The problem with Heavy Armor and tanking in general on PTS.

Xsorus

Being able to take damage is pointless when you're out of resources in a matter of seconds. Further more...You're not actually any more tanky then Light armor users..Since light armor users will be able to spam the endless amount of Absorb Shields currently available to them..While being able to spam the spells necessary to do more damage.

Heavy armor in general lost its advantage with break free (you have to slot the skill, and you pretty much have to have the skill active if you don't wanna get CCed over and over again)..It also now has worse recovery thanks to recovery being bumped from 2 seconds to 4 seconds. What ever advantage it has with taking less damage via armor/spell resist is lost simply because Absorb shields are simply better in every way.

The only class I see actually being somewhat decent in full Heavy Armor is going to be the nightblade..simply because Siphoning attacks means they'll not have that much trouble getting resources back.

Cody

Mark my words; this new damage shield spam/stack meta is going to be the death of PvP if it is not changed. People did not purchase ESO to be forced into a damage shield spam build just to survive.

I honestly expected more from the HA changes. It lost the extra break free reduction passive, constitution got bumped up to 4 seconds, and resource management is still outright garbage. I do not know why ZOS cant add in a passive reducing costs of both magic and stamina abilities by 10%. this would allow HA users to have a little better resource management, while LA and MA users that fully spec into stamina/magicka builds would still have superior resource management in those resource pools.


Idk, im not an MMO expert or anything like that, that is just my two cents. But you are right, this new truly ridiculous "hide behind more damage shields than everyone else" meta will make wearing HA pointless.

man, I expected more:(

ach, I should not say "hiding"

oh well, its already said:/

ElliottXO

I don't really understand the whole rehauling anyway. Now they will need another 3 patches just to get the old balance back.

Why not just increase the general cost of blocking, and then make the 5 piece heavy armor buff reduce it by 50% instead of 20%, and adjust further if necessary? Wouldn't that be a good way to avoid blockcasters in full light armor?

From the PTS feedback I got that now nobody can block anymore without running out of stamina within seconds. Not even tanks. That will be extremely dull in PVE situations as it is an essential strategy of my tank to trade stamina for health by blocking a certain amount of normal attacks if needed.

Iduyenn

Agree... you make us tankier... but only in the numbers, because without primary resources, we are like ... like a mudcrap.
And those ressources are gon in seconds...

We need some advantages in heavy armor in combination with S+B. Or lets just say, that at this moment we need simply more...

Berinima

Yeah, I expected so much from the changes to armor values. The build I wanted to play from the beginning was a Nightblade in heavy armor and I was hoping this patch could make that valid.

However, the change is essentially null and void because light armor and shields are still superior. Even more than before. Disappointing.

Shadesofkin

I've said before, Heavy Armor needs to be given the ability to block nearly for free while wearing 5 or more pieces. It is the only way to allow tanks to even come close to competing in resource management.

sabresandiego_ESO

There are people on the PTS who can block nearly forever with 3+ people on them. Dovahkiin on ebonheart (the i's in his name are special characters) claims to have 78% block cost reduction, 50k health, and 21k stam on his dk. Although he didnt have much damage, he was able to hold block nearly forever with 3+ people banging on him.

Shadesofkin

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

There are people on the PTS who can block nearly forever with 3+ people on them. Dovahkiin on ebonheart (the i's in his name are special characters) claims to have 78% block cost reduction, 50k health, and 21k stam on his dk. Although he didnt have much damage, he was able to hold block nearly forever with 3+ people banging on him.

I'd be curious to see that.

Lionxoft

shadesofkinb14_ESO wrote: »

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

There are people on the PTS who can block nearly forever with 3+ people on them. Dovahkiin on ebonheart (the i's in his name are special characters) claims to have 78% block cost reduction, 50k health, and 21k stam on his dk. Although he didnt have much damage, he was able to hold block nearly forever with 3+ people banging on him.

I'd be curious to see that.

Who wouldn't? I hear he has a big and powerful Thu'um.

FUS RO DAH!

