Meaningful input discussion 2.4.2 Block cost reduction champion tree change.

TerraDewBerry

I have to agree with the OP. I have absolutely no idea why this change was made. To me, it was a facepalm moment for sure... because we all know how thieves would so much rather stand their ground and fight than make a hasty retreat by getting out of a tight situation i.e. snare..... right?

SirSilverMask

Now tanks can get the kill with a heavy attack to hide from everyone else.

VaxtinTheWolf

I lost my US template but I'm going to try to work with what is given to me, and on a template character. On live I have about 360CP, so it's sort of close to the 300 template.

I'm going to try to imitate my Argonian NB magicka Tank on the PTS and see how I like this or not. I'm able to stream but no real promises on that. These decisions though.. I'm tolerant but it's starting to bother me now.

redspecter23

I'm starting to think that ZoS just plain wants to stick it to tanks in new and interesting ways every patch. They have a dartboard in the office and just fling darts at the mechanics that they will mess around with regarding tanks.

It's somewhat odd to be making it harder/more frustrating to play a tank but at the same time remove all need for tanks in anything other than trials. I'm missing the logic here completely. In 2 weeks time I won't be waiting on tanks for vet pledges. I'll just be taking the first 4 dps that want to go and run it as is. If a tank wants to come, I'll let him have the last spot as a pity perhaps, all the while knowing that the spot would be better filled by a dps anyway.

ZoS, how about you toss tanks a bone. They do NOT need or want more dps added to their tree at the expense of resource management. In any content where we actually want a tank, the dps he does is secondary to him actually staying alive and managing tanking resources. You're taking away the resource management and giving us dps. Why? You're making it easier for bad players to put on heavy armor and be a bad dps but sacrificing the tanks that actually want to play as a tank. How about you just tell the dps to put on medium or light and let the heavy armor wearers be tanky.

phaneub17_ESO

I would like to redo the whole Warrior champion tree's around, they're weird and unbalanced.

The Steed
- Heavy Armor Focus
- Hardy
- Elemental Defender
- Quick Recovery

The Lady
- Medium Armor Focus
- Thick Skinned
- Spell Shield
- Resistant

The Lord
- Light Armor Focus
- Bastion
- Expert Defender
- Iron Clad

NTclaymore

This change is good for PvP but very bad for PvE. Its not worth getting Shield expert anymore because you have to waste alot of CPs in the steed for it now.

Hadan_of_Rift

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel Who the *** was on crack when they decided to make this change?

I've seen sme stupid changes but this is tops. The Green tree already has a ton of important items in it and now you move the blocking reduction from the tree that gives you all the passives for blocking, moronic to say the least. This better be a really late April's Fools joke.

ClockworkArc

Hey gang,

Just trying to play Devil's Advocate and lay out reasons why the most recent change might work.

Pros in the Red Tree:

• Almost every PvE Tank will have access to Unchained, significantly increasing overall Stamina management of tanks and maybe even making caltopsand/or Ring of Preservation a thing we can take.
• PvE Tanks have greater access to Elusive, if desired. Not a huge bonus...but there is an actual reason someone might spec into this now. I don't know anyone that did before.
• Bastion is now fully available to PvE tanks.

What we're losing:

• Easy access to Shield Expert.....that's like like 1000+ mitigation. That sucks. I feel it should be moved either down the tree or to another tree.
• Ain't nobody going to use Reinforced (CP star). But they weren't really now anyway.

Overall, we are getting more damage reduction than we're losing, its not huge...but we're getting it.

Stamina builds will be somewhat pigeonholed into The Lady for that juicy Unchained hotness, which will help with Stamina management.

Bastion looks like it might be a go-to for Magicka based tanks. As a templar, when I'm taking AoE damage I'll spam Blazing Shield over the choice to block to save stamina. This change will allow shielding in AoE to be more effective for all classes. We'll also save some mana from not casting shields as much or as often because we'll have bigger shields. Not great...but it's something. I'm trying to be positive here.

Pros in the Green Tree:

• BETTER DROPS.
• I don't know...easier access to that Heavy Attack Invisibility thing?
• Slower Gathering Times for the RP.

Realistically, I have never used regen stats as a tank, except maybe experimenting with the odd health regen build, but that's out the window now. A typical tank set up will likely look like:

50-75 in Block Cost Reduction
30 ish into Break Free Reduction
15 into Tenacity (which is actually pretty great now)
30+ into Ability Cost Reduction

What we're losing:

• Ability Cost Reduction in two different trees.
• Greater Ability Cost Reduction in one tree.
• Did anybody use Bash Reduction?
• Health Recovery (not really used in PvE anyway)
• Magicka Recovery (negligible considering the buffs to constitution)

Umm....I feel like this could really homogenize tank set ups now...It doesn't seem like that huge of a nerf and we get some defensive boons out of it...but...it feels really weird.

If sturdy were buffed at least 1% more and was additive with Fortress I could maybe support it.

The biggest pain will be switching set ups for PvE and PvP. If sturdy were enough to offset the necessity for Block Cost Reduction it would be more a matter of switching gear than switching CP which would be preferable.

SirSilverMask

Rugz_Maulgoth wrote: »

Hey gang,

Just trying to play Devil's Advocate and lay out reasons why the most recent change might work.

Pros in the Red Tree:

• Almost every PvE Tank will have access to Unchained, significantly increasing overall Stamina management of tanks and maybe even making caltopsand/or Ring of Preservation a thing we can take.
• PvE Tanks have greater access to Elusive, if desired. Not a huge bonus...but there is an actual reason someone might spec into this now. I don't know anyone that did before.
• Bastion is now fully available to PvE tanks.

