1vShield Breaker + Many more enemies

FriedEggSandwich

ToRelax wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

[...]This set is like, the definition of cheese. You could get this set at lvl 10, and give it to someone who just bought this game. And they would pose a threat just spamming light attacks that do a flat 2k dmg.
[...]

Actually the set scales with quality and level, so a level 10 shieldbreaker would be useless.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

but I notice you said he wasn't going to run out of stamina, what makes you think that?

Using a CC break gives you about ~8 seconds of CC immunity. During those 8 seconds, you will get ~4 stamina regen ticks. If your stamina regen is greater than CC break cost divided by four, you will never run out of stamina for CC breaking. (IIRC it comes out to ~800-900 stam regen needed, altho it has been a while since i saw the numbers so not entirely sure)

I thought the cc immunity was 5 secs, gonna need to see something official to believe it's 8 seconds. My stam regen is only 640 and I'm putting cp into mooncalf which is a really slow way to raise it. I can't imagine many sorcs roll with much more stam regen. I suppose I could wear a piece of medium. Any sorc with 800 stam regen will be sacrificing somewhere else so will be more survivable but less potent, it's a trade off.

Edit: imo it's more beneficial to put cp into tumbling and block expert but I've no clue exactly how much more this would let you cc break.

It's 5 seconds auto cc immunity and 8 seconds when broken out of.

Btw, I have 900 stam regen on my sorc. 1 stamina regen bonus from 3 pc Willow's Path, vampirism, Deadric Protection passive, 10 CP in stam regen, 1 medium armor piece. In this case it comes mostly because of other choices, I didn't have to change anything to get deadric protection on all bars, a few points in stam regen is obvious once i got some regen and i didn't take vamp for the stam regen either.
Last patch it was a bigger tradeoff, when I used the Arena set. But that was also way better stam sustain than I have now, I literally didn't have to worry about cc breaks until I was at 17% stamina, that's a lot of roll dodges pre nerf with 16k stam.

Thanks for the info man, I've not really ever looked at raising my stam outside of the champion system. I'm noticing that generally trade-offs are a bit easier in this latest patch. 1.6 was go all out damage or lose.

Ezareth

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

but I notice you said he wasn't going to run out of stamina, what makes you think that?

Using a CC break gives you about ~8 seconds of CC immunity. During those 8 seconds, you will get ~4 stamina regen ticks. If your stamina regen is greater than CC break cost divided by four, you will never run out of stamina for CC breaking. (IIRC it comes out to ~800-900 stam regen needed, altho it has been a while since i saw the numbers so not entirely sure)

I thought the cc immunity was 5 secs, gonna need to see something official to believe it's 8 seconds. My stam regen is only 640 and I'm putting cp into mooncalf which is a really slow way to raise it. I can't imagine many sorcs roll with much more stam regen. I suppose I could wear a piece of medium. Any sorc with 800 stam regen will be sacrificing somewhere else so will be more survivable but less potent, it's a trade off.

Edit: imo it's more beneficial to put cp into tumbling and block expert but I've no clue exactly how much more this would let you cc break.

It's definitely 8 seconds...and that's if you can CC them exactly as they come out of immunity every time. It's just not feasible. Don't forget to add Tri-stats into your equation. The best PvPers are all going to be running them just like I was.

FriedEggSandwich

Sharee wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

but I notice you said he wasn't going to run out of stamina, what makes you think that?

Using a CC break gives you about ~8 seconds of CC immunity. During those 8 seconds, you will get ~4 stamina regen ticks. If your stamina regen is greater than CC break cost divided by four, you will never run out of stamina for CC breaking. (IIRC it comes out to ~800-900 stam regen needed, altho it has been a while since i saw the numbers so not entirely sure)

I thought the cc immunity was 5 secs, gonna need to see something official to believe it's 8 seconds.

It seems to be a bit inconclusive. Watch for how many seconds the yellow has the CC immunity swirls under his feet. They start while the video timer is still at 0:00(you can hear the CC break yell) and are still visible under his feet at the start of 0:08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfODZM4a-PQ

Seems like 7-8 seconds to me. Certainly more than 5.

On the other hand, i did see videos where the immunity seemed shorter. Maybe it depends on the CC that has been broken?

Thanks, @ToRelax agrees with you. I believe you both. Wish it felt like 8 seconds.I didn't even know you were granted immunity if you didn't break.

