Bone Shield tooltip wrong?

cwp303b14_ESO

The ability Bone Shield states, "Surround yourself with a whirlwind of bones, absorbing physical damage up to 30% of your maximum health" but this does not seem to be accurate in any way.

First, it is not a true shield since it is only some physical damage absorbed per hit instead of all damage until it breaks.

Second, and this is the biggest issue, the amount it absorbs has nothing to do with 30% in any way from what I have seen while testing.

Physical damage went from 212 a hit to 206 per hit. With the time the shield lasts it is impossible to break because it never takes enough damage. This seems bugged to me.

The only use is the synergy. The damage absorbed is negligible at all ranks and across levels.

TL;DR: The ability seems bugged. It doesn't absorb almost any physical damage at all.

cwp303b14_ESO

To clarify my above post: Bone Shield only ever absorbs 3% physical damage per hit instead of 30%. This is from testing on multiple enemies and checking to make sure all the damage taken was physical.

Can anyone else confirm?

Varicite

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

To clarify my above post: Bone Shield only ever absorbs 3% physical damage per hit instead of 30%. This is from testing on multiple enemies and checking to make sure all the damage taken was physical.

Can anyone else confirm?

This is concerning if this is the case. I don't have Bone Shield unlocked yet, or I'd test it for you.

Hopefully someone else sees this and can confirm?

cwp303b14_ESO

Even discounting the apparent bug, the tooltip is a bit ambiguous. "Absorbing physical damage up to 30% of your maximum health" should mean that it bases the overall shield strength on your maximum health (i.e. 10,000hp results in a 3,000hp shield) so where is the amount of damage coming through the shield mentioned?

Is it supposed to be a 30% max hp shield that absorbs 30% of physical damage, allowing 70% of a hit to come through? How is it calculated?

Jar_Ek

I have been noticing that it doesn't seem to shield as I expect as well. I will have to test to understand more. But deffo not working as expected.

AaronMB

^^ Me, too. Hits are coming in and damage seems to be slightly reduced. 3% could be about right come to think of it. Hmmm...

cwp303b14_ESO

If it is true about the bug, we need more people to confirm and to voice the issue so that we can get a response and possibly a fix.

Varicite

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

If it is true about the bug, we need more people to confirm and to voice the issue so that we can get a response and possibly a fix.

Would be awesome if @ZOS_GinaBruno or @ZOS_JessicaFolsom could bring this to dev attention to see if the ability is actually working correctly.

I know that there are quite a lot of stam users working their way up toward Bone Shield currently, as it's the only real stam-based defensive shield in the game.

If it's only supposed to mitigate a tiny portion of the damage and let the rest through, I wonder how many would actually remain excited to unlock the skill outside of tanks.

cwp303b14_ESO

I was really hoping more players would take notice of how this ability, if fixed, could change a lot of the meta in tanking and pvp with all the wrecking blow/snipe spam.

I'm kinda surprised nobody seems to be interested in what this ability could do for the game if it worked like it's stated in the tooltip.

Celless

I was noticing a similar thing, but assumed that I was being hit with magic / elemental damage in the mix of melee attacks. Will check against a pack of mud crabs later.

LegendaryMage

Lasts for 5 seconds, needs its duration extended to at least 8-10 seconds. And maybe even longer (it's available to all classes so no complaining who has it and who doesn't).

cwp303b14_ESO

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Lasts for 5 seconds, needs its duration extended to at least 8-10 seconds. And maybe even longer (it's available to all classes so no complaining who has it and who doesn't).

I think that the ability should be fixed before any adjustments should be made since we don't know how it would affect gameplay as a true, working shield.

LegendaryMage

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Lasts for 5 seconds, needs its duration extended to at least 8-10 seconds. And maybe even longer (it's available to all classes so no complaining who has it and who doesn't).

I think that the ability should be fixed before any adjustments should be made since we don't know how it would affect gameplay as a true, working shield.

Fix first, adjustment second or else even the fixed version will be pretty much useless without editing it a bit.

Skafsgaard

As I understand it, when you cast it it lasts 4 seconds. Now if someone activates the synergy, 4 people gets a shield for 10 seconds. This has been buffed in 1.6.

I have always used this skill - but it is worse now than what it used to be. I agree. Would like for some people to look into it, I will try to do some basic testing of this skill as well.

