[Class Reps] Meeting Notes - September 25

Emma_Overload

Please DO NOT revert the changes to Overload!

All these guys moaning about the lost 3rd bar do not even use Overload as an attack. They would rather keep an entire ultimate useless just so they can have some extra space for some utility spells. No thanks.

I've tried the new Overload on the PTS, and I like it. It's actually useful for increasing pressure again PvP opponents, and it can help you burn down a district boss faster, too. On the Live server, Overload means giving up an offensive ultimate like Meteor on your front bar or giving up the Resto ultimate. The 3rd bar isn't worth the sacrifice, in my opinion.

Diora

Question about the 40% max. would stacking tons of points into the Bastion CP perk increase this? how will that work now? Do they even know?

Beardimus

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

wanna thank the reps, you guys did something most didnt think you could

Yeah agreed, i know alot of you guys have put huge effort into this programme, on here and discord, personal messages etc. I want to thank you.

Also to the ZOS devs too its clearly been a heated debate and alot of mid was getting sling your way and i think focusing time on what you are trying to achieve - to allow the reps to help - is a good path for the future. Talking requirement rather than diving straight into Solutions

coplannb16_ESO

Hm, I dont know if the 40% health cap is a good idea. In my book it would be sufficient if shields would not stack (the highest overwrites the weaker one).

A DD usually has 16-18 K health (depending on buff-food and ebon armor), so lets say 17K that means 6800 points of shield which is little more than one third of the current harness magicka with CP points in bastion. Basically its the base value of the shield so we can remove all points from bastion unless we are tanks.

in pvp I play no CP and I never used shields there anyway cause they didnt help (no bastion, halfed strength, harder to sustain...). As I see it it wont affect no CP, but will make shield equally useless in CP-campaigns except maybe sorcs stacking 2 or 3 of them assuming the 40% cap is per shield and not in total.

Harness spam is the only thing that keeps me alive in vMA to kill the CGs in round 9. I dont think I can live thru a flamebreath now in light armor without block now.

Also did anyone think about 25% more incoming flame damage as a vampire. As shields now factor in resistances/armor they will now also drop faster on vamps versus fire damage (which btw is the primary elemental damage in pvp too and many players beeing vamp there). So as I see it the critability and resistance -stuff causes a net-loss of efficiency EXCEPT for tanks who never needed shields in the first place.

really not well thought out changes still...

edit:
by the way oblivion damage (especially the weapon enchantment) will be really bad after this patch cause their primary function was to bypass shields and put pressure on shield stackers...

ccmedaddy

coplannb16_ESO wrote: »

Harness spam is the only thing that keeps me alive in vMA to kill the CGs in round 9. I dont think I can live thru a flamebreath now in light armor without block now.

You can simply walk around it and avoid the flame damage FYI. That's how I survive it on stam.

Witar

If those 40% stays 40% in cyro (not affected by battle spirit) i will be ok with that. 40% from average 25k hp is 10k, pretty much same as in live now. As long as they don't touch shieldstacking. Pve wise still pretty much screwed.

swirve

The class rep system is broken.

Please involve PvE mindful players and stop automatically catering to PvP.

Dagoth_Rac

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

ezio45 wrote: »

HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO PLAY MAG WITH A 6K SHIELD

Have more than 15K health.

18k health is about as high as most players can go before their DPS takes too much of a hit and they cannot clear content. That is still only a 7.2K shield. Not much use when even non-boss mobs in difficult content can do 24K DPS to players.

People are not playing glass cannons for giggles. They are playing glass cannons because the best strategy in nearly every PvE fight is, "Kill stuff fast. If that does not work, kill stuff faster." Stacking health to get stronger shields is fine in concept. But in practice? It just means you will live long enough to get overwhelmed by adds or long enough to see boss enrage.

ZOS keep releasing PvE content that smashes you with extreme levels of damage that will overwhelm the healer if the DPS do not have a lot self-survivability. But that PvE content also requires extremely high DPS to clear. Big shields were a way of giving players the needed survivability for difficult endgame content, without interfering too much with our rotations, while also letting us run enough offensive stats to meet DPS checks.

