My first thoughts, post patch.

Morgha_Kul

So, I saw all the hue and cry over the upcoming patch, but I thought them overblown as usual. I wanted to see what actually happened.

So, I started with my Sorceror, Morgha Kul. In the past, he's been able to take on world bosses on his own. So, I took him to face the Golden Saint in Stonefalls. Each of my pets was immediately oneshotted, despite the Hardened Ward, and then I also was oneshotted. Not a chance at all to do anything.

So, I took him into a delve and turned on my damage numbers, so I could see what was happening. In essence, the shield of Hardened Ward, which was just about his ONLY defense, has been reduced to little more than a sneezeguard. He now has next to nothing to protect himself with.

So, I logged onto Stephen of Canada. Now, this is a special character, with a special premise. So far, he's gone 43 levels without a defeat. I've been able to take on dolmens on my own, and fought off large numbers of foes. He's a Templar set up kind of uniquely, but generally for healing and tanking. When fighting with a 2 handed weapon, I've always relied on the shield from Brawler for defense, because without that, he's GOT to use his healing, more or less continuously... which quickly goes away when he runs out of magicka. Brawler's shield has always been quite sufficient for this task.

So, off I went to take on a foe. Now, granted, I was taking on a world boss, the gargoyle in Rivenspire. I hit it with Brawler, and was immediately oneshotted. 43 levels of careful play ruined by a newly broken game mechanic. The shield was entirely worthless. I'm a bit crushed by this turn of events, it's kind of derailed the character's "story."

Now, this is probably in part because I have no points in Health. Most of my points are in Stamina, with some in Magicka (I was advised to do this). I'm told the new system for shields bases them on your max health... so with no points in Health, the shields are going to be very weak.

This raises a question in my mind. Sorcerors in particular are expected to be somewhat flimsy, as they're relied upon for damage. That means they HAVE to have some kind of reasonable defense, and their shields were that defense. How are they expected to defend themselves now? How is ANYONE expected to defend themselves now, if our defenses are thus crippled?


Now, it might be better once I respec and fix my points. I'll have to go to the test server and see if there's actually any benefit, or if shields are now useless. Either way, there's no way I can afford to respec all my characters.

So, I'm also putting out there the need for a blanket free respec of skills AND attributes, since this is a crippling change that will affect MOST characters in the game.

Koensol

Shield strength isn't based on your health. It has a cap at 50% of max health. You still need high magicka to increase shield strength. Stamina doesn't do anything for shields. So you need to find the right balance between health and magicka. I advise to keep all points into magicka (if on a magicka character that uses shields) and increase health to your liking with food and enchants.

OrdoHermetica

Koensol wrote: »

Shield strength isn't based on your health. It has a cap at 50% of max health.

That, uh... that means they're based on your health, yeah. You're right that they don't scale up with health, but the cap is, in fact, based on your health. 40-50% of it, to be exact.

Sharee

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

This raises a question in my mind. Sorcerors in particular are expected to be somewhat flimsy, as they're relied upon for damage. That means they HAVE to have some kind of reasonable defense, and their shields were that defense. How are they expected to defend themselves now? How is ANYONE expected to defend themselves now, if our defenses are thus crippled?

Sorcerers aren't expected to be flimsy any more than any other class in TESO. People were just playing them that way because it was the most efficient way, thanks to overpowered shields.

Change your build. Increase your other defenses, shields benefit from your resistances now.

Koensol

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

Shield strength isn't based on your health. It has a cap at 50% of max health.

That, uh... that means they're based on your health, yeah. You're right that they don't scale up with health, but the cap is, in fact, based on your health. 40-50% of it, to be exact.

Not really. They are based on magicka, but capped by max health.

starkerealm

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

So, off I went to take on a foe. Now, granted, I was taking on a world boss, the gargoyle in Rivenspire. I hit it with Brawler, and was immediately oneshotted. 43 levels of careful play ruined by a newly broken game mechanic. The shield was entirely worthless. I'm a bit crushed by this turn of events, it's kind of derailed the character's "story."

Brawler scales based on the number of enemies hit. It's always been absolutely terrible for single target fights...

Koensol wrote: »

Shield strength isn't based on your health. It has a cap at 50% of max health. You still need high magicka to increase shield strength. Stamina doesn't do anything for shields. So you need to find the right balance between health and magicka. I advise to keep all points into magicka (if on a magicka character that uses shields) and increase health to your liking with food and enchants.

