Why both shields?

Waffennacht

Serious question here: why use both hardened ward and healing ward?

I was using both last night and it occurred to me that im just spamming two buttons instead of one. If there was a cool down or if they lasted longer I could see it but as is, I can just re cast hardened ward giving myself the slot that healing ward was in.

If we are talking about heals, why not use hardened ward with a healing spell?

Im just curious why stack the shields when you can spam one?

I can see combing a shield with a damage mitigatior etc .

Im sure I'll get an answer, thank you in advance

Waffennacht

Maybe its to prevent a one shot kill? That doesn't make a ton of sense, you would have to pre empt the hit by using both shields early and then spam again after hit (which seems like a losing battle)

Im finding its just far more a pain to use both shields (especially because im testing out resto staff backup meaning steadfast ward or healing ward are on that bar)

I did notice that shield stackers are heavy magicka, is there a huge benefit from the shields im not noticing because of my lower magicka?

Skiserony

Okey, there's a few reason why Sorcs have multiple shields, mostly up to 3 shields actually: Hardened Ward (main), Healing Ward (oh *** shield and heal) and Harness Magicka (very cheap spell shield, only useful against spells but returns magicka).

Sorcs are very very squishy, at least without their shields that is, if they hadn't those they would get oneshot all around Cyrodiil. So the main reason for shield stacking is obviously survivability. The more and the bigger your shields, the longer you'll stay alive. Sometimes and against certain players it might be enough to have just one shield up, but that's mostly not the case and you're much stronger as a Sorc with multiple shields, it makes the Sorc who he is right now, a ver very powerful build.

The cool thing is, where the offense lies with the Sorc, also lies in it's defense, so instead of going for more health or mitigation, the Sorc will get it's survivability from shields which are scaled of the same stat that increases the offensive part, thus magicka. This is why Sorcs will stack magicka, huge pools of magicka. It gives them insane dps and extremely big shields, and because of those extremely big shields that are very cheap they can also stack spell damage tremendously with their gear sets which makes them one of the most strong dps in PvP.

Now to explain the different shields real quick according a (most popular) Sorc who has:
1) extremely high magicka
2) great sustain, even without drink buff
3) low health and very low mitigation
4) a lot of CP spent in increasing damage absorbing effects instead of mitigation

Why these stats? => Shields cannot be mitigated, but neither can be critted. So why invest in defense and mitigation if we always have our shields up, thus bigger shields buys you more time and it's better for sustain, so that basically what a Sorc wants to do, invest in their shields.

- So we got Hardened Ward, which is obviously the main shield, which is ridiculously strong. This one will take the most incoming damage and must ALWAYS be up, no matter what (even when it still has halfway it's strength).
- Then we have Healing Ward, it is not that big of shield when at full health, but once your health decreases the shield will increas up to extremely high numbers, the lower your health the bigger the shield. We use this mainly for an Oh-*** moment and healing spell. So whenever our shields are down and our health is decreasing, we'll put this up which will start with a small heal (which could take you out of execution range, which is very important) and you'll have a crazy heal that you stack with the other shields, giving up a shield 2 or 3 times you health pool. It's important to know that the shield you put up first, is the first one to get damaged, which means if we put up healing ward first it will be destroyed first, which means no crazy big heal from what's left. Therefore you'll mostly use next rotation when necessary: Healing Ward => Hardened Ward (=> Harness Magicka) => Healing Ward. Doing this will make sure your second healing ward will stay up and will probably heal your compete health bar after 6s.
- Then last (and least tbh) Harness Magicka. What's so great about this shield? Against spell users it's an extremely high shield and it's very cheap, however it won't absorb any physical damage, so it's important to know when to use this. But can be extremely effective.

So conclusion, why multiple shields?
1) extreme survivability
2) insane dps
3) big heals

Waffennacht

Thank you! Some really key points in there. Im gonna re read your post a few times

I think the most stand out part was the, "...this must always be up" that was my ah ha moment. I also see what you mean about usin the healing ward for heals and essentially a big shield if things going south.

I know this is a new question, but you mentioned it and im really curious.

What exactly is an execution move? Is this any move used as a finisher or is it more specific than that?

Waffennacht

Oh one more question, you said a shield can't be mitigatied, could you elaborate on that a bit more @Skiserony

Skiserony

Waffennacht wrote: »

What exactly is an execution move? Is this any move used as a finisher or is it more specific than that?

