The tank meta gets worse and worse, Hard caps desperately needed in PvP

gamma71

I've really been paying attention to the last few nights to these tank builds. Now I play a mag dk 30k health vamp 3 and run flare for mp. And switch out between balrogh and sithis. 2 heavy 5 light.

That's my sweet spot we're I can be tanky enough to not get smashed by a nb in 2 secs but I can recover and put the hurt down. Every time I say switch back to say using pariah and go more heavy ya I'm more tanky obviously but the ttk goes way up my point is I don't see any tank with 40k health stomping groups of people or even one guy.

Like last night there was a block tank that had 36k health and we could not damage him so light attack to build ulty and I think he died to a few trebs eventually. But point is that guy didn't kill anyone he's just annoying if he was smart he would have at least burned are seige but he didn't.

There's a give and take to everything and there's a lot of l2p issues. If I run with a zerg it's like I automatically get dumber and not as sharp as I am if I'm running solo.

auz

I think people are just annoyed they can't burst people with 1 combo. But get salty when it happens to them. If you can be burst in one combo, but can't burst others that is on you. Get better. Adjust your build. Evolve your play style.

There are so many DW stamblades running around demolishing people, then there is gankers getting stupid burst combos off. I don't see how anyone can argue stamblade is weak or in a bad spot. Even magblade is stronger this patch with the burst heal.

A lot of L2P issues. If your group gets beat up by a smaller group or solo, that is on you and your group. Work on you to get you better. Don't attempt to nerf others down to your level. It won't work.

Urzigurumash

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

[snip] If you want to be a tank, be a tank. But you shouldn't have to same (or higher in some cases) damage output as a sorc, NB or even a templar who refuses to play the cheese game. If you don't want me to 1v1 a DK, that's fine. That's a fair point. But they shouldn't be able to have no counter other than massively being outnumbered WHILE ALSO being able to stack massive bursts.

A tank brawler's advantage is supposed to be extending a fight until their opponent can no longer sustain. Their onslaught if moderate to medium high damage then becomes overwhelming and they win. That's not what we're seeing. As I mentioned above with my own DK, that isn't the case. We are now capable of NB level burst with tank level survivability.

Sure let's be honest and lay out some facts

1. DK Tanks are countered by MagPlars. Been like that for me at least as long as dueling was added, hasn't changed

2. DKs have consistently been ranked as the worst class in PvP. StamDKs have been regarded as gutter tier by many in all PvP formats, all group sizes, since Morrowind and the disastrous (for us) nerf to Constitution

3. Since then, there have been a million ideas about how to improve DK, but there was one thing we almost all agreed about: our main problem was sustain, hence our horrible state post-Morrowind pre-Greymoor

4. DK sustain was buffed. DK is now on par with everybody else, finally.

If NBs really aren't capable of out-bursting a "tank", tell us why and how this happened. We've already reviewed the mechanical reasons for why there's an inequivalent return on investing for mitigation and investing for damage, it has nothing to do with Heavy Armor and it has nothing to do with DK: it's because of the additional 1k Weapon/Spell Damage without optional sources of these stats receiving any increase.

DK has made out well this patch, but we've been waiting a long time for this. StamDK has never been the FotM in BGs in high MMR BGs on Xbox NA, not once since BGs have existed. The only reason we've had any purpose in Group Comp in Cyrodiil for a while now is one or two specific proc sets, that's it. Try and tell us what's gone wrong with NB and how it can be competitive against good players - we all know it still has excellent potato mashing potential.

This isn't about nightblades. It only keeps getting brought up because it's known that I play NBs. I also play DK, warden, templar, necro and sorc. I play all of them regularly. I understand the mechanics of each build and how they're used in Cyrodiil.

But if you really want to go down this rabbit hole...

I have been dueling my friend's DK on my NB. He's currently #3 on the leaderboard. I'm #11 as of this afternoon.

I've tried several set ups on him. I barely can get him to 50% if not actively defending. I can't get him down 10% if he's defending.

I've tested max damage and pen. I've tested procs. I've spend countless gold only to come up with a singular answer. I can't cut through his mitigation, and even if I do, he's able to sustain through it all.

My soul harvest didn't even do 1k damage fully buffed with 7k damage and 18k pen.

What's wrong?

I can only speculate that if my crit % was over 50% like it used to be or MA wasn't nerfed that I'd be able to do more damage before getting nuked with a 20k leap.

I think if vamp 3 was nerfed it would help. The resource cost isn't hard to overcome. The fire damage increase is whatever when you have so much armor and healing. I run vamp 3 on ever character. I'd happily give it up to cut down ttk.

