Issues with Medium Armor & How To Fix It

Azurya

The core problem is that ZOS has no love for stamina-users, be it DK, NB, Stamplars, sorcs or wardens.
Stamabilities get nuked all the way
Stamsets are worthless
Stampools and reg are more *** up like any other ress in the game
and as is proven, there is really no point in wearing medium sets, because they sck as well

well ZOS better delete all STAMINA classes and make all magicka/health
ZOS weants STAMINA to die

Ragnaroek93

DDuke wrote: »

Alright, so... here's another fresh idea on how to buff medium armour's survivability.


Many of you have floated the idea of making Shuffle require 5x Medium Armor to use. But what if instead of doing that, we'd revamp Shuffle entirely?


Here's the deal: as it stands, Shuffle somewhat ironically benefits medium armor the least (now, before you say anything - I know it's used by probably over half the medium armor builds and is still a strong skill), as you're already dodging attacks more than light/heavy users with dodge roll, and Shuffle's 20% dodge chance is essentially useless during that period.

This makes light/heavy armor get more dodges/value out of the skill.


Now, what if Major Evasion was passively granted to Medium Armor instead?

Medium Armor

• Dexterity: Increases your Weapon Critical rating by 328 for each piece of Medium Armor equipped. Grants you Major Evasion for 1 seconds after you use Roll Dodge. Duration is increased by 1 second for each piece of Medium Armor worn.

This would give some value & purpose to dodge rolling, even when you're being hit by undodgeable things.


But that's not all. Since we've now removed Major Evasion from Shuffle, we can replace it with something else.

Something like an instant heal to along with the snare/root immunity.

This would reduce the dependency of 2H from which most stamina builds suffer (though you'd still have Rally as a valid burst heal alternative with heal over time/Major Brutality buff).

It would also make magicka NBs more unique as the only class with access to Major Evasion (without equipping medium armor or specific item set like Gossamer or Spectre's Eye).


Let me know what you think, I'll add this idea to the original post

Why would you want an instant heal, it doesn't scale with the number of opponents

On a more serious note: I think that such a change would be kinda fair.

olsborg

Medium armor do need better survivability, be it heals or more mitigation or evasion. Just something man..

SodanTok

DDuke wrote: »

Alright, so... here's another fresh idea on how to buff medium armour's survivability.


Many of you have floated the idea of making Shuffle require 5x Medium Armor to use. But what if instead of doing that, we'd revamp Shuffle entirely?


Here's the deal: as it stands, Shuffle somewhat ironically benefits medium armor the least (now, before you say anything - I know it's used by probably over half the medium armor builds and is still a strong skill), as you're already dodging attacks more than light/heavy users with dodge roll, and Shuffle's 20% dodge chance is essentially useless during that period.

This makes light/heavy armor get more dodges/value out of the skill.


Now, what if Major Evasion was passively granted to Medium Armor instead?

Medium Armor

• Dexterity: Increases your Weapon Critical rating by 328 for each piece of Medium Armor equipped. Grants you Major Evasion for 1 seconds after you use Roll Dodge. Duration is increased by 1 second for each piece of Medium Armor worn.

This would give some value & purpose to dodge rolling, even when you're being hit by undodgeable things.


But that's not all. Since we've now removed Major Evasion from Shuffle, we can replace it with something else.

Something like an instant heal to along with the snare/root immunity.

This would reduce the dependency of 2H from which most stamina builds suffer (though you'd still have Rally as a valid burst heal alternative with heal over time/Major Brutality buff).

It would also make magicka NBs more unique as the only class with access to Major Evasion (without equipping medium armor or specific item set like Gossamer or Spectre's Eye).


Let me know what you think, I'll add this idea to the original post

Not really sold on Major Evasion, overall I dont like the buff ever since it got nerfed, because it does very little for you during the time you arent dodging, but THIS is the way ZOS should imho look at medium armor adjustments -> something outside of dodge roll, because if they feel medium armor is strong simply by observing nightblades they could very well observe nightblades do not spend much time in combat outside of dodge/cloak/stealth so buff to dodge downtime are the best way to affect NB the least

Strider_Roshin

DDuke wrote: »

Alright, so... here's another fresh idea on how to buff medium armour's survivability.


