It's Time to Make Bone Shield Stam Scaled

mr_wazzabi

Before all the magicka players qq about stam being op in pvp, I have a solution.

To keep players from being unkillable with bone shield + shuffle, just make bone shield block major evasion for the entire duration of its cast. This will force players to use either bone shield OR shuffle, not both. OR, make the stam bone shield DEACTIVATE in pvp zones. PROBLEM SOLVED.

For the tanks that use bone shield, make one morph stamina, the other health. Thats will solve that problem. Also make the stam version have no synergy so you won't get unkillable bone shield synergied groups.

Here's the reason for this suggestion.

It's no secret that in the hardest content, magicka dps is preferred.

Why? 2 reasons.

1. Magicka has access to shields, making them much more survivable against undodgeable aoe attacks that happen in almost every trial. A shield is always better than vigor in pve. Why? Because if I take 10k damage from an attack and pop a shield, the shield will keep my health from going down any further while the healer's hots will heal me back to full.

Vigor on the other hand, doesn't do that. My health will continue to get hit. Vigor is a powerful dot, but it won't save my life from a 20k attack like a shield will. Vigor won't save me from stepping on poison in round 7 vma, but guess what? A shield will.

2. Stamina can only do competitive dps from melee range, meaning higher risk of stepping on boss aoe's and dps loss in fights where the boss runs all over the place.

Giving us a stamina shield will at least solve problem #1.

I remember either in Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood PTS, ZOS made Bone Shield scale off stamina, which would have killed the 0 stam wanted in trials attitude. But what happened? The magicka pvp players qq'd to complete Oblivion, so much that ZOS was forced to revert the proposed change.

Before anyone says that a dizzying swing spamming, dodge rolling shielded stam player would be completely OP, just remember that all our abilities use stam, so using the shield, then dodge rolling, then attacking is extremely costly.

What say you @ZOS_GinaBruno, @zos_wrobel ?

OGLezard

I am 100% for this if they make a shieldbreaker set that benefits magicka users. Kind of like how stam players have the original version of shieldbreaker, just give magicka users a version of it as well

IcyDeadPeople

Agree definitely would be interesting to see all the shields in this game scaling in a similar way, rather than some on the offensive stat and some based on health.

Either scale all these shields based on max magicka (hardened ward, igneous shield, dampen magic, healing ward etc) & max stam for bone shield. Or scale all shields based on max health, so you are making a more difficult choice whether to spec into being tanky or very high damage with less survivability.

ezio45

stam + shields would be to much, not because of evasion but because of medium/ heavy resistance

stam does need better defense with medium armor tho, i would be in favor of increasing medium armor resistances and they should increase blade cloak a bit

Darkfire_Priest

Zos design team attempted this back in an earlier pts of a patch. It was implemented first week and removed the second week of said pts. Probably overperforming then intended making gameplay unbalanced.

templesus

I main stamina, and as much as I'd like this, it'd break PvP balance in this game.

You think major evasion is op? It's sub par at best. The OP of this will come from stamina builds dodge roll spamming, shielding up, popping vigor, and virtually being unkillable.

Aliyavana

make it unusable in pvp so that we can actually use it without it being qqd for nerfing

Erraln

No, dude. Dude, no. Darkfire's on the money, it was tried on PTS once. Stam became gods. You don't give high speed, dodge capability, refreshable HP wards for what your dodge didn't juke, and healing for what your wards didn't diffuse on the same resource in a game where people are supposed to die when they fight poorly. It's too much leeway.

Maura_Neysa

A tanking skill scaling off Stam not Health, pure genius......

Strider__Roshin

Lol I love how magicka users say damage shields are a weak form of defense until you make the suggestion of a stamina version. All of a sudden that weak defense mechanism doesn't seem so weak eh?

MattT1988

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

A tanking skill scaling off Stam not Health, pure genius......

I don’t know any tanks that actually use this skill. It’s pretty subpar compared to what else is available.

Leandor

Shuffle & Shield never was the problem. Roll dodge & shield is. Inhibit roll dodge while the stamina shield is active and you have a basis for discussion.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

Agree definitely would be interesting to see all the shields in this game scaling in a similar way, rather than some on the offensive stat and some based on health.

Either scale all these shields based on max magicka (hardened ward, igneous shield, dampen magic, healing ward etc) & max stam for bone shield. Or scale all shields based on max health, so you are making a more difficult choice whether to spec into being tanky or very high damage with less survivability.