An execution move a skill that does up to 300% damage if your health is below 25%, which basically means if they perform that execute on that amount of health you're high likely going to die. So yeah, it's just a finisher.

Everyone has acces to an execute, excpt for a magicka DK (he has Molten Armaments but that's really not viable in PvP for execute and you won't see them using it there. I'll give some examples:

Sorc: Mages Fury and morphs
NB: Assssins Blade and morphs
Templar: Radiant Destruction and Morphs (starts increasing damage from 50% health already)
DK: Molten Armaments morph from Molten Weapons, but not really viable as I stated.
2H: Executioner and morphs
DW: Whirlwind and moprhs (AoE)

So these skill will practically woop your ass if your under 25% health, so it's really important to stay out of that range. Some actually already start doing more damage once under 50% health (not the full 300% damage) so even by then it gets pretty dangerous.

Waffennacht wrote: »

Oh one more question, you said a shield can't be mitigatied, could you elaborate on that a bit more @Skiserony

So as we know, armor and spell resistance mitigate damage. For about each 650 armor or spell resistance you get 1% less incoming damage. This reduction in damage only counts on your health, your armor and spell resistance won't affect your shield so shield take the 100% incoming damage.

For example: you have 20k health, armor and spell resistance is 16.250 (25% reduced incoming damage).

Now someone does an attack on you that causes 5000 damage without your shields up, so you'll take 3750 incoming damage because of the 25% mitigation. Now someone does the same attack for 5000 damage on you with your shields up, this means you'll take the full 5000 damage because it won't get affected by your armor and spell resistance.

That's why Sorcs don't invest a lot in armor and spell resistance, their shields will always be up so it won't help much there. Better to invest in your shields then.

Glad I could help

Waffennacht

You're super helpful! Thank you very much answered many questions.

I feel like im badgering you, but do you know anything about any up coming shield changes?

Again thank you

Skiserony

Don't worry, it's with pleasure always free to ask anything

So shields in Cyrodiil now are reduced by 15%, with the next big patch shields will get reduced by 50% in total, so compared to now in PvP shields will decrease by 35%. However damage will also be decreased, right now damage is decreased by 20% in Cyrodiil and in next major patch it will be reduced by 50% in total too, so 30% less than now.

So the fact both shields and damage are going to be reduced by almost the same amount, it won't actually nerf your shields. Instead of 12k shield now you'll get a 6k shield, but the incoming damage will be at half too so it doesn't really change anything.

For shields themselves it's a bit too soon to state what's going to be different, there's still a lot of testing to do on the PTS. But for now there isn't going to be much of change.

Waffennacht

Thanks a ton. I feel I must give you an awesome for being so helpful!

Skiserony

Haha great, thanks man. Very happy to help and always will be.

Caesar Tantalia

Skiserony wrote: »

Don't worry, it's with pleasure always free to ask anything

So shields in Cyrodiil now are reduced by 15%, with the next big patch shields will get reduced by 50% in total, so compared to now in PvP shields will decrease by 35%. However damage will also be decreased, right now damage is decreased by 20% in Cyrodiil and in next major patch it will be reduced by 50% in total too, so 30% less than now.

So the fact both shields and damage are going to be reduced by almost the same amount, it won't actually nerf your shields. Instead of 12k shield now you'll get a 6k shield, but the incoming damage will be at half too so it doesn't really change anything.

For shields themselves it's a bit too soon to state what's going to be different, there's still a lot of testing to do on the PTS. But for now there isn't going to be much of change.

Except for the fact that NPCs and monsters still do the same amount of damage - this is the big hit for the PvE part in Cyrodiil/IC

Waffennacht

Yeah they'll hit harder but from my experience its not like they were all THAT tough to begin with. It could be different in veteran but aren't the NPC all V12?

Caesar Tantalia

Waffennacht wrote: »

Yeah they'll hit harder but from my experience its not like they were all THAT tough to begin with. It could be different in veteran but aren't the NPC all V12?

I mean the new ones on PTS - are they scaled at v12?

Waffennacht

Oh well i think skiserony can answer that. I have no clue about the new ones. Now im curious

Skiserony

Caesar Tantalia wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Yeah they'll hit harder but from my experience its not like they were all THAT tough to begin with. It could be different in veteran but aren't the NPC all V12?

I mean the new ones on PTS - are they scaled at v12?

The NPC in Cyrodiil now are scaled to VR14, and they will be a bit harder, especially because their not nerfed damage ofcourse. But know we also can get to VR16, and I really had no real issue with them. They were a bit too easy before too actually.

