Improve Heavy Armor.

BuggeX · August 2015

Kas wrote: »

show previous quotes

BuggeX wrote: »

Zsymon wrote: »

With armor penetration included, heavy armor will give you MAYBE 1% more damage resistance than medium armor.

Yet you sacrifice every other aspect, it is appalling.

Still, you will miss the new Heavy set which give you Stamina for 20% when you are hit.
For all DKs using S/B this set will be musthave

you'd need more than 60% block cost reduction to make the stamina resturn better than just avoiding 20% of blocks using histbark (you cannot wear both). plus histbark allow you to avoid the damage.

Heavy Passive 20%
CP 10-20%
S/B Passive 30%
Glyphes ~300 Flat reduction

dont know how they are calculated Forward. But i think the new set will be better than histbark for Stamina sustain.

Zsymon wrote: »

show previous quotes

BuggeX wrote: »

Zsymon wrote: »

With armor penetration included, heavy armor will give you MAYBE 1% more damage resistance than medium armor.

Yet you sacrifice every other aspect, it is appalling.

Still, you will miss the new Heavy set which give you Stamina for 20% when you are hit.
For all DKs using S/B this set will be musthave

That is only remotely useful for PvE tanking though, and even that is going to be debatable, the problem is that heavy armor is useless in PvP, leaving us with no survivable option, only glass cannon builds.

There is no conceivable reason why the mitigation heavy armor offers is so low, on top of which the passives it grants are incredibly weak.

Compared to medium and light passives, heavy passives are ridiculous.

Well like i said, some heavy sets are strong in pvp, even if the passivas from the skilltree sux

Soris · August 2015

Someone made a thread about it with awesome periodic table. Not gonna find it now though but with everything added, block cost is like 560 for each hit.
So yeah, it is only useful if you have all these, but then you're not gonna do anything other than being a target dummy. It is not any good for "balanced" heavy armor builds. This is why balancing heavy armor should NOT based on full tanks rather than well rounded heavy builds.
Reactive set is pretty good though.

Fizzlewizzle · August 2015

Soris wrote: »

Someone made a thread about it with awesome periodic table. Not gonna find it now though but with everything added, block cost is like 560 for each hit.
So yeah, it is only useful if you have all these, but then you're not gonna do anything other than being a target dummy. It is not any good for "balanced" heavy armor builds. This is why balancing heavy armor should NOT based on full tanks rather than well rounded heavy builds.
Reactive set is pretty good though.

It shouldn't really be a problem if any suggestions made here (or implemented ingame) are only focused on tank focused builds. Although it might be an unpopular opinion, i think that focusing on archetypes isn't that bad to begin with.

A tank shouldn't need a high dps focus. Even being able to kill an enemy with nothing but heavy and light attacks would make a tank viable, as long as they don't need to work themselves to death trying to stay alive (fun wordplay).
Staying alive and taking heat, even at the cost of (a lot of) damage would be their main point. With the upcoming update they
seem to be unable to do either (deal damage or tank and stay alive), which is a major problem.

First and foremost they should focus on making the Heavy armor a viable set for staying alive, even if they have to add a damage reduction debuff to it to prevent people from going on a murder spree because their armor choice keeps them alive.
Heavy = Life.
Medium = Melee
Light = Magic.

tinythinker · August 2015

For an issue like this it helps to keep in mind the stated and implied goals ZOS has indicated through past changes. While getting resources back for heavy attacks seems counter intuituve ("I swung my huge weapon real hard and now I have more stamina!") it was done to address a resource sustain issue and encourage more dynamic game play rather than just spamming one button over and over. For those who don't know you didn't get resources back that way at launch. Similarly, they have nerfed stam regen while blocking to also encourage more dynamic play and less "hold block the whole time and spam one or two buttons".

I do not give these examples to justify to you that they were good/bad or argue that they are necessary/unnecessary, but because they are instructive. So here is the point: think up/explain your wishlist for changes to heavy armor by talking about how it makes for more dynamic game play even if it seems counter-intuitive to "real world" rules of physics and biology. How will you be more active, interesting, or varied in your play style if you get the passive changes you are requesting? (This goes for all changes requested really, not just for heavy armor).

Admittedly, it isn't as easy to think about being "dynamic" with defense, but it isn't impossible either. Start with a list of actions:

blocking
not blocking
being hit
not being hit
dealing damage
not dealing damage
roll dodging
not roll dodging
breaking free
not breaking free

I struck the ones that seemed least promising or don't seem to fit heavy armor wearers, and bolded the ones that already have a bonus attached. So we could think of adding bonuses to those, or we could look at those not yet receiving bonuses highlighted in blue: not blocking, dealing damage, and breaking free.

I don't claim to have great ideas, but off of the top of my head to illustrate the concept suggested, I will give some lackluster examples.

Not Blocking

Spoiler

Constitution:
Increases Health Recovery by 2%/4% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 100%/150% when not blocking. Also restores Magicka and Stamina each time you are hit, but only once every 8/4 seconds. Amount restored is increased per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

I like the idea that light armor = magicka, medium armor = stamina, and heavy armor = health, yet we (including the devs) know that health regen has to be much higher than magicka or stamina regen to be useful. So, if you have 5 heavy and 2 points in this passive as it is now on live, you get a flat 20% boost to health recovery. With all 7 pieces you get 28%. With the change in italics suggested above, you would get 40%/56% for one point invested and 50%/70% for two points invested. But only when *not blocking*, which presumably heavy armor users will be doing quite a bit.

