Issues with Medium Armor & How To Fix It

Strider_Roshin

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

Really that's the source of the problem. ZOS has some kind of vendetta against medium armor, and has made so many popular abilities in this game undodgeable. For instance damage shields are very OP in this game, but if they made it so single target instant cast abilities go through damage shields (essentially mirror what they've done to dodge rolling) all of a sudden damage shields don't seem so strong.

Sorcs, and magblades would whine saying "what's the point of spending magicka to cast a damage shield if stamblades are just going to Surprise Attack me to death". And that's the position medium armor wearers are currently in.

DDuke

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?

I want buffs to medium armor (particularly dodge) because it's unlikely the undodgeable damage ever gets scaled back. In fact, almost every patch they add more and more undodgeable skills to the game.

You say you've had "no problems" playing medium armor - I'd like to see how that holds true in a duel scenario vs any even semi-decent heavy armor or magicka build.

I've spent hundreds of hours in duel spots this patch alone, and I haven't seen a good heavy armor or magicka build lose once so far to a medium build.

I'd also like to see what happens to your medium armor character when you're 1vX'ing and suddenly a Soul Assault drains your entire stamina bar & half your health, or birds deal surprise attack level dmg to you while you try to dodge some sorc's frags, whose curse/wrath then executes you mid roll etc etc.

It just sucks all the fun & competitiveness out of medium armor, when you know you can get the same amount of kills as a magicka sorc for example, while also surviving all that incoming dmg.


Problem with medium isn't getting kills or dealing dmg, it's surviving dmg.

DDuke

Based on my tests in this PTS cycle, this thread still seems to be 100% relevant (if not even more relevant than before), so I'm bumping it up.

Would be nice to get some changes to how medium armor functions in PvP this patch, ZOS.

olsborg

I second that, medium armor feels bad, as bad as Ive ever felt it, and ive been using medium armor basicly exclusively the last 2 years of pvp. Up the survivability and give it some innate penetration or something....something...

GodHawk

I think they should put a passive on the medium armor that reduce like half of the cost for dodge rolling, sprinting or blocking for using 5 piece so that tanks cant get the benefit out of it.

Minno

olsborg wrote: »

I second that, medium armor feels bad, as bad as Ive ever felt it, and ive been using medium armor basicly exclusively the last 2 years of pvp. Up the survivability and give it some innate penetration or something....something...

It does need penetration to allow builds to roll swords to increase their DMG further past the limits of HA. Though mace has that sexy 20% penetration, which is why the devs haven't given you guys that penetration buff (plus easy sources for major fracture).

That's what makes LA better than MA, it's initial access to penetration allowing us to slot sharpened with apprentice mundas for our DMG. Also we get more critical chance than MA letting us easily hit a 45% crit chance minimum in CP PvP letting us stack more into crit DMG or more into penetration further increasing our DMG versus heavy. Then we can go shield, block, or add additional resists.

MA could get increased crit DMG per MA slot instead of the chance. This could give them an advantage against high crit resist builds/HA users. Though this might make people realize how good sturdy is as a trait and start using block weapons. But again the crit DMG would help your healing

For my LA build, I've found that high crit resists+ resist stack + block has helped passively weather nasty burst. Enough to deslot vamp/shields. Though templars have easy access to additional healing received, which is why this works. Here's my video against a stam NB; he should have killed me but lack of penetration is what sealed his fate (and his playing ability).
https://youtu.be/niw0qCyxRhU

I'm still under the impression there's a new meta for Stam players that hasn't been created yet. I know Gondor has a MA Templar build that would rip, he has a minimum of 18k physical resists and uses slimecraw to boost his DMG consistently while using two hander mace.

LegendaryMage

Maikon wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

acw37162 wrote: »

70% damage reduction during roll dodge, Ummmm, no.

Would you prefer the "0% damage reduction, avoid nothing and drain your own stamina" that it currently is?

If not, maybe you could elaborate on your comment?