ZOS want us to "make choices" between survivability and damage dealing. Yet they keep releasing content where that is not a choice. You need both.

And I don't have a problem with that. I kind of like that ESO is a game where the tank is not expected to taunt everything. Where the healer is not expected to heal through everything. Where the DPS cannot just robotically crank through their rotation but instead have to be able to handle having some mobs aggro on them, and have to handle situations where they cannot ignore their health bar and expect healer to always keep them alive. But ZOS need to give us the tools for that. The cast time shields were not a viable way to handle this game design. Unfortunately, dinky little shields are not a viable way to handle this game design, either.

ZOS have kind of painted themselves into a corner here. They have released PvE content over the past couple of years that expects players to have high survivability and high DPS. But ZOS do not want a meta where players have high survivability and high DPS. How do you change a meta you have soured on when there is a whole bunch of content dependent on that meta?

LeHarrt91

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

ezio45 wrote: »

HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO PLAY MAG WITH A 6K SHIELD

Have more than 15K health.

18k health is about as high as most players can go before their DPS takes too much of a hit and they cannot clear content. That is still only a 7.2K shield. Not much use when even non-boss mobs in difficult content can do 24K DPS to players.

People are not playing glass cannons for giggles. They are playing glass cannons because the best strategy in nearly every PvE fight is, "Kill stuff fast. If that does not work, kill stuff faster." Stacking health to get stronger shields is fine in concept. But in practice? It just means you will live long enough to get overwhelmed by adds or long enough to see boss enrage.

ZOS keep releasing PvE content that smashes you with extreme levels of damage that will overwhelm the healer if the DPS do not have a lot self-survivability. But that PvE content also requires extremely high DPS to clear. Big shields were a way of giving players the needed survivability for difficult endgame content, without interfering too much with our rotations, while also letting us run enough offensive stats to meet DPS checks.

ZOS want us to "make choices" between survivability and damage dealing. Yet they keep releasing content where that is not a choice. You need both.

And I don't have a problem with that. I kind of like that ESO is a game where the tank is not expected to taunt everything. Where the healer is not expected to heal through everything. Where the DPS cannot just robotically crank through their rotation but instead have to be able to handle having some mobs aggro on them, and have to handle situations where they cannot ignore their health bar and expect healer to always keep them alive. But ZOS need to give us the tools for that. The cast time shields were not a viable way to handle this game design. Unfortunately, dinky little shields are not a viable way to handle this game design, either.

ZOS have kind of painted themselves into a corner here. They have released PvE content over the past couple of years that expects players to have high survivability and high DPS. But ZOS do not want a meta where players have high survivability and high DPS. How do you change a meta you have soured on when there is a whole bunch of content dependent on that meta?

Is that taking into account, Minor Toughness from the Warden and Ebon? If a Sorc, you can slot a pet to get more max health. Like im not say 40% of max health is great, but i prefer it over a cast time.

Also its just the Rep Notes, they may adjust on PTS to be higher or when it goes live it could be higher.

joaaocaampos

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We’ve had a lot of discussions over the past week, and after digesting everything we’ve seen and read, in addition to talking with the Class Reps, we’re making the decision to revert the cast time for both of these shield abilities. In one of the upcoming PTS patches, Annulment and Conjured Ward will now be instant-cast abilities that scale off your maximum Magicka (as they do on live currently), but cap the total shield amount to 40% of your character’s maximum health. Our goal with the damage shield changes has been to address the fact that you can create builds that maximize damage while ignoring defense. We think it’s great some players want to play like a glass cannon, but those builds should have tradeoffs in reduced survivability. By limiting damage shield strength on max health, it makes the health stat much more attractive than it was previously for damage shield users.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RobGarrett

Okay, but... But how will this work with Hardened Ward and Dampen Magic, which increases the amount of damage absorbed?

Look!

