Restore Bracing - Never Ask for Buffs

kojou

I'm reluctant to call it a nerf until I tank a few dungeons and see what it is like.

My biggest concern for tanking right now isn't as much related to the cost of blocking as it is having to acquire and upgrade all new tank gear. Tempering Alloy will get ridiculous if they don't increase the drop rates for it.

Xsorus

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Refuse2GrowUp wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Ishammael wrote: »

OP, you need to get onto PTS and test the new changes. The improvement to Constitution is really, really good. Black Rose is now a ridiculously good set. The bonus damage from being hit is good, and 8% healing is excellent.

Yeap; I was doing Reactive/Fury setup on my DK..but i will probably switch to Blackrose/Fury setup.

Great, but this is horrible for proper group synergy. Tavas, Bloodspawn, Worm Cult or Hircines...you should be able to tank while wearing stuff that will help you buff your team...especially for trials. You should not be forced to wear a specific set just to be able to do your job, all because of a patch nerf. The whole play your way goes farrrrrrrrr out the window~

I'm talking about PvP.

Trials you'll not have any trouble with Stamina anyway most likely.

Oh, we should get nerfed then to exactly the point where we start to have trouble.

You now gain back a lot more stamina while actually blocking..That's a fairly useful ability.

And we lose alot more stamina per block for not having the bracing passive.

You can technically gain it back in PVE by using the Block Cost reduction trait..which means you come out net possitive.

In PvP the new change is way more superior....Hell esp if you're a DK.

which means you lose divines and infused.

You don't need either of them as a Tank.

Yes you do need base stats and magic regeneration as a tank. We don't need to be nerfed as tanks.

You get more Health now for heavy armor...like 12% bonus health for 7/7 Heavy
You get the equivealent of 600 Magicka/Stamina Regen every 2 seconds with 7/7 Heavy.

This is more then you'll ever get from infused or divines.....

efster

I haven't spent a lot of time on the PTS yet but I did have a look at SO real quick, and the Mantikora fight was much, much easier than it is on live right now -- and that was at veteran champion rank 160 (as compared to the current v14 SO). The Manti fight is the most challenging for me on Live right now and I was expecting it to be much harder, but it just, well, wasn't -- and I was in my regular trials gear with no new Sturdy pieces. I know what my resource bars look like during a Mantikora pull on live and they looked much, much better on the PTS without me doing anything differently.

So, I'm not actually sure that we got nerfed overall -- I do not disagree that the Bracing change is concerning but I believe the Constitution resource return increase, for one, may be making a big enough difference to make the nerf negligible. At least that is my impression so far...

GeertKarel

I've came with 2 other to manti on veteran mode manti has 38.8mil health and the serpents image 1.2million

the trash was the hardest and the most time consuming XD each mage had 1.7million health and there were like a total of 15 that spawned.

Holding block as tank looks now really *** you have a shield infront of you plus the icon that shows that you are block.

for how it looks now stamina pool isn't too hard on resources while holding aggro of different things taunting heroic slash etc..
also the defending trait got a minor buff instead of % based it gives a flat number.
http://puu.sh/ovQNr/63591153b5.jpg

zerosingularity

How about this?

What is the formula for reduction in blocking?

Basically when does % reduction from CP affect it, % from passive, flat numbers?

If we can determine the actual equation used (or if ZoS just tells us and saves some time) then we can mathematically see the exact effect the old passive had on us, and see if the new Constitution passive makes up for it, or how many sturdy pieces are needed.

There are block cost reduction enchants (203 for gold I believe)
8% from S&B Skill
30% from S&B Passive
Up to 25% from CP
3% per armor [gold] with Sturdy (Assuming 6-12% would be the average, max is 21%) (pts but not on live)
20% bracing (live but not on pts)

My "assumption" is something like this.

Cost = (Base - reduction enchants)*(1 - all % reductions as additive)

So for live it would be: [a base of 2160 stam per block and 1 enchant, with max CP]
333 stam per block

For PTS it would be: [a base of 2196 max CP and 1 enchant, with 6% from sturdy]
617 stam per block
318 stam per block in full sturdy GOLD

Keep in mind this formula is pure guesswork with NO testing and is most likely VERY WRONG. If someone knows the actual formula please share it. I would love to know the actual formula so I can run the math accurately without crappy guesswork.