This only applies to Annulment and Daedric Ward. Every other shield in the game works exactly as it did before the patch. Brawler's always been terrible when you're dealing with a hard hitting boss.

Azurya

let me join in:
started the evening at NA-server, brought my magicka char through a dungeon and a delve, no problems, all as it was before, even her shields worked as intended
then I switched to EU where I have 12 chars, endstation, servers down.............

WHY they give us an DLC which is obviously not ready to go LIVE???
WHY must we face an enormous downtime, because the patch was not ready????????
Why do they hate their customers(=us all!) so much that we face downtimes to our prime time????
If the fries are not baked, don´t serve them! my mom says, why ZOS serves us unfinished crap???
And WHY is this happening over and over and over?????

OrdoHermetica

Koensol wrote: »

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

Shield strength isn't based on your health. It has a cap at 50% of max health.

That, uh... that means they're based on your health, yeah. You're right that they don't scale up with health, but the cap is, in fact, based on your health. 40-50% of it, to be exact.

Not really. They are based on magicka, but capped by max health.

A fundamental part of their strength - their cap - is based on max health. If you have more max health, and manage to hit that cap, it has a direct effect on how strong your shields can be. So, yeah, the strength of those two shields is partially based on max health, even if it scales up off of other things.

ArchMikem

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

This raises a question in my mind. Sorcerors in particular are expected to be somewhat flimsy, as they're relied upon for damage. That means they HAVE to have some kind of reasonable defense, and their shields were that defense. How are they expected to defend themselves now? How is ANYONE expected to defend themselves now, if our defenses are thus crippled?

You do know characters like my StamBlade and StamSorc don't rely on shields whatsoever, yeah? Seriously, getting weaker shields, a broken game it does not make. You're just gonna have to spend CP into your Resistances now, get them up a bit higher, and change your reliance from shields over to a reliance on self heals.

I'm just very indifferent about this. My only Mag character is my Healer and even she doesn't use a shield, so this change doesn't concern me whatsoever. In fact PvP should be better for me because of it. No more shield stacking players.

ezio45

Sharee wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

This raises a question in my mind. Sorcerors in particular are expected to be somewhat flimsy, as they're relied upon for damage. That means they HAVE to have some kind of reasonable defense, and their shields were that defense. How are they expected to defend themselves now? How is ANYONE expected to defend themselves now, if our defenses are thus crippled?

Sorcerers aren't expected to be flimsy any more than any other class in TESO. People were just playing them that way because it was the most efficient way, thanks to overpowered shields.

Change your build. Increase your other defenses, shields benefit from your resistances now.

Give me 1 example of how any stam pve build does anything but spec into max dmg?

0 stam players for pve wear anything but all div

hell they dont even have to lose back bar for a decent heal

MaleAmazon

Funny cause I just got my first flawless on vMA this morning, post-patch.

No, it´s not bragging, it´s just... play something else for a while then. Werewolves are really fun now. The game isn´t wrecked. At most, the exact way you wanted to play the game got changed. Happens.

As for shields they didn´t even get straight up nerfed, they got altered. You need more resistances and some more hp now. So respec and get that.

ZOS stated it clearly that they didn´t want people to just pour everything into one stat and have that stat boost attack, defense, mobility (streak), everything basically. And IMO that makes sense. There is just a giant resistance among some people, it seems, to wearing some heavy armor. And note that you can still run around in your bathrobes, it´s just now you pay some price for it. They even obliged and removed the cast time change.

As someone who got slightly tired of playing PvP and actually *having* a *real* glass cannon build, and facing sorcs with 17k hp who would suddenly turn invulnerable when you got them down to 20% hp, I´m not gonna cry blood for you.

Troneon

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Each of my pets was immediately oneshotted, despite the Hardened Ward, and then I also was oneshotted. Not a chance at all to do anything.

Welcome to what's it is like for everyone else

ArchMikem

ezio45 wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

This raises a question in my mind. Sorcerors in particular are expected to be somewhat flimsy, as they're relied upon for damage. That means they HAVE to have some kind of reasonable defense, and their shields were that defense. How are they expected to defend themselves now? How is ANYONE expected to defend themselves now, if our defenses are thus crippled?

Sorcerers aren't expected to be flimsy any more than any other class in TESO. People were just playing them that way because it was the most efficient way, thanks to overpowered shields.