Initiate_Jhassir

I actually sent in a bug report a week ago about this and just got a response the other day.

This is what they said:

"Thank you very much for submitting your bug! It looks like they are looking into the ability of Bone Shield, so I'll make sure that they get your information to help in investigation. Please keep an eye on patch notes and the forums for any additional information."

So it looks like they're aware of it being an issue and are actively looking into it (I hope). Would be a great ability to have if it starts working properly.

Obscure

Finally began working on the Undaunted and unlocked this skill thinking "Stamina based Damage Shield sounds sweet", and as soon as I began using it I noticed it did not work as I expected it to: it's not a damage shield even though it clearly shows on my health bar as a damage shield. The skill even enlarges the size of any other damage shields on the health bar, but doesn't provide any actual increase in strength of the damage shield.

Most certainly a bug. I have yet to test the morphs of the skill, but for now " Bone Shield " is entirely too bugged to be useful at all.

Dragnelus

Hello everyone,

Im back since a year, and im using bone shield in my build. (dk healer)

I use the skills not formyself (5 sec only 30%?, no ty) but for my teammates I love it im still vetran rank 1 and dont got many spells, but I def wanna try bone surge!

Vigor also sounds interesting but that will takes ages to get for me.

I made a video with bone surge:

https://youtu.be/trU6H7hEOpo

Just look at the allies shielding and the dmg the take from the boss and give me your opinion.

cwp303b14_ESO

m.freethb16_ESO wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Im back since a year, and im using bone shield in my build. (dk healer)

I use the skills not formyself (5 sec only 30%?, no ty) but for my teammates I love it im still vetran rank 1 and dont got many spells, but I def wanna try bone surge!

Just look at the allies shielding and the dmg the take from the boss and give me your opinion.

I don't understand. The issue is that the shield on the caster is not working as stated in the tooltip, not that they synergy is broken in any way.

I'm sure it still works well for healers because of the synergy but right now it is basically just a synergy since the skill does almost nothing for the player that casts it.

It was not fixed in this patch so apparently it is still an issue that they aren't aware of or haven't been able to fix.

I also don't understand why people are commenting on the amount of time it lasts. It would be great to soak incoming burst and invaluable in pvp against wrecking blow and snipe spam if the shield worked so the time is not the issue right now.

This should be about a 9k shield on a tank with 30k hp and it's the only stamina based preemptive shield in the game so I would really like it to work.

Initiate_Jhassir

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

I also don't understand why people are commenting on the amount of time it lasts. It would be great to soak incoming burst and invaluable in pvp against wrecking blow and snipe spam if the shield worked so the time is not the issue right now.

Agreed. Also it lasts 6 seconds at rank 4, so it's right on par with Templar's Blazing Shield, which has always seemed fine to me duration-wise.

The biggest issue is it not working for the caster properly. I got a response saying they were 'investigating' the ability, but not sure if that actually means anything. I would say keep sending in bug reports and keep this thread alive, and hopefully it will get noticed and fixed in the next patch or two.

AaronMB

Yeah....I took it off my bar.

Please actually give this some attention, ZOS.

david.haypreub18_ESO

I hope they're not 'investigating' it in the same way they are 'investigating' the Templar's bugged class charge. It is approaching a year since that has been broken.

I too would like to know what is up with Bone Shield.

Initiate_Jhassir

I'm wondering if this mitigation issue with Bone Shield isn't some hold over from when the ability just increased armor pre patch 1.6. It almost seems like they gave us the graphics for the absorb shield and switched everything over, but left in the armor increase somewhere in the code that is causing issues.

*flexes armchair coding muscles*

Isavier

Oh and I've been wondering, lol...
Switched my NB to stamina after 1.6. Use barrier and bone shield (ikr, but that's all we've got -.-), with the latter even occupying a place on my main bar. Damage shield indicator line on my healthbar is nothing like 30% or even nerfed 26% of max hp, but whatevs. Nevertheless, with all those 5-figure damage numbers flying around, i am pretty sure i never saw my shield break before its normal lifespan expired. Furthermore, when i happened to cast it right before my death, i noticed somewhat small numbers of incoming light bow attacks on death recap. As for the spiked shield morph, it is very~ rare that i see it popping on my combat addon, and the numbers were like... 300 damage?

So, clarification and editing needed.

