why shield stacking damages the whole meta

hamon

having took a break for a few months and came back i can see how the meta-game has evolved.

shield stacking (yes particularly but not exclusively with sorcs) is a problem in pvp now.

stacking shields in any similar MMO ive played is unwise. this is because usually classes will exist that have some form of purge type abiliity that removes buffs from enemy players. So stacking all your eggs in one basket (shields) only works till someone comes and removes them from you with a purge. this means you have to rely on more than one thing to keep you alive. You need to have a reasonable amount of health/armour/CC to fall back on if your faced with someone who can remove buffs.

ESO has no such ability, so here's where it damages the meta. the only counter to someone who's stacked up with massive shields is to stack as much burst as possible to burn the shield down and hopefully get them dead before they can stack more shields or if they are a sorc can just simply spam bolt a few times and re-stack.

so both sides of the equation end up being forced to put all their eggs in one basket, this has a snowball effect. more folk stack maximum burst to burn shields, this encourages shield stacking in order to survive the burst.

now where sorcs enjoy the really crazy gain from this is that by stacking magika exclusively they increase power in shields while also increasing power in their damage and increase their resource pools with ZERO trade off. templars shields are HP based. so without significant points in HP their shield is fairly weak, plus short duration.

but before the sorcs start screaming NO because a purge would hamper them the most, it would hurt other players as much. removing things like scales, immovable etc. purge would be a powerfull tool, But NOT op, because to slot it you have to give up some other ability and spend resource to purge folk, but a well timed purge would be powerfull.

it would make folk have to rely on more than one thing to run around and wreck folk. it would stop shield stackers being able to tank lots of folk while dishing out huge damage. If you ran into 4 folk you couldn,t expect to get away with burning them down by popping potions and continually stacking shields, cos if even one of them slapped a few purges on you the rest would wreck you cos your god-mode got removed.

in effect it would increase variety of ways to play, otherwise its gonna be pretty much stackers versus gank builds with nothing else in the middle.

Cody

Not a bad idea.

People stack shields because of the insane damage numbers. 20K wrecking blows, 15K lethal arrows while in all epic/legendary heavy/medium armor, 30K meteors.... all that stuff. It has made shield stack/spam a must have to be able to compete. Even gank/stealth oriented builds are having a hard time fighting against it.

It does not make sense that there are no "dispel" abilities(you call them purge, I call them dispel; same thing) in ESO. A dispel ability would change ESO PvP gameplay dramatically, and in a good way. Players could use it to remove buffs, damage shields, HoTs, things like that. It would keep people on their toes and maybe even allow for more build diversity.

However, we need to do something about these Wrecking blows hitting for literally 1/4 of everyone's health before we tone down the damage shield stacking/spamming. as well as the 15K lethal arrows and the 30K meteors and all those insane damage numbers.

hamon

yes even the alliance war skill called PURGE is actually what is traditionally viewed as a CLEANSE , normally cleanse skills remove debuffs from you or alllies where as purge skills remove buffs from enemy.

the lack of anything in the entire game that does this is what's allowing this meta to develop. which is not healthy imo

Imdrefan

I played a Priest in WoW and Mages would get really mad at me when I would dispel their Presence of Mind. Those were the days... But I agree I would pay 20,000 crowns for a dispel ability.

Roechacca

Working as intended

Itoq

I just hate to see shields all lumped together since they are pretty different. Sorc shield is roughly 70% stronger than other class shields in practice . And it is obviously more rounded than armor and weapon skill line shields.

Say I cast a 6k shield and someone hits and crits me for 7k base and 3.5k crit damage . I am going to be hurt.

On the other hand if I have an 10k shield and get hit for 7k base (crit 100% mitigated since damage doesn't get through shield) then no big whoop.

All that said I am not necessarily suggesting that sorc sheilds should be nerfed. Some combination of removing the 15% shield nerf. reducing overall crit damage and also allowing crit damage to effect damage shields is the best path forward.

Aminals

Please please pleeeease give us offensive dispels

Gilvoth

make it happen please.

FENGRUSH

AOE dispel confirmed in on Monday

krim

Just one thing this game has no cool downs.

we need our negates back?

AriBoh

My problem with a dispel is they would more than likely put it at alliance rank 15 or something.

krim

Imdrefan wrote: »

I played a Priest in WoW and Mages would get really mad at me when I would dispel their Presence of Mind. Those were the days... But I agree I would pay 20,000 crowns for a dispel ability.

Please dont even say that jokingly.

Sile

Make Purge remove buffs off hostiles but have the same magicka cost as Cleanse. I think most people prefer efficient Purge though, so a cost reduction for Cleanse at the expense of healing would be good if this change were to happen.

Huntler

yeah tone down damage, then lets talk about toning down shields further.

derpsticks

The already stealth nerfed continuous attack so that it is removed after death. Lots of people won't be hitting as hard without that buff.

Trottz

yeah let's gimp one class, because scapegoat. people need their witch-hunt i guess.

BRogueNZ

While it would be nice to have a couple of skill slots back its a daft idea.