• "Your own globe absorbs 20% additional damage."
• "Each piece of Light Armor worn increases the amount of damage absorbed by 3%".

How will this be relevant, if cap the total shield amount to 40% of your character’s maximum health? Or will you replace "amount of damage absorbed" with "increases cap the total shield amount to 60/61% of your character’s maximum health?"

It is?

• Harness Magicka and Empowered Ward: 40% of your character’s maximum health.
• Hardened Ward: 60% of your character’s maximum health.
• Dampen Magic: 61% of your character’s maximum health using 7 Light pieces.

Or will it work otherwise?

swirve

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

ezio45 wrote: »

HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO PLAY MAG WITH A 6K SHIELD

Have more than 15K health.

18k health is about as high as most players can go before their DPS takes too much of a hit and they cannot clear content. That is still only a 7.2K shield. Not much use when even non-boss mobs in difficult content can do 24K DPS to players.

People are not playing glass cannons for giggles. They are playing glass cannons because the best strategy in nearly every PvE fight is, "Kill stuff fast. If that does not work, kill stuff faster." Stacking health to get stronger shields is fine in concept. But in practice? It just means you will live long enough to get overwhelmed by adds or long enough to see boss enrage.

ZOS keep releasing PvE content that smashes you with extreme levels of damage that will overwhelm the healer if the DPS do not have a lot self-survivability. But that PvE content also requires extremely high DPS to clear. Big shields were a way of giving players the needed survivability for difficult endgame content, without interfering too much with our rotations, while also letting us run enough offensive stats to meet DPS checks.

ZOS want us to "make choices" between survivability and damage dealing. Yet they keep releasing content where that is not a choice. You need both.

And I don't have a problem with that. I kind of like that ESO is a game where the tank is not expected to taunt everything. Where the healer is not expected to heal through everything. Where the DPS cannot just robotically crank through their rotation but instead have to be able to handle having some mobs aggro on them, and have to handle situations where they cannot ignore their health bar and expect healer to always keep them alive. But ZOS need to give us the tools for that. The cast time shields were not a viable way to handle this game design. Unfortunately, dinky little shields are not a viable way to handle this game design, either.

ZOS have kind of painted themselves into a corner here. They have released PvE content over the past couple of years that expects players to have high survivability and high DPS. But ZOS do not want a meta where players have high survivability and high DPS. How do you change a meta you have soured on when there is a whole bunch of content dependent on that meta?

The change was purely to appease PvP players...

NyassaV

Awesome... But... But healing ward?

Bergzorn

I still think there are too many changes to wards in one big rush in this patch, but I prefer the health cap over the cast time. I don't think it's ideal, but it's at least something one can build around. Well, maybe, it will depend on how exactly it gets implemented.

Witar

I still don't understand why devs won't pay even slightest nerf attention to heavy armor permablocking builds that are so much tankier (and often have more dps with 7 legion bloodspawn bone pirate combo) then sorc which gets nerfed to the ground on emphasis of easy mode in pve (which is also not the case by the way).

Beardimus

joaaocaampos wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We’ve had a lot of discussions over the past week, and after digesting everything we’ve seen and read, in addition to talking with the Class Reps, we’re making the decision to revert the cast time for both of these shield abilities. In one of the upcoming PTS patches, Annulment and Conjured Ward will now be instant-cast abilities that scale off your maximum Magicka (as they do on live currently), but cap the total shield amount to 40% of your character’s maximum health. Our goal with the damage shield changes has been to address the fact that you can create builds that maximize damage while ignoring defense. We think it’s great some players want to play like a glass cannon, but those builds should have tradeoffs in reduced survivability. By limiting damage shield strength on max health, it makes the health stat much more attractive than it was previously for damage shield users.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RobGarrett

Okay, but... But how will this work with Hardened Ward and Dampen Magic, which increases the amount of damage absorbed?

Look!

• "Your own globe absorbs 20% additional damage."
• "Each piece of Light Armor worn increases the amount of damage absorbed by 3%".