So, you if you drop block to attack (or just stand there with a goofy look on your face) you are open to more risk but getting more of your armor types resource back. Puts more on the table when deciding when to block and not block and offers rewards for not just standing around with your shield up. The numbers can be tweaked for balance if they are too big (I don't think so since we're talking about health recovery -- was initially going to to 100%/200%) but they give a sense of how this idea could work.

Dealing Damage

Spoiler

Juggernaut: Increases Max Health and power with Melee Attacks by 0.5% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Basically, this is just taking what the passive does now and adding in what it originally did. It only affects melee attacks, or attacks that check the melee defense bonus, and you can check out a comment on Orc passives to see what kinds of things that does and doesn't cover. There's a lot it doesn't cover, so this is hardly OP and encourages more dynamic play by going on offense with basic weapon attacks and specific weapon/class skills.

Breaking Free

Spoiler

Rapid Mending: Increases healing received by 0.5%/1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 25%/50% for 5 seconds after Breaking Free.

With 5 heavy, the current bonus for two skill points invested in this passive reaches 5% and for 7 heavy it gets to 7%. With the italicized changes, the 5 second period of CC immunity after Breaking Free would see this increased to 7.5% for 5 pieces and 10.5% for 7 pieces. The risk/reward system again, with an offset that offers something valuable for wearing heavy armor.

With these changes, the smallish amount of superior mitigation/resistance for heavy is complimented to make heavy more viable in PvE and PvP while encouraging more activity and thus increasing the diversity of builds/playstyles.

Dracane · August 2015

Zsymon wrote: »

- Constitution: Change to 10% of max magicka/stamina upon being hit, every 6 seconds.

Then I would restore more ressources per second than I get from light armor passives and medium armor passives with my current setup.

cschwingeb14_ESO · August 2015

In PvP, penetration is getting a decent sized nerf with the upcoming changes to Apprentice and bugfix to sharpened maces.

Buffs are still too large a percentage of total armor though. Armor master, blood spawn, major buff together make for a giant damage reduction that has nothing to do with heavy. This is a mistake IMO

The block cost reduction of heavy is the main draw to using the set, and I think that people are overestimating the difference of 5-1-1 resource costs. It's a 12%difference in costs for 5-1-1 with 5-heavy compared to 5-light.

But I don't think we will get much more changed until the penetration changes settle

hrothbern · August 2015

tinythinker wrote: »

For an issue like this it helps to keep in mind the stated and implied goals ZOS has indicated through past changes. While getting resources back for heavy attacks seems counter intuituve ("I swung my huge weapon real hard and now I have more stamina!") it was done to address a resource sustain issue and encourage more dynamic game play rather than just spamming one button over and over. For those who don't know you didn't get resources back that way at launch. Similarly, they have nerfed stam regen while blocking to also encourage more dynamic play and less "hold block the whole time and spam one or two buttons".

I do not give these examples to justify to you that they were good/bad or argue that they are necessary/unnecessary, but because they are instructive. So here is the point: think up/explain your wishlist for changes to heavy armor by talking about how it makes for more dynamic game play even if it seems counter-intuitive to "real world" rules of physics and biology. How will you be more active, interesting, or varied in your play style if you get the passive changes you are requesting? (This goes for all changes requested really, not just for heavy armor).

Admittedly, it isn't as easy to think about being "dynamic" with defense, but it isn't impossible either. Start with a list of actions:

blocking
not blocking
being hit
not being hit
dealing damage
not dealing damage
roll dodging
not roll dodging
breaking free
not breaking free

I struck the ones that seemed least promising or don't seem to fit heavy armor wearers, and bolded the ones that already have a bonus attached. So we could think of adding bonuses to those, or we could look at those not yet receiving bonuses highlighted in blue: not blocking, dealing damage, and breaking free.

I don't claim to have great ideas, but off of the top of my head to illustrate the concept suggested, I will give some lackluster examples.

Not Blocking
Spoiler
Constitution:
Increases Health Recovery by 2%/4% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 100%/150% when not blocking. Also restores Magicka and Stamina each time you are hit, but only once every 8/4 seconds. Amount restored is increased per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

I like the idea that light armor = magicka, medium armor = stamina, and heavy armor = health, yet we (including the devs) know that health regen has to be much higher than magicka or stamina regen to be useful. So, if you have 5 heavy and 2 points in this passive as it is now on live, you get a flat 20% boost to health recovery. With all 7 pieces you get 28%. With the change in italics suggested above, you would get 40%/56% for one point invested and 50%/70% for two points invested. But only when *not blocking*, which presumably heavy armor users will be doing quite a bit.

So, you if you drop block to attack (or just stand there with a goofy look on your face) you are open to more risk but getting more of your armor types resource back. Puts more on the table when deciding when to block and not block and offers rewards for not just standing around with your shield up. The numbers can be tweaked for balance if they are too big (I don't think so since we're talking about health recovery -- was initially going to to 100%/200%) but they give a sense of how this idea could work.