Saturn

Levo18 wrote: »

The god-like reign of shield stacking sorc finally found an end. Now you have to think before attacking and not just stacking your shield up to 30k+ and spam fragments congrats ZOS for balancing

The point is, whether you are a sorcerer, nightblade, dragonknight or templar, any shield you pop will allow this to happen. I got destroyed on my DK because I had igneous shield up, if you cant see that the set is Overpowered as ***, then try fighting it.

FriedEggSandwich

Ezareth wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Cinn and I were fighting a Sorc/Sap Tank NB combo last night and they killed us a few times by going hard for Cinn the whole time. 5 minute fights with 2800 Weapon damage using a 2handed sword and non-stop wrecking blow spam to the order of several hundred times and couldn't burst through the sorcs shield(mixing other abilities in as needed obviously). He's not going to run out of magicka and not going to run out of stamina. I fought Germantrocity 2 on 1 the other night and wrecking blowed him 300-400 times and landed every one but couldn't burst his shields either and he only has 121 CPs. He didn't die until a third player joined us.

I'm trying real hard not to use this cheezeball set because it's an inelegant solution but if it takes 2-3 good players to do the damage required to take down a good sorc then I'm not seeing an alternative. In the end it all comes down to math. If I can't do more damage in 1GCD than the sorc can in in the 1GCD it costs him to cast a shield I'm never going to kill him.

If you are using wrecking blow then you only really have the 9k hardened ward to deal with until he gets low and casts healing ward, but as a ward that only lasts 4 seconds. You might see harness magicka but your attacks ignore it cos they're physical. This doesn't address the hardened ward spam but I notice you said he wasn't going to run out of stamina, what makes you think that? Good sorcs should know how to manage their stamina but they still run out of this resource more easily than the others. Stamina is every magicka sorcs biggest weakness. As soon as you see the white circles disappear then cc again immediately. I notice a lot that when fighting some players they don't take the opportunity to cc me when they could, and then they lose. If anyone is gonna kill me it's a 2h stam NB.

Both of them were using engine guardian and in a scenario where you never need to dodge roll or block you can break free every 8 seconds without running out of stamina. I'm also assuming they were using tri-stats on cooldown as I had to as well. The best sorcs are never going to run out of stamina, it just boils down to math there. You can't force them to block and you can't force them to dodge roll so the only stamina expense is break-free. Easy enough to manage.

Wrecking blow isn't going to do nearly 9K when it can never crit. My Tooltip when fully buffed is 12K so I'm doing 6K each wrecking blow. My V15 sorc right now with 96 into bastion and less than 30K magicka in all V14 gear has a hair under a 9K hardened ward in Cyrodiil and there are sorcs out there with over 12K hardened wards stacking magicka. If it costs me two GCDs just to break his single hardened ward then I'm never going to kill that sorc unless he makes a mistake.

Fair point, I've never liked fighting anyone in engine guardian. It's an easy way for sorcs to overcome the stamina problem. I also never block or roll in an actual fight, don't even tap block to animation cancel now, the regular cc breaks are enough to drain my 13k stam with 640 regen. I find that using tripots on cooldown is often enough, but even then if I can't hit them, due to cloak and dodge, and the fight drags on it's just a matter of time before I can't cc break. My current solution to this is to wear 1 piece heavy to outlast the burst when I can't cc break.

Lava_Croft

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Cinn and I were fighting a Sorc/Sap Tank NB combo last night and they killed us a few times by going hard for Cinn the whole time. 5 minute fights with 2800 Weapon damage using a 2handed sword and non-stop wrecking blow spam to the order of several hundred times and couldn't burst through the sorcs shield(mixing other abilities in as needed obviously). He's not going to run out of magicka and not going to run out of stamina. I fought Germantrocity 2 on 1 the other night and wrecking blowed him 300-400 times and landed every one but couldn't burst his shields either and he only has 121 CPs. He didn't die until a third player joined us.

I'm trying real hard not to use this cheezeball set because it's an inelegant solution but if it takes 2-3 good players to do the damage required to take down a good sorc then I'm not seeing an alternative. In the end it all comes down to math. If I can't do more damage in 1GCD than the sorc can in in the 1GCD it costs him to cast a shield I'm never going to kill him.

If you are using wrecking blow then you only really have the 9k hardened ward to deal with until he gets low and casts healing ward, but as a ward that only lasts 4 seconds. You might see harness magicka but your attacks ignore it cos they're physical. This doesn't address the hardened ward spam but I notice you said he wasn't going to run out of stamina, what makes you think that? Good sorcs should know how to manage their stamina but they still run out of this resource more easily than the others. Stamina is every magicka sorcs biggest weakness. As soon as you see the white circles disappear then cc again immediately. I notice a lot that when fighting some players they don't take the opportunity to cc me when they could, and then they lose. If anyone is gonna kill me it's a 2h stam NB.