How will this be relevant, if cap the total shield amount to 40% of your character’s maximum health? Or will you replace "amount of damage absorbed" with "increases cap the total shield amount to 60/61% of your character’s maximum health?"

It is?

• Harness Magicka and Empowered Ward: 40% of your character’s maximum health.
• Hardened Ward: 60% of your character’s maximum health.
• Dampen Magic: 61% of your character’s maximum health using 7 Light pieces.

Or will it work otherwise?

Yeah these are my questions too. Is that 40% health tooltip so a 4-5k ward in Cyro?

How will it work with bastion etc.

This needs to be really thought through and os still promoting high health, high resistance sorcs in Impen lol. Sorcs gunna be rough to kill.

I'm.mega happy cast time is gone. Mega. But do wonder how the 40% will work.

It also stops things like Yolo 60k magika builds working. Full risk setups etc no sustain.

Azurya

Getting so tiered of re-gearing characters
getting sick of re-skilling my chars
it is sad that "balancing" leads always and anytime to causing stress

we want to have fun while playing the game
WE WANT TO PLAY
WE DON`T WANT TO RE-DO EVERYTHING 4-TIMES A YEAR

WE WANT TO HAVE FUN, just FUN, can you get that in your head????

Mojomonkeyman

Thanks for the awesome write-up and time invested! Quality work.

Comments on Warden

Whoever was fighting to keep the current Arctic Blast functionality - special thanks to you, you are awesome! Nonetheless, I am really wondering who actually was involved in the disagreement in regards to the change of Arctic Blast and what their playtime on PvP Magicka Warden is. Not to blame them, but to discuss with them. I am very confident that very few people in this game possess my level of experience and knowledge when it comes to PvP Magicka Warden and that I would be able to convince most people just by having a short playsession / follow up discussion with them.

It seems, unless you can raise a huge (sorcerers) or very dedicated (templars) lobby and ideally have some class rep friends it is impossible to even get very educated opinions through - which makes balance now a popularity contest. I have spent some hours this PTS cycle to write about 4 pages in several threads on why AB in its current form is vital for PvP MagWarden builds. Stuff like that is just not recognized and ultimately I feel I wasted my time.

In the end, the most meaningful changes not purely based on number tweaking (AB and Bird of Prey) turn out to be overall nerfs to PvP Magicka Warden. That is so unfortunate, this patch was supposed to finally give the setup some attention & hope - yet it's again the sorcerer class that gets the spotlight like last patches (rune cage back & forth, now shields back & forth) when it comes to discussing proposed changes.

Personally, I am (very) disappointed with the changes to my class, but impressed by the quality of the notes presented.

pattyLtd

Thank you very much to zos for listening and the class reps for getting our points accross.
As for shields i think 40% is real low and still nerfs them into the ground but i take it over a cast time anytime simply because i really dislike those..

So overall happy with the realization that they do listen and are willing to re-think their changes before it goes live.
So this proves PTS and also the class rep ideas do have big value for the community.

I am however worried that the netto result is still the same and shields won't be worth to put on our bar anymore.
But at least it won't disrupt my fun as much as with a cast time, since it's harder to adept to less fun as it is to less strong shields imo.

TiZzA93

I was thinking we would get arctic blast bk and put the stun on polar wind but nvm warden is left in the dirt again, plus @ZOS_GinaBruno put a comment in 1 of the posts saying bear nerf was to make non bear warden more disirable even if it resulted in a dps loss well WTF a bear would never be allowed in competitive end game anyways

Dashmatt

NotEdwin wrote: »

Instead of nerfing Major Expedition or Swift why not alter the speed cap in PvP via Battle Spirit? Make the cap like 180% in PvP and keep it at 200% for the rest of the game.

If players are too fast it's the speed cap that should be looked at.

There is already a trade-off in resources & damage when you choose Swift over Robust or Arcane.

Nerfing Forward Momentum would make Rally the most used morph, there is a good balance currently between the morphs.

Magicka characters benefit from Swift, nerfing that will nerf magicka aswell.