Change your build. Increase your other defenses, shields benefit from your resistances now.

Give me 1 example of how any stam pve build does anything but spec into max dmg?

0 stam players for pve wear anything but all div

hell they dont even have to lose back bar for a decent heal

Technically divines with infused on the big pieces. But most stam builds wear either one or two heavy for the extra resistances and all my characters slot Vigor just in case. You're describing the min/max builds as general practice, which isnt true.

Koensol

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

Shield strength isn't based on your health. It has a cap at 50% of max health.

That, uh... that means they're based on your health, yeah. You're right that they don't scale up with health, but the cap is, in fact, based on your health. 40-50% of it, to be exact.

Not really. They are based on magicka, but capped by max health.

A fundamental part of their strength - their cap - is based on max health. If you have more max health, and manage to hit that cap, it has a direct effect on how strong your shields can be. So, yeah, the strength of those two shields is partially based on max health, even if it scales up off of other things.

Whatever floats your boat dude. Its just semantics at this point. The point that matters has been made clear to the OP.

Morgha_Kul

Yep I get it.

A fundamental point I was making though, is that with these changes having such a fundamental impact on so many characters, a free respec is warranted.

Also, a point I was making is that using Brawler (and Hardened Ward), I hadn't had any trouble until today. That tells me something has changed in how the shields work, since they do next to nothing now.

I'd happily change everything about all my characters to compensate, but I simply can't afford it.

Jeremy

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

So, I saw all the hue and cry over the upcoming patch, but I thought them overblown as usual. I wanted to see what actually happened.

So, I started with my Sorceror, Morgha Kul. In the past, he's been able to take on world bosses on his own. So, I took him to face the Golden Saint in Stonefalls. Each of my pets was immediately oneshotted, despite the Hardened Ward, and then I also was oneshotted. Not a chance at all to do anything.

So, I took him into a delve and turned on my damage numbers, so I could see what was happening. In essence, the shield of Hardened Ward, which was just about his ONLY defense, has been reduced to little more than a sneezeguard. He now has next to nothing to protect himself with.

So, I logged onto Stephen of Canada. Now, this is a special character, with a special premise. So far, he's gone 43 levels without a defeat. I've been able to take on dolmens on my own, and fought off large numbers of foes. He's a Templar set up kind of uniquely, but generally for healing and tanking. When fighting with a 2 handed weapon, I've always relied on the shield from Brawler for defense, because without that, he's GOT to use his healing, more or less continuously... which quickly goes away when he runs out of magicka. Brawler's shield has always been quite sufficient for this task.

So, off I went to take on a foe. Now, granted, I was taking on a world boss, the gargoyle in Rivenspire. I hit it with Brawler, and was immediately oneshotted. 43 levels of careful play ruined by a newly broken game mechanic. The shield was entirely worthless. I'm a bit crushed by this turn of events, it's kind of derailed the character's "story."

Now, this is probably in part because I have no points in Health. Most of my points are in Stamina, with some in Magicka (I was advised to do this). I'm told the new system for shields bases them on your max health... so with no points in Health, the shields are going to be very weak.

This raises a question in my mind. Sorcerors in particular are expected to be somewhat flimsy, as they're relied upon for damage. That means they HAVE to have some kind of reasonable defense, and their shields were that defense. How are they expected to defend themselves now? How is ANYONE expected to defend themselves now, if our defenses are thus crippled?


Now, it might be better once I respec and fix my points. I'll have to go to the test server and see if there's actually any benefit, or if shields are now useless. Either way, there's no way I can afford to respec all my characters.

So, I'm also putting out there the need for a blanket free respec of skills AND attributes, since this is a crippling change that will affect MOST characters in the game.

That golden saint world boss in Stone Falls is one of the hardest hitting world bosses in the game. That fire whip move is nasty, and he likes to combine it with a stun. So I'm not surprised he was one-shotting you.

I have to wear Earth Gore on that guy to solo him with my healer, who is built quite defensively. My tank can handle him, but then again he's a tank.

So far I'm not that crazy about this patch either though. Templars were suppose to be getting buffed. Or so I was told. But all I have noticed thus far is my spell critical going down and something seems weird with my Radiant Destruction. I'm not sure if it was nerfed exactly, but it seems shorter now and I have to use it more times to kill enemies.

starkerealm

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Yep I get it.

