Sword and Board: The new mandatory

olsborg · December 2014

Blocking, specificly with sword and shield, has WAY too much mitigation with the right gear. My CF wich hits normally for around 730ish hits a shieldblocker for about 150. Thats ridiculous. Since they can also block indefinately.

Also, staffs should give some kinda passive boost to spellpower (atleast ranged spells) so theres a tradeoff of some kind. Since just wearing a sword and shield instead of a staff gives you a HUGE buff to something as important as blocking, but offers little to none drawbacks when using spells compared to if you had a staff. (light attack weaving aside)

Grim13 · December 2014

Huntler wrote: »

Grim13 wrote: »

If only there were one handed staves to go with those shields, eh fotm abusers!?

If you think its just a flavor of the month, you haven't been paying attention for like 3-4 months.

/facepalm

AhPook_Is_Here · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They need to remove the reduction in block costs from the 1h/Shield line and move them into the Heavy Armor line. Make it so someone in full HA w/ 1h+Shield has the same costs as current, but the pajama wearing masses can't block for bupkiss.

No that wrecks PVE nightblade tanks and Sorc tanks.

Nothing's stopping them from strapping on something other than LA. Doesn't Mojar Stalker run 5 pieces of heavy, for instance, and he does fine.

Essentially, if an LA user's response is 'that makes us worse at tanking', well...

GOOD.

Not true for sorc tanks with poor sta regen, they are using 5p medium hist bark, dodge actives from the medium armor tree, and 2p light for mana regen. Even with 3 block cost reduction enchants your stamina bar goes down too fast to tank vet arena or sanctum. Also you'd make sorc abilities like bound aegis meaningless since the soft caps for armor are so low as it is. NB tanks can't live off of luck forever either if their STA bar is going down faster on each successful block. The difference between a hit from the possessed manticore that is blocked and unblocked is around 9k.

I think the cost reduction is where it should be; and heavy armor gives further reduction already in terms of regen from constitution, and also the 5p heavy provides further block cost reduction. The idea of reducing damage with S/B equipped makes more sense from a PVE perspective, and actually I could support that. However, they could buff Juggernaut to increase physical damage in heavy armor as well and just leave s/b alone. S/B is for tanking so if anything the damage is wrong on it. There is a reason people don't tank DW or 2H other than the fact that inner fire becomes your only taunt; blocking is the difference between life and death in pve tanking.

I think what the game really needs are more things to discourage aoe bomb groups. Blocking doesn't effect aoe damage as I'm sure you know,

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They need to remove the reduction in block costs from the 1h/Shield line and move them into the Heavy Armor line. Make it so someone in full HA w/ 1h+Shield has the same costs as current, but the pajama wearing masses can't block for bupkiss.

No that wrecks PVE nightblade tanks and Sorc tanks.

Nothing's stopping them from strapping on something other than LA. Doesn't Mojar Stalker run 5 pieces of heavy, for instance, and he does fine.

Essentially, if an LA user's response is 'that makes us worse at tanking', well...

GOOD.

Not true for sorc tanks with poor sta regen, they are using 5p medium hist bark, dodge actives from the medium armor tree, and 2p light for mana regen. Even with 3 block cost reduction enchants your stamina bar goes down too fast to tank vet arena or sanctum. Also you'd make sorc abilities like bound aegis meaningless since the soft caps for armor are so low as it is. NB tanks can't live off of luck forever either if their STA bar is going down faster on each successful block. The difference between a hit from the possessed manticore that is blocked and unblocked is around 9k.

I think the cost reduction is where it should be; and heavy armor gives further reduction already in terms of regen from constitution, and also the 5p heavy provides further block cost reduction. The idea of reducing damage with S/B equipped makes more sense from a PVE perspective, and actually I could support that. However, they could buff Juggernaut to increase physical damage in heavy armor as well and just leave s/b alone. S/B is for tanking so if anything the damage is wrong on it. There is a reason people don't tank DW or 2H other than the fact that inner fire becomes your only taunt; blocking is the difference between life and death in pve tanking.

