Buff Arc's Impervious Runeward to match the standard set by Sorc's Hardened Ward

xylena_lazarow · May 24

Hardened: unconditionally burst heals every time, indefinitely spammable
Impervious: heals only once after needing to charge up Crux, heal cannot be spammed, you lose all your Crux
Solution: Impervious no longer requires Crux and provides the same unconditional burst heal, to match the class shield standards set by Hardened Ward

Hardened: lasts 6 seconds at full power
Impervious: lasts 1 second at full power, then cuts itself in half
Solution: Impervious now lasts 6 seconds at full power, to match the class shield standards set by Hardened Ward

Hardened: scales with either max hp or max mag, so DD builds never need to trade off between mag and hp
Impervious: only ever scales with max hp, forcing a big damage loss on DD builds
Solution: Impervious now scales with your higher stat between max hp or max mag, to match the class shield standards set by Hardened Ward

Pay no mind to Galeriano's memes, this is a real thread about Arc's current place in PvP as it relates to being badly outclassed by Sorc.

xylena_lazarow · May 24

Galeriano2 wrote: »

[snip]

Nope not bait. Arc is a worse version of Sorc now. I paid money for this class. Buff it.

[snip]

But seriously, Arc is really mid now, and it makes me sad because it's been a long time since I really liked a class.

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Turtle_Bot · May 24

If that's the case, lets make it exactly like Hardened to match the standards then:

1. Reduce the impervious ward size for first second by 27%.
2. Buff the remaining 5 seconds by 47%.
3. The ward no longer gains bonus size for the first second.
4. Delete the damage return component entirely.
5. The heal no longer scales off amount of crux spent.
6. Give the heal a restriction that if certain buffs/effects/abilities are active, the ward no longer heals.

Jsmalls · May 24

[

Jsmalls wrote: »

@xylena_lazarow

You mean this ability right here? Just slapped on the that setup I saw from a Arcanist build post. That's in cyrodiil.

Seems like a larger shield for that first second.
Oh and it retaliates and does damage.
Oh and it can scale to a 16k Tooltip heal with 3 Cruxes.
Oh and it generates 4 ultimate every 8 second.
Oh and slotting it gives 129 of each recovery.

What did ward do before this update?

Oh yeah shield for like 15k when you Min max for magicka. Yeah definitely balanced when you compare the two. /Sarcasm

Id take this Shield all day give it to me as a morph, preferably let it scale off magicka because the rest of my class kit doesn't scale with health.

Come on man let's at least pretend to be unbiased geez.

Gonna add this for reference. So these tooltips were with ~43k ish health from memory. Sooo...

If we want to give it the Sorc treatment that's cool.

Fix scaling so that it matches Sorc, so at 50k Magicka / Health it'll be around 14.5kish for the shield and Tooltip for 7.5k heal.
Remove the retaliate damage.
Remove the ultimate Regen.

I think it's dumb to have defensive skills scale off of health I think letting that scale off Magicka would be an excellent idea for Arcanist. Do it for their other abilities and just make sure there are no outliers for standard damage values when you do.

That's a win win for me. Arcanists go less into "passive" tankiness in substitution for "active" defense.

xylena_lazarow · May 24

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

6. Give the heal a restriction that if certain buffs/effects/abilities are active, the ward no longer heals.

1-5 are fine but if Hardened heal is unconditional then Impervious heal gets to be unconditional too, unless you mean restricting the heal on Hardened somehow which could probably work. Just want them to be about the same. For that matter, Runeblades and Fulminating should both be extended from 22m to 28m base range.

Jsmalls wrote: »

If we want to give it the Sorc treatment that's cool. Fix scaling so that it matches Sorc

Yup that's exactly what I was suggesting. Same scaling as Sorc. Same shield, same heal, balance up the secondary effects and passives however you want, I never cared about those. Also 43k hp on Arc is very low damage, that's a group utility not a DD. My 32k hp DD Arc is at 12k/6k on Impervious (with Bastion).

Turtle_Bot · May 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

6. Give the heal a restriction that if certain buffs/effects/abilities are active, the ward no longer heals.

1-5 are fine but if Hardened heal is unconditional then Impervious heal gets to be unconditional too, unless you mean restricting the heal on Hardened somehow which could probably work. Just want them to be about the same. For that matter, Runeblades and Fulminating should both be extended from 22m to 28m base range.

That's the thing though, the heal on hardened IS conditional on if the ward also protects a pet or not. As such there would have to be an equivalent conditional on Impervious ward's heal, because otherwise that is just straight up making impervious better than hardened which is not making it to the same standards.

