Restore Bracing - Never Ask for Buffs

Personofsecrets

@ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_Finn

Bracing is the currently, in my opinion, the best heavy armor passive. I consider it the best passive because it adds a stat that is normally inefficient to add to in an efficient way.

We also have a direct nerf in the form of increased block cost.

In exchange for this, with respect to resources, you have offered an armor trait that lowers the cost of blocking, made a minor change to constitution, and made a minor change to heavy attacks.

I predict that these changes will skew fights even more toward the resource insufficiency of the tanking skill lines.

In the future, suppose that I am attacked once every 1.5 seconds. That is a normal number of times to be attacked by a single enemy. Over 4 seconds I will generate about 700 stamina via constitution. I will also lose about 4300 stamina assuming only that the new and increased block cost is 2300/hit and that I only am receiving block cost mitigation via sword and shield.

Currently, given those same circumstances, but with the current constitution value, current bracing, and current block cost, I'll gain about 250 stamina over 4 seconds and lose about 2900 stamina.

The difference between the circumstances is that, in the future, I will be at a 3600 stamina deficit after 4 seconds and currently I will be at a 2650 stamina deficit after 4 seconds. After 4 seconds, in the future I will have 1000 less stamina than I currently have. Additionally, this disparity is based on a conservative calculation. It is based on a single target fight. Because of losing the best passive ability of heavy armor in exchange for nothing, fights with multiple enemies attacking will cause stamina in the future to suffer at even greater disparity rate than the one that I just calculated based on a single target fight. Things aren't looking pretty.

And let's say that the sturdy trait helps. But at what cost is that help? Well I personally would lose magic regeneration in order to gain block cost mitigation. Let's say that the increase in stamina generated via heavy attacks helps. But at what cost is that help. Less blocking is equal to more dying. We suffer these consequences all for some weapon and spell damage that will ultimately be inconsequential to tanking.

Let's further make the same error that has been made before about tanking being made more easy due to champion points and is therefore needing to be nerfed to remain challenging. Perhaps tanking would be more easy with a grand 50 champion points added (17 of which will be practically useless), but how exactly do tanks become more powerful with champion points when, every time we get champion points, we are drastically nerfed?

You know, I thought that after the official thread dedicated to making tanking better the development team would get it through their thick skulls that tanks are dead tired of micro-managing their stamina. Did anyone ask for you to nerf bracing? To the contrary I've been saying it is the best passive skill for tanks. It is the premier reason to wear heavy armor.

Pardon my brashness, but what the hell are you thinking?

P.S. Nobody wants to do fully charged heavy attacks. Nobody. They aren't fun. Nobody. Normally companies cater to what their base wants. For some reason you didn't get the news letter on that key business practice when it comes to fully charged heavy attacks.

P.P.S. My proposed solution to this new problem that you have created is just to leave bracing alone. I will swallow the increased block cost if you just leave our best passive ability as it is rather than making it amount to a hill of beans.

Edit

P.P.P.S.

"STURDY IN TANDEM WITH FORTRESS GIVES ABOUT 12.5% BLOCK COST MITIGATION INSTEAD OF THE FULL 24% THAT IT PROMISES.

THIS IS IN NO WAY MAKING UP FOR BRACING AND ESPECIALLY NOT SO BECAUSE WE LOSE ALL OF OUR GOOD TRAITS TO USE STURDY. SAD!"

P.P.P.P.S.

If all things stay the same, then DB on live will feel much worse than it does on PTS. The reason for this is because BASE BLOCK COST IS INCREASING, but ON THE PTS BLOCK COST IS THE CURRENT VALUE THAT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN.

Feelings gained from testing on PTS are basically null and void until we know for sure what the new block cost will be increased to.

P.P.P.P.P.S.

@CreepyPahuska claims to like to do fully charged heavy attacks. When I said that nobody wants to do full charged heavy attacks, I was slightly wrong. My bad.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S.

OLD BLOCK COST @ 58% = Fortress + Bracing + Def Stance

NEW BLOCK COST @ 58% = Fortress + Defensive Stance + 100 Champion Point + 2-3 Sturdy Trait

In exchange for 100 CP and 2-3 Traits, if we get hit a bunch of time, then we get a minimum amount of extra damage that we most likely wont even get to utilize because we are getting hit a bunch of times and need to focus on surviving.

ZOS IS KILLING US ON THESE TRADE DEALS

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S.