A fundamental point I was making though, is that with these changes having such a fundamental impact on so many characters, a free respec is warranted.

Also, a point I was making is that using Brawler (and Hardened Ward), I hadn't had any trouble until today. That tells me something has changed in how the shields work, since they do next to nothing now.

I'd happily change everything about all my characters to compensate, but I simply can't afford it.

I'm not sure what you've been doing with Brawler. But, taking that up against the Gargoyle in Rivenspire would have smeared you 24 hours ago, just like it did today. He's got a vicious one shot attack. I forget the exact damage, but it became a brutal fight when One Tamriel dropped. You want to survive that hit? Dodge roll. Shielding through the hit on a DPS with anything less than Barrier is not going to end well.

starkerealm

ArchMikem wrote: »

ezio45 wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

This raises a question in my mind. Sorcerors in particular are expected to be somewhat flimsy, as they're relied upon for damage. That means they HAVE to have some kind of reasonable defense, and their shields were that defense. How are they expected to defend themselves now? How is ANYONE expected to defend themselves now, if our defenses are thus crippled?

Sorcerers aren't expected to be flimsy any more than any other class in TESO. People were just playing them that way because it was the most efficient way, thanks to overpowered shields.

Change your build. Increase your other defenses, shields benefit from your resistances now.

Give me 1 example of how any stam pve build does anything but spec into max dmg?

0 stam players for pve wear anything but all div

hell they dont even have to lose back bar for a decent heal

Technically divines with infused on the big pieces. But most stam builds wear either one or two heavy for the extra resistances and all my characters slot Vigor just in case. You're describing the min/max builds as general practice, which isnt true.

I tend to run all divine, mostly because I can't be bothered. But, yeah, @ArchMikem is right about how you minmax this one.

Vapirko

PvE Mag sorcs have between 16-20k health, my PvP argonian magblade has 25k. That means I can get anywhere between 8-12.5k shields which should be more than enough. And you’re still allowed to stack, plus PvE enemies don’t crit. Really shouldn’t be too much difference.

starkerealm

Vapirko wrote: »

PvE Mag sorcs have between 16-20k health, my PvP argonian magblade has 25k. That means I can get anywhere between 8-12.5k shields which should be more than enough.

Yeah, my 23k PvP magsorc still felt fine this morning. It's just a different spec, it's not like mag's dead.

MaleAmazon

I'm not sure if it was nerfed exactly, but it seems shorter now and I have to use it more times to kill enemies.

It is shorter. Was in patch notes. And templars seem buffed to me, but I haven´t tried it in-game yet.

Jeremy

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I'm not sure if it was nerfed exactly, but it seems shorter now and I have to use it more times to kill enemies.

It is shorter. Was in patch notes. And templars seem buffed to me, but I haven´t tried it in-game yet.

I haven't noticed any buffs thus far. My spell critical has gone down - and that's about the only change I've seen aside from the change to radiant.

I've only played on my healer thus far though. I suppose it's possible other Templar abilities that my healer doesn't use have been buffed. But from the way people were talking, I was expecting a dramatic improvement. One poster even said they were giving Templar access to the major protection buff.

pattyLtd

Anybody saying sheilds are not nerfed is being silly.
If you dont use shields then you can not judge the impact of the change to them at all.
Next time it will most likely be your playstyle that gets a free ticket to oblivion. Have fun.

Yes there are options and im sure most of us will adept but it doesnt make the game more fun or exciting, it adds nothing to the already degraded fun of the gamimg experience.

I am not the best player and now yet again instead of learning and trying to get through vma etc i need to change my build first. Just sick of the changes wish they just left the game untouched to be honest!

Sharee

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Also, a point I was making is that using Brawler (and Hardened Ward), I hadn't had any trouble until today. That tells me something has changed in how the shields work, since they do next to nothing now.

Brawler should be stronger today than before the patch. It now benefits from your resistances, while the new weakness (crittable) does not apply in PvE (since mobs don't crit), and obviously it is not strong enough to hit the HP cap (at least not against one enemy) the HP cap is actually only for ward and dampen anyway.

MaleAmazon

I've only played on my healer thus far though. I suppose it's possible other Templar abilities that my healer doesn't use have been buffed. But from the way people were talking, I was expecting a dramatic improvement. One poster even said they were giving Templar access to the major protection buff.