Dealing Damage
Spoiler
Juggernaut: Increases Max Health and power with Melee Attacks by 0.5% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Basically, this is just taking what the passive does now and adding in what it originally did. It only affects melee attacks, or attacks that check the melee defense bonus, and you can check out a comment on Orc passives to see what kinds of things that does and doesn't cover. There's a lot it doesn't cover, so this is hardly OP and encourages more dynamic play by going on offense with basic weapon attacks and specific weapon/class skills.

Breaking Free
Spoiler
Rapid Mending: Increases healing received by 0.5%/1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 25%/50% for 5 seconds after Breaking Free.

With 5 heavy, the current bonus for two skill points invested in this passive reaches 5% and for 7 heavy it gets to 7%. With the italicized changes, the 5 second period of CC immunity after Breaking Free would see this increased to 7.5% for 5 pieces and 10.5% for 7 pieces. The risk/reward system again, with an offset that offers something valuable for wearing heavy armor.

With these changes, the smallish amount of superior mitigation/resistance for heavy is complimented to make heavy more viable in PvE and PvP while encouraging more activity and thus increasing the diversity of builds/playstyles.

Heavy Armor is in classic warfare emerged to sustain. Just that.
But I agree with you & ZOS, that a more active behaviour should be rewarded.
So your refrasing the challenge we have is great !!!

My 2 cents:
IF encouraging Heavy Attacks should be encouraged
consideringb that Heavy Attacks for Melee are BRAVE (ranged weapons heavy attacks are for "cowards")
Why not give a good bonus to Stamina & Magicka & Health Recovery when doing Heavy Attacks.
something like 2k Stam, 2k Mag, 2k Health

tinythinker · August 2015

hrothbern wrote: »

show previous quotes

tinythinker wrote: »

For an issue like this it helps to keep in mind the stated and implied goals ZOS has indicated through past changes. While getting resources back for heavy attacks seems counter intuituve ("I swung my huge weapon real hard and now I have more stamina!") it was done to address a resource sustain issue and encourage more dynamic game play rather than just spamming one button over and over. For those who don't know you didn't get resources back that way at launch. Similarly, they have nerfed stam regen while blocking to also encourage more dynamic play and less "hold block the whole time and spam one or two buttons".

I do not give these examples to justify to you that they were good/bad or argue that they are necessary/unnecessary, but because they are instructive. So here is the point: think up/explain your wishlist for changes to heavy armor by talking about how it makes for more dynamic game play even if it seems counter-intuitive to "real world" rules of physics and biology. How will you be more active, interesting, or varied in your play style if you get the passive changes you are requesting? (This goes for all changes requested really, not just for heavy armor).

Admittedly, it isn't as easy to think about being "dynamic" with defense, but it isn't impossible either. Start with a list of actions:

blocking
not blocking
being hit
not being hit
dealing damage
not dealing damage
roll dodging
not roll dodging
breaking free
not breaking free

I struck the ones that seemed least promising or don't seem to fit heavy armor wearers, and bolded the ones that already have a bonus attached. So we could think of adding bonuses to those, or we could look at those not yet receiving bonuses highlighted in blue: not blocking, dealing damage, and breaking free.

I don't claim to have great ideas, but off of the top of my head to illustrate the concept suggested, I will give some lackluster examples.

Not Blocking
Spoiler
Constitution:
Increases Health Recovery by 2%/4% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 100%/150% when not blocking. Also restores Magicka and Stamina each time you are hit, but only once every 8/4 seconds. Amount restored is increased per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

I like the idea that light armor = magicka, medium armor = stamina, and heavy armor = health, yet we (including the devs) know that health regen has to be much higher than magicka or stamina regen to be useful. So, if you have 5 heavy and 2 points in this passive as it is now on live, you get a flat 20% boost to health recovery. With all 7 pieces you get 28%. With the change in italics suggested above, you would get 40%/56% for one point invested and 50%/70% for two points invested. But only when *not blocking*, which presumably heavy armor users will be doing quite a bit.

So, you if you drop block to attack (or just stand there with a goofy look on your face) you are open to more risk but getting more of your armor types resource back. Puts more on the table when deciding when to block and not block and offers rewards for not just standing around with your shield up. The numbers can be tweaked for balance if they are too big (I don't think so since we're talking about health recovery -- was initially going to to 100%/200%) but they give a sense of how this idea could work.

Dealing Damage
Spoiler
Juggernaut: Increases Max Health and power with Melee Attacks by 0.5% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Basically, this is just taking what the passive does now and adding in what it originally did. It only affects melee attacks, or attacks that check the melee defense bonus, and you can check out a comment on Orc passives to see what kinds of things that does and doesn't cover. There's a lot it doesn't cover, so this is hardly OP and encourages more dynamic play by going on offense with basic weapon attacks and specific weapon/class skills.

Breaking Free
Spoiler
Rapid Mending: Increases healing received by 0.5%/1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 25%/50% for 5 seconds after Breaking Free.