" - The combination of the Fortress and Bracing passive effects are something that I appreciate. I think that development really carefully considered block cost mitigation during its initial creation. It is frustrating that diminished returns severely affects this stat, but these two passives, and especially so in tandem, are what really make sword and board or heavy armor valuable." - Personofsecrets February 2016

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S.

One Hand and Shield

Fortress: Increased the block cost reduction from this passive ability to 18/36% at Ranks I/II from 15/30%.

Item Traits

Sturdy: Increased the value of the Sturdy trait by 1% at all quality levels. Gold Sturdy-traited gear now gives 4% block cost reduction instead of 3% (As if anyone wants to lose Bracing for this LOL)

Wait, what's the catch?

The Steed
Block Expertise:
Renamed this Champion ability to Shadow Ward.
This Champion ability has been switched with the Elusive ability from The Shadow constellation.
The Shadow
Elusive:
Renamed this Champion ability to Ironclad.
This Champion ability has been switched with the Block Expertise ability from The Steed constellation.

My goodness gracious...

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S.



P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S.

Wrobel wrote: »

First, thanks to everyone for all your feedback on block. We appreciate the time you've spent testing everything out, and we'd like to take some time to explain some of our most recent changes.

Live vs PTS Block Costs
In general, we feel that if you decide to hold block against all attacks, it should require a significant investment. To help explain this, let’s start with a mathematical peek at how low you can get block costs on Live versus what's currently on the PTS. In this exercise, we're using a fully-optimized character wearing 7 pieces of gold-quality heavy armor, 3 purple rings with block cost reduction, and the full 25% block cost reduction through the Champion System. The first 2 examples assume you are getting hit every half second, while the 3rd example is representative of a boss fight where you are getting hit once a second. As bosses usually hit less frequently, this is intended as a worst case scenario.

While reviewing these examples, please keep the following points in mind:

• Fortress, Bracing, and Defensive stance bonuses are additive
• Block cost has a cooldown of 0.5 seconds - No matter how many monsters are attacking, you can block every single attack and will only be charged every half second.
• To calculate Constitution’s stamina return relative to block costs, we need to figure out how much stamina is being returned every half second. Constitution gives 247 stamina every 4 seconds, which equates to 43 every half second. We can then subtract that 43 from the amount each block is charging you since you are being charged that block cost every half second.

Live
Base Block Cost: 2160
25% Champion Cost Reduction: 2160 * .75 = 1620
3x purple block cost enchantments: 1620 – 191x3 = 1620 – 573 = 1047
Fortress, Bracing, and Defensive Stance: 1047 * 0.42 = 440
Constitution: 440 – 43 = 397

PTS
Base Block Cost: 2160
25% Champion Cost Reduction: 2160 * .75 = 1620
3x purple block cost enchantments: 1620 – 191x3 = 1620 – 573 = 1047
Fortress and Defensive Stance: 1047 * .56 = 587
Sturdy x1: 587 * .96 = 563
Constitution: 563 – 163 = 400

PTS – Boss Fight
Base Block Cost: 2160
25% Champion Cost Reduction: 2160 * .75 = 1620
3x purple block cost enchantments: 1620 – 191x3 = 1620 – 573 = 1047
Fortress and Defensive Stance: 1047 * .56 = 587
Constitution 1 second: 587 – 326 = 261

Assuming the worst case scenario where you get hit exactly every half second, you only need 1 piece of Sturdy gear equipped to keep the current block costs. This means you now have the option to wear 8 pieces of Sturdy to get even lower costs. We’re not trying to force Sturdy on tanks, but more to give an option for players who block a lot and need more stamina recovery. Tanks who are getting hit every second on average will actually be able to block more with the upcoming changes in Dark Brotherhood, and that’s without having any Sturdy items equipped. Also note that you’ll have additional magicka with the updated Constitution passive to help you use more utility abilities while tanking:

DB Constitution value = 1305
Live Constitution value = 346
1305 – 346 = 959 / 2 seconds = 480 additional magicka every 2 seconds

Champion System
We recently moved the block cost reduction from the Steed tree to the Shadow tree. This change was made to give more options in customizing your defenses, and help reduce the amount of time spent blocking. When spending Warrior points, you don’t need to invest in block cost; you can now consider increased healing taken, stronger damage shields, or more damage reduction. Let’s dive into how this will affect the stats of a character with 501 Champion Points who is trying to maximize their block time and damage resistance:

Live - Warrior
100 Block Expertise – 25% Block Cost Reduction.
33 Hardy – 11.5% Reduced Poison, Disease, and Physical Damage.
34 Elemental Defender – 11.8% Reduced Flame, Frost, Shock, and Magic Damage.
Unique unlocks the PTS build does not have (Invigorating Bash, Phase, Shield Expert)

Live - Thief
100 Warlord – 16% Cost Reduction Stamina abilities
67 Magician – 12.6% Cost Reduction Magicka abilities
Unique unlocks the PTS build does not have (Mara’s Gift, War Mount)

PTS - Warrior
83 Hardy – 21.9% Reduced Poison, Disease, and Physical Damage reduction.
84 Elemental Defender – 22.1% Reduced Flame, Frost, Shock, and Magic Damage.
Unique unlocks the Live build does not have (Critical Leech, Unchained)

PTS - Thief
100 Block Expertise – 25% Block Cost Reduction.
67 Warlord - 12.6% Cost Reduction Stamina abilities.
Unique unlocks the Live build does not have (Fortune Seeker, Merchant Favored, Treasure Hunter)

The average ability cost is 2700 resources. That’s going to be reduced to 2268 when maxing out the Magician Champion star, or 2365 with lesser investment. If you cast an ability every 2 seconds, you will end up with more magicka after the Dark Brotherhood changes because Constitution is giving more magicka. The difference in only putting 67 points in Magician is 2365 – 2268 = 97 magicka (480 every 2 seconds from Constitution – 97 every 2 seconds nets you 383 magicka every 2 seconds). Even if you put no points in Magician, you still end up with more magicka because of the Constitution buff. Magician gives 2700 – 2268 = 432 magicka (480 every 2 seconds from Constitution – 432 magicka from Magician = 48 magicka every 2 seconds). Overall, you have more magicka and more defense if you choose to put Warrior Champion Points into Hardy and Elemental Defender. Putting 83 points into these stars instead of 34 nets an additional 10% damage reduction.

Two of the most influential passives for tanks are Shield Expert and Unchained. The resource cost reduction from Unchained is great if you miss blocking a stun attack, or if you get feared/disoriented. The Champion passive Shield Expert gives about 1290 armor and spell resistance all the time. However, this is a great passive that is currently in a tree that is PvP and medium armor focused. To help remedy this, we’re looking into swapping Shield Expert with Resilient so the passive to reduce critical hit damage and the unlock to heal on critical hits are together. This also makes a key tanking unlock more accessible for players with lower Champion Points, requiring 30 Champion Points instead of 75.

Wrap Up
As with all pieces of the ESO balance puzzle, changes to tanking affect players of different types of content, ability loadouts, item sets, and armor weights. With Dark Brotherhood, we’re offering more ways to customize your Tanky character by allowing lower block costs than ever before and providing more flexibility when customizing your defenses. If you don’t want to take advantage of these options, your block cost should remain similar to what it was before the changes. If you still have concerns with tanking after trying out the changes, please leave a detailed reply about your character and the type of content you’re playing.

We'll also be making the following changes before Dark Brotherhood goes live:

• Fixing an issue where Sturdy is rounding fractions down
• Fixing an issue where Sturdy is multiplicative with itself instead of additive
• A more accessible Shield Expert Champion unlock

Xsorus

The new Stamina/Magicka Return increase with heavy armor is super nice on PTS

was getting 1160 Back every 4 seconds

Cinbri

dps race for pvp... even in heavy armor now. We all knew it will happen.

ssewallb14_ESO

+1 Please restore the old effect of bracing. This nerf completely negates any benefit a tank would gain from the heavy armor buffs.

hrothbern

Xsorus wrote: »

The new Stamina/Magicka Return increase with heavy armor is super nice on PTS

was getting 1160 Back every 4 seconds

@Xsorus ,

You are already at PTS

Download for me goes sooooo slowwww

Do you already know how much the armor trait Sturdy does for Stamina cost reduction of Blocking ?

Synozeer

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

+1 Please restore the old effect of bracing. This nerf completely negates any benefit a tank would gain from the heavy armor buffs.

This was the main reason to use heavy armor by far. Huge nerf for sure. Suddenly all the other buffs don't look so good without this passive.

Personofsecrets

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I know that so many of you have different ideas about tanking, but let me still ask the following question. Do tanks really need to get nerfed more?

sneakymitchell

Yea I block use heavy attack and with the increase in resources gain balances it.

