The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
My suggestions on how to adjust the Tankier Play-style in PvP currently.
CaliMade
✭✭✭✭
Ive been seeing quite a few people saying that players are too tanky. I agree. I also want to address the lingering issue with Support builds and how they have been far too strong for too long.
I can break the issue down into 2 pain points, the support build issue I will discuss last. The 2 points are as follows.
-Percentage mitigation
-Max HP
Percentage mitigation- I believe Hard percentage mitigation plays a large part in why players take much longer to kill than they should, And while not all types of percentage mitigation needs to be adjusted( Buffer of the Swift, Major/minor Evasion) I do believe three other buffs are too easily accessed as apposed to their damaging counterparts. the three buffs are Major Protection, Minor Protection, and Potentates 2pc set bonus. It is possible to have Major protection at will via BlackRose DW item set. My suggested fix for this would be to change this buff from Major protection to a Flat Resistance buff. something like 6k spell and physical resistance for the entire duration, instead of 3 seconds of 30% dmg mitigation, while 3 seconds is not a very long time, its very easy to keep the buff up due to easy access to high recovery this patch . So its not much of an Issue to cast this ability every 3 seconds or close to it in highly defensive situations. As far as Potentates and Minor protection, the slot efficiency for these two buffs vs their dmg counterparts is too high. One ulti and a backbar weapon and you have access to a free 13% dmg mitigation. My suggested solution for balancing minor protection would be granting more classes similar ease of access to minor brutality. currently the options for minor brutality are far more limiting that that for minor protection. For brutality you either have to run a weak burst heal skill in Combat prayer, waste a monster two pc for it, or slot a wonky “hit from behind” ability like camo hunter. Of course there are classes with this buff built in(Warden for example), but that still doesn’t make this buff nearly as accessible as minor protection. As far as Potentates, This is probably the weakest, as such i don’t believe much needs to be done about this, an equally effective offensive set would suffice, but i fear it might be too strong.
HP Pools- I believe this is the largest issue with the current tankier meta we are in. 2 years ago the average player had around 20-24k hp, currently most players sit between 27-31k, witch is a fairly large difference. I believe larger Health pools create a more Lackadaisical form of defense where actively avoiding, blocking or attempting to truly spec in to resistance isn’t as effective or needed. For example, Average Spammable dmg in my experience is 5000 dmg critical. If I have 20k hp it will take 4 spammables to kill me( if im inactive). But as I said average HP this patch sits around 27-31k. if we take a 30k hp target and hit him with the same 5k spammable it would take 6 to kill him(while inactive). He is taking 33% more dmg to kill than the character with 20k hp. And while some dmg sacrifices were made to reach 30k HP, this patch, those sacrifices are are significantly less costly than they were 2-3 years ago. 33% is greater than even major protection and he doesn’t have to do anything actively, no defensive buff needed, no blocking, no dodging, just flat out being able to take 33% more damage for very little investment. My suggestion would be to reduce all HP bonuses( attribute points, Set bonuses, glyphs, consumables) to be 10% lesser or even just equal to the bonuses given to max magicka and stamina. this should lower HP a good amount and force players to make more of a sacrifice to increase HP.
Finally i want to address healing support builds. Often in Cyrodiil and BGs a coordinated group will have a healer. I shouldn’t have to explain how healers effect gameplay, they make the damage dealers harder to kill. So you, in retaliation, focus the healer first, except its not that easy. Most competent players are capable of making nigh unkillable healing builds due to access to tank sets such as Iron-blood, pirate skeleton or Reactive, they are able to apply all their CP into healing since they have no need to damage and they sit on a large recovery pool so they have a tremendous amount of survivability will little to no skill curve involved. These builds have made group combat very lethargic and mundane as it takes an unreasonable amount of dmg to focus them down. I believe that a nerf to heals would do more harm than good here as that would make players crutch on these support builds even harder. I believe this issue can be solved two different ways. Firstly, I believe they sould put a restriction on every multi-target or AoE heal. These heals should require the player to wear 5 light armor or medium armor to access its ally healing capabilities. this limits the amout of mitigation that can be stacked for these builds, lowering their survivability moderately. My other solution would be to actually buff how much heals scale with spell/weapon damage and Max resource, in addition, nerf heals so that current high max resource and spell/weapon dmg numbers grant similar heals to live. Essentially forcing healing builds to run a lower sustain setup to maximize healing capabilities. The scaling shouldn’t be too dramatic to the point were it negatively effects PvE, but severe enough to were I can’t Singlehandedly keep someone alive while i have 1300 spell dmg and 3000 mag recovery in a intense PvP fight.
I cant possibly be right about everything hear so i expect some counter-arguments. It would be nice if we could keep this discussion constructive. thank you.
I can break the issue down into 2 pain points, the support build issue I will discuss last. The 2 points are as follows.
