impen is getting fixed in 1.6 (How I would address crit builds in pvp...)

NotSo · December 2014

EDIT

@ZOS_Eric wrote:

Impenetrable has been tweaked in 1.6, it now reduces incoming critical damage instead of reducing the chance to be hit with a critical strike. This means abilties such as critical surge will now give the caster health. We like the fact that Impenetrable is very powerful in AvA but would like to further adjust the way it works so players have more gearing options in AvA.

So impenetrable is fixed now. Huzzah!
/EDIT

*Old post*
I hate that impenetrable completely counters crit builds but I understand that if a nerf happened to that trait then everybody would rush to crit.

The way I see it is impenetrable and crit need to both be addressed. Impenetrable should decrease crit damage taken, and crit needs it's own way to amp up the amount of crit damage dealt. But there also needs to be a balance between how much crit chance you can have with how hard a crit can hit, i.e. the way you would build up crit chance would take up the same method as building up crit power (though I think it should be easier to build up crit power).

On another note, I don't think crits should be allowed to hit for more than 50% extra damage in pvp. Literally reduce crit damage % rate exclusively for pvp. Let's say the highest possible crit damage for pve was at 120% extra damage; if you were at halfway with 60% extra power to crit, then when you'd go into pvp, now you're at 25% extra damage.
Without any extra crit power at all, you would be getting a baseline of 30% bonus damage in pve and 15% bonus damage in pvp.

Another thing that should be addressed is the ultimate generation caused by crit. Everybody would run crit build if impenetrable only reduced crit damage, they'd be running around ultimate'ing all over the place, so the only thing left to do is simply deactivate that kind of ultimate generation or reduce it in some way, like giving it a 3 second cooldown or building it up in a separate resource that wouldn't pool into the main resource until after x amount of time.

The reason why crit needs to still be viable in pvp is because of the crit-ccentric abilities that have a secondary effect that activates when you crit, such as the heal from critical surge. Players who build off crit shouldn't be forced to play any other way. With sorcerers, not having a viable crit build in pvp means most of us are cookie cutter builds.

EDIT:
Crit damage reduction should be a non variable when getting hit with a stealth attack.
Now I'm asking if that would alleviate any negative impact on nightblades.

Lynx7386 · December 2014

Impenetrable just needs to be changed from reduced crit chance to reduced crit damage, capping at a max of 7% per slot with legendary gear (6% on purple, 5% for blue, 4% for green, and 3% base.)

That means with the max of 8 pieces of gear having impenetrable (7 armor + 1 shield), you'd be taking 56% less damage from critical hits with all legendary gear, or 24% less damage from critical hits in all white gear.

OrangeTheCat · December 2014

Why not remove impenetrable and replace it with glyphs that simply reduce the amount of damage from enemy players? That way, at least, it would not hurt one class more than another.

Lynx7386 · December 2014

That's another good option, I suppose, but then instead of hurting crit builds you end up encouraging them and hurting the non crit builds

Wolfenbelle · December 2014

For whatever reason, this forum seems to be dominated by PvP players who are always asking for this or that 'nerf' (adjustment) to help their style of play. However, the dominant posters here seem to completely ignore the fact that the game is far more than just PvP. Personally, I find the constant changes to the game make it a struggle for me to just relax and enjoy ESO. In January the huge move to the Champion System will be released, and it will change everything. So can folks just settle down for awhile and let things be as they are?

Aeratus · December 2014

Right now, sorcs are mostly balanced, and they are balanced taking into consideration that crit is not reliable. If crit becomes reliable, sorcs will become too powerful. Even a 56% reduction in crit damage is huge in terms of the healing returns from crit surge.

At the moment, sorcs are not underpowered for pvp.

The complaints for sorcs are mostly based on PVE, and it just seems like the PVPers are taking advantage of this to push an agenda for pvp.

rophez_ESO · December 2014

Wolfenbelle wrote: »

For whatever reason, this forum seems to be dominated by PvP players who are always asking for this or that 'nerf' (adjustment) to help their style of play. However, the dominant posters here seem to completely ignore the fact that the game is far more than just PvP. Personally, I find the constant changes to the game make it a struggle for me to just relax and enjoy ESO. In January the huge move to the Champion System will be released, and it will change everything. So can folks just settle down for awhile and let things be as they are?

Pretty sure mobs in PVE don't crit, so this change wouldn't affect you at all (changing impenetrable from crit chance reduction to crit damage reduction.)