That conditional would also have to be relevant to Arcs overall kit and not tied to some random non-factor like pets (since those don't exist in the arcanist kit).

SkaraMinoc · May 24

Some numbers to be aware of.

Impervious Ward heals for 2x as much as Hardened Ward. (0.3 Max Health vs 0.15 Max Health/Stat)
Impervious Ward shields for 0.9 Max Health over 1 second and Hardened Ward only 0.443 Max Health/Stat.

Jsmalls · May 24

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

6. Give the heal a restriction that if certain buffs/effects/abilities are active, the ward no longer heals.

1-5 are fine but if Hardened heal is unconditional then Impervious heal gets to be unconditional too, unless you mean restricting the heal on Hardened somehow which could probably work. Just want them to be about the same. For that matter, Runeblades and Fulminating should both be extended from 22m to 28m base range.

That's the thing though, the heal on hardened IS conditional on if the ward also protects a pet or not. As such there would have to be an equivalent conditional on Impervious ward's heal, because otherwise that is just straight up making impervious better than hardened which is not making it to the same standards.

That conditional would also have to be relevant to Arcs overall kit and not tied to some random non-factor like pets (since those don't exist in the arcanist kit).

@Turtle_Bot
@xylena_lazarow

Yeah we can't even use our Summoner ultimate anymore which was actually really cool for PvP as both a kiting mechanism and group major berserk.

And we wanted to try out the new concussion Atro but now we can't.

So I guess whenever you activate your Tidal Gaze you lose the heal on shield cast would be fair. Probably have to look into two other abilities inside one of the trees to also give that same condition for.

xylena_lazarow · May 24

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

When you're under pressure, Impervious Ward is the clear winner.

Nope not even close, this is what it actually looks like from someone who plays both classes in Cyro.

Notice Hardened doing 2791 hps (86.5%) to Impervious doing 1593 hps (46.1%) in Cyro open world situations, thats Hardened damn near doubling up on Impervious.

Arc recovery hard depends on layering hots underneath your Impervious spam. You can't just spam Impervious alone and recover like you can spam Hardened alone and recover. The combined shield + heal on Hardened is massively stronger when spammed compared to Impervious being slightly bigger initially but having no heal once your Crux is burned.

Jsmalls · May 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

When you're under pressure, Impervious Ward is the clear winner.

Nope not even close, this is what it actually looks like from someone who plays both classes in Cyro.

Notice Hardened doing 2791 hps (86.5%) to Impervious doing 1593 hps (46.1%) in Cyro open world situations, thats Hardened damn near doubling up on Impervious.

Arc recovery hard depends on layering hots underneath your Impervious spam. You can't just spam Impervious alone and recover like you can spam Hardened alone and recover. The combined shield + heal on Hardened is massively stronger when spammed compared to Impervious being slightly bigger initially but having no heal once your Crux is burned.

Which two abilities on your bar are slotted to passively support impervious?

Take away those two abilities and your shield is 15% weaker in value, and you take 10% more damage.

xylena_lazarow · May 24

Also Arc can't Streak. Sorc mains, please play some Arc. You can even use my build if you want.

Jsmalls · May 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Also Arc can't Streak. Sorc mains, please play some Arc. You can even use my build if you want.

But I'm allergic to procs.

SkaraMinoc · May 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

When you're under pressure, Impervious Ward is the clear winner.

Nope not even close, this is what it actually looks like from someone who plays both classes in Cyro.

Notice Hardened doing 2791 hps (86.5%) to Impervious doing 1593 hps (46.1%) in Cyro open world situations, thats Hardened damn near doubling up on Impervious.

Arc recovery hard depends on layering hots underneath your Impervious spam. You can't just spam Impervious alone and recover like you can spam Hardened alone and recover. The combined shield + heal on Hardened is massively stronger when spammed compared to Impervious being slightly bigger initially but having no heal once your Crux is burned.

This isn't a controlled experiment where only one or two variables change.

You're suggesting Impervious Ward needs a buff to compete with Hardened Ward but Max Magicka scaling is the problem.

xylena_lazarow · May 24

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

You're suggesting Impervious Ward needs a buff to compete with Hardened Ward when Max Magicka scaling is the problem.

Don't care which fix. My point is they should be on par with each other, but Hardened is currently much stronger.

Jsmalls wrote: »

But I'm allergic to procs.

[snip] But to be serious, Arc's offensive toolkit is jank in PvP, they really need to lean on procs to fill the gaps. Sorc has the luxury of running pretty much whatever it wants, stats, procs, both.