The vast majority of shields in this game do scale on health, talking 90%+ of them. The only 3 that don't are conjured Ward and morphs, annulment and morphs and steadfast Ward and morphs. The only Stam scaling shield is brawler.

Vaoh

Daus wrote: »

Lol I love how magicka users say damage shields are a weak form of defense until you make the suggestion of a stamina version. All of a sudden that weak defense mechanism doesn't seem so weak eh?

On my Magicka builds I rely on Damage Shields and smaller amounts of healing with a powerful burst heal Ult, alongside the occasional dodge roll and ofc LoS.

On my Stamina builds I rely on lots of dodge rolling, powerful snareless mobility that also lends itself to increased LoS, Major Evasion, higher resistances, and a lot of healing plus burst damage that is easier to setup meaning more time to play defensive.

Both Magicka and Stamina play very differently. The worst thing that happened to this game overtime and especially since Morrowind was the homogenization of classes and playstyles. If not just for the sake of balance, I don’t want Stamina builds to have Damage Shields to avoid further homogenization of playstyles.

And if Stamina did get this it would mean Magicka would need a massive buff to survivability in their own way. Total mess of a situation.

Idk if you were there for it, but ZOS implemented Bone Shield as a Stamina damage shield for one week on PTS. It was clear within a day how broken it could be lol. The change was promptly reverted in the next week of PTS.

dodgehopper_ESO

I disagree. Magic-scaling shields are wrong as well. Shields should cost magic or stamina to fire off, but they should scale off of health, that way the true tanks can shine while the damage dealers pay the price for not being tanks. In the end the non-tanks still would have more pool and can fire off their shields more often. I have never liked shielding scaled off of magic or stamina. Damage dealers get all of their bonuses in one attribute (so do healers). Tanks on the other hand use everything. Honestly it is BS and should be changed.

Strider__Roshin

Vaoh wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

Lol I love how magicka users say damage shields are a weak form of defense until you make the suggestion of a stamina version. All of a sudden that weak defense mechanism doesn't seem so weak eh?

On my Magicka builds I rely on Damage Shields and smaller amounts of healing with a powerful burst heal Ult, alongside the occasional dodge roll and ofc LoS.

On my Stamina builds I rely on lots of dodge rolling, powerful snareless mobility that also lends itself to increased LoS, Major Evasion, higher resistances, and a lot of healing plus burst damage that is easier to setup meaning more time to play defensive.

Both Magicka and Stamina play very differently. The worst thing that happened to this game overtime and especially since Morrowind was the homogenization of classes and playstyles. If not just for the sake of balance, I don’t want Stamina builds to have Damage Shields to avoid further homogenization of playstyles.

And if Stamina did get this it would mean Magicka would need a massive buff to survivability in their own way. Total mess of a situation.

Idk if you were there for it, but ZOS implemented Bone Shield as a Stamina damage shield for one week on PTS. It was clear within a day how broken it could be lol. The change was promptly reverted in the next week of PTS.

Yup I was there for it, and boy was the qq strong from the magicka community. Just goes to show you how broken damage shields are. I wouldn't mind the two different play styles if Zenimax didn't continuously bring in more and more stuff that ignore dodge rolling. Heck they just brought in Sloads and you see all the tears. Now imagine if everything that was undodgeable also went through shields. Magicka would actually have to get some legitimate heals on their bar.

starkerealm

Leandor wrote: »

Shuffle & Shield never was the problem. Roll dodge & shield is. Inhibit roll dodge while the stamina shield is active and you have a basis for discussion.

Doesn't help. If you play stamina, you learn to buff out of a roll. If dodge rolling broke it, I'd just dodge roll, then shield. You could make shields affected by fatigue, but... no, it'd still be a mess.

Maura_Neysa

MattT1988 wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

A tanking skill scaling off Stam not Health, pure genius......

I don’t know any tanks that actually use this skill. It’s pretty subpar compared to what else is available.

I know more tanks that run it than DPS. Its no less sub par than Blazing Shield and I see that in score runs.

Peekachu99

They did this on PTS for ONE cycle and it broke the game. So no.

I think an additional and better health scaling shield for tanks that uses magika would be okay though. Bone Shield in general is a weird skill that no one but 70K HP niche builds slots.

Vaoh

Daus wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

Lol I love how magicka users say damage shields are a weak form of defense until you make the suggestion of a stamina version. All of a sudden that weak defense mechanism doesn't seem so weak eh?