NotSo · December 2014

I'm not talking about sorcerers being underpowered, I'm talking about crit builds not being viable in pvp because they are trumped by an armor trait. To think that simply having an armor trait will make a crit build next to useless is absurd.

Armor traits are there to assist you, not make you win by default.

PBpsy · December 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Impenetrable just needs to be changed from reduced crit chance to reduced crit damage, capping at a max of 7% per slot with legendary gear (6% on purple, 5% for blue, 4% for green, and 3% base.)

That means with the max of 8 pieces of gear having impenetrable (7 armor + 1 shield), you'd be taking 56% less damage from critical hits with all legendary gear, or 24% less damage from critical hits in all white gear.

I think this is the best solution though I think the damage reduction should apply only to the critical damage bonus not the entire damage done by that hit. With the best impenetrable gear you should get hit for 110% damage instead of 150%+. If the damage reduction would work on all the hit damage nothing would really change.
In terms of ultimate generation I say leave it as it is. Ultimate use should be a part of the game not something that you see every half hour.

Kaghei · December 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Impenetrable just needs to be changed from reduced crit chance to reduced crit damage, capping at a max of 7% per slot with legendary gear (6% on purple, 5% for blue, 4% for green, and 3% base.)

That means with the max of 8 pieces of gear having impenetrable (7 armor + 1 shield), you'd be taking 56% less damage from critical hits with all legendary gear, or 24% less damage from critical hits in all white gear.

wont this be a nerf to impen?
before everyone gets on board with this, yes impen is a super counter to crit builds, but if you remember vamp sorcs at launch before impen was discovered, they were unstoppable. Their healing will be up, their ult gen will be up...

edit: Negates are already too strong, i dont fancy seeing 2 sorcs spam a negate every 2 seconds.

thelordoffelines · December 2014

Aeratus wrote: »

Right now, sorcs are mostly balanced, and they are balanced taking into consideration that crit is not reliable. If crit becomes reliable, sorcs will become too powerful. Even a 56% reduction in crit damage is huge in terms of the healing returns from crit surge.

At the moment, sorcs are not underpowered for pvp.

The complaints for sorcs are mostly based on PVE, and it just seems like the PVPers are taking advantage of this to push an agenda for pvp.

uuhhh what? Read this thread to inform yourself on the state of sorcerers.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/143245/why-does-zos-hate-sorcs

Lynx7386 · December 2014

Yea the real issue right now is that some abilities, like critical surge, will not give their effect at all against an opponent traited for impenetrable. If the trait were changed to reduce critical damage instead of chance, abilities like critical surge would still activate but you'd still be doing less damage to the opponent.

For those unaware, critical surge heals you for 65% of the damage dealt whenever you critically strike a target with a weapon attack.

Erynyes · December 2014

the real issue imho is that there's too much useles trait, if we'd have better trait you'd probably see less people just putting impen by default, and PVE people, don't tell me you wouldn't like to have someting better than sturdy, training, explo, well fitted...

Lynx7386 · December 2014

Erynyes wrote: »

the real issue imho is that there's too much useles trait, if we'd have better trait you'd probably see less people just putting impen by default, and PVE people, don't tell me you wouldn't like to have someting better than sturdy, training, explo, well fitted...

that's another issue, but a valid one.

Personally, I would combine the training and exploration traits into a single trait that increases all experience gained and the rate at which all skills (not just armor and weapon skills) improve.

RinaldoGandolphi · December 2014

Aeratus wrote: »

Right now, sorcs are mostly balanced, and they are balanced taking into consideration that crit is not reliable. If crit becomes reliable, sorcs will become too powerful. Even a 56% reduction in crit damage is huge in terms of the healing returns from crit surge.

At the moment, sorcs are not underpowered for pvp.

The complaints for sorcs are mostly based on PVE, and it just seems like the PVPers are taking advantage of this to push an agenda for pvp.

Sorcs not underpowered in PVP? I have to be leaps and bounds more skilled then my opponent to kill them.

Sorcs have no instant cast direct damage class skills, no DOT class skills, and no class self healing (trying using Dark Exchange to heal yourself during a fight and see how that works out for you) The Sorc class was based on survivability via mobility, thats why we had Bolt Escape, but it was over nerfed and has made an already squishy class much weaker and easier to kill because of it. A resto staff is required for a Sorc.