There are my thoughts on NB. I can give similar notes on sorcs. This isn't about one class. This is about the siding scale of damage to tank is tipped far closer to the latter than I can remember.

I'm glad people are enjoying their DKs but pvp meta is always toxic. Remember 4 months ago when every other person was a magblade bomber? That wasn't very enjoyable either for most people.

No one is saying take away DKs viability. We're just saying the game is currently too weighted toward mitigation and healing. Balance the damage to tankiness scale. That's it.

No disagreement with any of that. I believe all of your example there without question. You can see how easily confused this can be with what I've read on here for years - Heavy Armor should be disabled in PvP. Blocking should be disabled. DKs have a really good Poison Injection, why should they complain? They can run in for melee when their Dawnbreaker is ready just like everybody else, what's the problem? It's old - DKs are tanks, just how it is, naturally tanks whether we want to be or not, whether anybody else wants us to be or not. In medium armor, we're still tanks, built squishy, we're still tanks. If Wardens and Necros are jockin our playstyle, not our problem.

Like I said in that other thread, I think optional sources of Weapon Damage need a buff. Serpent was buffed - Warrior was not buffed. 1k Weapon Damage was added to the baseline - Warrior was not buffed.

[edited to remove quote]

aslancik12

jaws343 wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

[snip] If you want to be a tank, be a tank. But you shouldn't have to same (or higher in some cases) damage output as a sorc, NB or even a templar who refuses to play the cheese game. If you don't want me to 1v1 a DK, that's fine. That's a fair point. But they shouldn't be able to have no counter other than massively being outnumbered WHILE ALSO being able to stack massive bursts.

A tank brawler's advantage is supposed to be extending a fight until their opponent can no longer sustain. Their onslaught if moderate to medium high damage then becomes overwhelming and they win. That's not what we're seeing. As I mentioned above with my own DK, that isn't the case. We are now capable of NB level burst with tank level survivability.

Sure let's be honest and lay out some facts

1. DK Tanks are countered by MagPlars. Been like that for me at least as long as dueling was added, hasn't changed

2. DKs have consistently been ranked as the worst class in PvP. StamDKs have been regarded as gutter tier by many in all PvP formats, all group sizes, since Morrowind and the disastrous (for us) nerf to Constitution

3. Since then, there have been a million ideas about how to improve DK, but there was one thing we almost all agreed about: our main problem was sustain, hence our horrible state post-Morrowind pre-Greymoor

4. DK sustain was buffed. DK is now on par with everybody else, finally.

If NBs really aren't capable of out-bursting a "tank", tell us why and how this happened. We've already reviewed the mechanical reasons for why there's an inequivalent return on investing for mitigation and investing for damage, it has nothing to do with Heavy Armor and it has nothing to do with DK: it's because of the additional 1k Weapon/Spell Damage without optional sources of these stats receiving any increase.

DK has made out well this patch, but we've been waiting a long time for this. StamDK has never been the FotM in BGs in high MMR BGs on Xbox NA, not once since BGs have existed. The only reason we've had any purpose in Group Comp in Cyrodiil for a while now is one or two specific proc sets, that's it. Try and tell us what's gone wrong with NB and how it can be competitive against good players - we all know it still has excellent potato mashing potential.

I'm honestly not sure I am playing the same game as everyone else talking about tanky players. I am straight wrecking people on my magblade, running spinners and caluurians. And barely dying. You just have to build for damage and survival properly. My magblade is sitting at 15K penetration, and that goes up even further with a balorgh proc.

What you see more often from players who just won't die is a better understanding of positioning and resource management. Knowing when to push and when to disengage, what to block and what to eat.

that's what i said.Ppl dont know how to counter other's we killing a zerg with my 5 ppl group.İf you dont kite ,you die.if you dont block when needed , you die.They think just 2 set makes you unkillable xD i dont know why ppl still talking about it.this is what most of players want.And trust me in eu there are 4 - 5 group that can kite a zerg and kill them.its not that easy.they nerfed all tanky players 1 year ego.we were tanking a zerg with 2 guy.and still good nb's can burst a tanky player so hard.if you guys cant do it that is your problem learn to play better right ? in eu that's the problem.all aldmeri crying to us bcs we are too tanky.they dont know what we have or using.playin with a healer and 3 -4 good player changes many thing.

[edited to remove quote]

TheS1X

I think damage can stay like it is but healing should be nerfed for sure and much.
I have nothing against people who are tanky or who are shielding up.
I just hate when there is a battle going on that is intense enough and if all most over, people heal them selves full with less than a second and it resets the battle. Healing makes this game easy and pointless and too safe, I lose adrenaline rush when I am healer because there is no fear, no risk, no intense fights.
Burst heals for example should be very expensive, imo. Healing should not come that easy like it is atm.
Maybe best solution is to make healing as sepperated stat, to bring in actual healers who are built to support, then they are actually needed.