I think what the game really needs are more things to discourage aoe bomb groups. Blocking doesn't effect aoe damage as I'm sure you know,

It affects stamina based AOE damage.

Things like Cleave (and its morphs) from the 2H line and Whirlwind (and its morphs) can be blocked and end up only doing a fraction of the damage. Whereas things like Wall of Elements and Impulse, both from the Destro staff line, cannot be blocked. Other things like Inhale (and its morphs) from the DK skill line also cannot be blocked.

I've been in the situation with a test build I tried using Dual Wield where I couldn't bring down a blocking LA user. 2500+ Stamina, 220 Weapon Damage, Flawless Dawnbreaker slotted, the caster had been knocked down to 20ish percent life, and when using Steel Tornado, I was hitting for ~150 damage due to their blocking (and that's with the damage multiplier steel tornado gets on low HP targets). Their AEs, against my capped spell resist, would hit me for 400+ while blocking.

This is where you see some of the heart of the imbalance. The magicka AEs cannot be blocked, get excellent spell resist penetration from light armor, and the stuff that any stamina based build can throw back in response can all be blocked by someone gaining a benefit from that spell resist penetration, extra magicka regen, large cost to cast decrease and other benefits.

AhPook_Is_Here · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

This is where you see some of the heart of the imbalance. The magicka AEs cannot be blocked, get excellent spell resist penetration from light armor, and the stuff that any stamina based build can throw back in response can all be blocked by someone gaining a benefit from that spell resist penetration, extra magicka regen, large cost to cast decrease and other benefits.

They should make AoE consistent, either it is block-able or it is not, rather than conditional on specific abilities.

I don't have much experience dual wielding in PVP, or PVE for that matter. It sounds like Heavy armor could use some physical damage buffs, magic resistance, and maybe reduced sta costs for physical abilities? It also sounds like DW could use some PVP buffs.

How do heavy attacks work with DW currently? It seems block isn't working against 2h heavy attacks, my sorc can crit those blocking DKs for 1.3k with a fully charged heavy attack, around 250wp.

I'm still not sure if it is a bug or not, in PVE a heavy attack against a blocker results in a self stun, here it seems to punch though with the weapon sets I've been using that include S/B, destro, 2h, resto. You can't block charging those heavy attacks like you can with steel tornado or other abilities (x ring), but usually your target is blocking meaning you don't have to worry about block casting for a few.

If it is intentional, then they could always just set up 2 sets of rules for all their abilities including block so that it functions one way in PVP and another in PVE.

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

This is where you see some of the heart of the imbalance. The magicka AEs cannot be blocked, get excellent spell resist penetration from light armor, and the stuff that any stamina based build can throw back in response can all be blocked by someone gaining a benefit from that spell resist penetration, extra magicka regen, large cost to cast decrease and other benefits.

They should make AoE consistent, either it is block-able or it is not, rather than conditional on specific abilities.

I don't have much experience dual wielding in PVP, or PVE for that matter. It sounds like Heavy armor could use some physical damage buffs, magic resistance, and maybe reduced sta costs for physical abilities? It also sounds like DW could use some PVP buffs.

How do heavy attacks work with DW currently? It seems block isn't working against 2h heavy attacks, my sorc can crit those blocking DKs for 1.3k with a fully charged heavy attack, around 250wp.

I'm still not sure if it is a bug or not, in PVE a heavy attack against a blocker results in a self stun, here it seems to punch though with the weapon sets I've been using that include S/B, destro, 2h, resto. You can't block charging those heavy attacks like you can with steel tornado or other abilities (x ring), but usually your target is blocking meaning you don't have to worry about block casting for a few.

If it is intentional, then they could always just set up 2 sets of rules for all their abilities including block so that it functions one way in PVP and another in PVE.

Dual Wield heavy attacks attack at the same speed of a 1h+Shield heavy, but hit two times at once. I've hit for some decent damage with them, but they get blocked just like normal. There's no self stun, but you get greatly reduced damage.