With 5 heavy, the current bonus for two skill points invested in this passive reaches 5% and for 7 heavy it gets to 7%. With the italicized changes, the 5 second period of CC immunity after Breaking Free would see this increased to 7.5% for 5 pieces and 10.5% for 7 pieces. The risk/reward system again, with an offset that offers something valuable for wearing heavy armor.

With these changes, the smallish amount of superior mitigation/resistance for heavy is complimented to make heavy more viable in PvE and PvP while encouraging more activity and thus increasing the diversity of builds/playstyles.

Heavy Armor is in classic warfare emerged to sustain. Just that.
But I agree with you & ZOS, that a more active behaviour should be rewarded.
So your refrasing the challenge we have is great !!!

My 2 cents:
IF encouraging Heavy Attacks should be encouraged
consideringb that Heavy Attacks for Melee are BRAVE (ranged weapons heavy attacks are for "cowards")
Why not give a good bonus to Stamina & Magicka & Health Recovery when doing Heavy Attacks.
something like 2k Stam, 2k Mag, 2k Health

Boosting health regen when not blocking and boosting healing received during CC immunity both boost sustain. If you don't kill me after you CC me I will break free and heal up again real quick. Especially with one of my Argonian characters.

hrothbern · August 2015

tinythinker wrote: »

show previous quotes

hrothbern wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

For an issue like this it helps to keep in mind the stated and implied goals ZOS has indicated through past changes. While getting resources back for heavy attacks seems counter intuituve ("I swung my huge weapon real hard and now I have more stamina!") it was done to address a resource sustain issue and encourage more dynamic game play rather than just spamming one button over and over. For those who don't know you didn't get resources back that way at launch. Similarly, they have nerfed stam regen while blocking to also encourage more dynamic play and less "hold block the whole time and spam one or two buttons".

I do not give these examples to justify to you that they were good/bad or argue that they are necessary/unnecessary, but because they are instructive. So here is the point: think up/explain your wishlist for changes to heavy armor by talking about how it makes for more dynamic game play even if it seems counter-intuitive to "real world" rules of physics and biology. How will you be more active, interesting, or varied in your play style if you get the passive changes you are requesting? (This goes for all changes requested really, not just for heavy armor).

Admittedly, it isn't as easy to think about being "dynamic" with defense, but it isn't impossible either. Start with a list of actions:

blocking
not blocking
being hit
not being hit
dealing damage
not dealing damage
roll dodging
not roll dodging
breaking free
not breaking free

I struck the ones that seemed least promising or don't seem to fit heavy armor wearers, and bolded the ones that already have a bonus attached. So we could think of adding bonuses to those, or we could look at those not yet receiving bonuses highlighted in blue: not blocking, dealing damage, and breaking free.

I don't claim to have great ideas, but off of the top of my head to illustrate the concept suggested, I will give some lackluster examples.

Not Blocking
Spoiler
Constitution:
Increases Health Recovery by 2%/4% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 100%/150% when not blocking. Also restores Magicka and Stamina each time you are hit, but only once every 8/4 seconds. Amount restored is increased per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

I like the idea that light armor = magicka, medium armor = stamina, and heavy armor = health, yet we (including the devs) know that health regen has to be much higher than magicka or stamina regen to be useful. So, if you have 5 heavy and 2 points in this passive as it is now on live, you get a flat 20% boost to health recovery. With all 7 pieces you get 28%. With the change in italics suggested above, you would get 40%/56% for one point invested and 50%/70% for two points invested. But only when *not blocking*, which presumably heavy armor users will be doing quite a bit.

So, you if you drop block to attack (or just stand there with a goofy look on your face) you are open to more risk but getting more of your armor types resource back. Puts more on the table when deciding when to block and not block and offers rewards for not just standing around with your shield up. The numbers can be tweaked for balance if they are too big (I don't think so since we're talking about health recovery -- was initially going to to 100%/200%) but they give a sense of how this idea could work.

Dealing Damage
Spoiler
Juggernaut: Increases Max Health and power with Melee Attacks by 0.5% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Basically, this is just taking what the passive does now and adding in what it originally did. It only affects melee attacks, or attacks that check the melee defense bonus, and you can check out a comment on Orc passives to see what kinds of things that does and doesn't cover. There's a lot it doesn't cover, so this is hardly OP and encourages more dynamic play by going on offense with basic weapon attacks and specific weapon/class skills.

Breaking Free
Spoiler
Rapid Mending: Increases healing received by 0.5%/1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 25%/50% for 5 seconds after Breaking Free.

With 5 heavy, the current bonus for two skill points invested in this passive reaches 5% and for 7 heavy it gets to 7%. With the italicized changes, the 5 second period of CC immunity after Breaking Free would see this increased to 7.5% for 5 pieces and 10.5% for 7 pieces. The risk/reward system again, with an offset that offers something valuable for wearing heavy armor.

With these changes, the smallish amount of superior mitigation/resistance for heavy is complimented to make heavy more viable in PvE and PvP while encouraging more activity and thus increasing the diversity of builds/playstyles.

Heavy Armor is in classic warfare emerged to sustain. Just that.
But I agree with you & ZOS, that a more active behaviour should be rewarded.
So your refrasing the challenge we have is great !!!