- Is Bone Shield meant to act like a damage shield for the caster? (right now, it hardly does)
- Have you just edited its tooltip, keeping the buff a simple armor buff, like before?
- If it is armor, should it display on character sheet? Should it stack with minor/major armor buff thingie?
- If it is alternative partial reduction of incoming damage, how does it work?
- Spiked Bone Shield: does it return 30% of the actual incoming melee physical damage? Or 30% of something else? Or it returns 30% of all incoming physical damage to nearby enemies, like a weak version of blazing shield? (i know it doesn't, but it would be nice)

It would be very good to have BS a proper damage shield. There shouldn't be any hazard of everyone staking it on top of their 100500 already existing shields, because man, it's stamina. It could be the only stamina-costing, stamina-scaled in size, proper damage shield. It is already neglected by many (most?) players because of cost and short duration. It could be one of the few sustain opportunities for nightblades, after all. It would not upset the balance aka "mages should have damage shields and warriors should have armor", because let's be honest, there is no balance between armor and damage shields even after 1.6.

Thanks.



PS: sorc OP, nerf sorc.

cwp303b14_ESO

Initiate_Jhassir wrote: »

I'm wondering if this mitigation issue with Bone Shield isn't some hold over from when the ability just increased armor pre patch 1.6. It almost seems like they gave us the graphics for the absorb shield and switched everything over, but left in the armor increase somewhere in the code that is causing issues.

*flexes armchair coding muscles*

Those armchair coding muscles have me all hot and bothered.

I think it may be that the shield is only supposed to absorb 30% of incoming damage, even though it's not stated in the tooltip, and that there is a decimal problem since the damage absorbed is 3% from all tests i've done. Basically, a zero was left off.

corbyone

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

Initiate_Jhassir wrote: »

I'm wondering if this mitigation issue with Bone Shield isn't some hold over from when the ability just increased armor pre patch 1.6. It almost seems like they gave us the graphics for the absorb shield and switched everything over, but left in the armor increase somewhere in the code that is causing issues.

*flexes armchair coding muscles*

Those armchair coding muscles have me all hot and bothered.

I think it may be that the shield is only supposed to absorb 30% of incoming damage, even though it's not stated in the tooltip, and that there is a decimal problem since the damage absorbed is 3% from all tests i've done. Basically, a zero was left off.

I had the same thought last night when I noticed the amount it was absorbing. Came to check the forums and saw this thread. Hopefully we can get a replay fro @ZOS_GinaBruno or one of the others.

Isavier

Finally managed to test it today. 3% incoming physical damage reduction confirmed, other 97% bypass it calmly.
Kina reversed magma armor lel. Need fix.

Varicite

Isavier wrote: »

Finally managed to test it today. 3% incoming physical damage reduction confirmed, other 97% bypass it calmly.
Kina reversed magma armor lel. Need fix.

lol, reversed Magma Armor.

I guess I don't need to be in such a hurry to unlock it, then. After it was buffed, it seemed like it would be perfect for any stam build looking for a bit more sustain, but Talos only knows when they might get around to fixing it.

Celless

Also confirming that the Bone Shield did not protect me from the wrath of gravelclaw (in that, I was still taking damage while the damage shield was up).

Will try to file a bug report later.

jonathanonmarsnrb18_ESO

Was bugged on PTS, still is bugged. Filed a report on PTS, never got fixed before launch.

Initiate_Jhassir

jonathanonmarsnrb18_ESO wrote: »

Was bugged on PTS, still is bugged. Filed a report on PTS, never got fixed before launch.

Well let's try to keep the thread alive so we can show ZOS that there is interest in the ability (it looks great after the change) and also so we can warn other players not to waste points on it until a fix is ready.

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

Those armchair coding muscles have me all hot and bothered.

I think it may be that the shield is only supposed to absorb 30% of incoming damage, even though it's not stated in the tooltip, and that there is a decimal problem since the damage absorbed is 3% from all tests i've done. Basically, a zero was left off.

That actually makes a lot of sense. And honestly? I'd be perfectly ok with Bone Shield being a 30% physical damage reduction ability as long as you can still block the extra 70% damage going through the shield, which seems like it would be the case. I think either way the ability would be great, as long as they can get it working properly.

Surfinginhawaii

I leveled up spiked bone shield to level IV and I'm not impressed the shield you get from brawler is much better, in my opinion.