May as well remove Magicka from the game.

hamon

darkknightfkb16_ESO wrote: »

My problem with a dispel is they would more than likely put it at alliance rank 15 or something.

unfortunately they possibly would, but again they would miss a trick, it would allow some interesting boss fights if they had buffs up you had to romove at certain points etc. just another way to make boss encounters fun instead of just simply avoid the insta jib move continuously

hamon

Trottz wrote: »

yeah let's gimp one class, because scapegoat. people need their witch-hunt i guess.

another short sighted sorc reply (please dont touch my god mode)

but it wouldnt just remove sorc shields. it could remove HOT's or dk reflects, EVERYONE would have to adjust how they play and it would add variety. hell if it was up to me i'd have it remove potion buffs as well.

i find it funny how all the pvp hot shots who post video's of them self being "uber" spam pots constantly every encounter and wonder why they win. sure anyone can run constant pots. but most folk don't.

i can honestly say ive never used a tri pot in this game even once , where as some folk feel its a complete necessety to use a stack every day.

hamon

BRogueNZ wrote: »

While it would be nice to have a couple of skill slots back its a daft idea.

May as well remove Magicka from the game.

such a daft idea that every MMO similar to this since everquest has had some folrm of dispel , purge as a counter to buff stacking work well in the game..... ye totally daft.

AltusVenifus

BRogueNZ wrote: »

While it would be nice to have a couple of skill slots back its a daft idea.

May as well remove Magicka from the game.

There is a class that can use light armor and has zero shields... they do fine.

ToRelax

I would like if there was a dispel, as long as it's single target.

BRogueNZ

AltusVenifus wrote: »

BRogueNZ wrote: »

While it would be nice to have a couple of skill slots back its a daft idea.

May as well remove Magicka from the game.

There is a class that can use light armor and has zero shields... they do fine.

Who what and where?

Derra

BRogueNZ wrote: »

AltusVenifus wrote: »

BRogueNZ wrote: »

While it would be nice to have a couple of skill slots back its a daft idea.

May as well remove Magicka from the game.

There is a class that can use light armor and has zero shields... they do fine.

Who what and where?

He´ll come saying nightblade. What he will not say is that cloak lets them dodge incoming attacks much like a dodgeroll (i can pop a detect pot and be unable to hit a nb that cloaks bc just every attack apart from curse will miss) and they have a repositioning tool that is not as easy to counter as streak is.
But yeah with that tools it´s fine to play without shields (well if you don´t count healing ward and harness magica )

Maulkin

I kindly disagree and I don't see in the OP's post a good or unbiased understanding of the current PVP balance. But hey, that's just me

Soulac

Let my NB steal enemy buffs

Morvul

hamon wrote: »

the only counter to someone who's stacked up with massive shields is to stack as much burst as possible to burn the shield down and hopefully get them dead before they can stack more shields

this is were you are wrong.
The counter to shield-stacking in ESO is crowd-control

Maulkin

Morvul wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

the only counter to someone who's stacked up with massive shields is to stack as much burst as possible to burn the shield down and hopefully get them dead before they can stack more shields

this is were you are wrong.
The counter to shield-stacking in ESO is crowd-control

^ This guy get's it

Ezareth

hamon wrote: »

Trottz wrote: »

yeah let's gimp one class, because scapegoat. people need their witch-hunt i guess.

another short sighted sorc reply (please dont touch my god mode)

but it wouldnt just remove sorc shields. it could remove HOT's or dk reflects, EVERYONE would have to adjust how they play and it would add variety. hell if it was up to me i'd have it remove potion buffs as well.

i find it funny how all the pvp hot shots who post video's of them self being "uber" spam pots constantly every encounter and wonder why they win. sure anyone can run constant pots. but most folk don't.

i can honestly say ive never used a tri pot in this game even once , where as some folk feel its a complete necessety to use a stack every day.

I spam pots so when I faceroll my keyboard people die. It's an addiction I know. Once you start doing them, everything goes downhill. I miss the days when I only used a single stack. I'm burning through 3 stacks a day these days. Abstention is definitely the right choice.

Oughash

Ezareth wrote: »

I spam pots so when I faceroll my keyboard people die. It's an addiction I know. Once you start doing them, everything goes downhill. I miss the days when I only used a single stack. I'm burning through 3 stacks a day these days. Abstention is definitely the right choice.

Have you considered PA? You've made the first step which is to admit your problem. There are people. Who can help you.

Maulkin

Ishammael wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

I spam pots so when I faceroll my keyboard people die. It's an addiction I know. Once you start doing them, everything goes downhill. I miss the days when I only used a single stack. I'm burning through 3 stacks a day these days. Abstention is definitely the right choice.

Have you considered PA? You've made the first step which is to admit your problem. There are people. Who can help you.

Potaholics Anonymous?

I run the UK branch of that. We offer 24hr counselling and have a rewards based system (you can get badges for every hour without pot, basically) to give people a sense of achievement. We have TS sessions where people share their horrendous experiences as pot addicts.

It's a strong support system and we encourage anyone with a pot problem to pay us a visit. Check out our website for more details:
www.NoMorePotsForYou.org