What we're losing:

• Easy access to Shield Expert.....that's like like 1000+ mitigation. That sucks. I feel it should be moved either down the tree or to another tree.
• Ain't nobody going to use Reinforced. But they weren't really now anyway.

Overall, we are getting more damage reduction than we're losing, its not huge...but we're getting it.

Stamina builds will be somewhat pigeonholed into The Lady for that juicy Unchained hotness, which will help with Stamina management.

Bastion looks like it might be a go-to for Magicka based tanks. As a templar, when I'm taking AoE damage I'll spam Blazing Shield over the choice to block to save stamina. This change will allow shielding in AoE to be more effective for all classes. We'll also save some mana from not casting shields as much or as often because we'll have bigger shields. Not great...but it's something. I'm trying to be positive here.

Pros in the Green Tree:

• BETTER DROPS.
• I don't know...easier access to that Heavy Attack Invisibility thing?
• Slower Gathering Times for the RP.

Realistically, I have never used regen stats as a tank, except maybe experimenting with the odd health regen build, but that's out the window now. A typical tank set up will likely look like:

50-75 in Block Cost Reduction
30 ish into Break Free Reduction
15 into Tenacity (which is actually pretty great now)
30+ into Ability Cost Reduction

What we're losing:

• Ability Cost Reduction in two different trees.
• Greater Ability Cost Reduction in one tree.
• Did anybody use Bash Reduction?
• Health Recovery (not really used in PvE anyway)
• Magicka Recovery (negligible considering the buffs to constitution)

Umm....I feel like this could really homogenize tank set ups now...It doesn't seem like that huge of a nerf and we get some defensive boons out of it...but...it feels really weird.

If sturdy were buffed at least 1% more and was additive with Fortress I could maybe support it.

The biggest pain will be switching set ups for PvE and PvP. If sturdy were enough to offset the necessity for Block Cost Reduction it would be more a matter of switching gear than switching CP which would be preferable.

PvE tanks that know what they are doing don't need to break free that often so unchained really doesn't help much, that is more on the PvP side. Same applies to elusive.
Really what this does is makes it more practical for a MA wearer to have the same armor as a HA wearer without losing much. It is easy for a HA wearer to max out spell mitigation. Now a MA wearer can increase their physical and spell resistances while getting the bonus of increasing shield resistance by 75%. A PvE HA wearer doesn't have anything really useful in the steed tree anymore for any build.

Gottbeard

Xsorus wrote: »

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Its actually not a bad change if you understand why it was done.

The why's are irrelevant, the resulting negative consequences upon the game far outweigh any possible good this might achieve, and you can't call any change good without accounting for each and every consequence.

I can if i know why it was done and why its a buff

Red is an extremely good line..with a lot of things you have to split between.

Hardy/Thickened Skin/Elemental/Block Cost Reduction/Resistant are all top tier...and you have some other decent ones as well that no one has points to put in.

They basically took Block Cost reduction out of that line..Freeing all those points you had to drop in it...To be put in either Spell Resist or Resistant for the Shield Passive and you can move any remaining point over to the other really good CP passives. For Example..I have 50 in Block Cost Reduction and 50 in Crit damage Reduction on my DK, I'm now able to put 75 in Crit Reduction and move the remaining points over to the other good passives.

Over in the Green Tree I basically had Stamina Cost Reduction/Bash Cost Reduction/Stamina Recovery/Dodge Roll Cost reduction (and Break Free)....heavy armor generally has *** for stamina recovery..So putting points in that was always a filler to me...So I generally max put a lot in Stamina Cost reduction and bash cost reduction...Now i'll be able to do Stamina Cost Reduction/Bash Cost Reduction/Block Cost Reduction.

In other words...My defense is going to go up because of this change.

This is right. How is zenimax supposed to get better at balancing their game if we complain about solid design changes. They put cost reduction in the green tree where it belongs. You now have a healthier red tree point spread and a point spread in the green tree that makes sense to a tank. Give the devil his due, good job on this one Wroebel.

SirSilverMask

Gottbeard wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Its actually not a bad change if you understand why it was done.

The why's are irrelevant, the resulting negative consequences upon the game far outweigh any possible good this might achieve, and you can't call any change good without accounting for each and every consequence.

I can if i know why it was done and why its a buff

Red is an extremely good line..with a lot of things you have to split between.

Hardy/Thickened Skin/Elemental/Block Cost Reduction/Resistant are all top tier...and you have some other decent ones as well that no one has points to put in.

They basically took Block Cost reduction out of that line..Freeing all those points you had to drop in it...To be put in either Spell Resist or Resistant for the Shield Passive and you can move any remaining point over to the other really good CP passives. For Example..I have 50 in Block Cost Reduction and 50 in Crit damage Reduction on my DK, I'm now able to put 75 in Crit Reduction and move the remaining points over to the other good passives.

Over in the Green Tree I basically had Stamina Cost Reduction/Bash Cost Reduction/Stamina Recovery/Dodge Roll Cost reduction (and Break Free)....heavy armor generally has *** for stamina recovery..So putting points in that was always a filler to me...So I generally max put a lot in Stamina Cost reduction and bash cost reduction...Now i'll be able to do Stamina Cost Reduction/Bash Cost Reduction/Block Cost Reduction.

In other words...My defense is going to go up because of this change.