-Percentage mitigation
-Max HP
Percentage mitigation- I believe Hard percentage mitigation plays a large part in why players take much longer to kill than they should, And while not all types of percentage mitigation needs to be adjusted( Buffer of the Swift, Major/minor Evasion) I do believe three other buffs are too easily accessed as apposed to their damaging counterparts. the three buffs are Major Protection, Minor Protection, and Potentates 2pc set bonus. It is possible to have Major protection at will via BlackRose DW item set. My suggested fix for this would be to change this buff from Major protection to a Flat Resistance buff. something like 6k spell and physical resistance for the entire duration, instead of 3 seconds of 30% dmg mitigation, while 3 seconds is not a very long time, its very easy to keep the buff up due to easy access to high recovery this patch . So its not much of an Issue to cast this ability every 3 seconds or close to it in highly defensive situations. As far as Potentates and Minor protection, the slot efficiency for these two buffs vs their dmg counterparts is too high. One ulti and a backbar weapon and you have access to a free 13% dmg mitigation. My suggested solution for balancing minor protection would be granting more classes similar ease of access to minor brutality. currently the options for minor brutality are far more limiting that that for minor protection. For brutality you either have to run a weak burst heal skill in Combat prayer, waste a monster two pc for it, or slot a wonky “hit from behind” ability like camo hunter. Of course there are classes with this buff built in(Warden for example), but that still doesn’t make this buff nearly as accessible as minor protection. As far as Potentates, This is probably the weakest, as such i don’t believe much needs to be done about this, an equally effective offensive set would suffice, but i fear it might be too strong.
HP Pools- I believe this is the largest issue with the current tankier meta we are in. 2 years ago the average player had around 20-24k hp, currently most players sit between 27-31k, witch is a fairly large difference. I believe larger Health pools create a more Lackadaisical form of defense where actively avoiding, blocking or attempting to truly spec in to resistance isn’t as effective or needed. For example, Average Spammable dmg in my experience is 5000 dmg critical. If I have 20k hp it will take 4 spammables to kill me( if im inactive). But as I said average HP this patch sits around 27-31k. if we take a 30k hp target and hit him with the same 5k spammable it would take 6 to kill him(while inactive). He is taking 33% more dmg to kill than the character with 20k hp. And while some dmg sacrifices were made to reach 30k HP, this patch, those sacrifices are are significantly less costly than they were 2-3 years ago. 33% is greater than even major protection and he doesn’t have to do anything actively, no defensive buff needed, no blocking, no dodging, just flat out being able to take 33% more damage for very little investment. My suggestion would be to reduce all HP bonuses( attribute points, Set bonuses, glyphs, consumables) to be 10% lesser or even just equal to the bonuses given to max magicka and stamina. this should lower HP a good amount and force players to make more of a sacrifice to increase HP.
Finally i want to address healing support builds. Often in Cyrodiil and BGs a coordinated group will have a healer. I shouldn’t have to explain how healers effect gameplay, they make the damage dealers harder to kill. So you, in retaliation, focus the healer first, except its not that easy. Most competent players are capable of making nigh unkillable healing builds due to access to tank sets such as Iron-blood, pirate skeleton or Reactive, they are able to apply all their CP into healing since they have no need to damage and they sit on a large recovery pool so they have a tremendous amount of survivability will little to no skill curve involved. These builds have made group combat very lethargic and mundane as it takes an unreasonable amount of dmg to focus them down. I believe that a nerf to heals would do more harm than good here as that would make players crutch on these support builds even harder. I believe this issue can be solved two different ways. Firstly, I believe they sould put a restriction on every multi-target or AoE heal. These heals should require the player to wear 5 light armor or medium armor to access its ally healing capabilities. this limits the amout of mitigation that can be stacked for these builds, lowering their survivability moderately. My other solution would be to actually buff how much heals scale with spell/weapon damage and Max resource, in addition, nerf heals so that current high max resource and spell/weapon dmg numbers grant similar heals to live. Essentially forcing healing builds to run a lower sustain setup to maximize healing capabilities. The scaling shouldn’t be too dramatic to the point were it negatively effects PvE, but severe enough to were I can’t Singlehandedly keep someone alive while i have 1300 spell dmg and 3000 mag recovery in a intense PvP fight.
I cant possibly be right about everything hear so i expect some counter-arguments. It would be nice if we could keep this discussion constructive. thank you.
XB1 GT- Cali Made
Praetorian Stam DK Redguard
Brigadier Stam/magblade (whatever i feel like running) Redguard
Major Mag DK Dark Elf
lieutenant Mag/stamplar (whatever i feel like running) Redguard
Praetorian Stam DK Redguard
Brigadier Stam/magblade (whatever i feel like running) Redguard
Major Mag DK Dark Elf
lieutenant Mag/stamplar (whatever i feel like running) Redguard
0