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Issues with Medium Armor & How To Fix It

  • Ocelot9x
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    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.

    Most of those sounds like nerfs to me lol. Seriously,have you ever played a medium armor not-nb toon?
    And medium/light sustain is fine (with magicka being better but they need to invest also in stamina/stamina recovery,so pretty balanced).

    My idea would be a non stackable,small (3kish) shield applied while rolling and lasting for 1 second after.
  • Chilly-McFreeze
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    Oh and while we're add it, as an appendix to my last edit.

    People always *** and complain about ZOS doesn't do their balance changes incrementally but rather go full speed ahead with a mighty hammer of changes. Why not implement some of these changes like buffed dodge rolls (dmg reduction, healing , whatever) alone and see how it goes? But no, in the same sniff it goes "buff medium" it also goes "nerf heavy!" and then people wonder why it's the same old *** just upside down.
  • Fuxo
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    The only thing medium armor needs is to reduce strength of snares by 4%/7% per piece equipped.
  • DDuke
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    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?

    Well, it's 6% less damage taken. If it was the only advantage heavy armor got you might have a point, but it's not.

    On top of that 6% less damage taken, you get around 5% more healing (after deducing the medium armor increased crit chance & weapon dmg from the value provided by Rapid Mending) and you get atleast 106 more health regen (which btw is almost worth more "healing" than the Rapid Mending passive if your main heal is called Vigor).

    It's a combination of a lot of things that makes normal heavy armor users take around 15% (I did this calculation a while ago, can't remember the exact number) less damage/second through heals and mitigation than medium armor. This 15 becomes 30% when we compare to Legion+Fury heavy armor user.
    And you realize that Agility breaks even with Wrath at merely 1663 weapon damage and outperforms it after that plus it's constantly up?

    No it doesn't. Wrath passive is subject to any weapon damage modifiers you might have - it can require up to 2733 base weapon damage to break even with Wrath, but for the usual scenario where you have just Major Brutality you need 2000 base weapon damage to break even.
    Edited by DDuke on September 22, 2017 5:34PM
  • Chilly-McFreeze
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    DDuke wrote: »
    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?

    Well, it's 6% less damage taken. If it was the only advantage heavy armor got you might have a point, but it's not.

    On top of that 6% less damage taken, you get around 5% more healing (after deducing the medium armor increased crit chance & weapon dmg from the value provided by Rapid Mending) and you get atleast 106 more health regen (which btw is almost worth more "healing" than the Rapid Mending passive if your main heal is called Vigor).

    It's a combination of a lot of things that makes normal heavy armor users take around 15% (I did this calculation a while ago, can't remember the exact number) less damage/second through heals and mitigation than medium armor. This 15 becomes 30% when we compare to Legion+Fury heavy armor user.
    And you realize that Agility breaks even with Wrath at merely 1663 weapon damage and outperforms it after that plus it's constantly up?

    No it doesn't. Wrath passive is subject to any weapon damage modifiers you might have - it can require up to 2733 base weapon damage to break even with Wrath, but for the usual scenario where you have just Major Brutality you need 2000 base weapon damage to break even.

    Okay, seems like I worded it badly. Should they buff medium? Of course they should. There are a lot of ideas buzzing around here. It isn't like that on live, I know, but this thread is about what could be done and "what if". So:

    If I remember correctly, I read the idea with increased healing after a dodge role from you in another thread. With this change your numbers on healing would get diminished. At least when it requires 5 piece medium.
    Further reduced by the idea of a mitigation buff while rolling. These changes would close the gap between medium and heavy. After these changes would went live and be tested extensively, then would be the time to talk about nerfs to heavy.

    I also mentioned that sets like Ravager etc. need a slight nerf.

    On a sidenote: does that "at least 106 more health regen" includes the malus from Vamps?

    Okay, 2.7k weapon dmg is a strong number. Didn't know that. Thanks for clarifying. 2000 wpn dmg however are easily reached unbuffed. I don't know what the scenario with 2.7k includes or how rare it is but when say "but for the usual scenario" so I take that for granted.

    Point is, like I said before, I strongly agree in buffs to medium, especially defensive buffs, but to say buff medium AND nerf heavy would be too much and surely lead into another "this armor type or bust" meta.

    I hope this clarifies it a bit.
  • DDuke
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    DDuke wrote: »
    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?

    Well, it's 6% less damage taken. If it was the only advantage heavy armor got you might have a point, but it's not.

    On top of that 6% less damage taken, you get around 5% more healing (after deducing the medium armor increased crit chance & weapon dmg from the value provided by Rapid Mending) and you get atleast 106 more health regen (which btw is almost worth more "healing" than the Rapid Mending passive if your main heal is called Vigor).

    It's a combination of a lot of things that makes normal heavy armor users take around 15% (I did this calculation a while ago, can't remember the exact number) less damage/second through heals and mitigation than medium armor. This 15 becomes 30% when we compare to Legion+Fury heavy armor user.
    And you realize that Agility breaks even with Wrath at merely 1663 weapon damage and outperforms it after that plus it's constantly up?