This is right. How is zenimax supposed to get better at balancing their game if we complain about solid design changes. They put cost reduction in the green tree where it belongs. You now have a healthier red tree point spread and a point spread in the green tree that makes sense to a tank. Give the devil his due, good job on this one Wroebel.

If those are the solid design choices you see, they are completely ignoring the PvE side. PvE doesn't really need the crit resistance, so there are no good places to put points for Heavy armor wearers in the Steed line which means that they lose out on the shield passive. What this change really does is make Medium Armor even better, because it is more effective for Medium Armor wearers to put 75 points into the steed tree to get the shield passive plus boosts to physical and spell armor. This is a huge hit to Heavy Armor tanking. Other skills in the green tree are magicka cost reduction and magicka regen.

Lucius_Aelius

Rugz_Maulgoth wrote: »

Hey gang,

Just trying to play Devil's Advocate and lay out reasons why the most recent change might work.

Pros in the Red Tree:

• Almost every PvE Tank will have access to Unchained, significantly increasing overall Stamina management of tanks and maybe even making caltopsand/or Ring of Preservation a thing we can take.
• PvE Tanks have greater access to Elusive, if desired. Not a huge bonus...but there is an actual reason someone might spec into this now. I don't know anyone that did before.
• Bastion is now fully available to PvE tanks.

What we're losing:

• Easy access to Shield Expert.....that's like like 1000+ mitigation. That sucks. I feel it should be moved either down the tree or to another tree.
• Ain't nobody going to use Reinforced. But they weren't really now anyway.

Overall, we are getting more damage reduction than we're losing, its not huge...but we're getting it.

Stamina builds will be somewhat pigeonholed into The Lady for that juicy Unchained hotness, which will help with Stamina management.

Bastion looks like it might be a go-to for Magicka based tanks. As a templar, when I'm taking AoE damage I'll spam Blazing Shield over the choice to block to save stamina. This change will allow shielding in AoE to be more effective for all classes. We'll also save some mana from not casting shields as much or as often because we'll have bigger shields. Not great...but it's something. I'm trying to be positive here.

Pros in the Green Tree:

• BETTER DROPS.
• I don't know...easier access to that Heavy Attack Invisibility thing?
• Slower Gathering Times for the RP.

Realistically, I have never used regen stats as a tank, except maybe experimenting with the odd health regen build, but that's out the window now. A typical tank set up will likely look like:

50-75 in Block Cost Reduction
30 ish into Break Free Reduction
15 into Tenacity (which is actually pretty great now)
30+ into Ability Cost Reduction

What we're losing:

• Ability Cost Reduction in two different trees.
• Greater Ability Cost Reduction in one tree.
• Did anybody use Bash Reduction?
• Health Recovery (not really used in PvE anyway)
• Magicka Recovery (negligible considering the buffs to constitution)

Umm....I feel like this could really homogenize tank set ups now...It doesn't seem like that huge of a nerf and we get some defensive boons out of it...but...it feels really weird.

If sturdy were buffed at least 1% more and was additive with Fortress I could maybe support it.

The biggest pain will be switching set ups for PvE and PvP. If sturdy were enough to offset the necessity for Block Cost Reduction it would be more a matter of switching gear than switching CP which would be preferable.

I disagree almost entirely with your assessment as a whole, mainly for the fact that you don't seem to value resource management properly, which is a grave error. Maybe you're fine without it, but we're not supposed to be all carbon copies of each other. People like using a wide variety of builds and this change will utterly slaughter the diversity of viable Tank Builds, especially Hybrid Tanks like mine which are designed to do some decent Damage as well, and that requires resources which we already lack by wearing Heavy Armor.

The Thief is too important for resource management for most people to think about using it for anything else, that's what the whole Thief constellation is about, and throwing in Block Cost Reduction will prevent me from being able to use Block Cost reduction, and without Bracing either that's a huge blow. On top of that the Armor increase for Shields in the Steed is too important not to have, but without Block Cost reduction there's little of value for a Tank in the Steed besides the passives. For me that stuff isn't useless and I already use some Spell Resistance and Crit Resistance as well as Blocking, but without Bracing I was expecting to need to go all in on Block reduction in order to compensate, and now I can't even do that.

Sturdy being the only way to get decent Block Cost reduction is ridiculous and excessively limiting, destroying any diversity in Gear Traits and forcing anyone who wants to tank to use only one Trait, and that is just bad design. This is not a good thing for Tanks at all, and at a time when Tanks are already hurting and severely lacking in relation to Damage Dealers. If this change goes live even less people will bother trying to Tank, and the Group Finder will become even more useless for Damage Dealers with preposterously long Queue times.

Playing Tanks is already hard enough when all solo content requires the ability to deal damage to some degree, and Tanks are rare because of it. You can't take away our resource management, which is required to deal damage effectively, and expect things to do anything but get worse. The Thief needs to stay as is and the Steed as well, no changes were asked for and none were necessary.

ssewallb14_ESO

I run a stamina DK, magicka Templar, and magicka Nightblade with multiple gear setups for different things (PvP, PvE DPS, Tank). PvP and DPS require a significant investment into cost reduction and regen to be competitive, while tanking anything remotely challenging requires a significant investment into block cost reduction. By making regen/skill cost reduction and block cost reduction mutually exclusive, this will no longer be possible.

I'm not sure if this was an attempt at dealing with infinite resource builds in PvP, but these kinds of builds aren't spending a lot of time blocking, they're mostly dodge rolling or stacking shields for defense.

I really can't see the reasoning behind this change. It doesn't fix anything that was ever broken, and breaks things that were never broken to begin with.

