Lets talk mitigation

Dreth

This weekend me and probably 10 other people were fighting a group of three at a resource, and these guys just ate damage like it was nothing. And I'm not talking block tank, I'm talking full combat. Now, I do some pretty good damage on my stamblade, 4k wpn damage....my surprise attack/incap/execute takes out a lot of people and I didnt have a chance. At 25k HP, how is this possible? Makes me think for open world the real players are running full defense sets like brass/impreg or something.

I am very curious bc it seems like the strongest 1vX'ers I fight all have this trend. Tanky and fast. I consider myself pretty decent. I roll potatoes on a regular basis and always come out with a positive k/d in cyro but there is something big I am missing to have 5 players beating on me and maybe getting me to half health before I burst heal my way back up. School me.

davey1107

There is something going on where this has become quite common. I’m also not sure what’s happening, so I can only hypothesize. I’m talking about players of most any class that seems like they can take hundreds of thousands in damage over 20-30 seconds and continue to swing their health from very low to full while still putting out damage.

I’m skeptical it’s specialty gear because this mitigation is quite common, and we all see what the meta builds are and those are about power, power, power.

Therefore, I’m kinda suspecting that we’ve reached a “tipping point” in the CP power creep where builds can be so strong in defense that it causes this. Like consider a generic heal. Two years ago it might have healed for 10k. Now with the CP changes and increases, and new sets, maybe that same heal does 15k-20k. It still costs the same, and players still all run w 20-25k health, so that same heal is more effective in relation to the stats, helping close health recovery gaps that would occur before that enabled kills. In other words, before a player would be at -5k health after 4seconds, -10k at 8, -15k at 12, then -20k health and in execute range at 16 seconds. Now their HOTs bridge that. When multiple defensive skills are all stacked, it’s closing most any opportunity for kills, even when that player is taking massive damage.

Then on the offense side, ZOS puts into place nerfs to prevent abilities from getting out of control. The power creep means that offense is still getting stronger and damage is going up, but it’s advancing slower than defense. They’ve maintained this control so that average players don’t get one-shotted. It’s worked, and my dps against an average player still mostly works like it did two years ago. But as a result, my power hasn’t kept up with what it needs to in order to take down well-conceived builds. It’s a two way street - I get hit with haunting curse and I laugh it off, letting it consume 10% of my health then healing it back. Curse is a core single target offense skill...it shouldn’t be less scary than a skeever.

That’s my general theory - defense has outpaced offense, making everyone a heal and shield tank. I’m not sure what the answer is. It’s made Zergs invincible, and maybe worse it’s made experienced players invincible so that we all pick on less experienced players, which can't be good for maintaining a healthy population.

But never fear! The update 17 patch notes have like 3 minor changes to combat balance. So clearly that’s going to solve everything.

Thogard

Most Stam builds these days stack weapon damage because it increases their burst as well as their healing.

casparian

Lots of incoming healing, mitigation sets, the fact that healing and damage scale off the same stats, and group synergy.

I also suspect that any one of those three people had more experience in PVP than the ten of you combined.

CatchMeTrolling

If you're built for small scale then you'll build to maximize mitigation or ways to avoid damage, warden is a good example of the combination of both. I personally call this style turtling but it's more like a snapping turtle because you still pack a punch.

I'll say it's not CP that's the cause of it entirely because you can accomplish this without being max cp, a lot of it has to do with experience and knowing what class/style you're fighting. So if I'm fighting a few people & there's a ranged class I'm going to prioritize keeping shimmering up to drop that defensive ult if I need it while losing /kiting. Although staying alive often is all you can really do because there's so much pressure on you but not enough pressure to actually kill you.

Dreth

I guess I am just pretty amazed that the gap can be so large between two players that the same combo that gets me a guaranteed kill on 90% of players takes off maybe only a quarter of some players life. I don't think there is any secret to the gear. I have talked with a lot of great pvpers and no one is running anything that outlandish. Good sets are good sets and we are all limited to the same ones. I'm sure experience plays into it. Well timed blocks etc are crucial. Resource management as well. I suppose if they was some secrets this wouldn't be the place to ask but I just figured I'd ask if others noticed the same thing.

technohic

Were they circling around inside the resource tower? That seems to be what happens when you have 10 uncoordinated players against 3 that can use LOS and coordinate their burst. The uncoordinated group spreads their damage out and you usually have a few using their CC when available rather than finding a burst window so the targets don't get hit all at once and are CC immuned when theyd be even close to dieing.