It´s minor protection from the aedric spear wall passive... The changes look good on paper, especially for stamina templars, but nothing major... just IMO templars have gotten several nice boosts lately with their major resolve + ward being better, now magicka templars get the damage morph to radial sweep...

EDIT: really I must say there are several changes in the patch that can be utilised to make very powerful builds IMO. At least it looks like they might. You just have to let your old playstyle and setup go

Jeremy

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I've only played on my healer thus far though. I suppose it's possible other Templar abilities that my healer doesn't use have been buffed. But from the way people were talking, I was expecting a dramatic improvement. One poster even said they were giving Templar access to the major protection buff.

It´s minor protection from the aedric spear wall passive... The changes look good on paper, especially for stamina templars, but nothing major... just IMO templars have gotten several nice boosts lately with their major resolve + ward being better, now magicka templars get the damage morph to radial sweep...

I guess either I read it wrong or the poster was mistaken then. Because I was expecting access to Major Protection, which would have been a very nice buff. 4 seconds of minor protection after using a Aedric Spear ability is underwhelming. But I guess it's better than nothing.

starkerealm

Sharee wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Also, a point I was making is that using Brawler (and Hardened Ward), I hadn't had any trouble until today. That tells me something has changed in how the shields work, since they do next to nothing now.

Brawler should be stronger today than before the patch. It now benefits from your resistances, while the new weakness (crittable) does not apply in PvE (since mobs don't crit), and obviously it is not strong enough to hit the HP cap (at least not against one enemy)

@Sharee, this may come as a shock, but Brawler isn't an Annulment morph. There is no HP based hard cap.

Sharee

Jeremy wrote: »

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I've only played on my healer thus far though. I suppose it's possible other Templar abilities that my healer doesn't use have been buffed. But from the way people were talking, I was expecting a dramatic improvement. One poster even said they were giving Templar access to the major protection buff.

It´s minor protection from the aedric spear wall passive... The changes look good on paper, especially for stamina templars, but nothing major... just IMO templars have gotten several nice boosts lately with their major resolve + ward being better, now magicka templars get the damage morph to radial sweep...

I guess either I read it wrong or the poster was mistaken then. Because I was expecting access to Major Protection, which would have been a very nice buff. 4 seconds of minor protection after using a Aedric Spear ability is underwhelming. But I guess it's better than nothing.

Templars actually did get major protection, on their aedric spear ultimate. IIRC 6 seconds plus one extra second for each enemy hit.

Jeremy

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I've only played on my healer thus far though. I suppose it's possible other Templar abilities that my healer doesn't use have been buffed. But from the way people were talking, I was expecting a dramatic improvement. One poster even said they were giving Templar access to the major protection buff.

EDIT: really I must say there are several changes in the patch that can be utilised to make very powerful builds IMO. At least it looks like they might. You just have to let your old playstyle and setup go

The patch didn't ruin my build or anything. I just wasn't expecting them to mess with my spell Crit and Radiant Destruction. It's not that big a deal. Just more of a nuisance really.

MaleAmazon

4 seconds of minor protection after using a Aedric Spear ability is underwhelming. But I guess it's better than nothing.

I´d say it´s pretty great. I´m not sure but AFAIK mitigation is multiplicative, so assuming the spearjabbing targeting is better (haven´t had the time to try it yet), you have a boosted puncturing strikes that also constantly makes you take 8% less damage, which is basically the defensive equivalent of minor berserk...

Jeremy

Sharee wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I've only played on my healer thus far though. I suppose it's possible other Templar abilities that my healer doesn't use have been buffed. But from the way people were talking, I was expecting a dramatic improvement. One poster even said they were giving Templar access to the major protection buff.

It´s minor protection from the aedric spear wall passive... The changes look good on paper, especially for stamina templars, but nothing major... just IMO templars have gotten several nice boosts lately with their major resolve + ward being better, now magicka templars get the damage morph to radial sweep...

I guess either I read it wrong or the poster was mistaken then. Because I was expecting access to Major Protection, which would have been a very nice buff. 4 seconds of minor protection after using a Aedric Spear ability is underwhelming. But I guess it's better than nothing.

Templars actually did get major protection, on their aedric spear ultimate. IIRC 6 seconds plus one extra second for each enemy hit.

True. But that's tied to an ultimate like you said. I was hoping they were going to expand on that and make it a buff you could reliably keep active.