Edit: to be more clear, in the past Roll Dodge used to avoid almost all damage (100%) and didn't have a stacking cost to it - I believe 70% would be a fair compromise especially considering no one can spam it anymore.

You must be smoking some high quality crack, I've seen nb's dodge roll 15+ times in a row and still have more then enough stam to burst someone down or sprint away.

15 times in a row? My NB with very decent roll reduction and over 3k stamina recovery cannot role more than 8 times in a row, and that's while being out of combat.

edit; probably closer to 7 or so consecutive rolls. And he has almost 40k stamina by the way.

SodanTok

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Maikon wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

acw37162 wrote: »

70% damage reduction during roll dodge, Ummmm, no.

Would you prefer the "0% damage reduction, avoid nothing and drain your own stamina" that it currently is?

If not, maybe you could elaborate on your comment?


Edit: to be more clear, in the past Roll Dodge used to avoid almost all damage (100%) and didn't have a stacking cost to it - I believe 70% would be a fair compromise especially considering no one can spam it anymore.

You must be smoking some high quality crack, I've seen nb's dodge roll 15+ times in a row and still have more then enough stam to burst someone down or sprint away.

15 times in a row? My NB with very decent roll reduction and over 3k stamina recovery cannot role more than 8 times in a row, and that's while being out of combat.

edit; probably closer to 7 or so consecutive rolls. And he has almost 40k stamina by the way.

With 100CP in tumbling, all medium armor, all well fitted it costs only 80k stamina to roll 15 times in a row.

usmcjdking

Medium needs very little adjustment. It's weak but it's not terribly weak - it suffers most vs. aoes that eat through your defenses and generally cannot be mitigated by any means. A lot of medium's issues are solved with blade cloak or (to a degree) equipping leki's. Unfortunately blade cloak kinda sucks in PVP and Leki's nerfs your own vigors as well as it doesn't actually offer you anything significant damage wise.

Medium armor should give AOE damage reduction of 4% per piece of medium armor and have deadly cloak give minor resolve/ward.

TL;DR - medium armor requires too many external buffs to have the necessary tankiness to be playable in PVP.

Kilandros

usmcjdking wrote: »

Medium needs very little adjustment. It's weak but it's not terribly weak - it suffers most vs. aoes that eat through your defenses and generally cannot be mitigated by any means. A lot of medium's issues are solved with blade cloak or (to a degree) equipping leki's. Unfortunately blade cloak kinda sucks in PVP and Leki's nerfs your own vigors as well as it doesn't actually offer you anything significant damage wise.

Medium armor should give AOE damage reduction of 4% per piece of medium armor and have deadly cloak give minor resolve/ward.

TL;DR - medium armor requires too many external buffs to have the necessary tankiness to be playable in PVP.

AoE damage reduction per piece would be so incredibly broken. All ZOS needs to do is tone down the damage of mobile AoE Ults like Eye of the Storm.

olsborg

Shuffle and morph firstly need to require 5 medium armor slotted to use the skill.
Medium armor suffers hard vs all the skills that cant be dodged, and there are alot of them these days. Some damage mitigation when you are dodging would go a long way, and some innate penetration and/or boost to your selfhealing would also help alot.

Just give medium armor something zos...it rly needs a boost.

Chilly-McFreeze

olsborg wrote: »

Shuffle and morph firstly need to require 5 medium armor slotted to use the skill.
Medium armor suffers hard vs all the skills that cant be dodged, and there are alot of them these days. Some damage mitigation when you are dodging would go a long way, and some innate penetration and/or boost to your selfhealing would also help alot.

Just give medium armor something zos...it rly needs a boost.

Shuffle needs to requiere 5 MA... and what good would that do to medium users? They would still mitigate too little and there would still be too much undodgeable stuff out there.

It would also hurt PvE Tava Tanks a lot. But who cares?