Both of them were using engine guardian and in a scenario where you never need to dodge roll or block you can break free every 8 seconds without running out of stamina. I'm also assuming they were using tri-stats on cooldown as I had to as well. The best sorcs are never going to run out of stamina, it just boils down to math there. You can't force them to block and you can't force them to dodge roll so the only stamina expense is break-free. Easy enough to manage.

Wrecking blow isn't going to do nearly 9K when it can never crit. My Tooltip when fully buffed is 12K so I'm doing 6K each wrecking blow. My V15 sorc right now with 96 into bastion and less than 30K magicka in all V14 gear has a hair under a 9K hardened ward in Cyrodiil and there are sorcs out there with over 12K hardened wards stacking magicka. If it costs me two GCDs just to break his single hardened ward then I'm never going to kill that sorc unless he makes a mistake.

Fair point, I've never liked fighting anyone in engine guardian. It's an easy way for sorcs to overcome the stamina problem. I also never block or roll in an actual fight, don't even tap block to animation cancel now, the regular cc breaks are enough to drain my 13k stam with 640 regen. I find that using tripots on cooldown is often enough, but even then if I can't hit them, due to cloak and dodge, and the fight drags on it's just a matter of time before I can't cc break. My current solution to this is to wear 1 piece heavy to outlast the burst when I can't cc break.

Just as the entire game was centered around Magicka at launch, it's entirely centered around Stamina right now.

Alcast

Lava_Croft wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Cinn and I were fighting a Sorc/Sap Tank NB combo last night and they killed us a few times by going hard for Cinn the whole time. 5 minute fights with 2800 Weapon damage using a 2handed sword and non-stop wrecking blow spam to the order of several hundred times and couldn't burst through the sorcs shield(mixing other abilities in as needed obviously). He's not going to run out of magicka and not going to run out of stamina. I fought Germantrocity 2 on 1 the other night and wrecking blowed him 300-400 times and landed every one but couldn't burst his shields either and he only has 121 CPs. He didn't die until a third player joined us.

I'm trying real hard not to use this cheezeball set because it's an inelegant solution but if it takes 2-3 good players to do the damage required to take down a good sorc then I'm not seeing an alternative. In the end it all comes down to math. If I can't do more damage in 1GCD than the sorc can in in the 1GCD it costs him to cast a shield I'm never going to kill him.

If you are using wrecking blow then you only really have the 9k hardened ward to deal with until he gets low and casts healing ward, but as a ward that only lasts 4 seconds. You might see harness magicka but your attacks ignore it cos they're physical. This doesn't address the hardened ward spam but I notice you said he wasn't going to run out of stamina, what makes you think that? Good sorcs should know how to manage their stamina but they still run out of this resource more easily than the others. Stamina is every magicka sorcs biggest weakness. As soon as you see the white circles disappear then cc again immediately. I notice a lot that when fighting some players they don't take the opportunity to cc me when they could, and then they lose. If anyone is gonna kill me it's a 2h stam NB.

Both of them were using engine guardian and in a scenario where you never need to dodge roll or block you can break free every 8 seconds without running out of stamina. I'm also assuming they were using tri-stats on cooldown as I had to as well. The best sorcs are never going to run out of stamina, it just boils down to math there. You can't force them to block and you can't force them to dodge roll so the only stamina expense is break-free. Easy enough to manage.

Wrecking blow isn't going to do nearly 9K when it can never crit. My Tooltip when fully buffed is 12K so I'm doing 6K each wrecking blow. My V15 sorc right now with 96 into bastion and less than 30K magicka in all V14 gear has a hair under a 9K hardened ward in Cyrodiil and there are sorcs out there with over 12K hardened wards stacking magicka. If it costs me two GCDs just to break his single hardened ward then I'm never going to kill that sorc unless he makes a mistake.

Fair point, I've never liked fighting anyone in engine guardian. It's an easy way for sorcs to overcome the stamina problem. I also never block or roll in an actual fight, don't even tap block to animation cancel now, the regular cc breaks are enough to drain my 13k stam with 640 regen. I find that using tripots on cooldown is often enough, but even then if I can't hit them, due to cloak and dodge, and the fight drags on it's just a matter of time before I can't cc break. My current solution to this is to wear 1 piece heavy to outlast the burst when I can't cc break.