The problem isn’t that the speed cap is too high. No one is hitting the cap without sprinting, and you can’t sprint while using abilities. People are rolling around with 60% movement bonus at all times from swift and speed pots. The uptime of speed potions should not be 24/7, and Swift should not add 30% on top of Major Expedition. Forward Momentum just makes the rest more apparent.

I don’t think Major Expedition should be nerfed though, just the uptime of potions. Quick Cloak is a good example: has a stamina cost and the buff only lasts 5 seconds.

Forward momentum could maybe have the duration looked at, but maybe that shouldn’t happen at the same time as everything else.

LadyLethalla

ccmedaddy wrote: »

You can simply walk around it and avoid the flame damage FYI. That's how I survive it on stam.

Uhhh... I always kite Crem Guards and even if my mag toon isn't IN his conal I'm still taking fire damage until the blasted thing dies.

Septimus_Magna

Will the shield be 40% of your health in PVP so 80% of your health in PVE?

The average DD runs 18k health or less in PvE which means only a 7.2k shield. If you compare that to live where Hardened Ward is usually 20k+ the nerf is more than 64%. Quite big for a main defense nerf if you ask me.

I like the idea of SOT (shield over time). It could be something unique to increase survival over a longer duration as long as you dont take hard hits. I think it would be easier to balance than two massive up-front shields.

OtarTheMad

Thanks for all the works all you reps put into this.

While the change to Arctic Blast was indeed welcome I feel that an ability that currently does not offer Frost Damage, and might be an undesirable morph, could benefit from it. What about adding it to Expansive Frost Cloak or Polar Wind? Just a thought.

I still think that the nerf to the bear ultimate's damage was an odd choice, but if Magdens won't get insta-kicked out of a dungeon in the next update then it's okay I guess. I'd also love if Ice Mage would be a little more viable. (Bring me my Grothdarr or Zaan but Frost style, and/or a BSW for Frost...)

aeowulf

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

ezio45 wrote: »

HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO PLAY MAG WITH A 6K SHIELD

Have more than 15K health.

18k health is about as high as most players can go before their DPS takes too much of a hit and they cannot clear content. That is still only a 7.2K shield. Not much use when even non-boss mobs in difficult content can do 24K DPS to players.

People are not playing glass cannons for giggles. They are playing glass cannons because the best strategy in nearly every PvE fight is, "Kill stuff fast. If that does not work, kill stuff faster." Stacking health to get stronger shields is fine in concept. But in practice? It just means you will live long enough to get overwhelmed by adds or long enough to see boss enrage.

ZOS keep releasing PvE content that smashes you with extreme levels of damage that will overwhelm the healer if the DPS do not have a lot self-survivability. But that PvE content also requires extremely high DPS to clear. Big shields were a way of giving players the needed survivability for difficult endgame content, without interfering too much with our rotations, while also letting us run enough offensive stats to meet DPS checks.

ZOS want us to "make choices" between survivability and damage dealing. Yet they keep releasing content where that is not a choice. You need both.

And I don't have a problem with that. I kind of like that ESO is a game where the tank is not expected to taunt everything. Where the healer is not expected to heal through everything. Where the DPS cannot just robotically crank through their rotation but instead have to be able to handle having some mobs aggro on them, and have to handle situations where they cannot ignore their health bar and expect healer to always keep them alive. But ZOS need to give us the tools for that. The cast time shields were not a viable way to handle this game design. Unfortunately, dinky little shields are not a viable way to handle this game design, either.

ZOS have kind of painted themselves into a corner here. They have released PvE content over the past couple of years that expects players to have high survivability and high DPS. But ZOS do not want a meta where players have high survivability and high DPS. How do you change a meta you have soured on when there is a whole bunch of content dependent on that meta?

Completely agree. The content they release does not match the style of how they seem to want us to play. DPS is too high, so encounters need to be tougher. It was mentioned about bosses not having CP - this really needs rectifying because otherwise it will continue in this spiral.

aeowulf

code65536 wrote: »

Hey @ZOS_Wrobel - Tell me how shields that are 40% of max health will help when your content has damage that looks like this?