On a side note, how about that dodge-roll reduction from Ring of Preservation. Might be useful to have for a tank, who knows.

Woeler

zmobie_dementor wrote: »

I haven't spent a lot of time on the PTS yet but I did have a look at SO real quick, and the Mantikora fight was much, much easier than it is on live right now

Pretty sure you were in normalmode

hrothbern

zerosingularity wrote: »

How about this?

What is the formula for reduction in blocking?

Basically when does % reduction from CP affect it, % from passive, flat numbers?

If we can determine the actual equation used (or if ZoS just tells us and saves some time) then we can mathematically see the exact effect the old passive had on us, and see if the new Constitution passive makes up for it, or how many sturdy pieces are needed.

There are block cost reduction enchants (203 for gold I believe)
8% from S&B Skill
30% from S&B Passive
Up to 25% from CP
3% per armor [gold] with Sturdy (Assuming 6-12% would be the average, max is 21%) (pts but not on live)
20% bracing (live but not on pts)

My "assumption" is something like this.

Cost = (Base - reduction enchants)*(1 - all % reductions as additive)

So for live it would be: [a base of 2160 stam per block and 1 enchant, with max CP]
333 stam per block

For PTS it would be: [a base of 2196 max CP and 1 enchant, with 6% from sturdy]
617 stam per block
318 stam per block in full sturdy GOLD

Keep in mind this formula is pure guesswork with NO testing and is most likely VERY WRONG. If someone knows the actual formula please share it. I would love to know the actual formula so I can run the math accurately without crappy guesswork.

On a side note, how about that dodge-roll reduction from Ring of Preservation. Might be useful to have for a tank, who knows.

@zerosingularity ,
Here some more figures, without Sturdy effects, to keep it more "like for like":

The Formular for Stamina costs of Blocking, tested in live, not in PTS, applied on several set ups, is:
(BTW, I tested the 2196, and that figure should be pretty much ok)

For Live with two (2) Jewelry:
(2160x75%-406)x(100%-(20+30%+8%))=(1620-406)x(42%)=510 and after 20% Dodge chance: 408
For Live with three (3) Jewelry:
(2160x75%-609)x(100%-(20%+30%+8%))=(1620-609)x(42%)=425 and after 20% Dodge chance: 340

For PTS with two (2) Jewelry:
(2196x75%-406)x(100%-(30%+8%)) = (1647-406)x(62%) = 769 and after 20% Dodge chance: 615
For PTS with three (3) Jewelry:
(2196x75%-609)x(100%-(30%+8%)) = (1647-609)x(62%) = 644 and after 20% Dodge chance: 515

The Constitution bonus (when hit enough) increased for a 5 HA set up from 246 / 4seconds to 930 / 4 seconds.
Or increased with 684/4 = 171 Stamina / Magicka per second.
Against 1 opponent and three (3) Jewelry the diff in Stamina Blocking costs is (515 -340) = 175. More or less the same as your Constitution gain of 171.
There is also a gain in Magicka of 171/sec, and it depends now on the amount of opponents and whether you are a DK or NB Tank how the comparison moves on.
Against only one Boss you win the Magicka resources, against more opponents you need the additional Magicka for more Stamina generation
But the more opponents, the greater the gap becomes between live and PTS.

EDIT:
Above is just to get a good "like for like" comparison.
In practice I run my NB with 75 CP and 2 Jewelry for Block cost reduction.
When the sets allow it, I will probably use 2 set pieces for Sturdy (hands, waist) to get 6% additional. And will try out whether and where I use three Jewelry. The Magicka Cost reduction I have now on the third piece of Jewelry is also valuable.

Would be nice to have my own characters on PTS instead of the templates for a better "feel" comparison.

helediron

hrothbern wrote: »

I did some testing on the new Blocking Costs per hit.
...snip...
On this crashing when trying to check and measure things in PTS.
That will not make testing easier !!!!
Am I the only one having issues with FTC ?

Yeah, FTC crashes when casting some skills like Refreshing Path.