But I like your second idea. Sadly the mitigation bonus already exists:
Phase: 'When you use Roll Dodge, your Physical and Spell Resistance is increased by 660 for 3 seconds." 30 points passive from Steed CP.
However, they could couple another mitigation boost to AoEs (2% per piece) while dodging and a short healing recieved bonus after dodging to 5p MA bonus.

olsborg

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

Shuffle and morph firstly need to require 5 medium armor slotted to use the skill.
Medium armor suffers hard vs all the skills that cant be dodged, and there are alot of them these days. Some damage mitigation when you are dodging would go a long way, and some innate penetration and/or boost to your selfhealing would also help alot.

Just give medium armor something zos...it rly needs a boost.

Shuffle needs to requiere 5 MA... and what good would that do to medium users? They would still mitigate too little and there would still be too much undodgeable stuff out there.

It would also hurt PvE Tava Tanks a lot. But who cares?

But I like your second idea. Sadly the mitigation bonus already exists:
Phase: 'When you use Roll Dodge, your Physical and Spell Resistance is increased by 660 for 3 seconds." 30 points passive from Steed CP.
However, they could couple another mitigation boost to AoEs (2% per piece) while dodging and a short healing recieved bonus after dodging to 5p MA bonus.

It would balance heavy vs medium in pvp. Wich is highly needed. Its the coupling of high mitigation and major evasion thats overperforming in pvp atm, can also be done with shieldstacking and major evasion wich is also effective.

LegendaryMage

olsborg wrote: »

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

Shuffle and morph firstly need to require 5 medium armor slotted to use the skill.
Medium armor suffers hard vs all the skills that cant be dodged, and there are alot of them these days. Some damage mitigation when you are dodging would go a long way, and some innate penetration and/or boost to your selfhealing would also help alot.

Just give medium armor something zos...it rly needs a boost.

Shuffle needs to requiere 5 MA... and what good would that do to medium users? They would still mitigate too little and there would still be too much undodgeable stuff out there.

It would also hurt PvE Tava Tanks a lot. But who cares?

But I like your second idea. Sadly the mitigation bonus already exists:
Phase: 'When you use Roll Dodge, your Physical and Spell Resistance is increased by 660 for 3 seconds." 30 points passive from Steed CP.
However, they could couple another mitigation boost to AoEs (2% per piece) while dodging and a short healing recieved bonus after dodging to 5p MA bonus.

It would balance heavy vs medium in pvp. Wich is highly needed. Its the coupling of high mitigation and major evasion thats overperforming in pvp atm, can also be done with shieldstacking and major evasion wich is also effective.

That's the first thing they need to do, I've said it hundreds of times since 2014, all armor abilities NEED to be locked behind 5 pieces of that armor. And I'd even take it a step further and make sure that major evasion never works in (at least) 5+ heavy.

For NBs in light with their class skills, it's arguably ok, but heavy + major evasion is way too OP when fighting a medium armor user.

Ocelot9x

Sooo
1)
To people saying "shuffle should require 5 pieces medium" that's not a medium armor buff,its a heavy nerf. Heavy and light are fine,medium is not.
2)
Medium armor is totally trash ATM,period. The main defense is rolling,and you can't outheal,shield or block damage. Rolling itself sucks: I consider rolling a mistake I must wait for in a 1v1 situation so I can land my burst,since you are powerless when rolling but still 1/2 of the skill in this game will get you.
3)
Medium has no preemptive defense: you can shield before the burst come get to you,or you can simply permablock (seriously,block casting needs to go but that's another topic) everything. With medium you can only roll to mitigate AFTER getting bursted,and good luck surviving a 25k burst with 22k HP.
4)
Medium is the only armor where a single mistake kills you. I see plenty of people doing mistake after mistake but still survive thanks to harness/healing ward or just holding block after and have their spammable 5k+ heals do the job. In medium you have a reliable heal every 8sec and vigor cost a lot and heals for 2.5k crit at maximum. To people saying medium is fine,try to fight a magdk: his dot will negate your heals while empowered lash 5k,skoria 5k and leap 6k are undodgeable.
5)
IMHO medium was nerfed with undodgeable skills because it was the main tool of 1vXers and a part of "lower the ceiling" politic. That's why now the game is full of easier and brainless way of mitigating damage,and everyone can put small efforts on learning how to play while still being effective. That's why I don't think medium will get a buff ,just have fun holding block or spamming a shield and gtfo.