Lucius_Aelius

Gottbeard wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Its actually not a bad change if you understand why it was done.

The why's are irrelevant, the resulting negative consequences upon the game far outweigh any possible good this might achieve, and you can't call any change good without accounting for each and every consequence.

I can if i know why it was done and why its a buff

Red is an extremely good line..with a lot of things you have to split between.

Hardy/Thickened Skin/Elemental/Block Cost Reduction/Resistant are all top tier...and you have some other decent ones as well that no one has points to put in.

They basically took Block Cost reduction out of that line..Freeing all those points you had to drop in it...To be put in either Spell Resist or Resistant for the Shield Passive and you can move any remaining point over to the other really good CP passives. For Example..I have 50 in Block Cost Reduction and 50 in Crit damage Reduction on my DK, I'm now able to put 75 in Crit Reduction and move the remaining points over to the other good passives.

Over in the Green Tree I basically had Stamina Cost Reduction/Bash Cost Reduction/Stamina Recovery/Dodge Roll Cost reduction (and Break Free)....heavy armor generally has *** for stamina recovery..So putting points in that was always a filler to me...So I generally max put a lot in Stamina Cost reduction and bash cost reduction...Now i'll be able to do Stamina Cost Reduction/Bash Cost Reduction/Block Cost Reduction.

In other words...My defense is going to go up because of this change.

This is right. How is zenimax supposed to get better at balancing their game if we complain about solid design changes. They put cost reduction in the green tree where it belongs. You now have a healthier red tree point spread and a point spread in the green tree that makes sense to a tank. Give the devil his due, good job on this one Wroebel.

Makes sense to you perhaps, but clearly not to the vast majority of us that agree this made absolutely no sense, murders Tank Build diversity, and was neither asked for nor needed. It fixes absolutely nothing and breaks a great deal, nothing about that is the least bit sensible.

And just because you don't think Tanks need resource management is a *** poor reason to suggest that all Tanks should have to go without it to be effective at blocking, that's just flat out ridiculous. Tanks as a whole are far more diverse in their viable Builds than Healers or especially DPS, and this change seems almost calculated to destroy that variety in one fell swoop, and put people off of Tanking even more than they already are in the process.

WhiteNoiseMaker

Gottbeard wrote: »

This is right. How is zenimax supposed to get better at balancing their game if we complain about solid design changes. They put cost reduction in the green tree where it belongs. You now have a healthier red tree point spread and a point spread in the green tree that makes sense to a tank. Give the devil his due, good job on this one Wroebel.

If by 'healthier' you mean non-tank DPS-centric abilities, sure. All this does is push tanks either into wearing Medium Armor, or push DPS into pretending they're tanks when queuing up in Dungeon Finder. I suspect the latter is the real reason why this idiocy is happening. There's already a shortage of tanks, so the Devs are trying to see if queues pop faster by creating faux-tanks out of the surplus of DPS they have.

GazettE

Its like dealing with a demon, you want something, ok you get it. But in exchange u need to give up something. Nothing is free

Lucius_Aelius

GazettE wrote: »

Its like dealing with a demon, you want something, ok you get it. But in exchange u need to give up something. Nothing is free

What's that even supposed to mean? There was nothing wrong with the Champion Points, no one was complaining and there was nothing there to be fixed. All this did was break a whole bunch of things, and for absolutely no good reason at all.

Tanks are definitely in need of a buff, but this isn't even a buff, for most Tank Builds this is a straight-up nerf pure and simple. No one asked for this, no one wanted it, and the handful of people who say they like it or are okay with it are dwarfed by the multitudes of people who despise this change and whose Builds will be harmed or ruined if it is allowed to go live.

Personofsecrets

magic recovery is the most important stat for tanks imo

Xsorus

GoodOlPinkly wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

GoodOlPinkly wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Its actually not a bad change if you understand why it was done.

The why's are irrelevant, the resulting negative consequences upon the game far outweigh any possible good this might achieve, and you can't call any change good without accounting for each and every consequence.

I can if i know why it was done and why its a buff

Red is an extremely good line..with a lot of things you have to split between.

Hardy/Thickened Skin/Elemental/Block Cost Reduction/Resistant are all top tier...and you have some other decent ones as well that no one has points to put in.

They basically took Block Cost reduction out of that line..Freeing all those points you had to drop in it...To be put in either Spell Resist or Resistant for the Shield Passive and you can move any remaining point over to the other really good CP passives. For Example..I have 50 in Block Cost Reduction and 50 in Crit damage Reduction on my DK, I'm now able to put 75 in Crit Reduction and move the remaining points over to the other good passives.

Over in the Green Tree I basically had Stamina Cost Reduction/Bash Cost Reduction/Stamina Recovery/Dodge Roll Cost reduction (and Break Free)....heavy armor generally has *** for stamina recovery..So putting points in that was always a filler to me...So I generally max put a lot in Stamina Cost reduction and bash cost reduction...Now i'll be able to do Stamina Cost Reduction/Bash Cost Reduction/Block Cost Reduction.

In other words...My defense is going to go up because of this change.

Ok let's see where heavy armor started before PTS with bracing
20% block reduction


Just to get that back you need to give up resource management either way, by taking CP out of mag reduction, and mag regen to put them into block reduction.... Or re craft all armor in sturdy and give up (PVE Divines which usually takes away mag regen) or (PVP Impen which forces you to put more into Impen anyways not because you choose to, and that being said will still net you a loss in crit resist).


Zos did all this so you can have 200 more spell/ wep damage.