On my Magicka builds I rely on Damage Shields and smaller amounts of healing with a powerful burst heal Ult, alongside the occasional dodge roll and ofc LoS.

On my Stamina builds I rely on lots of dodge rolling, powerful snareless mobility that also lends itself to increased LoS, Major Evasion, higher resistances, and a lot of healing plus burst damage that is easier to setup meaning more time to play defensive.

Both Magicka and Stamina play very differently. The worst thing that happened to this game overtime and especially since Morrowind was the homogenization of classes and playstyles. If not just for the sake of balance, I don’t want Stamina builds to have Damage Shields to avoid further homogenization of playstyles.

And if Stamina did get this it would mean Magicka would need a massive buff to survivability in their own way. Total mess of a situation.

Idk if you were there for it, but ZOS implemented Bone Shield as a Stamina damage shield for one week on PTS. It was clear within a day how broken it could be lol. The change was promptly reverted in the next week of PTS.

Yup I was there for it, and boy was the qq strong from the magicka community. Just goes to show you how broken damage shields are. I wouldn't mind the two different play styles if Zenimax didn't continuously bring in more and more stuff that ignore dodge rolling. Heck they just brought in Sloads and you see all the tears. Now imagine if everything that was undodgeable also went through shields. Magicka would actually have to get some legitimate heals on their bar.

You seem to have this weird Magicka-build hating obsession going on lol. It almost feels pointless to talk to you about balance if you’re going to let that bias affect your stance on the topic.

I play both Mag, Stam, Health.... everything. I’ve tried pretty much every build you can think of. Stamina-scaling Damage shields should not be a thing.

Sloads going through shields causes complaints for good reason. It’s a mechanic that shouldn’t exist in PvP because it undermines a Magicka build’s core defense (mainly Mag Sorcs get screwed from this) and actually still screws over everyone but tanks/healbots. There’s just no comparison to made this way that makes any sense. Mag/Stam play differently and should stay that way.

I do think that Medium Armor should get a buff though that helps with their healing. Maybe some free Health Recovery or something.

Also if everything that was undodgeable went through shields it’d entirely kill off Magicka builds.
Shields do not scale vs the amount of opponents they face.

As an example, a Merciless Resolve+Incap will cut down a Mag Sorcs stacked shields, and the guaranteed Surprise Attack afterward will finish will hit their health. Any attacks by other players during this process will easily finish off the Magicka Sorc. If you were a Stam build, a single dodge roll would mitigate *all* of that damage and their added debuffs, snares, procs, etc. That’s the balance and why some undodgeable attacks exist. If they didn’t, dodgeroll spam would make Stamina builds immortal lol. These undodgeable attacks make it so you have to play smart and LoS.

If you stop looking at it as “Stam is super disadvantaged but I play it” and “Mag is super OP asf and I still beat all those crybaby qq noobs” then you’d have a much easier time here understanding why Stamina doesn’t need a Damage Shield.

Biro123

You know what the single, strongest defensive mechanism is that makes shields last much, much longer and seem much, much stronger than they are (because it isn't just shields)?

It's dodge.

If you can dodge a lot, making a decent % of abilities miss you, your shields take no damage and so only have to cater for what did catch you - which is often weak aoe's and the odd unlucky hit.

So yeah, make bone-shield scale from stam - but also make dodging cost whatever your max stat is (oh and add a light armour cost-reduction to it, too)... THEN they will be even. Of course, nobody would die, but hey, that's Zos's problem..

Vaoh

Biro123 wrote: »

You know what the single, strongest defensive mechanism is that makes shields last much, much longer and seem much, much stronger than they are (because it isn't just shields)?

It's dodge.

If you can dodge a lot, making a decent % of abilities miss you, your shields take no damage and so only have to cater for what did catch you - which is often weak aoe's and the odd unlucky hit.

So yeah, make bone-shield scale from stam - but also make dodging cost whatever your max stat is (oh and add a light armour cost-reduction to it, too)... THEN they will be even. Of course, nobody would die, but hey, that's Zos's problem..

^^^^ yup
Would absolutely ruin the game but this would be necessary to balance out a Stam-based Damage Shield. Please read that @Daus

xeNNNNN

MattT1988 wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

A tanking skill scaling off Stam not Health, pure genius......

I don’t know any tanks that actually use this skill. It’s pretty subpar compared to what else is available.

Its still an option for tanks that would be taken away tbh. Which would suck. Tanks barely get any love in this game beyond being buff *** for every other player in the group. Which really does suck.