SodanTok

Ocelot9x wrote: »

Sooo
1)
To people saying "shuffle should require 5 pieces medium" that's not a medium armor buff,its a heavy nerf. Heavy and light are fine,medium is not.
2)
Medium armor is totally trash ATM,period. The main defense is rolling,and you can't outheal,shield or block damage. Rolling itself sucks: I consider rolling a mistake I must wait for in a 1v1 situation so I can land my burst,since you are powerless when rolling but still 1/2 of the skill in this game will get you.
3)
Medium has no preemptive defense: you can shield before the burst come get to you,or you can simply permablock (seriously,block casting needs to go but that's another topic) everything. With medium you can only roll to mitigate AFTER getting bursted,and good luck surviving a 25k burst with 22k HP.
4)
Medium is the only armor where a single mistake kills you. I see plenty of people doing mistake after mistake but still survive thanks to harness/healing ward or just holding block after and have their spammable 5k+ heals do the job. In medium you have a reliable heal every 8sec and vigor cost a lot and heals for 2.5k crit at maximum. To people saying medium is fine,try to fight a magdk: his dot will negate your heals while empowered lash 5k,skoria 5k and leap 6k are undodgeable.
5)
IMHO medium was nerfed with undodgeable skills because it was the main tool of 1vXers and a part of "lower the ceiling" politic. That's why now the game is full of easier and brainless way of mitigating damage,and everyone can put small efforts on learning how to play while still being effective. That's why I don't think medium will get a buff ,just have fun holding block or spamming a shield and gtfo.

So much this. People always bring how much damage you evade by dodge roll or how can you spam it. You literally disable yourself during it. Undodgeable CC + some high burst and dead. Like CCing shield stacker in the exact moment his shield drops except you dont have to have brain to do it. Just slot undodgeable CC and spam it. Dodge roller with 12-15k resist and 22k is open to burst every 10sec.

It is nearly delegated just to run away tool. Even on NB, it is reposition tool to setup their combo again. On any other class you wont disappear from sight, so unless you spam it till get bored or reach zerg you arent really doing much more than delaying.

NyassaV

Give Medium armor some sneak speed (Not a lot, like 10% maybe) and increase it's resistance ratting by 2k, blade cloak buff doesn't cut it

DDuke

So, another way to make evasion based builds work again would be to increase the healing taken while in dodge roll. Something like this (new addition in bold):

Agility
When 5 or more pieces of Medium Armor are equipped
Increases your Weapon Damage by 12%. Increases your healing received by 100% while Roll Dodging.


With this change players would be able to get some use out of roll dodge and perhaps actually outheal incoming damage (100% modifier would mean between 2-4k healing/dodge roll) instead of being locked in an animation, unable to do anything while almost everything still deals damage to you.

SodanTok

DDuke wrote: »

So, another way to make evasion based builds work again would be to increase the healing taken while in dodge roll. Something like this (new addition in bold):

Agility
When 5 or more pieces of Medium Armor are equipped
Increases your Weapon Damage by 12%. Increases your healing received by 100% while Roll Dodging.


With this change players would be able to get some use out of roll dodge and perhaps actually outheal incoming damage (100% modifier would mean between 2-4k healing/dodge roll) instead of being locked in an animation, unable to do anything while almost everything still deals damage to you.

Makes sense solo, because you have vigor and thats it, but this would be too OP in group. You would roll through healing springs or smth and full, every time.