Many of you have floated the idea of making Shuffle require 5x Medium Armor to use. But what if instead of doing that, we'd revamp Shuffle entirely?


Here's the deal: as it stands, Shuffle somewhat ironically benefits medium armor the least (now, before you say anything - I know it's used by probably over half the medium armor builds and is still a strong skill), as you're already dodging attacks more than light/heavy users with dodge roll, and Shuffle's 20% dodge chance is essentially useless during that period.

This makes light/heavy armor get more dodges/value out of the skill.


Now, what if Major Evasion was passively granted to Medium Armor instead?

Medium Armor

• Dexterity: Increases your Weapon Critical rating by 328 for each piece of Medium Armor equipped. Grants you Major Evasion for 1 seconds after you use Roll Dodge. Duration is increased by 1 second for each piece of Medium Armor worn.

This would give some value & purpose to dodge rolling, even when you're being hit by undodgeable things.


But that's not all. Since we've now removed Major Evasion from Shuffle, we can replace it with something else.

Something like an instant heal to along with the snare/root immunity.

This would reduce the dependency of 2H from which most stamina builds suffer (though you'd still have Rally as a valid burst heal alternative with heal over time/Major Brutality buff).

It would also make magicka NBs more unique as the only class with access to Major Evasion (without equipping medium armor or specific item set like Gossamer or Spectre's Eye).


Let me know what you think, I'll add this idea to the original post

It's a great idea, but to be honest I would rather see evasion disappear entirely. Even though I use it, I think RNG dodging is bad for the game. I would prefer it if evasion granted snare/root immunity instead.

With that said, medium armor certainly needs a great deal of love in the survivability department.

RinaldoGandolphi

As long as dodge roll continues to function like this with an absolutely ridiclious iframe window, Medium Armor should not be touched. You look at that gif...after standing up from the roll he sidesteps and dodges everything for nearly a whole second...you combine that with Major Evasions and its flat out broken!

I am all about giving Medium Armor some love, as soon as those iframe windows on Dodge roll is changed. The moment you leave the roll, dodging should stop, not nearly a second after....

DDuke

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

As long as dodge roll continues to function like this with an absolutely ridiclious iframe window, Medium Armor should not be touched. You look at that gif...after standing up from the roll he sidesteps and dodges everything for nearly a whole second...you combine that with Major Evasions and its flat out broken!

I am all about giving Medium Armor some love, as soon as those iframe windows on Dodge roll is changed. The moment you leave the roll, dodging should stop, not nearly a second after....

Looking at that gif, that person is about 0,5 seconds from dying (taking undodgeable damage and out of stamina).

It kind of sums up the medium armor experience quite well actually.

"iframe" implies immunity - dodge roll does not provide this (not even close) as you can see from your own gif.


That said, I do agree that the whole dodge roll period should be telegraphed, a person who is standing up shouldn't be displaying the dodge animations.

Ultimate_Overlord

Nice video from 1.6

RinaldoGandolphi

1.6 has nothing to do with it because the dodge roll window remains the same

The only reason he dies is because of resto heavies, power of the light, and Radiant destruction everything else was dodged for about 0.5 secs after coming out of the roll.

That needs to be changed and if it is I'd concede to nearly everything suggested here to help medium armor

SodanTok

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

As long as dodge roll continues to function like this with an absolutely ridiclious iframe window, Medium Armor should not be touched. You look at that gif...after standing up from the roll he sidesteps and dodges everything for nearly a whole second...you combine that with Major Evasions and its flat out broken!

I am all about giving Medium Armor some love, as soon as those iframe windows on Dodge roll is changed. The moment you leave the roll, dodging should stop, not nearly a second after....

Lol. These 'iframes' make dodge roll builds playable. If they did not exist every average player would burst you down when you finish dodge roll. Other than activated HoT (which you have to activate before dodge roll) there is nothing you do during dodge roll. No offense, no defense.

