Unkillable Perma Blocking Tank Builds

sabresandiego_ESO

As powerful as unkillable max magicka shield stackers can be, now there are also unkillable perma blocking heavy armor tank builds. Today I ran into a guy named [snip] (he was using special characters for the i's in his name, which made me suspect he could be exploiting something) who had over 50k health and 21k stamina (according to his claims). He also claims to have 78% block cost reduction. He didn't have any real offense, but he was unkillable to less than 3 players.

He was able to hold block forever with multiple people hitting him, for several minutes straight. He never ran out of stamina. He could basically tape the right mouse button down and go afk and be invulnerable to 3 or less players. Is this type of build intended to be possible?

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Naming & Shaming]

prototypefb

did he deal tons of damage while tanking? i'm guessing no, so there is no problem.

Domander

I'm curious how he got 50k health, but yeah I've seen him, crazy you can do this and still have 21k stam.

How do you get 78% block cost reduction? I've seen other people claim this as well.

50% from heavy armor and shield... 8% from defensive posture.. is there a set bonus I'm missing? Jewelry enchants still seem to be a flat value. There is some from champion points... but 20%

kelly.medleyb14_ESO

prototypefb wrote: »

did he deal tons of damage while tanking? i'm guessing no, so there is no problem.

^ This. All the squeelers fail to see this very simple trade off. Quit crying about a guy that can't kill a fly and ignore him.

sabresandiego_ESO

He wouldnt reveal his gear or build. Just for reference, my hybrid sorc build has 21k magicka, 21k health, and 21k stamina roughly. He claims to have 12k magicka, 50k health, and 21k stamina. I assume all his set bonuses are health, which seem to still give 50% more than stam/mag.

21k is a sizeable amount of stamina, so its not like his DPS was incredibly low. It wasnt impressive, but the fact that he was unkillable was.

sabresandiego_ESO

kelly.medleyb14_ESO wrote: »

prototypefb wrote: »

did he deal tons of damage while tanking? i'm guessing no, so there is no problem.

^ This. All the squeelers fail to see this very simple trade off. Quit crying about a guy that can't kill a fly and ignore him.

Nobody is complaining. This is a test server. If the game is intended to have perma blocking unkillable builds, so be it.

Berinima

Interesting.... But if he actually has 21k stamina then he might be able to deal at least decent damage.

Ahhh... Removing soft caps from the game was such a great idea...

Ethona

prototypefb wrote: »

did he deal tons of damage while tanking? i'm guessing no, so there is no problem.

Exactly! My test shows nearly 50% drop in overall DPS with heavy.

JLB

I dont get what you are complaining about. That is what a tank is supposed to do, survive mucho, block mucho and deal very low damage.
Comparing it to 1.5 where a DK doing that would actually kill you, I would say it's a big improvement.

Berinima

That is not an improvement, it's just another ridiculous build that can now exist that was not possible before. People that tank a lot AND can kill you in a split second will continue to exist. An IF that build actually has 21k stamina then again, he might be able to deal decent damage to you.

trimsic_ESO

The problem is more about the 360 degrees blocking capability, block casting, and possibly the high damage mitigation when blocking. But a tank must be solid, and this is OK as long as the output damage of such a build remains very low.

I would suggest the following changes:
- reduce the blocking arc to 180 degrees
- When block casting, the output damage of a casted ability is reduced by 50%

JLB

I very much doubt it.
Focusing gear to maximize block reduction plus the increased block cost means you can't kill a fly in 1.6 unless it's a noob fly.

Cody

If he was block casting, then yes it would be a HUGE balance issue.

However, he only blocked, which sounds to me like he speced to be a full on tank. Full on tanks are supposed to be able to block for huge amounts of time.

As long as he does not start block casting frequently, I see no problem.

Xsorus

21k Stamina suggest 62 in stamina probably.

The rest would have to come from Gear ...I can hit 30k on my Nord DK..so 50k would be possible.