Just as the entire game was centered around Magicka at launch, it's entirely centered around Stamina right now.

Stamina still lacks behind magicka and by that I mean most stamina class morphs are Elemental damage or magicka damage type and i guess work with Spellpenetration(did not check this tho), which means Stamina will always have to invest more CP to get to the same result as Magicka users now. I guess that is still from the start of the game where all class abilities were magicka based.

Septimus_Magna

Before shieldbreaker: Harness Magicka, Hardened Ward and Healing Ward

After shieldbreaker: Blessing of Restoration, Hardened Ward and Healing Ward (+ Rapid Regen if you have space on your bar)

Healing Ward works pretty well against shieldbreakers because they cant burst down the shield if you have Hardened Ward up so you get a decent heal every 6 seconds. To heal in between Healing Ward heals I spam BoR and try to LoS as much as possible.

Usually this gives me enough sustain to escape or find alliance members. The chance of winning if you fight back is too small, especially if its a NB.

Asmael

Well, got killed a few days ago by this set.

On a DK.

Without a single shield.

Now I'd better make sure I'm not the one with the lowest HP, because someone wanting to heal me with Healing ward actually killed me.

This set is a band-aid meant to fix the "shield stacking issue". Man, do I have facepalmed when I read people saying sorcs were stacking "5 or 6" shields.

FYI:
- Hardened ward (OK that's 1)
- Harness Magicka (not if you're stamina)
- Healing ward (for low health only)

If you're stamina, you're facing 2 shields.

2.

Not 6, not 5, not 4, not even 3.

The set isn't even implemented properly, since it doesn't "break" the shield but instead bypass it entirely. A solution could have been to make shield crit-able in both ways (you can crit a shield, so you actually have a chance to have more shields on "crit" casts, but shields can be critted). This would have allowed for bigger burst potentials, thus creating opportunities to damaging the health.

As for this set, it should destroy the shield as it should have been in the first place, not ignore it.

PS: Not a sorc player.

Sharee

Asmael wrote: »

Well, got killed a few days ago by this set.

On a DK.

Without a single shield.

Now I'd better make sure I'm not the one with the lowest HP, because someone wanting to heal me with Healing ward actually killed me.

If you wouldn't have gotten that healing ward, you would have died just as well, except to a 8K skill attack instead of a 2K shieldbreaker. So he didn't kill you, he just didn't save you.

Rylana

Levo18 wrote: »

If you as a sorc encounter this set and cannot win just do what you always do when you about to lose.... Bolt escape over the whole map! Oh wait thats fixed too so now you actually have to fight

I encountered someone with this set yesterday on my sorc

Guess who died

Hint: it wasnt me.

Hexys

R.I.P Nightblade/Templars/Dragonknights with Harness, not so fun for them to get hit by Snipe/Wrecking Blow + light attacks + Shield Breaker directly to their health.

For sorcs there is alot of counters to this, but mostly will take a sacrafice in other stats / ability's.

- Stack more Health Regeneration
- Get more Health
- Swap Healing Ward for Blessing of Restoration/Mutagen
- High stamina recovery for dodge rolls
- Time your burst (Detonation / Meteor) and pressure the shield breaker guy first (1vX)
- Fight around obstacles with mines
- Don't use Entropy, always Power Surge

The only problem I have is seeing people without any IQ using a weighted bow and ONLY spamming light attacks. I'm sure there are skilled players around that are using this set as an extra, not as their main damage.

1vX an enemy group that has a good templar with a buddy using shieldbreaker and you are screwed already.

For shield-stacking I agree it's to strong, but it's for ZOS to make them crittable. Also remake the shield breaker set to like: 'all attacks will have 1-2k extra damage (against the shield, not health) to players having a shield active', physical damage will not proc the shield breaker set when players have harness magicka active that is supposed to absorb magic damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7I0hMr37l4

A recording I made this weekend in which you can see that stacking shields with this amount of magicka is overpowered, while I have no problems with magicka, only with stamina at one point.

Cinbri

ZOS 2.1 balance:
1. Make magicka Sorcs god-like mode class again.
2. Invent Shieldbreaker to deal with Sorcs... and as side effect with anyone who dared to use damage shield.
3. Make it work so that battle transform into 1 button spamming.
Perfect balance.

CP5

Asmael wrote: »

Well, got killed a few days ago by this set.

On a DK.

Without a single shield.

Now I'd better make sure I'm not the one with the lowest HP, because someone wanting to heal me with Healing ward actually killed me.