You are already barely able to use one skill during the window before you have to roll again if you get too much heat.
But you would not be pointin this 'feature' if you ever played dodge roll build so go figure

Ultimate_Overlord

@RinaldoGandolphi It does make a difference, cause if it was this patch he would have died to cliff racer spam at the very start of the video

DDuke

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

1.6 has nothing to do with it because the dodge roll window remains the same

The only reason he dies is because of resto heavies, power of the light, and Radiant destruction everything else was dodged for about 0.5 secs after coming out of the roll.

That needs to be changed and if it is I'd concede to nearly everything suggested here to help medium armor

resto heavies, power of the light, unstable core, jbeam at the very end of the gif - small screen so it's a bit difficult to make out if there's anything else.

In any case, he has around 5k(?) shield when he starts dodge roll animation, that 5k shield is entirely gone & he's taken some health pool dmg when the animation ends. That's a lot of damage, not something a vigor+rally can outheal for instance.

Also, he's completely out of stamina & no nearby corpses to repentance, potion on cooldown - so RIP after that dodge roll no matter what happens.

RinaldoGandolphi

Ultimate_Overlord wrote: »

@RinaldoGandolphi It does make a difference, cause if it was this patch he would have died to cliff racer spam at the very start of the video

Well Cliff Racer is its own kinda broken though.

It ignores dodge roll, it also ignores the Damage Absorbing effect of Ball of Lighting despite the fact that damage shields, Absorb Magic from Sword and sheild, and Crystlaized Shield all absorb it...i bugged it hoping for consistency, but good luck with that though.

Cliff Racer spam effects all all equally.

Strider_Roshin

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

1.6 has nothing to do with it because the dodge roll window remains the same

The only reason he dies is because of resto heavies, power of the light, and Radiant destruction everything else was dodged for about 0.5 secs after coming out of the roll.

That needs to be changed and if it is I'd concede to nearly everything suggested here to help medium armor

If you've read my feedback on dodge rolling you'll know that I share this opinion. Dodge rolling needs to be a viable defense again. It needs to dodge everything except for ground AoEs. With that said if you're not rolling, you shouldn't be dodging; meaning we need to get those i-frames adjusted. I would also like to see RNG dodging disappear and have evasion replaced with snare+root immunity.

There's a huge unfair disadvantage when using medium armor that needs to be rectified. And if ZOS wants to keep us stamina players they need to address it.

RinaldoGandolphi

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

1.6 has nothing to do with it because the dodge roll window remains the same

The only reason he dies is because of resto heavies, power of the light, and Radiant destruction everything else was dodged for about 0.5 secs after coming out of the roll.

That needs to be changed and if it is I'd concede to nearly everything suggested here to help medium armor

If you've read my feedback on dodge rolling you'll know that I share this opinion. Dodge rolling needs to be a viable defense again. It needs to dodge everything except for ground AoEs. With that said if you're not rolling, you shouldn't be dodging; meaning we need to get those i-frames adjusted. I would also like to see RNG dodging disappear and have evasion replaced with snare+root immunity.

There's a huge unfair disadvantage when using medium armor that needs to be rectified. And if ZOS wants to keep us stamina players they need to address it.

Agreed!

Killset

Xvorg wrote: »

Killset wrote: »

Medium armor is a relic. It's a throwback from the game as it was 2 years ago. The amount of damage being thrown around has rendered it obsolete. Not to mention how many things can no longer be countered. Soul Assault alone melts medium armor users and if you block it, chances are you won't have any stamina left to survive afterwards. Whether you buff medium or start nerfing a lot of abilities, I don't care, but something needs to be done.

Soul Assault has always melted MA users. Before the "buff", it was unblockable.

But you could bash them out of it which made it fair.

Vercingetorix

Medium armor doesn't need anything. If you are engaging enemies outside of stealth, then you are doing it wrong. Medium is about burst and stealth - not fighting out in the open. You don't have to worry about proc sets or "unavoidable" damage because ALL damage is avoidable when you are sneaking and not running around exposed in the open.

Sounds more like the folks who decided to use medium need to L2P. If you want to engage enemies out in the open and use stamina, you need more defense: it's called heavy armor. Light armor folks have shields and that's their "dodge" - they dip into their damaging resource to also defend, just like stamina does. They are balanced.