However perma blocking..no...I run full heavy/block cost reduction and everything else and just having 2 people on me will drain my stamina in seconds.

Darkintellect

Reminds me of an old rumor that went around in Everquest where a new class design was the pacifist. You dual wield shields and have a taunt ability while wearing heavy armor. This was shortly after the Kunark expansion came out.

This is what it sounds like. A purist build that specializes in the purest form of tanking and mitigation but with the ultimate trade off of not being able to do anything.

You say anyone of 3 or less people is no problem, then so be it, lets see his design turn useless when he encounters 4, or 15.

Ethona

Just think about it for a min eh... This guy takes 2 or 3 min to take down, and it drives everyone so mad to see this heavy tank, that everyone jumps on him! It's a beautiful thing when he's tanking you all while the DPS and Healers on his team are doing their best work, while you all are hating on this tank of course. I use to play this kind of tank in PVP many years ago. Everyone would focus on me while I bubble and heal and heal and heal while my team did what they do best. Sadly the hate folks have for this heavy armour tank has clouded their vision to see what might really be going on.

JLB

Without further data on this I'm going to assume it's a bug someone found.

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

However perma blocking..no...I run full heavy/block cost reduction and everything else and just having 2 people on me will drain my stamina in seconds.

2 people on you and no stamina, as a tank, is a horrid joke.
As several other posters have mentioned already.
Fix already @ZOS.

cracker81

Cost reduction on Glyph of Shielding
Reduce cost of Bash and reduce cost of Blocking what is it stat in 1.6.

Derra

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

He wouldnt reveal his gear or build. Just for reference, my hybrid sorc build has 21k magicka, 21k health, and 21k stamina roughly. He claims to have 12k magicka, 50k health, and 21k stamina. I assume all his set bonuses are health, which seem to still give 50% more than stam/mag.

21k is a sizeable amount of stamina, so its not like his DPS was incredibly low. It wasnt impressive, but the fact that he was unkillable was.

Set bonuses for health are bugged atm yep. Still giving 50% over stam/mag instead of 10%. Couple that with 12% imperial/ 8% mages guild dot/ 12%health for nb when slotting shadow/ x?% health from heavy armor / 6% undaunted mettle you might be able to reach absurd numbers.

Edit: I have not access to morphed skills and sets. I was able to build a 39k health character (did not bother to get health mundus) in about 3 minutes with the v14 template crap. You can figure that someone putting a little more effort in might reach 50k easy. This is missing about 4200 health from set bonuses and atleast 8% from mages guild.

paulsimonps

cracker81 wrote: »

Cost reduction on Glyph of Shielding
Reduce cost of Bash and reduce cost of Blocking what is it stat in 1.6.

A legendary one reduces bash by 300 and block by 200. Having 3 of those and some Champion points spent in block reduction would make it pretty easy to get low block cost.

Lionxoft

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

21k Stamina suggest 62 in stamina probably.

The rest would have to come from Gear ...I can hit 30k on my Nord DK..so 50k would be possible.

However perma blocking..no...I run full heavy/block cost reduction and everything else and just having 2 people on me will drain my stamina in seconds.

You're getting diminished returns with your block cost reduction glyphs in addition to 1h/s and HA cost reduction.

McDoogs

We were dueling him, he's a true tank. I suspect no exploits, just stacking hp, stam, block cost reduction, stam regen, plus skills like igneous shield and GDB.

You want to see stupid? The DC Emperor. He's a templar with 50k hp and tons of magicka who stacks harness magicka and blazing shield and stays at > 90% hp vs 5-6+ VR14s focusing him. He'll actually get kills though via radiant oppression lol

Aoife32001

trimsic_ESO wrote: »

The problem is more about the 360 degrees blocking capability....

I would suggest the following changes:
- reduce the blocking arc to 180 degrees

The problem with this idea is lack of collision in Cyrodiil. Since opposing players can simply walk through me, 180 degree blocking could essentially make blocking useless. I'm not a big fan of the idea of raising my shield to an incoming attack, having the opposing player roll through me, and taking full damage from the back.