This set is a band-aid meant to fix the "shield stacking issue". Man, do I have facepalmed when I read people saying sorcs were stacking "5 or 6" shields.

FYI:
- Hardened ward (OK that's 1)
- Harness Magicka (not if you're stamina)
- Healing ward (for low health only)

If you're stamina, you're facing 2 shields.

2.

Not 6, not 5, not 4, not even 3.

The set isn't even implemented properly, since it doesn't "break" the shield but instead bypass it entirely. A solution could have been to make shield crit-able in both ways (you can crit a shield, so you actually have a chance to have more shields on "crit" casts, but shields can be critted). This would have allowed for bigger burst potentials, thus creating opportunities to damaging the health.

As for this set, it should destroy the shield as it should have been in the first place, not ignore it.

PS: Not a sorc player.

Shame most people won't get off of their sorc revenge train to realize that.

Sharee wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Well, got killed a few days ago by this set.

On a DK.

Without a single shield.

Now I'd better make sure I'm not the one with the lowest HP, because someone wanting to heal me with Healing ward actually killed me.

If you wouldn't have gotten that healing ward, you would have died just as well, except to a 8K skill attack instead of a 2K shieldbreaker. So he didn't kill you, he just didn't save you.

What if you had the armor and resist to survive for a few more moments, and it was only due to the fact that you were taking irresistible damage directly to your health? Also, doesn't that seem like a failure of design that a skill, specifically designed to be cast on the person most in need is now such an effective cause to get them killed?

Bashev

Ezareth wrote: »

Cinn and I were fighting a Sorc/Sap Tank NB combo last night and they killed us a few times by going hard for Cinn the whole time. 5 minute fights with 2800 Weapon damage using a 2handed sword and non-stop wrecking blow spam to the order of several hundred times and couldn't burst through the sorcs shield(mixing other abilities in as needed obviously). He's not going to run out of magicka and not going to run out of stamina. I fought Germantrocity 2 on 1 the other night and wrecking blowed him 300-400 times and landed every one but couldn't burst his shields either and he only has 121 CPs. He didn't die until a third player joined us.

I'm trying real hard not to use this cheezeball set because it's an inelegant solution but if it takes 2-3 good players to do the damage required to take down a good sorc then I'm not seeing an alternative. In the end it all comes down to math. If I can't do more damage in 1GCD than the sorc can in in the 1GCD it costs him to cast a shield I'm never going to kill him.

I agree with all your posts in the topic. And I am glad that you stared playing another class and start admiring how broken is the Sors gameplay.
Probably the set should be nerfed but without it nothing will be able to stop all the good sors.

Sharee

CP5 wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Well, got killed a few days ago by this set.

On a DK.

Without a single shield.

Now I'd better make sure I'm not the one with the lowest HP, because someone wanting to heal me with Healing ward actually killed me.

This set is a band-aid meant to fix the "shield stacking issue". Man, do I have facepalmed when I read people saying sorcs were stacking "5 or 6" shields.

FYI:
- Hardened ward (OK that's 1)
- Harness Magicka (not if you're stamina)
- Healing ward (for low health only)

If you're stamina, you're facing 2 shields.

2.

Not 6, not 5, not 4, not even 3.

The set isn't even implemented properly, since it doesn't "break" the shield but instead bypass it entirely. A solution could have been to make shield crit-able in both ways (you can crit a shield, so you actually have a chance to have more shields on "crit" casts, but shields can be critted). This would have allowed for bigger burst potentials, thus creating opportunities to damaging the health.

As for this set, it should destroy the shield as it should have been in the first place, not ignore it.

PS: Not a sorc player.

Shame most people won't get off of their sorc revenge train to realize that.

Sharee wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Well, got killed a few days ago by this set.

On a DK.

Without a single shield.

Now I'd better make sure I'm not the one with the lowest HP, because someone wanting to heal me with Healing ward actually killed me.

If you wouldn't have gotten that healing ward, you would have died just as well, except to a 8K skill attack instead of a 2K shieldbreaker. So he didn't kill you, he just didn't save you.

What if you had the armor and resist to survive for a few more moments, and it was only due to the fact that you were taking irresistible damage directly to your health?

If you are so low on health that the pitiful damage from shieldbreaker kills you, then you would not be able to survive a real damage skill without the shield, no matter what armor and resists you have.

CP5 wrote: »

Also, doesn't that seem like a failure of design that a skill, specifically designed to be cast on the person most in need is now such an effective cause to get them killed?