I play a traditional mage, 7 LA, Destro Staff and Resto Staff. I have one viable play bar really and that is it. Crushing Shock is not one of those skills. Sorcs are far from balanced, we have the worst damage, no heals, no isntant cast DD class skills, or a self heal. The Bolt Escape nerf put us at a disdavantage from the get go now at every turn.

Every nerf has effect Sorcs, 1st it was Bolt Escape cast cost, then it was capping how many people Streak can hit, Then it was nerfing Harness Magicka, then it was Nerfing Sharpened Trait, and now they are going to nerf Sorcs further with the staff change to spell damage.

The only way to raise spell daamge is though specific gear or jewlry enchants, but doing so means a Sorc has to gave up his cost reductions and take a hit in mana recovery....all of this to do LESS DAMAGE. The Sharpened Nerf makes spell damage do muhc less damage then its weapon daamge counterpart, so Sorcs will not only stink worse in PVP now then they do, but they will no longer be viable for end game raids or trails either.

they will be good for a Negate and nothing more.

the only reason i still play my Sorc is i like the feeling of killing a DK or Blazing Shield Templar 1vs1 when im disadvantaged from the get go, to still win despite the short comings feels very very good!

I am however leving a Bow Wielding Templar Alt because if this next patch does what it seems like its going to (change staff to spell power and change nothing else for Sorcs nor fix our class), then the Sorc class will no longer be viable at all in any competitive environment, its not really viable now in compairson to DK, Temp or NB, but it will be factors worse with these changes...so i will have no choice but to regulate my Sorc to a crafting and mat mule until further notice.

there is a reason it takes forever to fill a Sorc contract on Thornblade, yet i can fill a DK, Temp, or NB contract in 20-30 mins, go into Thorn and look aorund sometime, Sorcs are not common....the other day outside of Ash, i think i was the only sorc their...no one else was using BE but me, i saw no one else using any Sorc skills, i felt like an outcast among my own kind

Rune_Relic · December 2014

Completely understand where you are coming from with impenetrable and crit stacking.
Getting both working at the same time is a must.

BUT...crit and crit damage is not something that builds over time. Its not like static charge building up or something.

Critical strike was never about power but accuracy and speed. Hitting the right place done the damage....having the speed increased the chance of hitting that place. Be it arteries or pressure points. The art of the assassin was to use such skill instead of brute force and blunt force trauma.

That separates critical damage from physical damage and spell damage.

My own solution was 3 resources.
1. physical damage resource
2. Crit damage resource
3. Spell damage resource
..where physical + critical + spell damage = 100% damage

That way you could;
focus in 1 type of damage and sacrifice 2 others.
spread damage between 2 types and sacrifice 1 other.
spread damage between all 3 types but do even less damage in each.

Upto you if you want to focus all power in one type or spread the damage.

Naturally those familiar with hitting critical points would also know how to counter them. So again you would use 3 resources;
1. Physical resist resource
2. Crit resist resource
3. Spell resist resource

Everyone has their own ideas though

NotSo · December 2014

Rune_Relic wrote:

BUT...crit and crit damage is not something that builds over time. Its not like static charge building up or something.

I literally have no idea what you are talking about here.

Xexpo · December 2014

The TTK in this game is already relatively fast.
If you nerf inpen, even with the suggested fixes, it will only get faster.
I am not sure that's a good thing for pvp.

A heads up though, zos is planning to change how Ult is gained (in some mysterious way we won't know about until tomorrow maybe), so perhaps they are already on the case to fix some of these things

Samadhi · December 2014

Kaghei wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Impenetrable just needs to be changed from reduced crit chance to reduced crit damage, capping at a max of 7% per slot with legendary gear (6% on purple, 5% for blue, 4% for green, and 3% base.)

That means with the max of 8 pieces of gear having impenetrable (7 armor + 1 shield), you'd be taking 56% less damage from critical hits with all legendary gear, or 24% less damage from critical hits in all white gear.

wont this be a nerf to impen?
before everyone gets on board with this, yes impen is a super counter to crit builds, but if you remember vamp sorcs at launch before impen was discovered, they were unstoppable. Their healing will be up, their ult gen will be up...

edit: Negates are already too strong, i dont fancy seeing 2 sorcs spam a negate every 2 seconds.

It would be a buff to Impenetrable and a nerf to Nightblades.

Nightblade can easily buff to over 100% chance to crit.

Buffing Impenetrable to reduce crit damage instead of chance to crit would nerf Nightblades on crit builds.