Would have to be something like 100% healing received from self heals

DDuke

SodanTok wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

So, another way to make evasion based builds work again would be to increase the healing taken while in dodge roll. Something like this (new addition in bold):

Agility
When 5 or more pieces of Medium Armor are equipped
Increases your Weapon Damage by 12%. Increases your healing received by 100% while Roll Dodging.


With this change players would be able to get some use out of roll dodge and perhaps actually outheal incoming damage (100% modifier would mean between 2-4k healing/dodge roll) instead of being locked in an animation, unable to do anything while almost everything still deals damage to you.

Makes sense solo, because you have vigor and thats it, but this would be too OP in group. You would roll through healing springs or smth and full, every time.

Would have to be something like 100% healing received from self heals

I think that'd be some interesting group synergy tbh - not anymore op than wearing heavy armor+S&B & permablocking in those healing springs imo :P

Minno

DDuke wrote: »

So, another way to make evasion based builds work again would be to increase the healing taken while in dodge roll. Something like this (new addition in bold):

Agility
When 5 or more pieces of Medium Armor are equipped
Increases your Weapon Damage by 12%. Increases your healing received by 100% while Roll Dodging.


With this change players would be able to get some use out of roll dodge and perhaps actually outheal incoming damage (100% modifier would mean between 2-4k healing/dodge roll) instead of being locked in an animation, unable to do anything while almost everything still deals damage to you.

Idk about 100% lol.

But I can see them getting one of the minor/major healing buffs though. Not an OP change but one that would be needed to at least make MA equal to HA since they almost have similar DMG numbers.

SodanTok

DDuke wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

So, another way to make evasion based builds work again would be to increase the healing taken while in dodge roll. Something like this (new addition in bold):

Agility
When 5 or more pieces of Medium Armor are equipped
Increases your Weapon Damage by 12%. Increases your healing received by 100% while Roll Dodging.


With this change players would be able to get some use out of roll dodge and perhaps actually outheal incoming damage (100% modifier would mean between 2-4k healing/dodge roll) instead of being locked in an animation, unable to do anything while almost everything still deals damage to you.

Makes sense solo, because you have vigor and thats it, but this would be too OP in group. You would roll through healing springs or smth and full, every time.

Would have to be something like 100% healing received from self heals

I think that'd be some interesting group synergy tbh - not anymore op than wearing heavy armor+S&B & permablocking in those healing springs imo :P

Defensive wise not anymore OP than it, but those people dont kill me If it was affecting every healing received it would be something like Minno mentioned. I think it would easier to get some major damage reduction than major healing received (damage reduction is the same no matter the situation, healing received is so much stronger with friend healer than without)

DDuke

SodanTok wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

So, another way to make evasion based builds work again would be to increase the healing taken while in dodge roll. Something like this (new addition in bold):

Agility
When 5 or more pieces of Medium Armor are equipped
Increases your Weapon Damage by 12%. Increases your healing received by 100% while Roll Dodging.


With this change players would be able to get some use out of roll dodge and perhaps actually outheal incoming damage (100% modifier would mean between 2-4k healing/dodge roll) instead of being locked in an animation, unable to do anything while almost everything still deals damage to you.

Makes sense solo, because you have vigor and thats it, but this would be too OP in group. You would roll through healing springs or smth and full, every time.

Would have to be something like 100% healing received from self heals

I think that'd be some interesting group synergy tbh - not anymore op than wearing heavy armor+S&B & permablocking in those healing springs imo :P

Defensive wise not anymore OP than it, but those people dont kill me If it was affecting every healing received it would be something like Minno mentioned. I think it would easier to get some major damage reduction than major healing received (damage reduction is the same no matter the situation, healing received is so much stronger with friend healer than without)

Yeah... but based on what I've seen, people don't really die to the "rollerblades" either.

Being locked in an animation unable to do anything while your opponent is (usually) free to deal dmg to you or shield/heal up is a pretty big downside.