[edited for baiting]

SkaraMinoc · May 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Hardened is currently much stronger.

Yes but only because of Max Magicka. Hardened Ward is also used on Stam Sorc, wd/sd builds, healer builds, etc.

Here's an enemy Mag Sorc with only 13.8k shield that I could barely punch through.

Once I stunned and got them low, they streaked out and healed to full in 2 seconds.

xylena_lazarow · May 24

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Here's an enemy Mag Sorc with only 13.8k shield that I could barely punch through.

Right, that's well below maxed mag pool, Sorcs can push higher damage trading out Alfiq. I'm in agreement with you that max mag is a problem, but not quite the same reason, more the healing component scaling with max mag. I've played around with Ward on StamSorc, both hp Ward version and uninvested Ward version, both felt like a better Arc but overall probably ok, although in the other crazy Sorc thread Static seemed to think the hp version was also overpowered.

Your post does well visually demonstrating how insane Ward is in PvP, appreciate the work.

NyassaV · May 24

Arcanist has some of the strongest defensive tools in the game. So no Runeward doesn't need a buff.

xylena_lazarow · May 24

NyassaV wrote: »

Arcanist has some of the strongest defensive tools in the game. So no Runeward doesn't need a buff.

So does Sorc, or are we still pretending Streak doesn't exist?

StaticWave · May 25

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

When you're under pressure, Impervious Ward is the clear winner.

Nope not even close, this is what it actually looks like from someone who plays both classes in Cyro.

Notice Hardened doing 2791 hps (86.5%) to Impervious doing 1593 hps (46.1%) in Cyro open world situations, thats Hardened damn near doubling up on Impervious.

Arc recovery hard depends on layering hots underneath your Impervious spam. You can't just spam Impervious alone and recover like you can spam Hardened alone and recover. The combined shield + heal on Hardened is massively stronger when spammed compared to Impervious being slightly bigger initially but having no heal once your Crux is burned.

This isn't a controlled experiment where only one or two variables change.

You're suggesting Impervious Ward needs a buff to compete with Hardened Ward but Max Magicka scaling is the problem.

Right, but the reason he gave Cyrodiil screenshots is because some ppl said a controlled environment, aka dueling, is only hypothetical and doesn’t reflect normal PvP 🤣

I swear, nothing satisfies ppl lmao

xylena_lazarow · May 25

StaticWave wrote: »

Right, but the reason she gave Cyrodiil screenshots is because some ppl said a controlled environment, aka dueling, is only hypothetical and doesn’t reflect normal PvP 🤣

Yes thank you, people did specifically ask for data outside staged duels. Minor correction as I'm female, no worries. I also did not choose those particular CMX randomly. It's not trivial to find similar usable CMX results on two different classes like that, those two were both in the mid 3k hps range, between 4-8 minutes each, the Arc one was a few minutes longer.

Yes I can reproduce these sort of results on both Sorc and Arc, but I'm still waiting for even a single CMX analysis from the Ward supporters, without stat backup their arguments have too much of this "trust me bro, I'm a MagSorc" vibe. I'm also still waiting for them to try playing some Arc themselves, to see how far behind Sorc it's fallen as an open world DD.

IncultaWolf · May 25

Can necro get buffs to actually be playable like every other class first please?

xylena_lazarow · May 25

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Can necro get buffs to actually be playable like every other class first please?

We're both gonna have to wait, I've heard the next few patches are all NB buffs (to bring them on par with Sorc).

SkaraMinoc · May 26

StaticWave wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

This isn't a controlled experiment where only one or two variables change.

You're suggesting Impervious Ward needs a buff to compete with Hardened Ward but Max Magicka scaling is the problem.

Right, but the reason he gave Cyrodiil screenshots is because some ppl said a controlled environment, aka dueling, is only hypothetical and doesn’t reflect normal PvP 🤣

I swear, nothing satisfies ppl lmao

Where? Nobody said that in any of the comments leading up to my reply.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Yes thank you, people did specifically ask for data outside staged duels.

Are you sure this wasn't asked for in a separate thread?

xylena_lazarow · May 26

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

This isn't a controlled experiment where only one or two variables change... Are you sure this wasn't asked for in a separate thread?

So what if it was the other thread? It's part of the same discourse, and I'm pretty sure Static posted a few dozen controlled experiments over there already. Is there a particular experiment you think would shed light here?