My 2 cents:
IF encouraging Heavy Attacks should be encouraged
consideringb that Heavy Attacks for Melee are BRAVE (ranged weapons heavy attacks are for "cowards")
Why not give a good bonus to Stamina & Magicka & Health Recovery when doing Heavy Attacks.
something like 2k Stam, 2k Mag, 2k Health

Boosting health regen when not blocking and boosting healing received during CC immunity both boost sustain. If you don't kill me after you CC me I will break free and heal up again real quick. Especially with one of my Argonian characters.

I do not disagree with that
But I picked up your post on your thought that ZOS would like to see more active behaviour BY USING HEAVY ATTACKS.
The element I tried to introduce is that doing a really active action, heavy attack, is not rewarded enough for somebody doing that in close combat, in the front line, compared to some ppl shooting from far away, from a safe position, where the kind of armor does not matter much, at that moment.
The Heavy Infantery in the front line, the heavy armor guys, should get an additional benefit for Heavy Attacks, because they run the risk that the add will suddenly block.

tinythinker · August 2015

hrothbern wrote: »

show previous quotes

tinythinker wrote: »

hrothbern wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

For an issue like this it helps to keep in mind the stated and implied goals ZOS has indicated through past changes. While getting resources back for heavy attacks seems counter intuituve ("I swung my huge weapon real hard and now I have more stamina!") it was done to address a resource sustain issue and encourage more dynamic game play rather than just spamming one button over and over. For those who don't know you didn't get resources back that way at launch. Similarly, they have nerfed stam regen while blocking to also encourage more dynamic play and less "hold block the whole time and spam one or two buttons".

I do not give these examples to justify to you that they were good/bad or argue that they are necessary/unnecessary, but because they are instructive. So here is the point: think up/explain your wishlist for changes to heavy armor by talking about how it makes for more dynamic game play even if it seems counter-intuitive to "real world" rules of physics and biology. How will you be more active, interesting, or varied in your play style if you get the passive changes you are requesting? (This goes for all changes requested really, not just for heavy armor).

Admittedly, it isn't as easy to think about being "dynamic" with defense, but it isn't impossible either. Start with a list of actions:

blocking
not blocking
being hit
not being hit
dealing damage
not dealing damage
roll dodging
not roll dodging
breaking free
not breaking free

I struck the ones that seemed least promising or don't seem to fit heavy armor wearers, and bolded the ones that already have a bonus attached. So we could think of adding bonuses to those, or we could look at those not yet receiving bonuses highlighted in blue: not blocking, dealing damage, and breaking free.

I don't claim to have great ideas, but off of the top of my head to illustrate the concept suggested, I will give some lackluster examples.

Not Blocking
Spoiler
Constitution:
Increases Health Recovery by 2%/4% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 100%/150% when not blocking. Also restores Magicka and Stamina each time you are hit, but only once every 8/4 seconds. Amount restored is increased per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

I like the idea that light armor = magicka, medium armor = stamina, and heavy armor = health, yet we (including the devs) know that health regen has to be much higher than magicka or stamina regen to be useful. So, if you have 5 heavy and 2 points in this passive as it is now on live, you get a flat 20% boost to health recovery. With all 7 pieces you get 28%. With the change in italics suggested above, you would get 40%/56% for one point invested and 50%/70% for two points invested. But only when *not blocking*, which presumably heavy armor users will be doing quite a bit.

So, you if you drop block to attack (or just stand there with a goofy look on your face) you are open to more risk but getting more of your armor types resource back. Puts more on the table when deciding when to block and not block and offers rewards for not just standing around with your shield up. The numbers can be tweaked for balance if they are too big (I don't think so since we're talking about health recovery -- was initially going to to 100%/200%) but they give a sense of how this idea could work.

Dealing Damage
Spoiler
Juggernaut: Increases Max Health and power with Melee Attacks by 0.5% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Basically, this is just taking what the passive does now and adding in what it originally did. It only affects melee attacks, or attacks that check the melee defense bonus, and you can check out a comment on Orc passives to see what kinds of things that does and doesn't cover. There's a lot it doesn't cover, so this is hardly OP and encourages more dynamic play by going on offense with basic weapon attacks and specific weapon/class skills.

Breaking Free
Spoiler
Rapid Mending: Increases healing received by 0.5%/1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 25%/50% for 5 seconds after Breaking Free.

With 5 heavy, the current bonus for two skill points invested in this passive reaches 5% and for 7 heavy it gets to 7%. With the italicized changes, the 5 second period of CC immunity after Breaking Free would see this increased to 7.5% for 5 pieces and 10.5% for 7 pieces. The risk/reward system again, with an offset that offers something valuable for wearing heavy armor.

With these changes, the smallish amount of superior mitigation/resistance for heavy is complimented to make heavy more viable in PvE and PvP while encouraging more activity and thus increasing the diversity of builds/playstyles.

Heavy Armor is in classic warfare emerged to sustain. Just that.
But I agree with you & ZOS, that a more active behaviour should be rewarded.
So your refrasing the challenge we have is great !!!