It does not get them killed, it just isn't a foolproof 'you can't touch me' ability anymore.

CP5

Sharee wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Well, got killed a few days ago by this set.

On a DK.

Without a single shield.

Now I'd better make sure I'm not the one with the lowest HP, because someone wanting to heal me with Healing ward actually killed me.

This set is a band-aid meant to fix the "shield stacking issue". Man, do I have facepalmed when I read people saying sorcs were stacking "5 or 6" shields.

FYI:
- Hardened ward (OK that's 1)
- Harness Magicka (not if you're stamina)
- Healing ward (for low health only)

If you're stamina, you're facing 2 shields.

2.

Not 6, not 5, not 4, not even 3.

The set isn't even implemented properly, since it doesn't "break" the shield but instead bypass it entirely. A solution could have been to make shield crit-able in both ways (you can crit a shield, so you actually have a chance to have more shields on "crit" casts, but shields can be critted). This would have allowed for bigger burst potentials, thus creating opportunities to damaging the health.

As for this set, it should destroy the shield as it should have been in the first place, not ignore it.

PS: Not a sorc player.

Shame most people won't get off of their sorc revenge train to realize that.

Sharee wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Well, got killed a few days ago by this set.

On a DK.

Without a single shield.

Now I'd better make sure I'm not the one with the lowest HP, because someone wanting to heal me with Healing ward actually killed me.

If you wouldn't have gotten that healing ward, you would have died just as well, except to a 8K skill attack instead of a 2K shieldbreaker. So he didn't kill you, he just didn't save you.

What if you had the armor and resist to survive for a few more moments, and it was only due to the fact that you were taking irresistible damage directly to your health?

If you are so low on health that the pitiful damage from shieldbreaker kills you, then you would not be able to survive a real damage skill without the shield, no matter what armor and resists you have.

CP5 wrote: »

Also, doesn't that seem like a failure of design that a skill, specifically designed to be cast on the person most in need is now such an effective cause to get them killed?

It does not get them killed, it just isn't a foolproof 'you can't touch me' ability anymore.

Fine, but can someone do a test for me? Grab a DK or a vampire and check if this set bypasses mist from and magma armor, if it does then a shield is suicidal. Something designed to provide survivability being countered by a passive set that gives no draw backs for its use is poor design.

ToRelax

Hexys wrote: »

R.I.P Nightblade/Templars/Dragonknights with Harness, not so fun for them to get hit by Snipe/Wrecking Blow + light attacks + Shield Breaker directly to their health.

For sorcs there is alot of counters to this, but mostly will take a sacrafice in other stats / ability's.

- Stack more Health Regeneration
- Get more Health
- Swap Healing Ward for Blessing of Restoration/Mutagen
- High stamina recovery for dodge rolls
- Time your burst (Detonation / Meteor) and pressure the shield breaker guy first (1vX)
- Fight around obstacles with mines
- Don't use Entropy, always Power Surge

The only problem I have is seeing people without any IQ using a weighted bow and ONLY spamming light attacks. I'm sure there are skilled players around that are using this set as an extra, not as their main damage.

1vX an enemy group that has a good templar with a buddy using shieldbreaker and you are screwed already.

For shield-stacking I agree it's to strong, but it's for ZOS to make them crittable. Also remake the shield breaker set to like: 'all attacks will have 1-2k extra damage (against the shield, not health) to players having a shield active', physical damage will not proc the shield breaker set when players have harness magicka active that is supposed to absorb magic damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7I0hMr37l4

A recording I made this weekend in which you can see that stacking shields with this amount of magicka is overpowered, while I have no problems with magicka, only with stamina at one point.

Actually, the video doesn't really proof anything, as the opponents were just bad. The last guy spammed Brawler, I mean come on.
You could tank 2 good players just spamming shields though, that would make clear how broken the system is - however, it would not tell us that shields are the actual problem, just that you shouldn't be able to spam optimized shields forever.

Sharee

I am sure if you kept constructing a niche specialized scenarios long enough, you will eventually come up with one where having a shield against shieldbreaker is worse than not having a shield. But even then for the vast majority of commonly encountered scenarios in PvP, anytime a shieldbreaker would kill you through a shield, a normal ability would kill you without it just as well. This set's effectiveness is blown out of proportion for typical PvP encounters. It is only a gamechanger for players used to running with minimal hitpoints while being untouchable behind a shield at all times.