But yeah, I'm happy as long as ZOS does anything to make medium atleast decent again.

Anti_Virus

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Cries wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

acw37162 wrote: »

70% damage reduction during roll dodge, Ummmm, no.

Would you prefer the "0% damage reduction, avoid nothing and drain your own stamina" that it currently is?

If not, maybe you could elaborate on your comment?


Edit: to be more clear, in the past Roll Dodge used to avoid almost all damage (100%) and didn't have a stacking cost to it - I believe 70% would be a fair compromise especially considering no one can spam it anymore.

??? Guess you haven't seen the roly polies in Cyrodil

It is mathematically impossible to Roll Dodge forever due to the stacking cost modifier, and if you "spam" it you eventually either run out of health or stamina - which btw is not the case with light armor shield spam or heavy armor's blocking/mitigation/self heals.

In any case, I'm not advocating for a 100% reduction to all damage - 70% would be just fine (on paper, ofc everything requires testing) and should make it possible to outheal DoTs atleast with Vigor, much like heavy armor outheals them (and everything else) while blocking. Of course, if you pressure someone they'll eventually run out of stamina if they have to keep roll dodging & vigoring.

I believe a lot of stamina users are being pushed to using heavy armor because medium is so weak. Nightblades are probably the only class that can get away with it because they can use shadow image + cloak to get out and live. What can a DK do? Or a stamplar?

Dodge rolling needs to be stronger, but it also needs to be purposeful. The invincibility frames are a little too long IMO. People will stop dodge rolling, but the dodging persists.

Make dodge rolling a reliable defense, but also more intentional.

Play in heavy armor like the class is designed around?
With that being said I really like passive dmg reduction but 70% is too high maybe capped at 30% the movement speed buff suggestion is also good.

That is all that medium would need to fun.

Solariken

Many times I've agonized over ways to gently buff medium armor but it seems that all the would-be great ideas fall somewhat flat because the net result would always feel like it over-buffs stamblade - these guys are the reason the rest of us medium users can't have nice things lol.

Honestly though fixing medium only requires 2 things:

1) Completely replacing Improved Sneak with a new 5-pc passive.

2) Replacing Major Evasion with something that provides more reliable mitigation but does not avoid CC/ancillary effects. I've suggested a new parry mechanic that gives a chance to reduce incoming direct damage attacks by 50%.

Trashs1

so much good ideas here, i would love to run in medium on some of my stamtoons

actually im also heavy on my stamblade...it just works better for me

Ragnaroek93

olsborg wrote: »

I second that, medium armor feels bad, as bad as Ive ever felt it, and ive been using medium armor basicly exclusively the last 2 years of pvp. Up the survivability and give it some innate penetration or something....something...

That's exactly the same how I feel, medium armor is in the weakest spot since I'm playing PvP active. I'm just using the build from @LegendaryMage at the moment (which is hands down the strongest stamblade build I've come across so far since Morrowind) and I'm on a rampage since then. I thought going heavy armor would somehow screw up the identity of the medium armor hit and run playstyle but I was wrong it seems. It feels exactly the same gameplay wise, the only noticable difference is that I'm twice as tanky now for whatever reason.

Not sure about the Major Evasion idea tho, I would rather just see medium armor getting buffed at this point (buff stam dk, stamplar and - even it sounds ridiculous - magicka sorc too while we are at it. The class simply lacks any tools to kill tanky opponents at all, they have nothing except burst - no heal, no cost efficient skills, no dots, nothing). Maybe cloak should get tuned down a bit too if medium armor gets buffed.

I for myself found my peace with medium armor and will just continue to play in heavy armor from now on until medium armor gets some major improvements.

IAVITNI

We could consider giving medium armor natural impen or impen bonus per pc of medium. It makes sense thematically since a crit is theoretically hiting a vital point which is harder on more nimble opponents.