So buffing Impenetrable in this way would give more survivability against crit build Nightblades, and would give Sorcerer's massive healing due to the lack of softcap on crit chance in this game. Can comprehend why people would be asking for this specific change.

Personally, would most like to see Sorcerer's Critical Surge skill changed to Healing Surge with a % chance to proc healing rather than forcing Sorcerer's into crit builds for healing.

Rune_Relic · December 2014

ian92415b14_ESO wrote: »

I hate that impenetrable completely counters crit builds but I understand that if a nerf happened to that trait then everybody would rush to crit.

The way I see it is impenetrable and crit need to both be addressed. Impenetrable should decrease crit damage taken, and crit needs it's own way to amp up the amount of crit damage dealt. But there also needs to be a balance between how much crit chance you can have with how hard a crit can hit, i.e. the way you would build up crit chance would take up the same method as building up crit power (though I think it should be easier to build up crit power).

On another note, I don't think crits should be allowed to hit for more than 50% extra damage in pvp. Literally reduce crit damage % rate exclusively for pvp. Let's say the highest possible crit damage for pve was at 120% extra damage; if you were at halfway with 60% extra power to crit, then when you'd go into pvp, now you're at 25% extra damage.
Without any extra crit power at all, you would be getting a baseline of 30% bonus damage in pve and 15% bonus damage in pvp.

Another thing that should be addressed is the ultimate generation caused by crit. Everybody would run crit build if impenetrable only reduced crit damage, they'd be running around ultimate'ing all over the place, so the only thing left to do is simply deactivate that kind of ultimate generation or reduce it in some way, like giving it a 3 second cooldown or building it up in a separate resource that wouldn't pool into the main resource until after x amount of time.

The reason why crit needs to still be viable in pvp is because of the crit-ccentric abilities that have a secondary effect that activates when you crit, such as the heal from critical surge. Players who build off crit shouldn't be forced to play any other way. With sorcerers, not having a viable crit build in pvp means most of us are cookie cutter builds.

I would also address other sorcerer abilities but I'm looking at these one at a time. Please don't turn my thread into another qq.

ian92415b14_ESO wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote:

BUT...crit and crit damage is not something that builds over time. Its not like static charge building up or something.

I literally have no idea what you are talking about here.

NotSo · December 2014

@Rune_Relic‌
I'm talking about taking up a trait or enchant slot on gear to increase your crit rate or crit power.

Hypertionb14_ESO · December 2014

2 things... Remove all ult gain specifically caused by crits in PvP, and Change impen to only affect the damage bonus from crits, including passive or mundus, or sneak attacks, up to the same current limit.

if impen simply works against the bonus damage of crits, not only will Crit builds work (tho deal no additional damage) but Impen will also work against Sneak attacks...

so ya... thats the perfect fix to impen.. and for Crit builds in PvP

as for the crit ult building in PvP.. i think that crits should not award Ult in PvP at all.

making that change would also remove the "charging my lazer" feel to pvp as i read once here on the forums

Kaghei · December 2014

Samadhi wrote: »

Kaghei wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Impenetrable just needs to be changed from reduced crit chance to reduced crit damage, capping at a max of 7% per slot with legendary gear (6% on purple, 5% for blue, 4% for green, and 3% base.)

That means with the max of 8 pieces of gear having impenetrable (7 armor + 1 shield), you'd be taking 56% less damage from critical hits with all legendary gear, or 24% less damage from critical hits in all white gear.

wont this be a nerf to impen?
before everyone gets on board with this, yes impen is a super counter to crit builds, but if you remember vamp sorcs at launch before impen was discovered, they were unstoppable. Their healing will be up, their ult gen will be up...

edit: Negates are already too strong, i dont fancy seeing 2 sorcs spam a negate every 2 seconds.

It would be a buff to Impenetrable and a nerf to Nightblades.

Nightblade can easily buff to over 100% chance to crit.

Buffing Impenetrable to reduce crit damage instead of chance to crit would nerf Nightblades on crit builds.

So buffing Impenetrable in this way would give more survivability against crit build Nightblades, and would give Sorcerer's massive healing due to the lack of softcap on crit chance in this game. Can comprehend why people would be asking for this specific change.

Personally, would most like to see Sorcerer's Critical Surge skill changed to Healing Surge with a % chance to proc healing rather than forcing Sorcerer's into crit builds for healing.

i was talking more for group play, i have 600 impen and i dont get crit when i dont need to be, but if it was crit damage rather than crit chance i would be taking more damage from impulse, and thats gonna make the skill way way better.
yeah i agree crit damage would be better for sorcs, but to limit it at 56% is too low for my liking. I'm virtually at 100% crit damage reduction because no one important has over 60%.