Dorkener

I think a lot of people would be in for an unpleasant surprise if they nerfed healing... the alleged "tanks with OP damage" often don't even have 20k resists and "awful" regen. Instead opting for 6k+ WD, 140%+ base movement speed and avoiding damage with selective blocking, dodge roll and using line of sight...
Nerfing healing would arguably nerf other playstyles more

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

Dorkener wrote: »

I think a lot of people would be in for an unpleasant surprise if they nerfed healing... the alleged "tanks with OP damage" often don't even have 20k resists and "awful" regen. Instead opting for 6k+ WD, 140%+ base movement speed and avoiding damage with selective blocking, dodge roll and using line of sight...
Nerfing healing would arguably nerf other playstyles more

No healing is definitely a huge part of it. What you are saying is correct, but when all that fails they can still go from 30% hp to 100% in 1 gcd. Those other defensive measures wouldn't be nearly as effective if they couldn't erase 5 gcds worth of damage in 1, and on a tank build.

Iriidius

Heavy Armour, Pariah and Sword+shield doesnt seem to be the only reason why many players are so tanky because if i use heavy armour, pariah, stuhn/titanborn, malacath and sword+shield i dont get nearly as tanky as those players. If i fight „tanks“ they just ignore my attacks then kill me despite I am blocking/dodging, using line of sight and keeping elan and cauterize up. I think surviving should require use of active defenses. If you dont use any active defense you should die if you use them correctly you shouldnt.
Nerfing Heavy Armour, Pariah, shield usw isnt the solution, Pariah is only a replacement for other defensive sets, if you nerf it players will find other ways to build tanky.

TheS1X

Please teach me how to take down a tank that burst heals and damages as most powerful DD???
If I am close to it, it will stun and kill me with few hits, If I try to damage it, I will not do any damage. My pen is around 15k and weapon damage is over 5k. Even if I can take some of its health bar, it will heal full with no effort aka burst heals it self. Tips from Zenimax maybe? Are there any tutorials in game how to kill a god?

divnyi

TheS1X wrote: »

Please teach me how to take down a tank that burst heals and damages as most powerful DD?

Outsustain while dealing huge DPS, so he needs to burst heal all the time.

Yes, it's possible to make them run out of resources. You just need to have very strong sustain yourself for very prolonged pressure with dots and spammables.

divnyi

When people in this thread complain about tanks, is that CP? Because I guess CP is an issue here. For some reason we have double 10% mitigations in blue tree, and again tankiness and sustain in red tree.

master_vanargand

Tank can always guard with "One Hand and Shield" and "Ice staff".
Perhaps skilled Tank will never die in BGs and Duel.
Use Bloodlord's Embrace is even more imortaled.
Block lower limit costs should be change in PvP.

EmperorIl

The dumbest part is the ones who can walk around and burn your siege at will and never die with 10 people on them. So much stupid in cyrodiil. Ravenwatch is an awesome ruleset with the most potential for balance but no one plays it. The only way this game ever gets balance is if not every set is available in PvP.

divnyi

EmperorIl wrote: »

The dumbest part is the ones who can walk around and burn your siege at will and never die with 10 people on them.

You drop block when burn siege animation goes.

divnyi

master_vanargand wrote: »

Block lower limit costs should be change in PvP.

I'd say that base game mechanics are flawed a bit. Instead of punishing heavy attack with block like all tutorial suggest, it would be better if heavy attack in block disabled block for, like, 2s.

Einstein_

Maybe i will insult a few ppl here, but i am sick of the [snip] I am reading here in the forum sometimes. [snip]

Yes, its way to ez to build tanky. A Duell between 2 realy good players will never end if one is using a Single defensiv Set. If you know when to block/dodge/heal you will Not die in any 1v1 while wearing 3 dmg Sets on a Medium or light armor build. There is to much and good possibilities to aktiv defend your self.

Dont get me wrong the aktiv defence is good how it is (maybe some smale cost adjustments would be nice)

THE PROPLEM STARTS if a good Player Puts on heavy armor and defensiv Sets. He will never ever die in any 1v1 nor 1vX. But He can still do enugh dmg to kill players who dont know how to aktiv defend.

In my opinion battle spirit shouldnt mitigate that much dmg in General. I also think that softcaps a a good way to solve this proplem.