If you completely ignore the fact they also gave you a crap ton more Magicka/Stamina recovery when wearing heavy armor...Which more then makes up for anything you would get from PVE Divines, More Health and More Healing Received.

To go a long with that 200 more Spellpower/weapon damage.

You can get 35% cost reduction from armor now, and you gained an extra 6% cost reduction from 1hd/shield as well.

So not only do you get all those things I listed, you're probably (based on how the Cost reduction works for armor) gained about 10% more cost reduction then Live.

Your not thinking about the fact that the regen from the armor does not factor in with your actual regen stat which in turn makes CP regen % base weaker, also Divines was an example. You loose reinforced, infused, nirnhoned, but for me the biggest is Impen, (This change alone less Impen makes you less tanky in pvp) really less tanky in heavy armor.

Not sure where you're going on the CP regen %, putting points in it as heavy armor is usually pretty worthless unless you're one of the Magicka Ones who stack the crap out of Magicka recovery...Are recovery is going to come more from the Consituation Passive now. Infused isn't really worth it as a tank, same with divines..and if we're talking about PvP you can now invest more points into Crit Resist CP and give up impen on some of your armor if ya want. Yes you your blocking will cost more but at the same time most people don't block a lot in PvP anymore. I'd rather have more points to put in the passive mitigation in the red tree for PvP then Block Cost reduction, where i can invest more of the green tree in it.

GazettE

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

GazettE wrote: »

Its like dealing with a demon, you want something, ok you get it. But in exchange u need to give up something. Nothing is free

What's that even supposed to mean? There was nothing wrong with the Champion Points, no one was complaining and there was nothing there to be fixed. All this did was break a whole bunch of things, and for absolutely no good reason at all.

Tanks are definitely in need of a buff, but this isn't even a buff, for most Tank Builds this is a straight-up nerf pure and simple. No one asked for this, no one wanted it, and the handful of people who say they like it or are okay with it are dwarfed by the multitudes of people who despise this change and whose Builds will be harmed or ruined if it is allowed to go live.

What i meant is, you guys were complaining about bracing change then they finally give u all solution by buffing sword and board passive and sturdy but it doesnt come free, now you must give up block expertise in ur CP build

ClockworkArc

SirSilverMask wrote: »

PvE tanks that know what they are doing don't need to break free that often so unchained really doesn't help much, that is more on the PvP side. Same applies to elusive.
Really what this does is makes it more practical for a MA wearer to have the same armor as a HA wearer without losing much. It is easy for a HA wearer to max out spell mitigation. Now a MA wearer can increase their physical and spell resistances while getting the bonus of increasing shield resistance by 75%. A PvE HA wearer doesn't have anything really useful in the steed tree anymore for any build.

I agree and disagree. My current vICP set up is fairly damage oriented and has only 10 points in Block Cost Reduction...I block probably less than once a second...As a result, on live I do actually use break free because I do get cc'd some and use unchained to help me recover and cast spells. As a PvE tank I know that there is more than one way to skin a cat. I also use the above set up so I can easily switch to PvP mode without feeling like I have to respec/am missing out on anything. I can still complete the content with ease and like taking newbies through vICP.

In regards to your assessment on The Steed I do agree and I think they should either move the Heavy Armor CP to The Steed, MA to the Lord, and LA to the Lady or Shield Bearer should be moved to The Shadow.

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

I disagree almost entirely with your assessment as a whole, mainly for the fact that you don't seem to value resource management properly, which is a grave error. Maybe you're fine without it, but we're not supposed to be all carbon copies of each other. People like using a wide variety of builds and this change will utterly slaughter the diversity of viable Tank Builds, especially Hybrid Tanks like mine which are designed to do some decent Damage as well, and that requires resources which we already lack by wearing Heavy Armor.

The Thief is too important for resource management for most people to think about using it for anything else, that's what the whole Thief constellation is about, and throwing in Block Cost Reduction will prevent me from being able to use Block Cost reduction, and without Bracing either that's a huge blow. On top of that the Armor increase for Shields in the Steed is too important not to have, but without Block Cost reduction there's little of value for a Tank in the Steed besides the passives. For me that stuff isn't useless and I already use some Spell Resistance and Crit Resistance as well as Blocking, but without Bracing I was expecting to need to go all in on Block reduction in order to compensate, and now I can't even do that.

Sturdy being the only way to get decent Block Cost reduction is ridiculous and excessively limiting, destroying any diversity in Gear Traits and forcing anyone who wants to tank to use only one Trait, and that is just bad design. This is not a good thing for Tanks at all, and at a time when Tanks are already hurting and severely lacking in relation to Damage Dealers. If this change goes live even less people will bother trying to Tank, and the Group Finder will become even more useless for Damage Dealers with preposterously long Queue times.

Playing Tanks is already hard enough when all solo content requires the ability to deal damage to some degree, and Tanks are rare because of it. You can't take away our resource management, which is required to deal damage effectively, and expect things to do anything but get worse. The Thief needs to stay as is and the Steed as well, no changes were asked for and none were necessary.

I would say that I don't inherently devalue resource management but I seem to do if differently than other tanks. I heavy attack like a mad man and try to only block when I have to. In most situations you don't have to block all the time. I think the buffs to constitution are easily the justification for these changes due to the significant resources it pumps out but I do think Sturdy needs a little more tweaking.

My current build on live is probably what you'd consider a hybrid tank as I deal roughly 6-8k single target dps. It's not crazy by any means but I do that while tanking the content effectively.