Stop asking for handouts. No amount of buffs or nerfs will improve your gameplay. Will you just end up losing to something else. L2P and improve your skill. If Stamina NB's around the world are topping the Leaderboards in Cyrodiil, clearly you are doing something wrong, OP.

DDuke

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Medium armor doesn't need anything. If you are engaging enemies outside of stealth, then you are doing it wrong. Medium is about burst and stealth - not fighting out in the open. You don't have to worry about proc sets or "unavoidable" damage because ALL damage is avoidable when you are sneaking and not running around exposed in the open.

Sounds more like the folks who decided to use medium need to L2P. If you want to engage enemies out in the open and use stamina, you need more defense: it's called heavy armor. Light armor folks have shields and that's their "dodge" - they dip into their damaging resource to also defend, just like stamina does. They are balanced.

Stop asking for handouts. No amount of buffs or nerfs will improve your gameplay. Will you just end up losing to something else. L2P and improve your skill. If Stamina NB's around the world are topping the Leaderboards in Cyrodiil, clearly you are doing something wrong, OP.

Aha, so medium armor users should only instagib people from stealth (funny, I could swear this is what people like you complain about) - sounds like very healthy gameplay...


And leaderboards in Cyrodiil... lol.

That only tells that someone plays and/or zergs a lot, it doesn't tell anything about their build (light? medium? heavy? potato?) or skill. Some of the worst players I've seen have been Grand Overlords.

Wrubius_Coronaria

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Medium armor doesn't need anything. If you are engaging enemies outside of stealth, then you are doing it wrong. Medium is about burst and stealth - not fighting out in the open. You don't have to worry about proc sets or "unavoidable" damage because ALL damage is avoidable when you are sneaking and not running around exposed in the open.

Sounds more like the folks who decided to use medium need to L2P. If you want to engage enemies out in the open and use stamina, you need more defense: it's called heavy armor. Light armor folks have shields and that's their "dodge" - they dip into their damaging resource to also defend, just like stamina does. They are balanced.

Stop asking for handouts. No amount of buffs or nerfs will improve your gameplay. Will you just end up losing to something else. L2P and improve your skill. If Stamina NB's around the world are topping the Leaderboards in Cyrodiil, clearly you are doing something wrong, OP.

1. Medium armor is for all classes, not only stamina nightblades. Medium armor =/= stamina nightblade.
So, attack someone out of stealth has nothing wrong.

2. With the poor state of cloak actually, when almost everything break cloak (light attacks, gap closers, etc...), it's not really possible to avoid damages in many situations.

3. Because of armor penetration and overpowered traits like sharpened, (and major breach debuff and champions points), but also sets like spinner (or the other one for armor penetration) in medium armor you finish often with zero armor resistance during a fight. (in my opinion armor penetration should be caped, but it's another subject)

4. The huge amount of undodgeable attacks in game actually. (they added more undodgeable attacks updates after updates just read patchnotes)

5. Add in top of all of that, offensive procsets and damages poisons like ravaging health or oblivion enchant (they hurt more stamina builds because of the absence of shields).

6. And no access to burst heal like magicka users, survivability is quite difficult.

7. I forgot, some skills like soul assault destroy completely how medium armor work.

And now, please write again medium armor is still good and has no issues actually.

*edit mispelling

SodanTok

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Medium armor doesn't need anything. If you are engaging enemies outside of stealth, then you are doing it wrong. Medium is about burst and stealth - not fighting out in the open. You don't have to worry about proc sets or "unavoidable" damage because ALL damage is avoidable when you are sneaking and not running around exposed in the open.

Sounds more like the folks who decided to use medium need to L2P. If you want to engage enemies out in the open and use stamina, you need more defense: it's called heavy armor. Light armor folks have shields and that's their "dodge" - they dip into their damaging resource to also defend, just like stamina does. They are balanced.