My 2 cents:
IF encouraging Heavy Attacks should be encouraged
consideringb that Heavy Attacks for Melee are BRAVE (ranged weapons heavy attacks are for "cowards")
Why not give a good bonus to Stamina & Magicka & Health Recovery when doing Heavy Attacks.
something like 2k Stam, 2k Mag, 2k Health

Boosting health regen when not blocking and boosting healing received during CC immunity both boost sustain. If you don't kill me after you CC me I will break free and heal up again real quick. Especially with one of my Argonian characters.

I do not disagree with that
But I picked up your post on your thought that ZOS would like to see more active behaviour BY USING HEAVY ATTACKS.
The element I tried to introduce is that doing a really active action, heavy attack, is not rewarded enough for somebody doing that in close combat, in the front line, compared to some ppl shooting from far away, from a safe position, where the kind of armor does not matter much, at that moment.
The Heavy Infantery in the front line, the heavy armor guys, should get an additional benefit for Heavy Attacks, because they run the risk that the add will suddenly block.

ZOS does have a thing for heavy attacks, but my example about them was illustrating that 1) changes don't have to make "real world" sense and 2) getting people to do more/different things is a goal. The original passive bonus for Juggernaut, which I added back in for my example, increases damage for melee attacks which would involve both light/heavy attacks with sword and board, two handed, and dual wield (along with several abilities from the skill lines of those weapons) and a limited number of class skills. Adding in a bonus specifically for heavy attacks only would give fewer options, so I would suggest making any attack bonus (whatever it is) cover more by saying "melee attacks".

Fizzlewizzle · August 2015

tinythinker wrote: »

Spoiler
For an issue like this it helps to keep in mind the stated and implied goals ZOS has indicated through past changes. While getting resources back for heavy attacks seems counter intuituve ("I swung my huge weapon real hard and now I have more stamina!") it was done to address a resource sustain issue and encourage more dynamic game play rather than just spamming one button over and over. For those who don't know you didn't get resources back that way at launch. Similarly, they have nerfed stam regen while blocking to also encourage more dynamic play and less "hold block the whole time and spam one or two buttons".

I do not give these examples to justify to you that they were good/bad or argue that they are necessary/unnecessary, but because they are instructive. So here is the point: think up/explain your wishlist for changes to heavy armor by talking about how it makes for more dynamic game play even if it seems counter-intuitive to "real world" rules of physics and biology. How will you be more active, interesting, or varied in your play style if you get the passive changes you are requesting? (This goes for all changes requested really, not just for heavy armor).

Admittedly, it isn't as easy to think about being "dynamic" with defense, but it isn't impossible either. Start with a list of actions:

blocking
not blocking
being hit
not being hit
dealing damage
not dealing damage
roll dodging
not roll dodging
breaking free
not breaking free

I struck the ones that seemed least promising or don't seem to fit heavy armor wearers, and bolded the ones that already have a bonus attached. So we could think of adding bonuses to those, or we could look at those not yet receiving bonuses highlighted in blue: not blocking, dealing damage, and breaking free.

I don't claim to have great ideas, but off of the top of my head to illustrate the concept suggested, I will give some lackluster examples.

Not Blocking
Spoiler
Constitution:
Increases Health Recovery by 2%/4% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 100%/150% when not blocking. Also restores Magicka and Stamina each time you are hit, but only once every 8/4 seconds. Amount restored is increased per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

I like the idea that light armor = magicka, medium armor = stamina, and heavy armor = health, yet we (including the devs) know that health regen has to be much higher than magicka or stamina regen to be useful. So, if you have 5 heavy and 2 points in this passive as it is now on live, you get a flat 20% boost to health recovery. With all 7 pieces you get 28%. With the change in italics suggested above, you would get 40%/56% for one point invested and 50%/70% for two points invested. But only when *not blocking*, which presumably heavy armor users will be doing quite a bit.

So, you if you drop block to attack (or just stand there with a goofy look on your face) you are open to more risk but getting more of your armor types resource back. Puts more on the table when deciding when to block and not block and offers rewards for not just standing around with your shield up. The numbers can be tweaked for balance if they are too big (I don't think so since we're talking about health recovery -- was initially going to to 100%/200%) but they give a sense of how this idea could work.

Dealing Damage
Spoiler
Juggernaut: Increases Max Health and power with Melee Attacks by 0.5% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped.

Basically, this is just taking what the passive does now and adding in what it originally did. It only affects melee attacks, or attacks that check the melee defense bonus, and you can check out a comment on Orc passives to see what kinds of things that does and doesn't cover. There's a lot it doesn't cover, so this is hardly OP and encourages more dynamic play by going on offense with basic weapon attacks and specific weapon/class skills.

Breaking Free
Spoiler
Rapid Mending: Increases healing received by 0.5%/1% per piece of Heavy Armor equipped. Bonus is increased by 25%/50% for 5 seconds after Breaking Free.

With 5 heavy, the current bonus for two skill points invested in this passive reaches 5% and for 7 heavy it gets to 7%. With the italicized changes, the 5 second period of CC immunity after Breaking Free would see this increased to 7.5% for 5 pieces and 10.5% for 7 pieces. The risk/reward system again, with an offset that offers something valuable for wearing heavy armor.

With these changes, the smallish amount of superior mitigation/resistance for heavy is complimented to make heavy more viable in PvE and PvP while encouraging more activity and thus increasing the diversity of builds/playstyles.