Imperial City is another situation ofcourse, the NPCs are VR16 scaled and are extremely strong. It's really hard to tke a group down on your own, it's quite a challenge but I like that. You really gotta be careful when fighting an enem player to not aggro mobs (and especially not bosses) because you'll have a hard time.

But as IC is now, I'm really having a blast with it. Except when I'm in the sewers in my own alliance and get zerged and ganked by many enemey players and I lose all my Tel Var stones. It's just making an extremely fun thing frustrating because what can you do against a small zerg while fighting a boss. And yes they stealth and wait for you to bring him down so they can kill you and steal your kill.

olsborg

Different shields stack with eachother, but not with itself.

Leandor

Nota Bene: The champion points in Hardy and Elemental defender, directly reducing the respective damaging effects, seem to be effective on shields. This is to say, many points in those two stars will make your shields last longer since those effects are calculated prior to hitting the shield.

Now I did not have the time and energy to test this by myself so I can't guarantee this is correct, but the source looks kind of trustworthy

Septimus_Magna

Ive read that some sorcs on PTS are choosing rapid regen over healing ward because of the damage shield nerf. If the small shields gets destroyed you get no heal plus healing ward isnt always casted on yourself.

Skiserony

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Ive read that some sorcs on PTS are choosing rapid regen over healing ward because of the damage shield nerf. If the small shields gets destroyed you get no heal plus healing ward isnt always casted on yourself.

Yeah this way you can regen while your health is down if you put your shields up, it's already pretty popular with magicka NBs. Just gotta spam more shields and gotta be careful.

Waffennacht

Oh cool, thanks for the info guys. Ive learned a lot and now I am not so worried about the changes

Rapid regen, im going to have to check it out

Cyrediath

Skiserony wrote: »

Okey, there's a few reason why Sorcs have multiple shields, mostly up to 3 shields actually: Hardened Ward (main), Healing Ward (oh *** shield and heal) and Harness Magicka (very cheap spell shield, only useful against spells but returns magicka).

Sorcs are very very squishy, at least without their shields that is, if they hadn't those they would get oneshot all around Cyrodiil. So the main reason for shield stacking is obviously survivability. The more and the bigger your shields, the longer you'll stay alive. Sometimes and against certain players it might be enough to have just one shield up, but that's mostly not the case and you're much stronger as a Sorc with multiple shields, it makes the Sorc who he is right now, a ver very powerful build.

The cool thing is, where the offense lies with the Sorc, also lies in it's defense, so instead of going for more health or mitigation, the Sorc will get it's survivability from shields which are scaled of the same stat that increases the offensive part, thus magicka. This is why Sorcs will stack magicka, huge pools of magicka. It gives them insane dps and extremely big shields, and because of those extremely big shields that are very cheap they can also stack spell damage tremendously with their gear sets which makes them one of the most strong dps in PvP.

Now to explain the different shields real quick according a (most popular) Sorc who has:
1) extremely high magicka
2) great sustain, even without drink buff
3) low health and very low mitigation
4) a lot of CP spent in increasing damage absorbing effects instead of mitigation

Why these stats? => Shields cannot be mitigated, but neither can be critted. So why invest in defense and mitigation if we always have our shields up, thus bigger shields buys you more time and it's better for sustain, so that basically what a Sorc wants to do, invest in their shields.

- So we got Hardened Ward, which is obviously the main shield, which is ridiculously strong. This one will take the most incoming damage and must ALWAYS be up, no matter what (even when it still has halfway it's strength).
- Then we have Healing Ward, it is not that big of shield when at full health, but once your health decreases the shield will increas up to extremely high numbers, the lower your health the bigger the shield. We use this mainly for an Oh-*** moment and healing spell. So whenever our shields are down and our health is decreasing, we'll put this up which will start with a small heal (which could take you out of execution range, which is very important) and you'll have a crazy heal that you stack with the other shields, giving up a shield 2 or 3 times you health pool. It's important to know that the shield you put up first, is the first one to get damaged, which means if we put up healing ward first it will be destroyed first, which means no crazy big heal from what's left. Therefore you'll mostly use next rotation when necessary: Healing Ward => Hardened Ward (=> Harness Magicka) => Healing Ward. Doing this will make sure your second healing ward will stay up and will probably heal your compete health bar after 6s.
- Then last (and least tbh) Harness Magicka. What's so great about this shield? Against spell users it's an extremely high shield and it's very cheap, however it won't absorb any physical damage, so it's important to know when to use this. But can be extremely effective.