Leandor

starkerealm wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

Shuffle & Shield never was the problem. Roll dodge & shield is. Inhibit roll dodge while the stamina shield is active and you have a basis for discussion.

Doesn't help. If you play stamina, you learn to buff out of a roll. If dodge rolling broke it, I'd just dodge roll, then shield. You could make shields affected by fatigue, but... no, it'd still be a mess.

Yes, I agree completely. That's why I said "basis for discussion", as the scenario you described would have to be resolved as well, amongst others.

Czekoludek

And what if active bone Shield will increase cost of roll dodge? If it increases it a lot, then stamina could have really intresting choice to make - use shields or roll dodge. You can't use two of them at once cuz you will run dry

mr_wazzabi

I suggested this before in my op.

Disable the stam bone shield in pvp zones.

There you go.

Nothing changes in pvp, but suddenly, stam dps is just as viable as magicka in raids.

Vaoh

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

I suggested this before in my op.

Disable the stam bone shield in pvp zones.

There you go.

Nothing changes in pvp, but suddenly, stam dps is just as viable as magicka in raids.

ZOS doesn’t separate PvP and PvE like that so it could never happen .

mr_wazzabi

Vaoh wrote: »

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

I suggested this before in my op.

Disable the stam bone shield in pvp zones.

There you go.

Nothing changes in pvp, but suddenly, stam dps is just as viable as magicka in raids.

ZOS doesn’t separate PvP and PvE like that so it could never happen .

They do change some effects though.

Ambush stuns ads in pve, but only snares in pvp.

We have battle spirit.

We have set buffs that only take effect vs pve enemies like Minor Slayer from trial sets.

We have sets that only have true benefit in pvp like Marksman and Cyrodiil's crest.

So having an Undaunted skill, which is a skill line made for pve content, only work in pve environments is not out of their realm.

Vaoh

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

I suggested this before in my op.

Disable the stam bone shield in pvp zones.

There you go.

Nothing changes in pvp, but suddenly, stam dps is just as viable as magicka in raids.

ZOS doesn’t separate PvP and PvE like that so it could never happen .

They do change some effects though.

Ambush stuns ads in pve, but only snares in pvp.

We have battle spirit.

We have set buffs that only take effect vs pve enemies like Minor Slayer from trial sets.

We have sets that only have true benefit in pvp like Marksman and Cyrodiil's crest.

So having an Undaunted skill, which is a skill line made for pve content, only work in pve environments is not out of their realm.

Sets are different.

Ambush is the only skill in the game like that. I’ve said soooooooooo many times for that to be an example of how most or all skills should work, but ZOS has never given any other skill dual PvE/PvP functionalities

So again, it’ll never happen. I totally agree with you that the should happen though. Just being realistic given ZOS’s 4-year track record.

Strider__Roshin

Vaoh wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

You know what the single, strongest defensive mechanism is that makes shields last much, much longer and seem much, much stronger than they are (because it isn't just shields)?

It's dodge.

If you can dodge a lot, making a decent % of abilities miss you, your shields take no damage and so only have to cater for what did catch you - which is often weak aoe's and the odd unlucky hit.

So yeah, make bone-shield scale from stam - but also make dodging cost whatever your max stat is (oh and add a light armour cost-reduction to it, too)... THEN they will be even. Of course, nobody would die, but hey, that's Zos's problem..

^^^^ yup
Would absolutely ruin the game but this would be necessary to balance out a Stam-based Damage Shield. Please read that @Daus

Listen, I'm not sincerely suggesting a stam shield. I know we'll never get one again. I'm mainly just irritated about everyone finds it perfectly acceptable that the most powerful proc sets (Zaan, and Skoria) already ignore dodge rolling, and you have an insane amount of abilities that ignore dodge (Curse, PotL, Soul Assault, DBoS, all DoTs, etc), and the magicka community gets whiney because now there's a new set that ignores their defense mechanic. If dodge rolling were as strong as Biro is suggesting then I wouldn't need to walk around with 24k spell and physical resistances.

Unlike shields and heals I don't dodge roll throughout combat. I honestly used to when this game first game out because there was an actual point to. ZOS changed the way I like to play because they made my defense mechanic useless the majority of the time. You know when I dodge roll? When I'm about to die. It's used as a last resort rather than something I actively do throughout combat. And the lack of abilities that go through damage shields is a pretty gross imbalance considering how many abilities go through dodge and block.