    No it doesn't. Wrath passive is subject to any weapon damage modifiers you might have - it can require up to 2733 base weapon damage to break even with Wrath, but for the usual scenario where you have just Major Brutality you need 2000 base weapon damage to break even.

    Okay, seems like I worded it badly. Should they buff medium? Of course they should. There are a lot of ideas buzzing around here. It isn't like that on live, I know, but this thread is about what could be done and "what if". So:

    If I remember correctly, I read the idea with increased healing after a dodge role from you in another thread. With this change your numbers on healing would get diminished. At least when it requires 5 piece medium.
    Further reduced by the idea of a mitigation buff while rolling. These changes would close the gap between medium and heavy. After these changes would went live and be tested extensively, then would be the time to talk about nerfs to heavy.

    I also mentioned that sets like Ravager etc. need a slight nerf.

    Fair enough. I don't think heavy armor necessarily needs a nerf - but medium definitely can't compete with it at the moment so that must be fixed.
    On a sidenote: does that "at least 106 more health regen" includes the malus from Vamps?

    In a way. It just inversely means your health regen is reduced by 106* less.

    *value depends on your base health regen value (base value+enchants+non percentage procs+food etc). In this case, 106 is with Orzorga's gold food & no other sources of health regen.
    Okay, 2.7k weapon dmg is a strong number. Didn't know that. Thanks for clarifying. 2000 wpn dmg however are easily reached unbuffed. I don't know what the scenario with 2.7k includes or how rare it is but when say "but for the usual scenario" so I take that for granted.

    2,7k would mean 5 Fighters guild skills on bar (+15%), Templar passive +6%, Major Brutality (+20%), Flawless Dawnbreaker (+8%), Offensive Scroll buff (+5%) & Continuous Assault (+10%) for a total +64% to weapon damage.

    200+64%=328 weapon damage from Wrath in that scenario.
    Point is, like I said before, I strongly agree in buffs to medium, especially defensive buffs, but to say buff medium AND nerf heavy would be too much and surely lead into another "this armor type or bust" meta.

    I hope this clarifies it a bit.

    Crystal clear. I can definitely agree with that :P
    Edited by DDuke on September 22, 2017 6:30PM
  • zyk
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    It's not medium that's weak. Heavy armor is still OP. Before the HA upgrade, Medium was extremely popular.

    Heavy armor and block builds become more and more common each week. As more players switch to builds like this, more will feel the need to to stay competitive. Soon the PVP will be like it was in 1.5: full of permablock players who have a hard time killing each other. I know some players have fond memories of 1.5, but by the end it was full of hideous disease builds. We are approaching that point again.

    Edited by zyk on September 23, 2017 8:42AM
  • SaintSubwayy
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    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.

    @DDuke well how about dodgerolling an undogable skill returns 150% of the dodgerolls costs?
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  • Fuxo
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    The gameplay/tactics should be rewarding. Mechanics should be synergizing. In the same fashion as light armor synergizes with staves and heavy armor with 1h/s, medium armor and dual wield/bow must support each other.

    What about this change to either Dexterity or Agility skill:

    Decreases target's weapon and spell damage by 5/10 for 6 seconds when dealing critical damage. Stacking up to 20 times.

    That would be rewarding for DW/bow builds with medium armor and beneficial for groups as well.

    or

    Gain 3/6% dodge chance for 4 seconds when dealing critical damage. Stacking up to 5 times.

  • Chilly-McFreeze
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    zyk wrote: »
    It's not medium that's weak. Heavy armor is still OP. Before the HA upgrade, Medium was extremely popular.

    Heavy armor and block builds become more and more common each week. As more players switch to builds like this, more will feel the need to to stay competitive. Soon the PVP will be like it was in 1.5: full of permablock players who have a hard time killing each other. I know some players have fond memories of 1.5, but by the end it was full of hideous disease builds. We are approaching that point again.

    Why jumped people on the heavy armor meta in the first place? When I started out PvPing the forum was full of people complaining about being one shot ganked by high damage builds and proc sets. And what was the community's answer to this?

    "Stop being squishy, raise your health, invest in mitigation, wear heavy armor, if you want to be a medium armor glass cannon then don't complain"

    I think that's where it started. Top that off with stupidly strong set combinations like ravager + fury or 7th legion and it becomes clear what exactly is over the top. Damage. Nerf these HA damage goon sets and heavy armor is completely fine, just like light armor is. And even light armor has it's own inherent issues (shieldstacking).

    Heavy and light per se aren't overperforming. Mechanics and sets are. Passives are fine.
    Problem is medium's defense is largely negated by an increasing amount of undodgeable abilites. Also the seemingly forgotten feeling of being constantly one shotted adds up to this. Medium is squishy with no reliably defense.
    Block is better on heavy, healing too, dodging get's hardcountered, HA sets outstrip MA damage wise.

    Buff dodging, nerf ravager & co, implement some equal medium armor dmg sets.


    And permablocking is an issue of it's own. Heavy armor grant's you no block cost reduction. Sturdy, CP, jewelery glyphs and passives do. Problem at hand is a screwed way of calculating block costs. Morrowind doubled the block costs per seconds from 2 ticks to 4. This hurt normal builds far more than permablockers. You are still able to build for block costs far, far under 1000 stamina per second.