Cody

oh, and also put in the fact stamina drains near instantly.

paulsimonps

I have yet to test pvp yet but I have had no problems blocking bosses for long periods of time in Veteran Dungeons, that being said my team was a lot quicker at burning down the bosses so I could exactly stay as long as before since it was not needed. I was at the time using 3 glyphs of shielding and 23 champion points into block cost reduction but that might be the point, that you have to spec into it a bit more than before. A lot of people I have meet and talked to on the pts have been negative to the change from the get go without first seeing the differences, they either assumed that the old Meta would work fine when it is pretty obvious it will not or they are simply afraid of change and reject it out of principle. Take time to test out different ways before calling it quits.

OtarTheMad

When I first played on 1.6 I was excited because I was hoping I could respect my Orc DK back into HA but after some testing it just isn't feasible. It makes more sense for him to be medium armor set up I am running on alive, which is bow/2h. I can use Igneous Shield and/or Evasion to keep players who have extremely high crit off of me.

The problem with nerfing damage shields like some want is if you don't change or alter how high some players can crit on you then no one is going to run LA or even PvP. @Cody While I do agree with you, my Sorc or any of my characters shouldn't have to have multiple shields going 100% of the time just to survive. However I also don't pay for this game to have some players one or two shot me when they hit me for 20k-44k damage every time I am out in the field.

I trust that when the Devs jump in PvP on Monday night they will get a first hand look on what is happening in PvP and be able to make some adjustments. I suggest a lot of regular PvPers show up for this event so that we can improve the PvP fighting by the time it hits live. What better way do we have to improve PvP than by fighting the Devs???

Digiman

Cody wrote: »

Mark my words; this new damage shield spam/stack meta is going to be the death of PvP if it is not changed. People did not purchase ESO to be forced into a damage shield spam build just to survive.

I honestly expected more from the HA changes. It lost the extra break free reduction passive, constitution got bumped up to 4 seconds, and resource management is still outright garbage. I do not know why ZOS cant add in a passive reducing costs of both magic and stamina abilities by 10%. this would allow HA users to have a little better resource management, while LA and MA users that fully spec into stamina/magicka builds would still have superior resource management in those resource pools.


Idk, im not an MMO expert or anything like that, that is just my two cents. But you are right, this new truly ridiculous "hide behind more damage shields than everyone else" meta will make wearing HA pointless.

man, I expected more:(

ach, I should not say "hiding"

oh well, its already said:/

Well because ZoS can't really develop proper armor in general. The only thing HA users do is take less damage, giving them more effective resource management would make it extremely enticing.

That all boils down to LA being pretty terrible in itself. Resource management for Magika seemed okay but with the reduction in armor now, its either cast more spells (Shields in your case) or take less damage in total.

LA needs to have a spell power increase and the spell penetration (5 or pieces) needs to raised to set it apart from heavy armor as magical damage/healing armor skill line on top of heavy armor having increased stamina and magicka when equipped with more then 5 pieces.

Petros

Well, with the right set up, it is do-able. I just tanked AA all the way through. You just gotta be smart about stam now. I did more trial and errors since then and I'd like do AA again or HRC and see if there is a bigger difference.

Xsorus

Basically Heavy Armor users need to be the resource regen setup...

Because Heavy Armor is designed around taking lots of damage and surviving a long time on the battle field.

ben_ESO5

paulsimonps wrote: »

I was at the time using 3 glyphs of shielding and 23 champion points into block cost reduction but that might be the point, that you have to spec into it a bit more than before.

This is exactly the point that I got out of the ESO live from Dec, and I think this is what the developers were going for. I just think that most player have gotten lazy and are used to HA being pretty worthless, when you could hit one skill in LA and hit armor softcap. I remember them stating that LA tanking could still be possible, but you'd have to put considerable investment into your CPs and gear to make it happen.

It seems to me the real underlying factor is what do people want? Do you want chars that can pretty much do most anything regardless of your build (by simply swapping out a skill or a couple pieces of gear to fill in the gaps), or would you rather have chars that are capable of fulfilling a job or two, and thus require some specialization in order to do so well. I feel that 1.6 is aiming towards the latter, which I myself prefer.

Ommamar

On my VR3 Templar who uses HA I have not had any issues with resource management.