I haven't played with my tank lately. I miss how active it was before regen nerf. I dislike how everything wrapped around that stamina, and builds turned to boring. Nevertheless i am on PTS and could do some testing.

sebban

I'm starting to wonder why they even bothered posting the tanking feedback thread at all since they apparently didn't read it.

Did anyone ask for more damage? Hardly anyone.
Did anyone ask to nerf Bracing? No.
Did anyone ask "please let us recraft all our legendary armor sets with the new reduced block cost trait"? No.

What did almost everyone ask for? Remove 0 stamina regen while blocking.
Did they listen? No.

We asked to get heavy armor buffed. Instead they nerfed Bracing, the only good passive there were and made it into a DPS passive that no one asked for.

It is apparent that ZOS doesn't like tanks. We should all reroll DPS or stop playing. The game is so easy anyway that tanks are hardly needed.

Kippesnikke

hey @Personofsecrets !
this was the change that bothered me aswell when i read it.
But i cant draw a conclusion yet without testing it on the PTS.
Next week we will get our own characters for EU and i will defitnitly check this out.
I will let you know what i think afterwards

Tnx for adding me.

Cinbri

With this change i don't see a single reason to wear heavy armor in PvP:
1. You can craft full light armor with block trait.
2. In 7 light armor you will have perfect magicka sustain thx to passives so you can enchant more reduce block glyphs.
3. In 7 light you will have +10% spellcrit and constant spell penetration that not reqire you to be a hitted dummy.
4. In 7 light with revamped LA shield you will get very strong Dampen Magicka morph that will protect against all types of attacks.
5. You can craft 7 LA of Armor Master set and activating Dampen Magicka won't just give you strong damage shield but also increase your HP and proc 5pc bonus - in 7 light you will have same numbers of armor as in HA.

---

Overall in LA armor you will have more sustain, more survivability, more dps, equal armor rate.

Xsorus

sebban wrote: »

I'm starting to wonder why they even bothered posting the tanking feedback thread at all since they apparently didn't read it.

Did anyone ask for more damage? Hardly anyone.
Did anyone ask to nerf Bracing? No.
Did anyone ask "please let us recraft all our legendary armor sets with the new reduced block cost trait"? No.

What did almost everyone ask for? Remove 0 stamina regen while blocking.
Did they listen? No.

We asked to get heavy armor buffed. Instead they nerfed Bracing, the only good passive there were and made it into a DPS passive that no one asked for.

It is apparent that ZOS doesn't like tanks. We should all reroll DPS or stop playing. The game is so easy anyway that tanks are hardly needed.

Heavy Armor was insanely buffed

hrothbern

Cinbri wrote: »

With this change i don't see a single reason to wear heavy armor in PvP:
1. You can craft full light armor with block trait.
2. In 7 light armor you will have perfect magicka sustain thx to passives so you can enchant more reduce block glyphs.
3. In 7 light you will have +10% spellcrit and constant spell penetration that not reqire you to be a hitted dummy.
4. In 7 light with revamped LA shield you will get very strong Dampen Magicka morph that will protect against all types of attacks.
5. You can craft 7 LA of Armor Master set and activating Dampen Magicka won't just give you strong damage shield but also increase your HP and proc 5pc bonus - in 7 light you will have same numbers of armor as in HA.

---

Overall in LA armor you will have more sustain, more survivability, more dps, equal armor rate.

You can even use the Pariah set with 7/7 LA, because the Pariah set is extended with Weapons now.

ninjaguyman

From a PVP perspecitive, im overall happy with these changes. If they had only added in the changes to Constitution, i would have still been happy. As was said somewhere earlier in the thread, not too many people, atleast i dont think, were asking for a buff to heavy armor damage. However, i for one am very happy about that change. Poor resource management and horrible damage were my main problems with heavy armor in pvp, but the style of play that i wanted was to have less damage output with better upfront tankiness(thus, i try to use heavy armor). Both of which have been addressed with these changes. Now i have increased damage, but along with the increased constitution passive, i can replace a cost reduction enchant to a spell damage one = more damage. However even with these changes, i don't think a HUGE amount of people are gonna roll heavy armor builds. Most people would probably still want to keep maxing out damage and max stats, thus increasing their heal and survivability.