Lava_Croft

Alcast wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Cinn and I were fighting a Sorc/Sap Tank NB combo last night and they killed us a few times by going hard for Cinn the whole time. 5 minute fights with 2800 Weapon damage using a 2handed sword and non-stop wrecking blow spam to the order of several hundred times and couldn't burst through the sorcs shield(mixing other abilities in as needed obviously). He's not going to run out of magicka and not going to run out of stamina. I fought Germantrocity 2 on 1 the other night and wrecking blowed him 300-400 times and landed every one but couldn't burst his shields either and he only has 121 CPs. He didn't die until a third player joined us.

I'm trying real hard not to use this cheezeball set because it's an inelegant solution but if it takes 2-3 good players to do the damage required to take down a good sorc then I'm not seeing an alternative. In the end it all comes down to math. If I can't do more damage in 1GCD than the sorc can in in the 1GCD it costs him to cast a shield I'm never going to kill him.

If you are using wrecking blow then you only really have the 9k hardened ward to deal with until he gets low and casts healing ward, but as a ward that only lasts 4 seconds. You might see harness magicka but your attacks ignore it cos they're physical. This doesn't address the hardened ward spam but I notice you said he wasn't going to run out of stamina, what makes you think that? Good sorcs should know how to manage their stamina but they still run out of this resource more easily than the others. Stamina is every magicka sorcs biggest weakness. As soon as you see the white circles disappear then cc again immediately. I notice a lot that when fighting some players they don't take the opportunity to cc me when they could, and then they lose. If anyone is gonna kill me it's a 2h stam NB.

Both of them were using engine guardian and in a scenario where you never need to dodge roll or block you can break free every 8 seconds without running out of stamina. I'm also assuming they were using tri-stats on cooldown as I had to as well. The best sorcs are never going to run out of stamina, it just boils down to math there. You can't force them to block and you can't force them to dodge roll so the only stamina expense is break-free. Easy enough to manage.

Wrecking blow isn't going to do nearly 9K when it can never crit. My Tooltip when fully buffed is 12K so I'm doing 6K each wrecking blow. My V15 sorc right now with 96 into bastion and less than 30K magicka in all V14 gear has a hair under a 9K hardened ward in Cyrodiil and there are sorcs out there with over 12K hardened wards stacking magicka. If it costs me two GCDs just to break his single hardened ward then I'm never going to kill that sorc unless he makes a mistake.

Fair point, I've never liked fighting anyone in engine guardian. It's an easy way for sorcs to overcome the stamina problem. I also never block or roll in an actual fight, don't even tap block to animation cancel now, the regular cc breaks are enough to drain my 13k stam with 640 regen. I find that using tripots on cooldown is often enough, but even then if I can't hit them, due to cloak and dodge, and the fight drags on it's just a matter of time before I can't cc break. My current solution to this is to wear 1 piece heavy to outlast the burst when I can't cc break.

Just as the entire game was centered around Magicka at launch, it's entirely centered around Stamina right now.

Stamina still lacks behind magicka and by that I mean most stamina class morphs are Elemental damage or magicka damage type and i guess work with Spellpenetration(did not check this tho), which means Stamina will always have to invest more CP to get to the same result as Magicka users now. I guess that is still from the start of the game where all class abilities were magicka based.

When ESO launched, every Stamina user was forced to also invest into Magicka while Magicka users could ignore Stamina and invest everything into Magicka stuff.
Right now, every Magicka user is forced to also invest into Stamina while Stamina users can ignore Magicka and invest everything into Stamina stuff.

Neither of these situations are desirable and let's hope a balance can be struck.

[PS] After half a year of 1.6, I can only laugh at people crying about being 'destroyed' by 2k damage attacks.

Derra

Sharee wrote: »

I am sure if you kept constructing a niche specialized scenarios long enough, you will eventually come up with one where having a shield against shieldbreaker is worse than not having a shield. But even then for the vast majority of commonly encountered scenarios in PvP, anytime a shieldbreaker would kill you through a shield, a normal ability would kill you without it just as well. This set's effectiveness is blown out of proportion for typical PvP encounters. It is only a gamechanger for players used to running with minimal hitpoints while being untouchable behind a shield at all times.

This is already the case for every non sorc player using harness magica.

Maulkin

Sharee wrote: »

If you are so low on health that the pitiful damage from shieldbreaker kills you, then you would not be able to survive a real damage skill without the shield, no matter what armor and resists you have.

I'm sorry, but WTAF? So, so, so, short-sighted it's unreal.