I also like the idea that blocking heavyatacks should drain more stamina, same as bashes. (this can maybe even be higher then it is now, that would reward skilled playstile with bashweaving)

Some possibilities:
-Make it harder to build tanky, while giving reward to skill full playstile.
- nerf Vamp 3 passive
- disable Block cost reduction in pvp
- nerf mistform
- softcaps for defensiv staats

[edited for baiting & bashing]

TheS1X

Something needs to be done for sure, I really hope Zos works something out for next adjustments.

divnyi

Einstein_ wrote: »

Maybe i will insult a few ppl here, but i am sick of the [snip] I am reading here in the forum sometimes. [snip]

...

In my opinion battle spirit shouldnt mitigate that much dmg in General.

You are clearly showing a lot of game knowledge when you vote for increased burst range

[edited to remove quote]

Einstein_

divnyi wrote: »

Einstein_ wrote: »

Maybe i will insult a few ppl here, but i am sick of the [snip] I am reading here in the forum sometimes. [snip]

...

In my opinion battle spirit shouldnt mitigate that much dmg in General.

You are clearly showing a lot of game knowledge when you vote for increased burst range

If you die to a burst dmg, you just played bad thats the truth. Besides some special builds (Vamp toggel gank, stamsorc) you can survieve every burst by just holding your right key down. If you die to a burst its just your fault.... (or lagg ofc)
And thats the reson why pressure classe are that much superior then bursty classe.

[edited to remove quote]

divnyi

Einstein_ wrote: »

And thats the reson why pressure classe are that much superior then bursty classe.

What are you talking about? All the meta classes are burst classes, with chalks and blastbones or curse->magelight combos.

Einstein_ wrote: »

Besides some special builds (Vamp toggel gank, stamsorc)

Here, you know yourself why your proposed change is bad. Why do you propose it then? So 30k+ HP become a must?

Einstein_

I dont know where you play, but necro and warden meta is over. And if you die to a curse-fury combo you also just did a misstake.
Ofc this combos can stomp some pve players in cyro, but no desend Player will die to that.

I never said that udodgable\unblockable oneshot combos should be a thing. And if i think about it they also dissapeared mostly since the change to MA.

etchedpixels

Einstein_ wrote: »

Yes, its way to ez to build tanky. A Duell between 2 realy good players will never end if one is using a Single defensiv Set. If you know when to block/dodge/heal you will Not die in any 1v1 while wearing 3 dmg Sets on a Medium or light armor build. There is to much and good possibilities to aktiv defend your self.

Dont get me wrong the aktiv defence is good how it is (maybe some smale cost adjustments would be nice)

Both PvE and PvP IMHO have exactly the same problem - most attributes and skills are scaled linearly or scale linearly to a cap. If you look at other (to me better designed) games then they use non-linear curves for the scaling of everything. So you can stack health recovery or weapon damage but the more you go that way the harder it is to stack more, and thus the more you pay in other areas. That stops the extreme stacking of specific things like health recovery.

Iriidius

Einstein_ wrote: »

Maybe i will insult a few ppl here, but i am sick of the [snip] I am reading here in the forum sometimes. [snip]

Yes, its way to ez to build tanky. A Duell between 2 realy good players will never end if one is using a Single defensiv Set. If you know when to block/dodge/heal you will Not die in any 1v1 while wearing 3 dmg Sets on a Medium or light armor build. There is to much and good possibilities to aktiv defend your self.

Dont get me wrong the aktiv defence is good how it is (maybe some smale cost adjustments would be nice)

THE PROPLEM STARTS if a good Player Puts on heavy armor and defensiv Sets. He will never ever die in any 1v1 nor 1vX. But He can still do enugh dmg to kill players who dont know how to aktiv defend.

In my opinion battle spirit shouldnt mitigate that much dmg in General. I also think that softcaps a a good way to solve this proplem.

I also like the idea that blocking heavyatacks should drain more stamina, same as bashes. (this can maybe even be higher then it is now, that would reward skilled playstile with bashweaving)

Some possibilities:
-Make it harder to build tanky, while giving reward to skill full playstile.
- nerf Vamp 3 passive
- disable Block cost reduction in pvp
- nerf mistform
- softcaps for defensiv staats

[edited for baiting & bashing]

I have heavy armour, 1defensive set and know when to dodge, block and heal and still get killed easily in 1v1. On the other side i always see players that never block or dodge and still never die 1v1. And Mistform is also Trash, every enemy i try to mist away from can easily catch me and deal enaugh damage to kill me in mist form.
I rarely die to burst damage except it is really instant, it is almost always because of pressure.

Urzigurumash

Einstein_ wrote: »

He can still do enugh dmg to kill players who dont know how to aktiv defend.