But the concern about the Bracing nerf is completely warranted still. Thats definitely gonna hurt in pve, no doubt. Once again i think pvp effected pve like with the stam regen while blocking nerf. Zos probably did the nerf so heavy armor wouldn't be completely stacked to prevent an influx of near invincible perma blockers in cyrodiil, now buffed with increased recovery and damage.

LorDrek

Trait STURDY.

Personofsecrets

zerosingularity wrote: »

How about this?

What is the formula for reduction in blocking?

Basically when does % reduction from CP affect it, % from passive, flat numbers?

If we can determine the actual equation used (or if ZoS just tells us and saves some time) then we can mathematically see the exact effect the old passive had on us, and see if the new Constitution passive makes up for it, or how many sturdy pieces are needed.

There are block cost reduction enchants (203 for gold I believe)
8% from S&B Skill
30% from S&B Passive
Up to 25% from CP
3% per armor [gold] with Sturdy (Assuming 6-12% would be the average, max is 21%) (pts but not on live)
20% bracing (live but not on pts)

My "assumption" is something like this.

Cost = (Base - reduction enchants)*(1 - all % reductions as additive)

So for live it would be: [a base of 2160 stam per block and 1 enchant, with max CP]
333 stam per block

For PTS it would be: [a base of 2196 max CP and 1 enchant, with 6% from sturdy]
617 stam per block
318 stam per block in full sturdy GOLD

Keep in mind this formula is pure guesswork with NO testing and is most likely VERY WRONG. If someone knows the actual formula please share it. I would love to know the actual formula so I can run the math accurately without crappy guesswork.

On a side note, how about that dodge-roll reduction from Ring of Preservation. Might be useful to have for a tank, who knows.

Block cost reduction, previously, was a bit weird. Bracing, fortress, and defensive stance stacked with each other without diminished returns, but the other sources of block cost reduction stacked in a diminished way with themselves and in a diminished way with bracing, fortress, and defensive stance.



My guess is that the sturdy trait doesn't stack in the same way that bracing did. IF it does, then I don't think we are in a good place, but if it doesn't stack without diminished returns, then maybe people will stop saying how sturdy is a fine and dandy replacement.

Personofsecrets

Thank you to everyone that has posted so far.

Kublakan

Hi, I am not happy with this change of course. They are so afraid of the damage sinker a tank should be and used to be, that their change is making tank more like a hybrid.

I dont tank anymore, Im done with it until they reverse all the nerfing they done to this role. Now, I zap and slash with sorc and NB, they sort of push us out there.

SirSilverMask

ZoM_Head wrote: »

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.

Totally agree, the nerf to tanking is horrible. The time when tanks are most needed now is in trial content, and it is not possible to weave in heavy attacks against axes or in vMoL. It requires a full set of gold sturdy to replace the bonus that tanks had from bracing, so tanks lose out on being either the other traits that they previously used or have to eat the increased block cost. Not a good change to tanking at all.

Teridaxus

Seriously ZOS...
You guys want even tanks run as dps now?

helediron

Some numbers from different traits. CP160 golden shield, on template with light armor, not a tank, just testing a shield:
Base physres, spellres: 8377, 10555
trait: armor, physres, spellres, comments

---

Sturdy: 1720, 10097, 12275, and +3% reduction to block cost
Reinforced: 1995, 10372, 12550, +16% to armor
Nirnhoned: 2021, 10398, 12576, +301 to phys and spell resist

Nirnhoned slightly wins Reinforced in shield. I wonder why they keep these two traits, almost the same.

vladimilianoub17_ESO1

The worst thing is ,all that in exchange for more weapon and spell damage?! WTF,isnt heavy armor for people that want to make tanks?

A whole thread with many posts dedicated to improving tanking and what they learned was " Tanks want to DPS" Bad Devs will always be bad no matter how many lessons.At least thats what ZOS has showed me.

Thanks Personofsecrets for the inv to the thread.Sorry I cant add any meaningful feedback but its just that I already gave up on ZOS.I have not played the game(Im a tank,always have been a tank in many mmos) for 2 months already and was just coming to forums to check on tank improvement status,just to find out that they just learned that reduced survivability and more DPS is what they think we want.

Damn man!! I just cant belive it.