Open field, I've pretty much just have seen a couple of stam wardens capable of it.

fred4

Dreth wrote: »

At 25k HP, how is this possible? Makes me think for open world the real players are running full defense sets like brass/impreg or something.

In a word: Yes. Or at least that's one way to go. As a mag toon, wearing light armor goes a long way towards your damage and resource management. Thus on my magblade, who I feel is otherwise too squishy, I run Armor Master, Blood Spawn and a utility set (Skooma Smuggler). Instead of Armor Master any other defensive set will have similar results, to be honest, including Brass, Riposte, Transmutation and Impregnable. I find mitigation works well in no CP, whereas for CP crit resistance is somewhat more important.

I typically have barely over 20K health in PvP. When I get focused, my defenses on magblade include 2 shields (Harness + Healing Ward), Resto Ult, Forward Momentum, Cloak, and sometimes Fear, in conjunction with Immov pots. This tells you I am running a somewhat unorthodox 2H / resto build. I tried destro / resto and destro / 2H, and also Troll King. Those approaches pale in comparison to having both Forward Momentum and Healing Ward / resto ult in the builld, at least for my magblade. When a small group, quite often, can't kill me, they move to focus another target.

Some people have told me they find 20K health insufficient, and that moving into the 25K to 30K range made a big difference to them. I believe what they are primarily talking about is being ganked. I don't find that a problem, as I continually refresh my buffs. As a magblade, if I am not cloaked, I am shielded. As any other mag toon, I am always shielded. As my stam DK, I am buffed and I am either moving around a lot, or blocking, while turning a flag.

Meteors are quite funny when you are shielded, and you are using Immov pots and Forward Momentum. For the most part you keep on walking and they just wash over you.

I should say I don't play vampire. A lot of players do and benefit from the Undeath passive, as well as Mist Form.

Things feel quite a bit easier on mag warden. Basically Shacklebreaker / Necropotence will push magicka above 50K. Up to 60K with Imperial Physique. Combine this with healing from their animal skills and being healed from attacks (Living Trellis), warden feels tankier than magblade or magplar in light armor. Having Harness Magicka at 10K+ (in PvP) feels a lot better than 8K. At least this is an approach that works in CP. Harness is also a fantastic sustain skill in most fights. I run destro / resto on the warden. Healing Ward is still too good to give up.

I find it difficult to attack while defending on the magblade. My mode of operation tends to be to get back into cloak, and regroup. I find it easier on the warden to fit in a fissure in particular. This may have something to do with the fact that you target the fissure only 3 seconds later, so it's kind of just like another buff.

I haven't personally found a good approach for magplar yet, as I've played it the least. They don't get the 8% magicka bonus that both warden and NB have access to, and a mitigation set, like Armor Master, did not feel good to me either. Perhaps something overlooked is the effectiveness of healing over time and/or while attacking, something that magplar is not good at, outside of Sweeps. Magblade has a lot of options, such as Funnel, Siphoning Attacks, Refreshing Path, and so on. Part of the tankiness of warden comes from them offsetting incoming damage with Living Trellis. Sorcs rely on Surge. Templars may use Eclipse, which I haven't tried yet. Basically you have to look at all your skills and figure out where the healing is coming from. The more the better. Blood Thirst, Blood Craze, Rend, Draining Shot, and so on. Are you an Orc or Nord? Then Troll King is a good option. In fact, (Orc) stamsorcs are known to supplement insufficient healing with that.

My friend is a CP300 stamblade, who is getting really good. He made a similar comment as the OP about my stam DK. He kills plenty of players, but (at CP300 at least) he cannot even make headway against my DK, who is in medium armor, and will kill him. In that case her defenses / healing include being a Nord (6% damage reduction), Troll King, Fortified Brass, Bloodthirst, Vigor, Forward Momentum, Blade Cloak, Wings, Shuffle, Hardened Armor, Corrosive Armor, and DK ultimate use in general. It all stacks, and once a char stacks a lot of healing, it often looks like they are tanky when that's not exactly what they're doing.