LittlePinkDot · May 26

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Hardened: unconditionally burst heals every time, indefinitely spammable
Impervious: heals only once after needing to charge up Crux, heal cannot be spammed, you lose all your Crux
Solution: Impervious no longer requires Crux and provides the same unconditional burst heal, to match the class shield standards set by Hardened Ward

Hardened: lasts 6 seconds at full power
Impervious: lasts 1 second at full power, then cuts itself in half
Solution: Impervious now lasts 6 seconds at full power, to match the class shield standards set by Hardened Ward

Hardened: scales with either max hp or max mag, so DD builds never need to trade off between mag and hp
Impervious: only ever scales with max hp, forcing a big damage loss on DD builds
Solution: Impervious now scales with your higher stat between max hp or max mag, to match the class shield standards set by Hardened Ward

Pay no mind to Galeriano's memes, this is a real thread about Arc's current place in PvP as it relates to being badly outclassed by Sorc.

In regards to PvP I wish they would make Rune blades a viable spammable.

As for Arcanist over all... I think they make the best most fun PVE tank.

LittlePinkDot · May 26

Jsmalls wrote: »

[

Jsmalls wrote: »

@xylena_lazarow

You mean this ability right here? Just slapped on the that setup I saw from a Arcanist build post. That's in cyrodiil.

Seems like a larger shield for that first second.
Oh and it retaliates and does damage.
Oh and it can scale to a 16k Tooltip heal with 3 Cruxes.
Oh and it generates 4 ultimate every 8 second.
Oh and slotting it gives 129 of each recovery.

What did ward do before this update?

Oh yeah shield for like 15k when you Min max for magicka. Yeah definitely balanced when you compare the two. /Sarcasm

Id take this Shield all day give it to me as a morph, preferably let it scale off magicka because the rest of my class kit doesn't scale with health.

Come on man let's at least pretend to be unbiased geez.

Gonna add this for reference. So these tooltips were with ~43k ish health from memory. Sooo...

If we want to give it the Sorc treatment that's cool.

Fix scaling so that it matches Sorc, so at 50k Magicka / Health it'll be around 14.5kish for the shield and Tooltip for 7.5k heal.
Remove the retaliate damage.
Remove the ultimate Regen.

I think it's dumb to have defensive skills scale off of health I think letting that scale off Magicka would be an excellent idea for Arcanist. Do it for their other abilities and just make sure there are no outliers for standard damage values when you do.

That's a win win for me. Arcanists go less into "passive" tankiness in substitution for "active" defense.

Impervious runeward was designed for PVE tank. It needs to scale with health for tanks.
The chakram shield skill scales with Magicka, you can use that one instead.

xylena_lazarow · May 26

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Impervious runeward was designed for PVE tank. It needs to scale with health for tanks. The chakram shield skill scales with Magicka, you can use that one instead.

Chakram is group support, the scaling isn't worth it on its own for a solo shield. You can run it on DD if you really want but you'll probably still need Impervious, which is 12k/6k on my 32k hp open world DD.

SkaraMinoc · May 26

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

This isn't a controlled experiment where only one or two variables change... Are you sure this wasn't asked for in a separate thread?

So what if it was the other thread? It's part of the same discourse, and I'm pretty sure Static posted a few dozen controlled experiments over there already.

Because the other thread is 40+ pages and the majority of people on the forums, including myself, aren't going to read through 800+ replies. @StaticWave "nothing satisfies people lmao" 🤣

StaticWave · May 26

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

This isn't a controlled experiment where only one or two variables change... Are you sure this wasn't asked for in a separate thread?

So what if it was the other thread? It's part of the same discourse, and I'm pretty sure Static posted a few dozen controlled experiments over there already.

Because the other thread is 40+ pages and the majority of people on the forums, including myself, aren't going to read through 800+ replies. @StaticWave "nothing satisfies people lmao" 🤣

@SkaraMinoc You don't need to read thru 40 pages and 800 replies. This was my OP:

One reply on 2nd page:

"In duels sure, it's dummy strong. In open world definitely not"

My data was taken from a controlled environment. Several people said it doesn't represent normal PvP. @xylena_lazarow and I also posted Cyrodiil and BG data. People change their goal post. Nothing satisfies people was the correct response.

xylena_lazarow · May 26

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Because the other thread is 40+ pages and the majority of people on the forums, including myself, aren't going to read through 800+ replies.

Yeah and 700 of those are "trust me bro, I'm a MagSorc" but instead you choose to nitpick the few posts with actual data and analysis? What is your point? Like yeah "max mag scaling" is obviously part of the problem but isn't necessarily going to be the best way to address Ward, we can let actual devs figure that part out.

Joy_Division · May 26

Both Arcanists and Sorcerers should have their shields matched with the Templar's Sun Shield skill.