Stop asking for handouts. No amount of buffs or nerfs will improve your gameplay. Will you just end up losing to something else. L2P and improve your skill. If Stamina NB's around the world are topping the Leaderboards in Cyrodiil, clearly you are doing something wrong, OP.

lol
(not very constructive comment, but how to react to someone who is SO wrong, like you could search the whole forum for arguments for and against medium armor but this is just above... or should i say below... everything)

Hurika

Give medium some interesting perks

• Moving while stealthed requires 5 or more medium armor (mNB use cloak so not much impact to them)
• Each piece of medium armor grants 5% passive chance to parry attacks
• 5+ pieces of medium armor allows you to climb outer keep walls

Another other option is to move weapons to damage types and scale the bonus appropriately

• Pierce - bonus to medium armor
• Slash - bonus to light armor
• Crush - bonus to heavy armor

Strider_Roshin

Honestly everyone I feel like our input is falling on deaf ears. We've all thought of great ideas on how to make medium competitive in PvP, but quite frankly I don't think ZOS gives a damn. And since this is their game we pretty much have to play the way they want us to play or get pissed off kicking against the goads.

Ladislao

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Honestly everyone I feel like our input is falling on deaf ears. We've all thought of great ideas on how to make medium competitive in PvP, but quite frankly I don't think ZOS gives a damn. And since this is their game we pretty much have to play the way they want us to play or get pissed off kicking against the goads.

You all offered good ideas. But what for? I still do not understand which issue OP means.
Recently, an almost perfect balance has been formed between types of armor. And you want to make some changes for... the sake of changes? I do not think it's worth it. Apparently, the developers too.

DDuke

Ladislao wrote: »

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Honestly everyone I feel like our input is falling on deaf ears. We've all thought of great ideas on how to make medium competitive in PvP, but quite frankly I don't think ZOS gives a damn. And since this is their game we pretty much have to play the way they want us to play or get pissed off kicking against the goads.

You all offered good ideas. But what for? I still do not understand which issue OP means.
Recently, an almost perfect balance has been formed between types of armor. And you want to make some changes for... the sake of changes? I do not think it's worth it. Apparently, the developers too.

I think it's fairly clearly stated on the original post:

As we all know, medium armor hasn't really been on the same power level as heavy (or light) for a long time.

A lot of this has to do with the evergrowing list of skills that ignore the dodge mechanic entirely (most recently Warden, which deals almost entirely undodgeable damage). This leaves medium armor users in a space, where you lack the armor mitigation from heavy, you lack the healing received from heavy passives and you don't really get anything in return as most of the passives have to do with (increasingly useless) dodge roll cost & stamina costs rather than surviving/outhealing damage.

This is without even diving into the set meta, where heavy armor has much stronger options available that allow you to stack weapon damage much higher than any medium armor build, which simultaneously also increases the healing done by heavy armor builds (that gets further increased by Rapid Mending heavy armor passive) - all while maintaining that mitigation medium lacks.

But do let me know if I can somehow elaborate.

Main problem is the uselessness of medium armor's main (and only, in most cases) form of defense, dodge roll, as most skills in the game are undodgeable these days.

Back when the game actually was almost perfectly balanced between the armor types, dodge roll accomplished something, it prevented most of the incoming damage - just like sorcerer shields, or heavy armor mitigation.

Boush

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Medium armor doesn't need anything. If you are engaging enemies outside of stealth, then you are doing it wrong. Medium is about burst and stealth - not fighting out in the open. You don't have to worry about proc sets or "unavoidable" damage because ALL damage is avoidable when you are sneaking and not running around exposed in the open.

Sounds more like the folks who decided to use medium need to L2P. If you want to engage enemies out in the open and use stamina, you need more defense: it's called heavy armor. Light armor folks have shields and that's their "dodge" - they dip into their damaging resource to also defend, just like stamina does. They are balanced.

Stop asking for handouts. No amount of buffs or nerfs will improve your gameplay. Will you just end up losing to something else. L2P and improve your skill. If Stamina NB's around the world are topping the Leaderboards in Cyrodiil, clearly you are doing something wrong, OP.