Lionxoft

McDoogs wrote: »

We were dueling him, he's a true tank. I suspect no exploits, just stacking hp, stam, block cost reduction, stam regen, plus skills like igneous shield and GDB.

You want to see stupid? The DC Emperor. He's a templar with 50k hp and tons of magicka who stacks harness magicka and blazing shield and stays at > 90% hp vs 5-6+ VR14s focusing him. He'll actually get kills though via radiant oppression lol

Emperor is another story completely. You can't compare the two.

Petros

As a tank, you have 12 slots for items.
He has a possibility of having 6 sets, possible 8 with the monster sets from Undaunting.

Each set will have the "add health" bonus as the first bonus, ie 1 piece of each Maw of the Inferno and/or Spawn of Mephala (1 item adds health), 2 piece Ashen Grip, 2 piece Twilight's Embrace, 2 peice Way of the Arena, 2 piece Whitestrake's Retribution, 2 piece Shalidor's Curse, 3 piece Ebon Armory (2 health bonuses)

My guess would be 5 piece footman(jewelry), 3 piece Ebon Armory (2 health bonuses), 1 piece of each Maw of the Inferno and/or Spawn of Mephala (1 item adds health), and 2 piece Ashen Grip(Infused). Getting the maximum health bonuses and shield mitigation.

Add Health enchanted too all pieces, Reduce blocking enchants on jewelry (x3),
Slotting Structured Entropy, Undaunted Mettle, Imperial, Emperor Health buff, battling in Cyrodiil. And food buff.

Yeah, 50k is possible

Petros

I've seen this in other MMOs though, just because they have a huge health pool and good stam, doesn't mean he'll be any good in PvE Tanking

You need the Armor, first and foremost, with out it, your health is meaningless to Mantikora and the Serpent

McDoogs

pete5210b14_ESO wrote: »

As a tank, you have 12 slots for items.
He has a possibility of having 6 sets, possible 8 with the monster sets from Undaunting.

Each set will have the "add health" bonus as the first bonus, ie 1 piece of each Maw of the Inferno and/or Spawn of Mephala (1 item adds health), 2 piece Ashen Grip, 2 piece Twilight's Embrace, 2 peice Way of the Arena, 2 piece Whitestrake's Retribution, 2 piece Shalidor's Curse, 3 piece Ebon Armory (2 health bonuses)

My guess would be 5 piece footman(jewelry), 3 piece Ebon Armory (2 health bonuses), 1 piece of each Maw of the Inferno and/or Spawn of Mephala (1 item adds health), and 2 piece Ashen Grip(Infused). Getting the maximum health bonuses and shield mitigation.

Add Health enchanted too all pieces, Reduce blocking enchants on jewelry (x3),
Slotting Structured Entropy, Undaunted Mettle, Imperial, Emperor Health buff, battling in Cyrodiil. And food buff.

Yeah, 50k is possible

Dov hits 50k without emporer buffs fyi. I'd like to build my templar like he has but I dont have access to the right gear

Petros

Lord Mundus Stone as well. On live, and just for fun, I made gear like this, all health and Infused and what not, got up to +4k health and went into Cyrodiil and nearly hit 4.8k.

With the right gear anyone can hit 50k.

In fact, I'll give it an attempt after the Superbowl. roll onto the PTS, make some new gear and I'll figure it out.

LegendaryMage

1 guy and me killed him rather easy yesterday, not sure how to explain it. Couple of times actually. We basically dealt some unblockable dmg to him and he went down as quickly as anyone else.

McDoogs

LegendaryMage wrote: »

1 guy and me killed him rather easy yesterday, not sure how to explain it. Couple of times actually. We basically dealt some unblockable dmg to him and he went down as quickly as anyone else.

what counts as unblockable damage?

aco5712

it is very possible to get that high, but unless you truly dont wanna do anything but tank i dont see the point haha. Even still, if he grabbed a 2h, we could still do some decent damage.