I dont care about the 1 ganker, hes not gonna kill me either way.

NotSo · December 2014

EDIT:
Crit damage reduction should be a non variable when getting hit with a stealth attack.
Now I'm asking if that would alleviate any negative impact on nightblades.
______________________________________________________________________

Kaghei wrote:

...

@Kaghei‌
But that's the problem. You should not be able to totally negate someone's build that requires crits.

Kaghei · December 2014

ian92415b14_ESO wrote: »

EDIT:
Crit damage reduction should be a non variable when getting hit with a stealth attack.
Now I'm asking if that would alleviate any negative impact on nightblades.
______________________________________________________________________

Kaghei wrote:

...

@Kaghei‌
But that's the problem. You should not be able to totally negate someone's build that requires crits.

Yeah i see that, but you should be able to negate the damage like you can with all other builds. limiting the damage reduction at 56% will not do that, players will get blown up by 350-500 fire ring (non vamp).
Keeping in mind im a vamp, a general non stacked fire ring will crit me for 750. A dk with stacked weapon damage will be able to pull those number off with the 56% damage reduction. An aoe that hits for 700+ no thanks.
Also whirlwinds, 800 crits dont sound enjoyable.

Pmarsico9 · December 2014

Wait for 1.6. That's all any of us can do regarding balance, PVP or PVE.

As an aside, I stopped PVPing totally until I can see who is two shotting me at the very least. Lethal Arrow > Heavy > Lethal Arrow > Dead

Samadhi · December 2014

ian92415b14_ESO wrote: »

EDIT:
Crit damage reduction should be a non variable when getting hit with a stealth attack.
Now I'm asking if that would alleviate any negative impact on nightblades.
...

Nightblades buff themselves with 100% crit rate on top of their regular passive crit rate (ie: it's possible to have 160% chance to crit or higher while buffed) at any time in combat.
Totally separate mechanic from Sneak Attack bonuses.

Personally play both a Sorcerer and Nightblade in PvP.
Would rather see Critical Surge changed than see Impenetrable changed. There is certainly an issue in terms of the viability of Sorcerer's healing skill. The solution to that issue is to change the skill.

NotSo · December 2014

Kaghei wrote:

limiting the damage reduction at 56% . . .

I never specified how much you would be able to reduce crit damage taken. On the flip side, I said that crit damage done in pvp would be capped at 50% extra damage over your normal un-crit'ed damage.

Dazin93 · December 2014

Samadhi wrote: »

ian92415b14_ESO wrote: »

EDIT:
Crit damage reduction should be a non variable when getting hit with a stealth attack.
Now I'm asking if that would alleviate any negative impact on nightblades.
...

Nightblades buff themselves with 100% crit rate on top of their regular passive crit rate (ie: it's possible to have 160% chance to crit or higher while buffed) at any time in combat.
Totally separate mechanic from Sneak Attack bonuses.

Personally play both a Sorcerer and Nightblade in PvP.
Would rather see Critical Surge changed than see Impenetrable changed. There is certainly an issue in terms of the viability of Sorcerer's healing skill. The solution to that issue is to change the skill.

I agree and I think impenetrable is fine as it is; just unfortunate that the side effect causes the primary self heal for the sorc class to be negligible in pvp and most like was unintended or unanticipated by Zos.

As I suggested earlier, an easy way to fix this would be to add a modifier to crit surge so it bypasses a flat value or percentage of crit resistance. This would allow sorcs to have more survivability while preventing crit builds in general from becoming the next meta.

xaraan · December 2014

I think if your build is that "one shot" into one thing - crit and someone counters it, then oh well. If you are going to limit one, then you gotta limit both IMO. (And this impen complaint usually comes from sorcs - there are more ways to heal as a sorc than crit surge).

That being said, if they made the other traits a bit better and more appealing then it would be a bigger deal for someone to give up the other traits to run impen on everything.

Dazin93 · December 2014

xaraan wrote: »

(And this impen complaint usually comes from sorcs - there are more ways to heal as a sorc than crit surge).

The only other sorc class skill that can heal is dark exchange and it is a trade off, not a pure heal, and it also isn't a viable option for a stamina sorc. It doesn't even compare to gdb or other class heals.

Bottom line, game mechanics should not allow for any class heal to be completely nullified, period.