MaxwellC

@Personofsecrets

I definitely think they should return bracing but what if instead they bring back stamina regen with blocking? If they won't bring back bracing then they need to give DK a bigger block passive (Iron skin currently sits at 10% they could make it 20%+)

Rhazmuz

The nerfs to blocking would be fine if the intention of less blocking and more "active fighting/involvement" of tanks was also followed with balancing of content, so that there are no fights which require you to perma block in order to survive.

Only having ressources to block to a certain limit is fine, if at the same time tanks are able to participate more in fights and bring other benefits to the table, such as more cc or the like.

Armitas

Besides the PvP complaints I think they made the changes to blocking to make tanking a more developed and thought out process. They did succeed in that, you really do have to manage and juggle your resources but it doesn't really add anything to the experience. If anything it takes away from the experience as you are always looking at your bars. The way this should have been done is to make the Tank the "buff" role in a group. In addition to tanking you maintain debuffs, restore resources to your group, and buff your group damage. That would be something you could enjoy doing, and feel satisfied about. The hoops you have to jump through for blocking don't really leave you satisfied, just annoyed.

Let a tank be known for how well he held aggro and assisted the group, not how well he managed and juggled resources.

lolo_01b16_ESO

As someone who likes to tank in medium armour, I'm not unhappy about getting a new way to reduce my block costs. But yeah, changing bracing to increased damage feels a bit wierd.

Also it seems that sturdy is bugged and provides less cost reduction than stated in the tooltip:

lolo_01b16_ESO wrote: »

Sturdy is bugged and provides less block cost reduction than stated in the tooltip.
Base block costs are 2160, so with 8 pieces legendary sturdy armour (24% block cost reduction), this should be either
2160 x 0.76 = 1642 if it stacks additive or
2160 x 0.97^8 = 1693 if it stacks multiplicative.
But when testing it, blocking costs 1740.

efster

Woeler wrote: »

zmobie_dementor wrote: »

I haven't spent a lot of time on the PTS yet but I did have a look at SO real quick, and the Mantikora fight was much, much easier than it is on live right now

Pretty sure you were in normalmode

Nope, group display said Veteran. Unless that was a bug.

code65536

Woeler wrote: »

zmobie_dementor wrote: »

I haven't spent a lot of time on the PTS yet but I did have a look at SO real quick, and the Mantikora fight was much, much easier than it is on live right now

Pretty sure you were in normalmode

She meant that from a tank survivability perspective. It's much harder than on live because of the much higher health, the amount of damage everyone else is taking, and the fact that stack-and-burn is no longer viable.

Cinbri

They putted much effort in this pasive - it start glowing as bright yellow like Empower but more it stack - more intense glowing, when stack on max it is dark yellow "desease" glowing

Sugaroverdose

ninjaguyman wrote: »

From a PVP perspecitive, im overall happy with these changes. If they had only added in the changes to Constitution, i would have still been happy. As was said somewhere earlier in the thread, not too many people, atleast i dont think, were asking for a buff to heavy armor damage. However, i for one am very happy about that change. Poor resource management and horrible damage were my main problems with heavy armor in pvp, but the style of play that i wanted was to have less damage output with better upfront tankiness(thus, i try to use heavy armor). Both of which have been addressed with these changes. Now i have increased damage, but along with the increased constitution passive, i can replace a cost reduction enchant to a spell damage one = more damage. However even with these changes, i don't think a HUGE amount of people are gonna roll heavy armor builds. Most people would probably still want to keep maxing out damage and max stats, thus increasing their heal and survivability.

But the concern about the Bracing nerf is completely warranted still. Thats definitely gonna hurt in pve, no doubt. Once again i think pvp effected pve like with the stam regen while blocking nerf. Zos probably did the nerf so heavy armor wouldn't be completely stacked to prevent an influx of near invincible perma blockers in cyrodiil, now buffed with increased recovery and damage.

Constitution passive will return you something like 1200 magicka in 4 seconds, how the heck this will allow you to drop cost reduction enchant? I'll tell you more - you'll need to trade one more spellpower enchant for block cost reduction and, @Wrobel time: you will have block cost almost twice more expensive and will need to wait under constant dps until your spellpower will be enough to kill anyone.