First off, the damage is not pitiful at all. 2.3k on legendary v16 set, is as much as my crushing shock tooltip / 2. Also, there is not a single direct heal available to me that isn't a shield and that can deliver a heal that can keep up with the damage when on low to medium health. Blessing of Restoration, the only one that comes close, is 2.8k for me with 30 CPs into quick recovery and 35k Max Magicka. Rapid Regen can only recover that much HP after a whole 4".

What do you do when are low on health? Maybe dodge-cast some heals, or pop into cloak while your heals tick? Maybe if you are build tanky you block cast heals like a DK or Templar? Basically whatever else you play, you have a chance to recover from going low on health, while staying in the fight.

What method does a Sorc have to escape certain death against a shield breaker set when getting low on health?

Going without shields won't work as you'll just die to skill damage as you said. So you still have to run shields, like any light armor build. So what are your options?

1) Spamming shields won't work.
2) Block-casting heals won't work as the damage is not mitigated by block.
3) Dodging will only buy you one rotation, as a second dodge-roll puts you into unbreakable CC territory with your stamina, since the cost increase with 2.1
4) Bolt will not stop the light attack bow damage, or the gap closer + la attack spam.
5) Using a CC skill will only stop them for 1 rotation and then grant CC immunity for 8". In that one rotation, you will gain at best 3-4k from combining rapid regen with BoR. then the light attack spam will commence for 8" non stop.

What are your options to recover while staying in the fight? What are your options as light armor Sorc to stay and fight a shield breaker?

Ezareth

I think the shield breaker set needs change to just do a ridiculous amount of damage to shields themselves, not to a players health. Adding an extra 3-5K damage to all attacks done to shields would make this a great set for fighting sorcs and anyone using a shield without being such a stupid mechanic that breaks a playstyle.

Yes some terribad nightblade with this set is not going to be able to kill a good sorc 1 v 1 but put it in the hands of a good nightblade who knows how to use a bow properly and it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Not the correct solution to a problem.

CP5

Ezareth wrote: »

I think the shield breaker set needs change to just do a ridiculous amount of damage to shields themselves, not to a players health. Adding an extra 3-5K damage to all attacks done to shields would make this a great set for fighting sorcs and anyone using a shield without being such a stupid mechanic that breaks a playstyle.

Yes some terribad nightblade with this set is not going to be able to kill a good sorc 1 v 1 but put it in the hands of a good nightblade who knows how to use a bow properly and it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Not the correct solution to a problem.

I like the idea of "shield breaker" breaking shields, but all attacks? Like volly's twice a second kind of attack?

Lava_Croft

My new goal in ESO is to get the Champion passive that grants a shield after quaffing a potion and then getting killed by Shield Breaker proccing.

ToRelax

I'd make it take a percentage of total shield strength, so it doesn't make small shields useless...

CP5

Lava_Croft wrote: »

My new goal in ESO is to get the Champion passive that grants a shield after quaffing a potion and then getting killed by Shield Breaker proccing.

Or the one that gives a shield when you start blocking.

Lava_Croft

CP5 wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

My new goal in ESO is to get the Champion passive that grants a shield after quaffing a potion and then getting killed by Shield Breaker proccing.

Or the one that gives a shield when you start blocking.

Or the new armor set that provides a shield to allies.

Ezareth

CP5 wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

I think the shield breaker set needs change to just do a ridiculous amount of damage to shields themselves, not to a players health. Adding an extra 3-5K damage to all attacks done to shields would make this a great set for fighting sorcs and anyone using a shield without being such a stupid mechanic that breaks a playstyle.

Yes some terribad nightblade with this set is not going to be able to kill a good sorc 1 v 1 but put it in the hands of a good nightblade who knows how to use a bow properly and it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Not the correct solution to a problem.

I like the idea of "shield breaker" breaking shields, but all attacks? Like volly's twice a second kind of attack?

Well as long as the bonus damage would only happen to shields that would still be better than the existing implementation. I can't really tell you what the correct damage value would be but it should definitely give someone using the set a heavy advantage when fighting a player using shields.

This would also prevent scenarios where a player gets screwed by having a secondary shield applied to them like the block or potion drinking CP passives.

It also beats what I was afraid the shield breaker set was going to be originally which was a "purge" shield set which would be equally stupid.

CP5

Lava_Croft wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

My new goal in ESO is to get the Champion passive that grants a shield after quaffing a potion and then getting killed by Shield Breaker proccing.

Or the one that gives a shield when you start blocking.

Or the new armor set that provides a shield to allies.

Or even the champion passive that gives a shield when revived.