This, BTW, is Veteran Blackrose Prison on the PTS. The damage in this death recap came from mobs--not bosses. And these hits are standard attacks, not special abilities or mechanics. Three hits, each over 8K, in the span of 1.1s. Are you still going to claim that shields are OP in PvE?

Surely this would indicate an issue where new content is not being designed around how ZoS want us to play? (Choosing between damage or survivability)

Witar

Just admit that this whole rebalance idea was stupid keep shields as they are on live and move on to content creation.

Mizael

40% health shield cap is useless even with resistance, because light armor resistance is squishy a lot.And with criticals in PvP it will last 1 hit.Bad change both for PvE and PvP

Vahrokh

Minno wrote: »

ruikkarikun wrote: »

And about 40% HP shield cap, maybe you can increase it a little bit too...

5% more than what Templars currently get in PvP and 10% more in pve lol

In no game Templars are a shield based class. Mages are.

Dagoth_Rac

swirve wrote: »

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

ezio45 wrote: »

HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO PLAY MAG WITH A 6K SHIELD

Have more than 15K health.

18k health is about as high as most players can go before their DPS takes too much of a hit and they cannot clear content. That is still only a 7.2K shield. Not much use when even non-boss mobs in difficult content can do 24K DPS to players.

People are not playing glass cannons for giggles. They are playing glass cannons because the best strategy in nearly every PvE fight is, "Kill stuff fast. If that does not work, kill stuff faster." Stacking health to get stronger shields is fine in concept. But in practice? It just means you will live long enough to get overwhelmed by adds or long enough to see boss enrage.

ZOS keep releasing PvE content that smashes you with extreme levels of damage that will overwhelm the healer if the DPS do not have a lot self-survivability. But that PvE content also requires extremely high DPS to clear. Big shields were a way of giving players the needed survivability for difficult endgame content, without interfering too much with our rotations, while also letting us run enough offensive stats to meet DPS checks.

ZOS want us to "make choices" between survivability and damage dealing. Yet they keep releasing content where that is not a choice. You need both.

And I don't have a problem with that. I kind of like that ESO is a game where the tank is not expected to taunt everything. Where the healer is not expected to heal through everything. Where the DPS cannot just robotically crank through their rotation but instead have to be able to handle having some mobs aggro on them, and have to handle situations where they cannot ignore their health bar and expect healer to always keep them alive. But ZOS need to give us the tools for that. The cast time shields were not a viable way to handle this game design. Unfortunately, dinky little shields are not a viable way to handle this game design, either.

ZOS have kind of painted themselves into a corner here. They have released PvE content over the past couple of years that expects players to have high survivability and high DPS. But ZOS do not want a meta where players have high survivability and high DPS. How do you change a meta you have soured on when there is a whole bunch of content dependent on that meta?

The change was purely to appease PvP players...

The cast time was a big problem in PvE, too. I think the only thing with a cast time I use in VMA is the "Spectral Explosion" synergy when you collect 3 gold ghosts. And that has gotten me killed on occasion when something like a Wraith, a Daedroth, and the final boss gang up on me while I am hunched over and I am yelling, "Spectrally Explode! Spectrally Explode, already!" Spectral Explosion is supposed to be the I Win button in VMA but sometimes it gets you killed because of the cast time. I did not want VMA to become nearly non-stop cast times.

Getting rid of the cast time was good for both PvE and PvP. But ... I do have a concern that ZOS based the 40% health shield cap on the assumption that people will stack shields. Stacking shields is not really a thing in PvE. No one wants to lose an offensive skill slot and a GCD on a second shield.

Ironically, if ZOS were trying to cut down on shield stacking they may have inadvertently made shield stacking a necessity if individual shields are now too small to be worthwhile.

SodanTok

People saying they will be dying with smaller shields. duh. Thats like the point of the change. You arent counter arguing that at all.