Ill go my own way with your startup:
blocking
not blocking
being hit
not being hit
dealing damage
not dealing damage
roll dodging
not roll dodging
breaking free
not breaking free
Same as you, i put a line though the one that don't fit Heavy armor and bolded the ones that already had a bonus (which i deemed correct). The Blue ones are written down below with the added suggestions.

Blocking/ not Blocking/ Dealing damage/Not dealing damage.:

Spoiler

As posted before, on page 1:
Bracing (1/2):
When a heavy armor set of 5 or more pieces is being worn:
1) Reduces Stamina cost of blocking by (10/20)%
2) Increases Stamina regen while blocking by (15/30)% for each piece of heavy armor worn (need at least 5 pieces to work)
And, an added number 3:
3) Decreases outgoing damage of skills by 100/75%, until 2/1 second(s) after releasing block.

Effect 2 will give players an very strong Stamina regen to allow them to remain blocking for a much longer duration.
Unlike Medium or Light armor, which won't regain any Stamina while blocking the Heavy armor user will have 105% or 210% of their normal stamina regen while blocking.
Effect 3 will remove almost all offensive options from the Tank while they block, as well as a short time after they stop blocking, to counter Block Casters.
Light/ Heavy attacks, Bashing, Healing, Taunts, Buffs and Debuffs will still function.

Not breaking free:

Spoiler

Resolve:
1) Increase your armor and spell resistance for each piece of heavy armor you wield.
2) When hit by CC the buff of effect number 1 will multiply by a number equal to the amount of heavy armor pieces you wield.

We all hate CC. But, with the secondary effect i suggested a player can make the CC a double edged sword. Although you are subjected to CC, your defense will increase as a response to that.

nimander99 · August 2015

Please ZoS, Please.

Faulgor · August 2015

If only we had something like Poise in Dark Souls ...

I guess that's what they want us to use Immovable for, but frankly, that should be part of a HA passive, especially because Immovable can be used with any armor.

Zsymon · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

show previous quotes

Zsymon wrote: »

- Constitution: Change to 10% of max magicka/stamina upon being hit, every 6 seconds.

Then I would restore more ressources per second than I get from light armor passives and medium armor passives with my current setup.

10% of say 25K is 2500, divided by 3 is 800 recovery every 2s, if you get hit at the exact right time.

Your light armor setup can easily get you 2500 recovery, medium setup can get over 3K, so I don't see what you mean. Those 10% every 6 seconds don't stack with anything, but your medium and light armor passives multiply with Mundus Stones, armor set bonuses, potion bonuses, racial passives, class passives and drinks, there is no comparison.

Wreuntzylla · August 2015

Hmmm, active gameplay.

Bracing: When wearing 5 heavy, a toggle becomes available that does not occupy a quickbar space. The toggle activates 'Offense Is The Best Defense.' Your shield is transformed into a blob of glowing oblivion, no longer reducing damage but now reflecting 40% of damage back to the damage dealer while blocking.

Now both defenders and attackers have an additional component of active gameplay...

Zsymon · August 2015

Immovable costs way too much stamina to actively use along with heavy armor. Not only is the base stamina cost gigantic, you're left with nothing but CPs to lower that cost a little. You can't cast it with any regularity, you can't use it as an armor buff and you certainly can't use it to prevent CC, it is far cheaper to just break free. Especially with the low PvP damage it isn't a problem anymore to get stunned. You might as well just not break free at all to conserve stamina, since most stuns don't last that long.

They should have left the break free cost reduction with the heavy armor passives, because now no one gets it, no one ever uses Immovable, it's one of the most pointless skills in the game due to its gigantic stamina cost. It's also better to just use the Arena set for 40% cost reduction, than waste two skill slots on it to get the passive 28% break free cost reduction. The Armor Master set certainly does not nearly enough to offset the loss of two skill slots for a skill you never activate, just to get a passive we used to get for free for wearing heavy armor.

hrothbern · August 2015

Zsymon wrote: »

Immovable costs way too much stamina to actively use along with heavy armor. Not only is the base stamina cost gigantic, you're left with nothing but CPs to lower that cost a little. You can't cast it with any regularity, you can't use it as an armor buff and you certainly can't use it to prevent CC, it is far cheaper to just break free. Especially with the low PvP damage it isn't a problem anymore to get stunned. You might as well just not break free at all to conserve stamina, since most stuns don't last that long.

They should have left the break free cost reduction with the heavy armor passives, because now no one gets it, no one ever uses Immovable, it's one of the most pointless skills in the game due to its gigantic stamina cost. It's also better to just use the Arena set for 40% cost reduction, than waste two skill slots on it to get the passive 28% break free cost reduction. The Armor Master set certainly does not nearly enough to offset the loss of two skill slots for a skill you never activate, just to get a passive we used to get for free for wearing heavy armor.

yeah,... you are right...

I think that ZOS has run here into a deadlock

[*] The whole principle of the archetype HA is passive damage mitigation
[*] ZOS wants all mainstream choices to be strong by active behaviour

Not easy to find a conceptual solution

And I enjoyed reading the many thought of us players to improve HA in a meaningfull way and get out of the current muddy water.