Flipside is class / spec diversity in BGs with its MMR and a generally equivalent understanding among players of how to actively defend

In high MMR BGs farming potatoes isn't a relevant concept, not for tanks, not for ganks

In BGs if damage is too high and passive defense is too low it's a ranged Mag meta

You are correct though that speccing into Mitigation nowadays yields more proportional return than speccing into Damage, as you say it's "too easy to build tanky". This issue of inequivalent returns however could also be solved by raising baseline passive defense (raise the base mitigation of all Armors and Pariah isn't so useful) and increasing the returns on investing into Damage (buffing optional sources of Weapon / Spell Damage, etc. )

Also, I would count Blocking as active defense. Seems to me that there's an intended 3 way balance / equivalence between Damage Shields for Wizards, Roll-Dodging for Thieves, and Blocking for Warriors. So if Blocking outperforms the other 2 such that all pursue active defense primarily through Blocking, there are ways to balance this out besides increasing Block Cost. Gaze of Sithis was reasonably popular there for a minute however, with its users relying on either Roll-Dodge or Damage Shields as their primary active defense, I'm not sure if it still is.

I've spent enough time on this forum however to know that players discussing PC EU and Xbox NA come from two very different environments. Tanky StamCros never became as popular on Xbox NA as they appeared to have on other servers, for instance.

divnyi

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Gaze of Sithis was reasonably popular there for a minute however, with its users relying on either Roll-Dodge or Damage Shields as their primary active defense, I'm not sure if it still is

In sithis, you mitigate damage with HoTs, that can be very strong with 2 damage sets.

Urzigurumash

divnyi wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Gaze of Sithis was reasonably popular there for a minute however, with its users relying on either Roll-Dodge or Damage Shields as their primary active defense, I'm not sure if it still is

In sithis, you mitigate damage with HoTs, that can be very strong with 2 damage sets.

Right, that too.

Really my only point is to consider your subjective biases when discussing tankiness. My experience:

The principal drivers of excessive survivability besides healing are movement speed and snare removal, since gapclosers are unreliable on DKs in BGs. Blocking and Armor are not a problem because they are not useful against Venomous Claw or Corrosive Armor.

None can peer beyond the filter of their perception, this we all know: die Welt ist eine Darstellung.

That's why I often note my comments are made solely from the perspective of a melee Orc DK, it would be impossible for me to ever gain enough experience on other playstyles to truly see things the way others do.

divnyi

Urzigurumash wrote: »

None can peer beyond the filter of their perception, this we all know: die Welt ist eine Darstellung.

That's why I often note my comments are made solely from the perspective of a melee Orc DK, it would be impossible for me to ever gain enough experience on other playstyles to truly see things the way others do.

You are correct here. Tho you can get different perception if you play different things. By so far in this patch I tried:

Stambomber NB
Heavy attack DK
Crit stamblade
Crit magblade healer
Crit stamsorc
Bashcro / semihealer
Magden vamp
Simmering snipeblade
Permablock templar healer

And I won't stop making new ones (...unless I'm completely out of gold), that's what makes the game interesting for me.

If I ever stopped on one of those builds, I would probably starting to hate it's counters and calling that OP and imbalanced.

Vevvev

Einstein_ wrote: »

- nerf mistform

Already happened with the cut off from NPC damage on the mitigation. Ability essentially becomes useless to the vampire fighting in a high NPC saturated environment like a resource or keep. I've also experienced some builds out there that can pump out so much DPS that they actually can tear people out of Mistform rather quickly, and as a result the most successful people using the ability I've seen these days combine it with speed increasing abilities and sets since Elusive Mist's major expedition isn't enough to make it a true escape ability.

I personally use Mistform more as an alterative to blocking as I'm trying to keep my stamina pool from falling too low due to all the issues listed above than as a stand your ground tanking tool where I sit in it all day long. Also while in Mistform you don't regenerate health, stamina, or magicka, and the Negate ultimate will completely and totally ruin your day. Not only will it rip you out of Mistform, but if you're a magDK like me you can't immediately try and heal because.... you're silenced.

edward_frigidhands

The fact that this topic exists baffles me.

Players are able to drop geared opponents through 40k resists in no time and burst is through the roof.

There are no tank characters surviving against 20 or even 5 people unless people have no idea what they are doing.

Vevvev

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

The fact that this topic exists baffles me.

Players are able to drop geared opponents through 40k resists in no time and burst is through the roof.

There are no tank characters surviving against 20 or even 5 people unless people have no idea what they are doing.

Think it falls down to the availability of unblockable stuns. Only reason the troll tank ain't dying is because they line of sight and hold block till the end of time. Fossilize them right as everyone ult dumps them and see what happens.... they die.