I am concerned that endgame PvE will pigeon hole tanks into very specific gear set ups and I think that endgame PvE should be balanced around the average tank taking 2-4 sturdy traits for the reasons you mentioned. That way you can add more if you want or use less if you have some other set up. Realistically...Block Cost CP should be the thing that lets you take less Sturdy so you can take more other traits, but right now it looks like Sturdy is balanced around having 5 of them, which is excessively limiting.

Lucius_Aelius

GazettE wrote: »

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

GazettE wrote: »

Its like dealing with a demon, you want something, ok you get it. But in exchange u need to give up something. Nothing is free

What's that even supposed to mean? There was nothing wrong with the Champion Points, no one was complaining and there was nothing there to be fixed. All this did was break a whole bunch of things, and for absolutely no good reason at all.

Tanks are definitely in need of a buff, but this isn't even a buff, for most Tank Builds this is a straight-up nerf pure and simple. No one asked for this, no one wanted it, and the handful of people who say they like it or are okay with it are dwarfed by the multitudes of people who despise this change and whose Builds will be harmed or ruined if it is allowed to go live.

What i meant is, you guys were complaining about bracing change then they finally give u all solution by buffing sword and board passive and sturdy but it doesnt come free, now you must give up block expertise in ur CP build

Except this isn't what we asked for at all, no one asked for Sturdy to be changed like that, no one asked for Bracing to be removed, and the buff to Sword and Board is marginal at best. We asked for Tanks and Heavy Armor in particular to be buffed, but instead they just jumbled a whole bunch of *** around and only made things needlessly complicated and abjectly worse in the process.

And besides they didn't take away the Champion Points, just moved them to a place that doesn't make any sense and forced us to gimp our builds just to be able to block as effectively as we already can on live (if anything less effectively with Brace being removed). Tanks are almost totally worse off in every way, they took things away and swapped stuff around and left us with jack *** when all was said and done. That's not a tradeoff, that's a nerf.

And I for one hate this change with Sturdy, the whole change seems to be intended to force Tanks to use only Sturdy on their Gear, further reducing Tank Build diversity. I'd rather everything they changed about Heavy Armor and Tanking be completely undone and left as it is on Live than allow these changes to go through, we need an actual Buff to HA and Tanking but in leiu of that I'll settle for not being nerfed.

Lucius_Aelius

Rugz_Maulgoth wrote: »

SirSilverMask wrote: »

PvE tanks that know what they are doing don't need to break free that often so unchained really doesn't help much, that is more on the PvP side. Same applies to elusive.
Really what this does is makes it more practical for a MA wearer to have the same armor as a HA wearer without losing much. It is easy for a HA wearer to max out spell mitigation. Now a MA wearer can increase their physical and spell resistances while getting the bonus of increasing shield resistance by 75%. A PvE HA wearer doesn't have anything really useful in the steed tree anymore for any build.

I agree and disagree. My current vICP set up is fairly damage oriented and has only 10 points in Block Cost Reduction...I block probably less than once a second...As a result, on live I do actually use break free because I do get cc'd some and use unchained to help me recover and cast spells. As a PvE tank I know that there is more than one way to skin a cat. I also use the above set up so I can easily switch to PvP mode without feeling like I have to respec/am missing out on anything. I can still complete the content with ease and like taking newbies through vICP.

In regards to your assessment on The Steed I do agree and I think they should either move the Heavy Armor CP to The Steed, MA to the Lord, and LA to the Lady or Shield Bearer should be moved to The Shadow.

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

I disagree almost entirely with your assessment as a whole, mainly for the fact that you don't seem to value resource management properly, which is a grave error. Maybe you're fine without it, but we're not supposed to be all carbon copies of each other. People like using a wide variety of builds and this change will utterly slaughter the diversity of viable Tank Builds, especially Hybrid Tanks like mine which are designed to do some decent Damage as well, and that requires resources which we already lack by wearing Heavy Armor.

The Thief is too important for resource management for most people to think about using it for anything else, that's what the whole Thief constellation is about, and throwing in Block Cost Reduction will prevent me from being able to use Block Cost reduction, and without Bracing either that's a huge blow. On top of that the Armor increase for Shields in the Steed is too important not to have, but without Block Cost reduction there's little of value for a Tank in the Steed besides the passives. For me that stuff isn't useless and I already use some Spell Resistance and Crit Resistance as well as Blocking, but without Bracing I was expecting to need to go all in on Block reduction in order to compensate, and now I can't even do that.

Sturdy being the only way to get decent Block Cost reduction is ridiculous and excessively limiting, destroying any diversity in Gear Traits and forcing anyone who wants to tank to use only one Trait, and that is just bad design. This is not a good thing for Tanks at all, and at a time when Tanks are already hurting and severely lacking in relation to Damage Dealers. If this change goes live even less people will bother trying to Tank, and the Group Finder will become even more useless for Damage Dealers with preposterously long Queue times.

Playing Tanks is already hard enough when all solo content requires the ability to deal damage to some degree, and Tanks are rare because of it. You can't take away our resource management, which is required to deal damage effectively, and expect things to do anything but get worse. The Thief needs to stay as is and the Steed as well, no changes were asked for and none were necessary.

I would say that I don't inherently devalue resource management but I seem to do if differently than other tanks. I heavy attack like a mad man and try to only block when I have to. In most situations you don't have to block all the time. I think the buffs to constitution are easily the justification for these changes due to the significant resources it pumps out but I do think Sturdy needs a little more tweaking.

My current build on live is probably what you'd consider a hybrid tank as I deal roughly 6-8k single target dps. It's not crazy by any means but I do that while tanking the content effectively.