Personofsecrets

@Xsorus . Your extra constitution gain is probably for using 7/7 heavy. I use 2 light armor for magic regeneration. Hence my phrase that we may gain some amount of stamina management via the constitution buff, but that is only at the cost of losing something else that is also important. This is all so that we can gain something of minimal importance (weapon and spell damage lol).

Xsorus

I have 6/7 Heavy

7/7 probably 1200 I bet

Black Rose set might be super good for this now since it increases it by 50% more

Personofsecrets

@sneakymitchell , the balance you claim is a loss. More chances at death is hardly equal to anything resembling balance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcntMLJ8ir0

All tanks heed the 2:22 mark if you think heavy attacking is going to save your dirt poor stamina management.

Personofsecrets

Xsorus wrote: »

I have 6/7 Heavy

7/7 probably 1200 I bet

Black Rose set might be super good for this now since it increases it by 50% more

I thought of Black Rose too, but its not usable in my opinion because of Tava's Favor existence. If tanks have to give up huge amounts of war horn DPS so they can run Black Rose and manage their resources, then that is a bad trade off in my opinion.

Personofsecrets

@Xsorus , mostly I am concerned about fights were the tank is taking attacks from multiple enemies (more than 1 attack every 1.5 seconds). That is were we will really see how lame this nerf is.

Woeler

I'm too uninformed at the moment to have a decent opinion. I first need to see what sturdy does in combination with the extra resource gain from the other passives.

Xsorus

Rofl...

Black Rose set with 7/7 heavy

1956 return

ZoM_Head

sneakymitchell wrote: »

Yea I block use heavy attack and with the increase in resources gain balances it.

Would like to see you do that when tanking the 3 axes in aa hard mode, hel ra final boss, sanctum or vmol.

The lag in EU servers or the servers in EU in general just throws tanks off. Meaning the moment the drop they shield and weapon swap, good chance they will take a full on attack (30K manti for example) due to this and be dead.

Personofsecrets

Woeler wrote: »

I'm too uninformed at the moment to have a decent opinion. I first need to see what sturdy does in combination with the extra resource gain from the other passives.

Please post here what you find.

Personofsecrets

Xsorus wrote: »

Rofl...

Black Rose set with 7/7 heavy

1956 return

what is the new vanilla block cost? I guessed 2300 earlier.

zerosingularity

I was looking at the bracing change and thought, "OK, Constitution and Sturdy will make up the Deficit."

Sadly NOPE! While the Constitution passive change is well needed, I would like to mention a gold STURDY item only gives 3% Blocking Reduction. Not sufficient to counter this loss.

Add to the fact that tanks will have more damage from the new passive, and a lot of new tanks will try to put out damage instead of protection, which is not healthy. I do not like this change.

Personofsecrets

zerosingularity wrote: »

I was looking at the bracing change and thought, "OK, Constitution and Sturdy will make up the Deficit."

Sadly NOPE! While the Constitution passive change is well needed, I would like to mention a gold STURDY item only gives 3% Blocking Reduction. Not sufficient to counter this loss.

Add to the fact that tanks will have more damage from the new passive, and a lot of new tanks will try to put out damage instead of protection, which is not healthy. I do not like this change.

that means we need full sturdy armor to replace bracing. cool beans, I mean I guess that I didn't want my divines stat anyhow (sarcasm).

tinythinker

My least favorite change so far on the face of it, but who knows? Maybe with the right set-up it balances out?

If not...

I think they got it right for heavy and for one-handed except for this. I mean, look at Power Slam, one of the morphs of Power Bash, from the new notes:

Power Slam (Power Bash morph): In addition to the changes made to the base ability [=85% damage increase], we redesigned this morph so while slotted, blocking an attack will increase the damage of your next Power Slam by 25% for 5 seconds.

There you go, extra damage for the tank. It only affects stam tanks since this is a stam ability, but it's sword and board, so that fits.

Well, take this concept and move it over to HA under the Bracing passive (or Wrath or whatever they want to call it):

Decreases Stamina cost of blocking by 5/%10%. Blocking an attack will increase the damage of your next attack by X%.

So, you still get rewarded for being a tank. You block, it costs less to do so and gives you a boost to any attack (stamina or magicka based) after each block. Give something else to Power Bash. Lots of fun options to choose from.

Or, keep the current bonus for the new "Wrath" but also add the block cost back in.

Either way, make it a 5-piece heavy (or more) only thing or at least a "by the piece" stacking bonus so that you need 5+ pieces for the damage (or weapon/spell power) bonus to mean anything.