I was also theorizing a stamina return on dodge roll mechanic. Essentially dodge rolling would grant a non refreshable buff that returns the base cost less 12.5% (due to CP) of the dodge roll over +6 seconds. For medium users and those with significant well-fitted rolls, this would turn dodge roll into a source of sustain but ONLY if they limit the amount of times they dodge roll. Now I know this doesn't really address the problems of medium armor (it was more of an interesting concept) but something similar could be done for sprint, such as "after sprinting for 5 or more seconds you gain 200 stamina recovery over the next 5 seconds".

As far as damage mitigation while dodge rolling, I don't see the issue of at least a 50% reduction. 70% does seem high on paper but you have to consider the fact that dodge roll is supposed to prevent you from getting damaged at all barring AoE/DoTs.

For those who don't think medium is underpowered, go play a medium build in open world. You either get melted or don't deal damage if you spec into some defence.

At the very least, medium armor should have innate crit resistance.

simeion

Medium armor does need a buff in PvP, but how do you do it without breaking PvE. There are some good suggestions in here but we need to fix a few things before we go looking into medium armor.

1. Heavy armor wrath passive needs to be removed or changed. I would prefer resistance build over time. Another option is give straight 50% mitigation if receiving damage from 3 or more sources for 5 seconds. (After all heavy is supposed to be about taking damage. I would consider ulti gen, but with how broken vamp drain, tava's, heroic slash and blood spawn would be with it i opted out.
2. Fix heavy armor damage sets. Ravager needs to become medium armor. Fury needs time doubled to full advantage and total weapons damage reduced.
3. Fix dodge roll, while I agree dodge roll can be strong it does not work right all the time.
4. Medium and Light armor needs sustain buff, this is to entice players to use theses sets.
5. Standardize resistance in all armor types:
heavy armor full reinforced should be at cap with major ward and resolve up.
medium armor should be close to 2/3 of max resistance with same buffs up
light armor should be between 1/3-1/2 of heavy with same buffs.
6. Add critical damage bonus to passive skill line for having 5+ medium armor.
7. Remove all forms of rng dodge chance (evasion), nothing is worse than missing because of no skill involved. I would move vigor to medium armor skill line to replace evasion.
8. Under the dodge roll passive remove the cost reduction(obtain from c/p and armor) and add snare removal and immunity for 3-5 seconds on dodge roll, with a 10 second cooldown.

This is how i would fix medium, but in order to do that heavy has to be adjusted first.

Chilly-McFreeze

You guys do know that the pure resistance difference between 5m/1/1 and 5h/1/1 is not that big? 3.856 physical and spell resistance?

And you realize that Agility breaks even with Wrath at merely 1663 weapon damage and outperforms it after that plus it's constantly up?

I think heavy and especially light (with current shield mechanics) are fine.

What is not fine is that some heavy armor sets grant far more weapon damage than medium can achieve. Also the base stamina regen for Wind Walker to outperform Constitution is too high, altough it gives quite a bit cost reduction which HA has none of. Last but not least there are too many hard counters to dodge rolling.

What I would do I mentioned a few comments above. Some "minor" dmg reduction for AoEs while performing the dodge roll and a short window of bonus to healing recieved afterwards.

simeion wrote: »

Medium armor does need a buff in PvP, but how do you do it without breaking PvE. There are some good suggestions in here but we need to fix a few things before we go looking into medium armor.