Having said all that, I still consider myself a mediocre player. I basically watch my health bar (more than the opponents), and make sure my shield(s) are up on a mag toon. For the stam DK, I use the BuffTimers addon and make sure to keep up Shuffle, Momentum (heal), Hardened Armor and so on. I use Vigor as soon as my health dips. I should also mention that Fossilize and Fear are two particularly good CCs that take the pressure off, and I find Immov pots mandatory.

For a mag toon, make sure you have enough stamina sustain. You can partially offset this requirement with the Immov pots, but I prefer getting stam regen to at least 800, even with those pots, and even if it means a stam regen jewelry enchant (e.g. not wearing Shacklbreaker / Amber Plasm). For the warden I recommend the Bull Netch for PvP as it will still give you stamina while blocking or sprinting. Forget about the 1-effect purge. It will never purge the root, snare, Curse or Power of the Light that you want it to purge anyway.

I have a friend who is better than me and will beat me in duels. Some of the things I believe he does better is light attacking between every skill, and selective blocking / dodge rolling, based on what I do. As others have said, staying close to obstacles and using LoS is also a big part of open world PvP.

SirCritical

#nerfblock

Solid point, mate, hopefully ZOS will re-think their nerf on blocking.

paulsimonps

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/279426/damage-mitigation-explanation-and-list-of-options/p1

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/383840/math-pvp-defensive-set-comparison-impreg-brass-pariah-riposte-more/p1

Extremely valuable threads regarding this topic. And yes, many people chose to play with 1 big defensive set.

Ragnarock41

stacking lots of healing is a lot more effective than just stacking resistances on a stamina dps toon.

rally, lingering hp pots,troll king, vigor, all add up very nicely.

Ffastyl

Healing over time has no distinct differentiation from high mitigation. If you're not looking at your damage numbers, there's no indication you did any real damage at all.

I've noticed these builds purely in CP PvP, where the it is possible to increase healing done, healing received, and reduce damage taken. A Breath of Life can heal from 6% to 94% with CP (likely a crit, which is also boosted by CP), but that same skill has not healed to more than 40% without CP.

fred4

I can confirm that I play mostly in CP, so a lot of what I say is more relevant to that environmemt. Looking at a siege, or any fight, in no CP, I see a lot of people running around with half health for what seems a disproportionate amount of time to me. You don't heal as easily in no CP. I always feel that outright mitigation sets, like Fortified Brass, are more effectie there, though.

Smithernest54

I don’t think it is a cp problem. I have been playing ESO from day one almost non-stop. I have seen metas come and go. Each time something toxic like proc sets and animation canceling was on the nerf chopping block I’ve heard all the counter arguments.

However, there is one issue that has been going on for a while now and it is block casting. In the beginning not too many people were doing it because they just didn’t know, but today the cat is out the bag.

Last night I was experimenting with block casting on my magicka dragon knight and magicka Templar and I will say no damage mitigation set was needed if you block cast. Only the unnatural death passive from the vampire skill line.

On my magDk sword and board I was able to block cast my entire rotation with the perks of massive damage reduction and CC immunity. The downside is reduction in speed, stamina regeneration pause, and that is about it. However, my magicka regeneration recharged while I was block which seemed obb to me. Stack that with the rose set that gives you roughly 2k magicka and the thorn set that gives you stamina and you’ll witness something cancerous.

On my magicka Templar i could not block cast puncturing sweeps, but if my health got to low, I would hold block and cast breath of life. When my stamina got to low to block I would go into mist for to buy some time let
Blood spawn proc come out and use spell wall. Throw out some heavy attacks and be right as rain.

I have fought against players stacking damage mitigation’s and damage shield, but they are defeatable due to the fact that their builds are more focused on defense then offensive damage.

I fought against players with freak show healing, but even then major defile and befouled counters that.

The primary problem with duels, battle grounds, and cyrodill is block casting.