Durham

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

There are people on the PTS who can block nearly forever with 3+ people on them. Dovahkiin on ebonheart (the i's in his name are special characters) claims to have 78% block cost reduction, 50k health, and 21k stam on his dk. Although he didnt have much damage, he was able to hold block nearly forever with 3+ people banging on him.

This cannot be true... Running 50k health would force stamina to be ignored almost... 20k stamina is very hard to get to with health over 35000

Lionxoft

Durham wrote: »

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

There are people on the PTS who can block nearly forever with 3+ people on them. Dovahkiin on ebonheart (the i's in his name are special characters) claims to have 78% block cost reduction, 50k health, and 21k stam on his dk. Although he didnt have much damage, he was able to hold block nearly forever with 3+ people banging on him.

This cannot be true... Running 50k health would force stamina to be ignored almost... 20k stamina is very hard to get to with health over 35000

It's really not that hard. ZOS has screwed up resource boosts. There's over 26% worth of health bonuses available to players.

Please, don't make conclusions about things that you obviously have no clue what you're talking about. Oversights like this are why the game continues to be broken.

Orchish

I was so excited for 1.6 thinking that heavy armour would finally be good for tanking. Yet i spend a few days on PTS and what do i see? Light armour shield stackers tanking as a good if not better than pure heavy armour users. On top of that being able to dish out the dps when needed with far superior resource management. I am being forced to use light armour again yet i have no desire to do so. I've waited months for heavy armour to be balanced and instead i get more of the same old rubbish.

Orchish

Ommamar wrote: »

On my VR3 Templar who uses HA I have not had any issues with resource management.

Step into PvP against real players and you'll change that opinion very quickly.

Elder_III

I just took my already very tanky Orc DK on the PTS and tanked him up even more with Champion Points and skill changes, all Heavy Armor, Sword 'n Board + Dual Wield. I tackled a World Boss 2 levels higher (the only one I could not solo on my Templar previously) and whipped it (+ 4 adds) easily. Resource management is tougher, you MUST use Heavy Attacks to restore Stamina, but I was never in any great danger, even after a couple screw ups on my part and getting hit with the Boss' unblocked heavy attack. It was perhaps the longest boss fight Ive done on ESO but it was definitely satisfying to do.

I would like to see all Regen boosted by 20% or similar, as it is now it feels like starting a new toon with how quickly mana/stamina depletes. I'm sure I can adjust, but I'd like to see some kind of compromise here with the old and new resource regeneration numbers.

Berinima

Elder_III wrote: »

I would like to see all Regen boosted by 20% or similar, as it is now it feels like starting a new toon with how quickly mana/stamina depletes. I'm sure I can adjust, but I'd like to see some kind of compromise here with the old and new resource regeneration numbers.

While this is sort of good news that it is possible after all, the question still remains... Why do we need a compromise between old and new regeneration? The patch was at least advertised to buff heavy armor which does not strike me as true. Especially in PvP light armor still feels vastly superior.

Beleron

Your right about nightblades. I tested that, works great actually. If you put a vampire life drain ulti in there. you can go go go, for a long time... till u get 1 or 2 hit.
I feel like if you cast a skill while blocking, for the next 5 seconds the block should be 50% less effective to avoid block cast tanking with bubbles. But even then the bubbles are too strong. Maybe make the bubbles buff based so you cant stack them, then have heavy armor get something new.

An idea is the champion systems stuff, where when you crit or are hit by a crit, u heal 300 and something hp. So give heavy armor something, where as when your hit, you get resources, hp stam magica, something.

Orchish

Elder_III wrote: »

I just took my already very tanky Orc DK on the PTS and tanked him up even more with Champion Points and skill changes, all Heavy Armor, Sword 'n Board + Dual Wield. I tackled a World Boss 2 levels higher (the only one I could not solo on my Templar previously) and whipped it (+ 4 adds) easily. Resource management is tougher, you MUST use Heavy Attacks to restore Stamina, but I was never in any great danger, even after a couple screw ups on my part and getting hit with the Boss' unblocked heavy attack. It was perhaps the longest boss fight Ive done on ESO but it was definitely satisfying to do.