Don't want over-powered/unkillable tanks, just to reward tanks for doing tank things.

paulsimonps

I would like to point out that from what we have seen of the mobs and bosses in Hew's Bane and more specifically Maw of Lorkhaj, they might not hit as hard as the Mantikora or the Warrrior. BUT! They hit way faster, making this even more of a deal than what some might think.

So basically what this means for me personally is that I would have to make new armor with Sturdy on to counteract the loss of bracing and the new base cost and I would loose all the resources I have been getting from Divines and Infused. Making it harder still for me to manage resources cause using said resources as a DK in forms of Earthen Heart Abilities is how I get stamina back. As shown above trying to use a Heavy attack on most boss encounters is a guarantied death sentence.

I know that everyone has been asking for a damage buff for Heavy Armor but giving Tanks a slap in the face for asking for a bit more damage is not the way. I would rather trade away Rapid Mending than Bracing.

Wing

I think they want more Dark Souls style combat, where you ONLY block the few big hits. at this point I kind of accept it and build around it, and as an advocate of tank damage I'm excited to see how the change plays. as soloing with a tank (all the other content where you don't have a group, ya know, 90% of the game) was really slow and punishing.

knew this was coming, they have been on the war path in regards to sustain while blocking, so I'm glad we got something out of it rather then flat nerf.

Personofsecrets

The ZOS tank development team reminds me of Yugioh card trading. There is always an attempt to cheat someone out of value by pretending that the cards on both sides of the trade are of equal value.

Personofsecrets

paulsimonps wrote: »

I would like to point out that from what we have seen of the mobs and bosses in Hew's Bane and more specifically Maw of Lorkhaj, they might not hit as hard as the Mantikora or the Warrrior. BUT! They hit way faster, making this even more of a deal than what some might think.

So basically what this means for me personally is that I would have to make new armor with Sturdy on to counteract the loss of bracing and the new base cost and I would loose all the resources I have been getting from Divines and Infused. Making it harder still for me to manage resources cause using said resources as a DK in forms of Earthen Heart Abilities is how I get stamina back. As shown above trying to use a Heavy attack on most boss encounters is a guarantied death sentence.

I know that everyone has been asking for a damage buff for Heavy Armor but giving Tanks a slap in the face for asking for a bit more damage is not the way. I would rather trade away Rapid Mending than Bracing.

Do you think that my calculation of being attacked once per 1.5 seconds is more conservative than it ought to be? Are enemies apt to hit us once per second? I tried to factor in charged up attacks.

paulsimonps

Wing wrote: »

I think they want more Dark Souls style combat, where you ONLY block the few big hits. at this point I kind of accept it and build around it, and as an advocate of tank damage I'm excited to see how the change plays. as soloing with a tank (all the other content where you don't have a group, ya know, 90% of the game) was really slow and punishing.

knew this was coming, they have been on the war path in regards to sustain while blocking, so I'm glad we got something out of it rather then flat nerf.

This is not an action combat game, most bosses do way to much damage for us to only block their telegraphed attacks, and since damage is calculated before any animations have hit those are the only attacks we can instinctively react to. And with bosses and mobs in for example Maw of Lorkhaj having debuffs that completely strips you of your resists not blocking those attacks means death.

Personofsecrets

Wing wrote: »

I think they want more Dark Souls style combat, where you ONLY block the few big hits. at this point I kind of accept it and build around it, and as an advocate of tank damage I'm excited to see how the change plays. as soloing with a tank (all the other content where you don't have a group, ya know, 90% of the game) was really slow and punishing.

knew this was coming, they have been on the war path in regards to sustain while blocking, so I'm glad we got something out of it rather then flat nerf.

I may have preferred a flat nerf so that at least then nobody would be blinded to the fact that a nerf did indeed happen.

Personofsecrets

At this point a good patch for tanking is one in which the developers totally ignore the role.

Wing

I also would put blame on the champion system. as a lot of the power of blocking has shifted to the flat resistances you can get up to 25%

THATS! why blocking is so nerfed.

if you could perma block. 50% mitigation from armor cap, 25% mitigation from CP, 50% (base) from blocking

note that does not = 125% as most things in gaming or not additive.


now I may not like it, I may want the return of stam regen while blocking (its still stupid, increase block cost fine but let us keep our regen) but this is just how the game is shaping up to be so we have to roll with it. . .but not dodge roll because that costs more now too.

Personofsecrets

For tankings sake I hope that we never get up to 1000 champion points. Block cost will be 9001 by then.

nordickittyhawk

t'is alittle silly.