I am concerned that endgame PvE will pigeon hole tanks into very specific gear set ups and I think that endgame PvE should be balanced around the average tank taking 2-4 sturdy traits for the reasons you mentioned. That way you can add more if you want or use less if you have some other set up. Realistically...Block Cost CP should be the thing that lets you take less Sturdy so you can take more other traits, but right now it looks like Sturdy is balanced around having 5 of them, which is excessively limiting.

I'm also concerned about PvP, I play all Hybrids and need to be able to kill people and things, and without resource management you can't do that (in PvE it would just drag out fights, but in PvP you simply cannot win a fight without proper resource management). I also heavy attack a lot and don't Block constantly either, but in PvP that's still not enough unless I can have some buffs to my resources, and with Heavy Armor and Weapon Damage enchantments on my gear my options for that are limited to Champion Points and the Engine Guardian set.

And the Engine Guardian is all well and good, but it's too fickle to be relied upon solely, you need some cost reduction and regeneration bonuses (which I get with Drinks as well or else I wouldn't have nearly enough) in order to be properly effective and competitive.

ClockworkArc

I think part of the problem is that most of the old Trials were built around having 1 tank. So effectively, you have to be able to say to 11 other people that you will not waste their time. This is part of the reason why I haven't made the jump to Trials yet. It requires training and people who know the fights to be able to teach you the fights. At this point my points are all based off of what I've experienced in vICP and what I've heard from people tanking Trials.

I like that HA's resources are balanced around blocking a hit once per second. Does that balance point include sturdy and/or Block CP? What is the intended balance point of Sturdy traits in an endgame Trial and do we (as a community) feel that pigeon holes diversity too much?

This is obviously a point of contention in the community. It maybe bears some input from some Devs but we know vMOL was designed for two tanks which is a great and fun idea. Is the revamped SO balanced around having two tanks in the group and therefore are we expected to individually block less? Or are they balanced around 1 Tank needing to block less via someone using Guard? Are all future Trials to be balanced around having Two Tanks? @Wrobel @ZOS_Finn

Personofsecrets

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

I'd rather everything they changed about Heavy Armor and Tanking be completely undone and left as it is on Live than allow these changes to go through, we need an actual Buff to HA and Tanking but in leiu of that I'll settle for not being nerfed.

@ZOS_MattFiror ,

many of us were excited for the idea that heavy armor passives and tanking would be made better. We hoped that developers would follow up, in a positive way, on the feedback that they requested from us.

Now we see what developers had in mind; some people have unsubbed, some have decided to not sub again, some people no longer will be tanking or using heavy armor, some people wish we could just be left alone now.

Bad changes cost time and resources to make.

Bad changes are bad for all of our relationships.

Why do bad changes keep happening given the above two points?

Personofsecrets

Bad changes just keep happening. I don't even think that we are that unreasonable in what we want.

@ZOS_GinaBruno told us that more balance changes focused around concerns about bracing were coming.

@Wrobel gave us some hope that something positive would be done.

Some positive things were done, but then only at the cost of another huge blunder.

Nothing bad would have been said if we had the minor buffs and bracing wasn't changed.

Nothing bad would have been said if we had the minor buffs today, but no change to the CP trees.

But now bad things are said because of unnecessary and sweeping changes that undo the good changes.

ClockworkArc

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

I'm also concerned about PvP, I play all Hybrids and need to be able to kill people and things, and without resource management you can't do that (in PvE it would just drag out fights, but in PvP you simply cannot win a fight without proper resource management). I also heavy attack a lot and don't Block constantly either, but in PvP that's still not enough unless I can have some buffs to my resources, and with Heavy Armor and Weapon Damage enchantments on my gear my options for that are limited to Champion Points and the Engine Guardian set.

And the Engine Guardian is all well and good, but it's too fickle to be relied upon solely, you need some cost reduction and regeneration bonuses (which I get with Drinks as well or else I wouldn't have nearly enough) in order to be properly effective and competitive.

Personally, I think the suite of changes to HA have alleviated most of the resource management issues we were having in regards to PvP. I personally wasn't using Block Cost CP or Sturdy Traits on PTS and found I was much more able to win duels than before. Obviously the open world will be different but I think we'll be okay.

I also use Black Rose for extra sustain rather than Engine Guardian. I think the balance point is that if you aren't using one of those sets, you are using some form of Sturdy and/or Block Cost to help you win the day.

In PvP there are also poisons to consider, which will run everybody including HA users dry of resources faster but HA users will be uniquely better at replenishing resources thanks to the significant bonus to Heavy Attack Restore we got. It bears testing once the values are correct but I do think HA will be great and desired for PvP next update.

Immortal_Dark410

code65536 wrote: »

@Wrobel Please revert this change.

Nobody asked for it. Nobody wants it.

Tanking in this game is a resource-management game. We have lower resource pools to start with because we need health and we need to split between magicka and stamina. We don't have the kind of gear cost reduction that DDs and healers have.

Take, for example, one of the many large pulls in vICP. There are several important targets that I need to taunt. Some ranged enemies that I need to pull in. And then lock into place with talons. And then I throw in Deep Breaths here and there to interrupt the Harvester's special attack and/or the Invoker's shielding ability.

These are all things that I, as a good tank, should be doing. And doing all of these things quickly depletes my magicka pool. You want me to sacrifice my magicka regen and cost reduction CP stars so that I could maintain my current block costs?! Tanks aren't about just soaking up damage--that's what a bad tank does. A good tank needs to provide utility, and this change would seriously hamper that.