So conclusion, why multiple shields?
1) extreme survivability
2) insane dps
3) big heals

Ok now explain how the *** any class can kill sorcerer in a duel??!

Skiserony

Cyrediath wrote: »

Skiserony wrote: »

Okey, there's a few reason why Sorcs have multiple shields, mostly up to 3 shields actually: Hardened Ward (main), Healing Ward (oh *** shield and heal) and Harness Magicka (very cheap spell shield, only useful against spells but returns magicka).

Sorcs are very very squishy, at least without their shields that is, if they hadn't those they would get oneshot all around Cyrodiil. So the main reason for shield stacking is obviously survivability. The more and the bigger your shields, the longer you'll stay alive. Sometimes and against certain players it might be enough to have just one shield up, but that's mostly not the case and you're much stronger as a Sorc with multiple shields, it makes the Sorc who he is right now, a ver very powerful build.

The cool thing is, where the offense lies with the Sorc, also lies in it's defense, so instead of going for more health or mitigation, the Sorc will get it's survivability from shields which are scaled of the same stat that increases the offensive part, thus magicka. This is why Sorcs will stack magicka, huge pools of magicka. It gives them insane dps and extremely big shields, and because of those extremely big shields that are very cheap they can also stack spell damage tremendously with their gear sets which makes them one of the most strong dps in PvP.

Now to explain the different shields real quick according a (most popular) Sorc who has:
1) extremely high magicka
2) great sustain, even without drink buff
3) low health and very low mitigation
4) a lot of CP spent in increasing damage absorbing effects instead of mitigation

Why these stats? => Shields cannot be mitigated, but neither can be critted. So why invest in defense and mitigation if we always have our shields up, thus bigger shields buys you more time and it's better for sustain, so that basically what a Sorc wants to do, invest in their shields.

- So we got Hardened Ward, which is obviously the main shield, which is ridiculously strong. This one will take the most incoming damage and must ALWAYS be up, no matter what (even when it still has halfway it's strength).
- Then we have Healing Ward, it is not that big of shield when at full health, but once your health decreases the shield will increas up to extremely high numbers, the lower your health the bigger the shield. We use this mainly for an Oh-*** moment and healing spell. So whenever our shields are down and our health is decreasing, we'll put this up which will start with a small heal (which could take you out of execution range, which is very important) and you'll have a crazy heal that you stack with the other shields, giving up a shield 2 or 3 times you health pool. It's important to know that the shield you put up first, is the first one to get damaged, which means if we put up healing ward first it will be destroyed first, which means no crazy big heal from what's left. Therefore you'll mostly use next rotation when necessary: Healing Ward => Hardened Ward (=> Harness Magicka) => Healing Ward. Doing this will make sure your second healing ward will stay up and will probably heal your compete health bar after 6s.
- Then last (and least tbh) Harness Magicka. What's so great about this shield? Against spell users it's an extremely high shield and it's very cheap, however it won't absorb any physical damage, so it's important to know when to use this. But can be extremely effective.

So conclusion, why multiple shields?
1) extreme survivability
2) insane dps
3) big heals

Ok now explain how the *** any class can kill sorcerer in a duel??!

Oh, even though Sorcs are extremely strong, every class is able to take them down. They might be the stronger and most easy class of now, but I've seen and had duels a DK taking down Sorcs. Even Templars are able to do so. It's really hard to do though. This requires much practice and skill, don't think you could easily defeat a good Sorc after only few weeks of playing the game.

I could write a whole text here how different mechanics work to might be able to kill a Sorc, the point is writing it down won't be very effective. All you gotta do is die and try again, the more you die and keep coming back the better you'll become. Becoming too frustrated about it and rage quit from it is obviously the worst mechanic. And that's what a lot of people do.

Few things you might want to have for a duel with a Sorc: gapcloser, reflect, something to keep pressure on them like light attacks or ranged abilities if possible.

I also really can recommend watching the Zero to Hero episodes from Sypher to gain some realy useful info and tips.

chevalierknight

To the guy asking how to beat the shields on my magblade i dont stun with cloak+cw i attack till there shield pops then fear ult and boom dead shield stack if in a 2v1 my gank partner know not to stun i perma cloak right next to the stack shield pops fear + two ults winning! Its like eating chellfish a pain to open but all soft in side