1. Heavy armor wrath passive needs to be removed or changed. I would prefer resistance build over time. Another option is give straight 50% mitigation if receiving damage from 3 or more sources for 5 seconds. (After all heavy is supposed to be about taking damage. I would consider ulti gen, but with how broken vamp drain, tava's, heroic slash and blood spawn would be with it i opted out.
2. Fix heavy armor damage sets. Ravager needs to become medium armor. Fury needs time doubled to full advantage and total weapons damage reduced.
3. Fix dodge roll, while I agree dodge roll can be strong it does not work right all the time.
4. Medium and Light armor needs sustain buff, this is to entice players to use theses sets.
5. Standardize resistance in all armor types:
heavy armor full reinforced should be at cap with major ward and resolve up.
medium armor should be close to 2/3 of max resistance with same buffs up
light armor should be between 1/3-1/2 of heavy with same buffs.
6. Add critical damage bonus to passive skill line for having 5+ medium armor.
7. Remove all forms of rng dodge chance (evasion), nothing is worse than missing because of no skill involved. I would move vigor to medium armor skill line to replace evasion.
8. Under the dodge roll passive remove the cost reduction(obtain from c/p and armor) and add snare removal and immunity for 3-5 seconds on dodge roll, with a 10 second cooldown.

This is how i would fix medium, but in order to do that heavy has to be adjusted first.

1. Wrath is completely fine. Merely 200 weapon dmg, don't confuse this with the boni from Ravager etc. Also 50% dmg reduction would be hell for everyone trying to take down a tank in PvP.

2. Agree to a degree. Ravager, Fury and alike should get a slight nerf to weapon dmg boni but stay heavy and don't become useless. Rather introduce new medium armor sets.

3. When does dodge bug out without being in a omnipotent lag? Or do you mean that there are too much hardcounters? If the latter, I'm with you.

4. They already have boni to regen and cost reduction (Recovery, Evocation and Wind Walker). Also they have strong regen/ cost reduction sets in Lich, Alteration Mastery, Bone Pirate's etc. But I wouldn't say no to a slight recovery bonus. However, that won't happen since these got nerfed with the MW update. Before you say "but heavy...", Constituion also got nerfed by 42% and they nerfed Black Rose too.

5. Just some numbers on mitigation, legendary level. Only the armor passives activated, no additional set boni or whatsoever. Numbers taken from UESP build editor.

7 Light: 10.042 spell (15%) 7.501 phys (11%)
5 L/ 1M/ 1H: 11.656 spell (18%) 9.841 phys (15%) (chest heavy, legs medium)

7 Medium: 11.199 in both (17%)
5/1/1: 12.354 spell (19%), 11.991 phys (18%) (chest heavy, waist light)

7 Heavy: 17.431 in both (26%)
5/1/1: 16.210 spell (24%), 15.847 phys (24%) (hand medium, waist light)

Seems rather balanced I guess. To further Increase them all wouldn't change much. If everyone get's stronger by the same amount, nothing is gained.

6. Dexterity? As a 5/6p it comes short to Prodigy and only is slightly stronger with 7 medium. So yeah, a slight increase would be nice.

7. Get rid of rng dodge? Yes, please! Make Vigor a 5p MA skill? Suck it. No, thanks. Is this still about buffing medium or about killing heavy?

8. Huh? So get rid of Shuffle which is a nice defense for every armor type (even medium, yes) and replace it's secondary effect ("While wearing Medium Armor, removes and grants immunity to snaring effects. Increases snare immunity duration by .5 seconds for each piece of Medium Armor equipped, up to 3.5 seconds") with a armor passive BUT remove dodge cost reduction so you can effectively dodge less often than before?
So less dodges rolls, no passive dodge chance but same buff effect as you already had but with a cooldown? Nothing to gain here.

Edit: More and more it feels like people want to rather kill heavy armor than just buffing medium. Getting rid of Wrath + sets + making Vigor MA only skill. Sure thing. *rolleyes* Heavy Armor passives are completely fine! Making HA useless would only force people into medium, which is again being forced into one armor type only. I though this is about making two armor types viable for each resource type. But I guess when everyone NEEDS to run medium this would be far better than when everyone "NEEDS" to run heavy. And then the crying about "damage is out of control" starts again. Last thing MA and LA need are further strong buffs to damage. Remember when the advice to not getting ganked was "wear heavy"? I remember. That is what you get from giant ass dmg potential. It's no fun to not being able to kill but it's sure less fun to being killed in the blink of an eye and watch your horse's ears for the next minutes again!