So please ZOS, spend some time on this deadlock, get your head around it and come please back with a satisfying solution

Wargaard · August 2015

tinythinker wrote: »

For an issue like this it helps to keep in mind the stated and implied goals ZOS has indicated through past changes. While getting resources back for heavy attacks seems counter intuituve ("I swung my huge weapon real hard and now I have more stamina!") it was done to address a resource sustain issue and encourage more dynamic game play rather than just spamming one button over and over. For those who don't know you didn't get resources back that way at launch. Similarly, they have nerfed stam regen while blocking to also encourage more dynamic play and less "hold block the whole time and spam one or two buttons".

I do not give these examples to justify to you that they were good/bad or argue that they are necessary/unnecessary, but because they are instructive. So here is the point: think up/explain your wishlist for changes to heavy armor by talking about how it makes for more dynamic game play even if it seems counter-intuitive to "real world" rules of physics and biology. How will you be more active, interesting, or varied in your play style if you get the passive changes you are requesting? (This goes for all changes requested really, not just for heavy armor).

Admittedly, it isn't as easy to think about being "dynamic" with defense, but it isn't impossible either. Start with a list of actions:

blocking
not blocking
being hit
not being hit
dealing damage
not dealing damage
roll dodging
not roll dodging
breaking free
not breaking free

I struck the ones that seemed least promising or don't seem to fit heavy armor wearers, and bolded the ones that already have a bonus attached. So we could think of adding bonuses to those, or we could look at those not yet receiving bonuses highlighted in blue: not blocking, dealing damage, and breaking free.

I don't claim to have great ideas, but off of the top of my head to illustrate the concept suggested, I will give some lackluster examples.

With these changes, the smallish amount of superior mitigation/resistance for heavy is complimented to make heavy more viable in PvE and PvP while encouraging more activity and thus increasing the diversity of builds/playstyles.

While I personally don't agree with every aspect of this post, this is the most thought out and detailed response I've seen in regards to heavy armour. Bravo.

I'd also like to see probably the worst stat in the game, Health Regen, dramatically increased for every pc of Heavy Armour equipped. Both as a default percentage (5%?), and two to three-fold after a break free. Make Health regen (and so the useless racials) one of THE tank stats.

chefyoshio · October 2015

Its amazing zenimax has commented anything about this. Out of everything done this patch.. i seriously dont understand the stopping stamina regen while blocking???? Taking away a tanks.main ability.. whats the point of sword and shield. One of the sword shield passives or 5 pc heavy passives should be stamina regen continues still even when blocking.

Petros · October 2015

They need to revert a lot of passives to be based off maxed health again. Pre 1.6

Mettaricana · October 2015

I feel heavy needs a passive for the 5 peice perk that adds weapon or spell dmg increase like 3%> 6% to help tanks offer a lil dps or offer a flat rate like 150 wep/spell dmg

hrothbern · October 2015

Lore wise:
Light Armor with Sword & Board is sheer nonsense !
it makes sense with Medium Armor
it fits with Heavy Armor

Suggestion:
make a real synergy between HA and S&B

As an oversimplified example:
For every HA piece, every S&B ability and passive has 10% more effect
Equipping S&B gives every HA passive 20% more effect

AngryNord · October 2015

hrothbern wrote: »

Lore wise:
Light Armor with Sword & Board is sheer nonsense !
it makes sense with Medium Armor
it fits with Heavy Armor

Suggestion:
make a real synergy between HA and S&B

As an oversimplified example:
For every HA piece, every S&B ability and passive has 10% more effect
Equipping S&B gives every HA passive 20% more effect

A two-hander makes just as much sense with heavy armour lore-wise, so there should in that case be a synergy there too.

hrothbern · October 2015

AngryNord wrote: »

show previous quotes

hrothbern wrote: »

Lore wise:
Light Armor with Sword & Board is sheer nonsense !
it makes sense with Medium Armor
it fits with Heavy Armor

Suggestion:
make a real synergy between HA and S&B

As an oversimplified example:
For every HA piece, every S&B ability and passive has 10% more effect
Equipping S&B gives every HA passive 20% more effect

A two-hander makes just as much sense with heavy armour lore-wise, so there should in that case be a synergy there too.

I agree as such

Lore-wise HA belongs to S&B, big two-handed weapons and even the staves of Battle-mages and templar-healers.

I tried to keep my post short, but here the further thoughts that caused my comment:

The HA is a kind of an orphan in this game because this game is focused on active abilities... abilities where the player skills make a difference !!!
That creates a dilemma:
Adding a active damage to HA does not fit lore what so ever
Adding an appropiate amount of passive damage mitigation does not fit the player skill combat culture ZOS is aiming for.
As a result HA is too weak and with the recent nerf on blocking S&B is weakened.

The nerf on blocking was "needed" to prevent the abuse of especially LA using S&B blocking (for the Stam costs and for the additional piece of armor).

So this nonsensical combination of LA and S&B became a reason to nerf HA-S&B builds !!!!

That is why I suggested to give HA and S&B a synergy, strengthening both, keeping LA-S&B builds away.

Petros · October 2015

A synergy for Heavy Armor with Sword and board is 50% stam recovery while blocking!!