.

If you're finding it impossible to beat someone, you either need to do more damage or need to look at healing debuffs, or if you're a more tanky build, accept that you won't always do enough damage as a trade off for being more tanky. This is part of the reason many players wear light/medium armor over heavy in pvp, heavy is good for surviving (and block forever) but it's strength is not killing/damage. It's a trade off.

Who doesn't heal while they have enough resources to do so? (if they are able to heal)

I still hope they add a heal to the alliance war skills though, it would be nice for every class to have an option other than the resto staff.

If they change it so that the heal on healing ward is applied after 6 seconds, the 2 things that will happen is that players will renew it when it wears off, and healing debuffs don't work against a shield. (afaik)

If the shield calculation is being applied to the second shield based on the health level before the heal, then I'd say that definitely should be changed so that the new shield calculates based on the new health level. Is this how it's working right now? Has anyone really really tested it?

So healing ward is getting fixed apparently then that solves one of my biggest issues but I still think that something needs to change with damage shields. And while pixy's idea might work I do think there would be a problem with losing the bonuses from the smaller shields. Ive tried both tanky builds against damage shield stackers and max DPS against damage shield stackers and the only way that I can seem to get them down quick enough is stunning them and then using an ult. ive tried max spell damage whip spam, max weapon damage crushing shock spam, applying multiple dots then whip spam and they just seem to get up pop 3 shields and then can just let their health regen. And even if I do just tank their damage they can just resto heavy attack me and get 350+ magicka back to recast the shields over and over. If ZoS made it so only one could be active at a time or so that the cost went up every time you recast the shields then it would prevent them from just hiding behind their shields and inflated health. even a shield with no mitigation is going to boost their health by ~2/3 essentially so unless your pulling around 1k DPS on a target with 3k points of shields and 3k health your not going to be able to kill them while theyre stunned and they can just get right back up and reapply.