I'd Have to agree 100% with @code65536 on this, I mean I have been tanking in this game since I joined in March of 2015, maybe hoping these changes would increase the scarcity of Tanks but seriously after reading these I have to question whether or not the people who are behind these changes play the game or even have people around them who offer advice or feed back that play the game because right now it doesn't seem that way and its becoming redundantly tiring.

Immortal_Dark410

mzapkeneb18_ESO wrote: »

Mojmir wrote: »

Increase the cp cap

No, its that *** cp system and its insane powercreep which bought us into the situation. Yes, we more experience people will struggle for a while and adapt like after every nerf, but i have no idea how new people are supposed to keep up with this madness.

Those hourly queues in the dung finder shows perfectly how messed up the trininty is in the game.

Yes this is another issue, how will newer or average tanks be able to keep pace with this and the queues will only increase in time as more individuals stay away from tanking at all in the game because of it.

Lucius_Aelius

Rugz_Maulgoth wrote: »

Lucius_Aelius wrote: »

I'm also concerned about PvP, I play all Hybrids and need to be able to kill people and things, and without resource management you can't do that (in PvE it would just drag out fights, but in PvP you simply cannot win a fight without proper resource management). I also heavy attack a lot and don't Block constantly either, but in PvP that's still not enough unless I can have some buffs to my resources, and with Heavy Armor and Weapon Damage enchantments on my gear my options for that are limited to Champion Points and the Engine Guardian set.

And the Engine Guardian is all well and good, but it's too fickle to be relied upon solely, you need some cost reduction and regeneration bonuses (which I get with Drinks as well or else I wouldn't have nearly enough) in order to be properly effective and competitive.

Personally, I think the suite of changes to HA have alleviated most of the resource management issues we were having in regards to PvP. I personally wasn't using Block Cost CP or Sturdy Traits on PTS and found I was much more able to win duels than before. Obviously the open world will be different but I think we'll be okay.

I also use Black Rose for extra sustain rather than Engine Guardian. I think the balance point is that if you aren't using one of those sets, you are using some form of Sturdy and/or Block Cost to help you win the day.

In PvP there are also poisons to consider, which will run everybody including HA users dry of resources faster but HA users will be uniquely better at replenishing resources thanks to the significant bonus to Heavy Attack Restore we got. It bears testing once the values are correct but I do think HA will fine and in some cases desired for PvP next update.

It's not just PvP that's my concern though, I need to be able to swap between PvP and PvE seamlessly, and in PvE I need the Block Cost reduction for my Builds to be viable, which I won't be able to have at the same time as the resource management CP's in the Thief if they're all together. And while I might possibly be able to make due with two separate sets for each, up until now I've made it work with one set and no respeccing, seamlessly swapping between PvP and PvE with just a few skills swapped out.

I already have trouble managing my Inventory and for that alone I don't like the idea at all of needing two separate Armor sets for one character, and I shouldn't need to have them. One set should be enough, and I only just got my Whitestrake's up to all Gold. If I have to go through all the trouble of making a whole new set then I won't even need Whitestrake's since it's only really good for PvE and it doesn't have Sturdy so I'd need a whole new Gold set for both PvP and PvE from scratch, and for what? Just because of some stupid change that makes no sense and should never have been made in the first place?

It's one thing if I'd need a new set for a good reason, but needing a new set for no good reason at all just makes me inclined to stop playing rather than go through the bother, what guarantee do I have that they won't pull the rug out from under me again with yet another pointless and senseless change? I have better things to do than completely re-gear my character every few months as they keep changing random *** that doesn't need to be changed, not when maxing out a new set takes so much to do.

And it really is this one change that's bothering me more than anything else, it hits my Build where it hurts the most and forces me to completely change how I play the game, and again for no good reason. I have a problem with people doing things that don't make sense, and when the people in question are running the videogame I play then I'm inclined to not play anymore in response to such behavior. I need consistency in games I devote so much time to, I need to know that my efforts aren't going to be undercut, and when they are undercut in such a pointless manner then I can't see any good reason not to go play another game that is run by people who don't act like that.

The fact is that I had faith in ZOS and I never would have thought they'd make such a senseless and damaging change, now my faith in them is in serious doubt, and if they don't revert this change then I don't think I can trust them with my valuable free time. Maybe I could adapt and still have fun, but if the trust is gone then I'll always have this sense of foreboding in the back of my mind, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. If I trusted ZOS more then I'd put in the effort and at least try to adapt, but there was no good reason for this change, it was neither needed nor asked for, it fixed nothing and broke a great deal.

If they wise up and don't put this change live then I'll carry on and make whatever adaptations I need to with whatever changes they make in the future, but only if they make sense, if not then I've got better things to do than put up with such nonsense when I'm supposed to just be having fun. It comes down to this being such a pointless change, I cannot abide pointless things that cause so much harm, not when it's so easy for it to not happen.

Practically no one wants this, and especially after the massive outcry if ZOS doesn't listen to us then any faith in them to make good decisions (and listen to their players) I may still have will go up in smoke, and I'll be heading off to greener pastures, sad to go to be sure because this is a very fun game that is largely well designed, but there's only so much *** I can stand, and this change hits me too severely to just let it slide when there's so many reasons for them not to go through with it.

If it were just me bothered by this then I certainly wouldn't be pushing back against it so hard, but the vast majority of players agree with me, so I'm going to fight this as loudly as I can in order to preserve the enjoyment I get from playing ESO, which I've invested a lot of money in and expected to play for years, and I just hope that I will still do so.