I would like to see all Regen boosted by 20% or similar, as it is now it feels like starting a new toon with how quickly mana/stamina depletes. I'm sure I can adjust, but I'd like to see some kind of compromise here with the old and new resource regeneration numbers.

I take it you haven't tested this in PvP yet then? You generally don't stay alive long enough to use multiple heavy attacks in PvP against good players.

Ommamar

Orchish wrote: »

Ommamar wrote: »

On my VR3 Templar who uses HA I have not had any issues with resource management.

Step into PvP against real players and you'll change that opinion very quickly.

No I won't been there done that thanks!

Costismaros

Orchish wrote: »

Elder_III wrote: »

I just took my already very tanky Orc DK on the PTS and tanked him up even more with Champion Points and skill changes, all Heavy Armor, Sword 'n Board + Dual Wield. I tackled a World Boss 2 levels higher (the only one I could not solo on my Templar previously) and whipped it (+ 4 adds) easily. Resource management is tougher, you MUST use Heavy Attacks to restore Stamina, but I was never in any great danger, even after a couple screw ups on my part and getting hit with the Boss' unblocked heavy attack. It was perhaps the longest boss fight Ive done on ESO but it was definitely satisfying to do.

I would like to see all Regen boosted by 20% or similar, as it is now it feels like starting a new toon with how quickly mana/stamina depletes. I'm sure I can adjust, but I'd like to see some kind of compromise here with the old and new resource regeneration numbers.

I take it you haven't tested this in PvP yet then? You generally don't stay alive long enough to use multiple heavy attacks in PvP against good players.

He is talking about pve. Pvp is a different gameplay .

Costismaros

Dont forget that we all have the same stats. So if i go fast out of stamina, that means my opoment goes out of stamina too. Am i right ?
So if we dont want to go out of stamina, we must use heavy attacks and light attacks.

If we need ultimate. We have to use light and heavy attacks.

Conclusion
Less cast+block, more light and heavy attacks.
I like it.

runagate

Costismaros wrote: »

Orchish wrote: »

Elder_III wrote: »

I just took my already very tanky Orc DK on the PTS and tanked him up even more with Champion Points and skill changes, all Heavy Armor, Sword 'n Board + Dual Wield. I tackled a World Boss 2 levels higher (the only one I could not solo on my Templar previously) and whipped it (+ 4 adds) easily. Resource management is tougher, you MUST use Heavy Attacks to restore Stamina, but I was never in any great danger, even after a couple screw ups on my part and getting hit with the Boss' unblocked heavy attack. It was perhaps the longest boss fight Ive done on ESO but it was definitely satisfying to do.

I would like to see all Regen boosted by 20% or similar, as it is now it feels like starting a new toon with how quickly mana/stamina depletes. I'm sure I can adjust, but I'd like to see some kind of compromise here with the old and new resource regeneration numbers.

I take it you haven't tested this in PvP yet then? You generally don't stay alive long enough to use multiple heavy attacks in PvP against good players.

He is talking about pve. Pvp is a different gameplay .

He is talking about his character Mugrub gro-Burz, who was level 27 the last time I saw him the other day.

Whereas my VR 14 Orc who had recently been leveling HA on scorpions and such prior to the PTS patch wasn't having a great time of it after I dumped all 70 champion points into the most apposite slots I could find, and certainly didn't go PvP. My Rank 20 main will definitely enjoy taking on those in HA in PvP if these changes stick, however.

EsORising

Blocking with a shield should cost less stamina and blocking should block more damage. It really doesn't make any sense why ZoS is so intent on making blocking with a shield cost so much and not defend you enough. IT's a shield! why wouldnt it not block 90% or 100% of the damage.

Shadesofkin

EsORising wrote: »

Blocking with a shield should cost less stamina and blocking should block more damage. It really doesn't make any sense why ZoS is so intent on making blocking with a shield cost so much and not defend you enough. IT's a shield! why wouldnt it not block 90% or 100% of the damage.

I tend to be fine with a 50% cap on damage mitigated, but a shield (which it sort of does) ought to give drastic cost reduction to block and Heavy Armor ought to give the same with perhaps a good regeneration boost (or at least buff that Magicka Stamina return passive to be much much better and proc more often).