    Right now they reduce base block costs by percentages from sturdy and CP first and afterwards take flat block cost reduction (glyphs) and reduction from abilites into account.
    If they turn it around to substract flat reduction via glyphs first and then percentage values afterward permablocking would become less of an problem.


    For math on block cost look here:

    https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/355523/permablocking-and-block-cost-calculations-analysis/p1
  • DeHei
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    In total, i think medium armor need really a buff for damage mitigation is some way.

    I would be happy to see something like this:
    - Give medium armor the 15% dodge as passive
    - Change the medium armor skill to a stamina based damage mitigation shield!

    This would decrease heavy armor stamina builds in PvP and increase medium armor a lot!
    In PvE this would not chance anything from damage, but the survivalbility!
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  • olsborg
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    DeHei wrote: »
    In total, i think medium armor need really a buff for damage mitigation is some way.

    I would be happy to see something like this:
    - Give medium armor the 15% dodge as passive
    - Change the medium armor skill to a stamina based damage mitigation shield!

    This would decrease heavy armor stamina builds in PvP and increase medium armor a lot!
    In PvE this would not chance anything from damage, but the survivalbility!

    While I do like the suggestion that I bolded, I do not like or support the addition of anymore damage shields into the game, they are an asinine and boring addition to gameplay imo and its bad enough with the shields we already have in the game. Id rather see some kinda minor protection and mending for 2s when initiating dodgeroll and making the medium armor activated skill into a snare removal/immunity for the duration. Medium armor could also do with a innate crit resist or some armor penetration.

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  • olsborg
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    I would like to add, one of the reasons medium armor feels extra bad during prime time, is because you have a 0.5 - 2s delay because of ping in cyrodiil. This has nothing to do with the armor(playstyle) itself, but playing a medium armor build requires much more of your reaction speed and on-the-go decisionmaking. Heavy and light(shieldstack) gameplay is far more forgiving because of instant burst heals/shields and blocking then medium armor(playstyle) that needs to stay 1s ahead of anything bad coming their way due to how HoTs and dodgeroll works as a defence.

    PC EU
    PvP only
  • kendellking_chaosb14_ESO
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    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.

    With the 33% increase per roll what you said is so dumb I loss IQ points. If you can't kill a roller you are playing one from four good PvP good that don't have undodgeable powers. For everyone one else a rolling target means nothing. My Templar and Warden don't care if you roll you die all the same.
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  • Toc de Malsvi
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    I play PVP in Medium only, I feel the burn each time.

    That said the only things that I would support of those suggested are:
    Medium armor gaining impen passive support.
    Dodge roll gaining mitigation during roll.


    Additional passive dodge chance doesn't really help as there are far to many things that can be dodged. Further it will hurt in the long run as passive dodge proc's will only encourage complaints against medium armor.

    Damage itself isn't quite the issue. Increasing damage through medium would result in a necessary nerf across the board to stamina based damage attacks due to scaling for PVE content.

    Roll dodge is mediums defense, ZOS went overboard with counters to Roll dodge. Roll dodge scaling against multiple attacks that can be dodged is immense, so counters should stay. However some damage reduction during roll dodge such that it is not a complete waste of resources, much less an invitation for kills, is very much needed.


    Edited by Toc de Malsvi on September 24, 2017 5:08AM
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  • Maryal
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    While I would love to see medium armor get buffed, I don't think the solution is to give more health, magica or stamina. I don't think the solution is to give more evasion. The reason I say this is, IMO, we (more aptly, ZOS) needs to stop increasing defense across the board. It has become a horribly escalating, never-ending cycle.

    I would like to see some sort of parry or reflect ability in addition to what medium armor currently has ... AND ... please don't nerf medium armor in the process of adjusting it!

    IMO, adding a passive ability like parry or reflect would give someone spamming (whatever) at the medium armor toon a reason to think twice about "spamming" (i.e., give the spammer the ability to kill themselves).
    Edited by Maryal on September 24, 2017 8:48AM
  • Vizier
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    Removing crit on shields with nerfs damage in general and bow damage in particular make medium a very lackluster choice at best.
  • Anti_Virus
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    olsborg 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.

    Agreed, Heavy Armor skill was nerfed into the ground because of LA users hitting armor cap and getting full CC immunity back when soft caps were in the game.

    Wouldn't want medium armor skill being butchered because of a small issue that can be fixed.
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  • Mystrius_Archaion
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    The main problem is that you have skills that use either magicka or stamina, not both, and they don't do the same things with each resource.

    Take Puncturing Sweep vs Biting Jabs for templars, both morphs of the same skill. One provides self-healing based on the damage and is really good at it while the other lets you use stamina to cast the base skill.
    So we have to use a skill point to use another resource while magicka gets a benefit on top of not having to waste a skill point just to be efficient.

    That's the problem with this whole game. Items are locked to certain resource types and so are skills. Most of the best and most varied mechanics are locked to magicka only while stamina is a high opportunity cost.
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