I'm sure you are also saying that proc sets shouuld get nerfed.Procs are making medium competitive against other armors right now cause when procs deals damage for you can can go more defansive builds.Sorry but there is no medium version of amber plasm that gives us everything we need or necro potance makes our shields unbreakable we also cant spam blink which stuns at the same time or spam cloak 50 times neither ember+blood to burst heal our selves we only can dodge roll.Please dont even say "but you have rally+vigor" so all medium users must use 2h not even talking about rally almost a 1 time heal while you can spam your shields forever.Its so obvious you never played with medium armor.If you dont use proc sets its nearly impossiable to burts a decent mag player.If you gonna pull your l2p argument again please wait until your shields become overtime instead of insta 10k+ shield stack than we can talk about it

Pastas

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Ultimate_Overlord wrote: »

@RinaldoGandolphi It does make a difference, cause if it was this patch he would have died to cliff racer spam at the very start of the video

Well Cliff Racer is its own kinda broken though.

It ignores dodge roll, it also ignores the Damage Absorbing effect of Ball of Lighting despite the fact that damage shields, Absorb Magic from Sword and sheild, and Crystlaized Shield all absorb it...i bugged it hoping for consistency, but good luck with that though.

Cliff Racer spam effects all all equally.

Are you serious or just trolling?

Ladislao

DDuke wrote: »

But do let me know if I can somehow elaborate.

Main problem is the uselessness of medium armor's main (and only, in most cases) form of defense, dodge roll, as most skills in the game are undodgeable these days.

Back when the game actually was almost perfectly balanced between the armor types, dodge roll accomplished something, it prevented most of the incoming damage - just like sorcerer shields, or heavy armor mitigation.

This is already a more significant topic for discussion. The problem is not in medium armor, but in undodgeable attacks.
I think there are several skills that create this problem. Soul Strike (should be interruptible), Dive (should be dodgeable). Maybe I forgot something else.
AOEs and Backlash shouldn't be dodgeable by design. Puncturing Strikes shouldn't be dodgeable just because it is easy to escape from.
About Rapid Fire, I can not unequivocally say. Maybe it should work as Soul Strike (interruptible but not dodgeable). But it makes problem with Ballista which cannot be interrupted.

I am convinced that all other "problems" are only l2p issue. I played in medium armor, even when heavy armor was considered too strong, and I hadn't any problems. Now, after a series of nerfs, there is generally no domination of one type over another.
Maybe medium armor just does not suit people for their style of play

SodanTok

Ladislao wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

But do let me know if I can somehow elaborate.

Main problem is the uselessness of medium armor's main (and only, in most cases) form of defense, dodge roll, as most skills in the game are undodgeable these days.

Back when the game actually was almost perfectly balanced between the armor types, dodge roll accomplished something, it prevented most of the incoming damage - just like sorcerer shields, or heavy armor mitigation.

This is already a more significant topic for discussion. The problem is not in medium armor, but in undodgeable attacks.
I think there are several skills that create this problem. Soul Strike (should be interruptible), Dive (should be dodgeable). Maybe I forgot something else.
AOEs and Backlash shouldn't be dodgeable by design. Puncturing Strikes shouldn't be dodgeable just because it is easy to escape from.
About Rapid Fire, I can not unequivocally say. Maybe it should work as Soul Strike (interruptible but not dodgeable). But it makes problem with Ballista which cannot be interrupted.

I am convinced that all other "problems" are only l2p issue. I played in medium armor, even when heavy armor was considered too strong, and I hadn't any problems. Now, after a series of nerfs, there is generally no domination of one type over another.
Maybe medium armor just does not suit people for their style of play

Everything is l2p issue. If you l2p enough you can run naked and kill people in heavy armor that never l2p. That cannot be used as argument like ever

Ladislao

SodanTok wrote: »

Everything is l2p issue. If you l2p enough you can run naked and kill people in heavy armor that never l2p. That cannot be used as argument like ever

I think I wrote enough besides this. Do you want to buff medium armor just because you cannot kill people now?

SodanTok

Ladislao wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Everything is l2p issue. If you l2p enough you can run naked and kill people in heavy armor that never l2p. That cannot be used as argument like ever

I think I wrote enough besides this. Do you want to buff medium armor just because you cannot kill people now?

Oh I can kill people just fine. On my bow build. In melee range. With 27k hp and only 3k weapon damage. Does not make it better or on par with weapons and meta builds they used while I was killing them. I just l2p more than them.