And yes, I agree on consistency. Either all AEs are blockable, or none are (I'd prefer all).

Xsorus · December 2014

Its not going to matter after the new patch, Heavy Armor is going to be good

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Its not going to matter after the new patch, Heavy Armor is going to be good

I didn't get a chance to watch the stream. What'd they say?

Rune_Relic · December 2014

So everyone screams about the efficiency of block casting on a public forum.
Then people are surprised when the sheep start using block casting.

I think we shoudl start a thread proclaiming sorcs with dagger is somehow overpowered and see how many appear in cyrodiil. It would be the bluff of all bluffs with much sniggering.

Xsorus · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Its not going to matter after the new patch, Heavy Armor is going to be good

I didn't get a chance to watch the stream. What'd they say?

New passive in one of the champion lines makes it so whenever you use break free with heavy armor, you reduce the cost of your abilities....Since Heavy Armor + arena set is so cheap on break free, you'll be able to keep that buff up.

Orchish · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They need to remove the reduction in block costs from the 1h/Shield line and move them into the Heavy Armor line. Make it so someone in full HA w/ 1h+Shield has the same costs as current, but the pajama wearing masses can't block for bupkiss.

I like this.

Domander · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Ras_Alghul wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They need to remove the reduction in block costs from the 1h/Shield line and move them into the Heavy Armor line. Make it so someone in full HA w/ 1h+Shield has the same costs as current, but the pajama wearing masses can't block for bupkiss.

Shhhhhh! You're going to ruin Christmas for everyone!

It's time that being in pajamas came with the drawback that it's supposed to have -- survivability.

You want good magicka management AND good damage bonuses? Then suffer being squishy. I'm beyond tired of people in LA doing the most damage and being the best tanks. The balance in this game is awful.

No, you're choice of weapon should mean more damage done or less damage taken, (or ability to heal) which is working great imo.

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

Domander wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Ras_Alghul wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They need to remove the reduction in block costs from the 1h/Shield line and move them into the Heavy Armor line. Make it so someone in full HA w/ 1h+Shield has the same costs as current, but the pajama wearing masses can't block for bupkiss.

Shhhhhh! You're going to ruin Christmas for everyone!

It's time that being in pajamas came with the drawback that it's supposed to have -- survivability.

You want good magicka management AND good damage bonuses? Then suffer being squishy. I'm beyond tired of people in LA doing the most damage and being the best tanks. The balance in this game is awful.

No, you're choice of weapon should mean more damage done or less damage taken, (or ability to heal) which is working great imo.

It's not working. People are taking less damage and doing the same damage in return.

So time to neuter it.

Domander · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Ras_Alghul wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They need to remove the reduction in block costs from the 1h/Shield line and move them into the Heavy Armor line. Make it so someone in full HA w/ 1h+Shield has the same costs as current, but the pajama wearing masses can't block for bupkiss.

Shhhhhh! You're going to ruin Christmas for everyone!

It's time that being in pajamas came with the drawback that it's supposed to have -- survivability.

You want good magicka management AND good damage bonuses? Then suffer being squishy. I'm beyond tired of people in LA doing the most damage and being the best tanks. The balance in this game is awful.

No, you're choice of weapon should mean more damage done or less damage taken, (or ability to heal) which is working great imo.

It's not working. People are taking less damage and doing the same damage in return.

So time to neuter it.

I see, so people are running all the dungeons with sword and shield now? lol

It's not the same damage, it's just more damage than they're taking while blocking, which is good strategy.

They may be changing the way block works so that you can't block all the time... so that may make some players switch weapons.

Anyway, I will say that if you want to defend against more than one archer/destro pushing you, a shield is as good defense as you'll get, which I think is part of the reason you're seeing more, that and spell reflect.

Aldul · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Essentially, if an LA user's response is 'that makes us worse at tanking', well...

GOOD.

for what I've heard today, 1.6 will change a lot about heavy armor / tanking in pvp, which made no sense at all till now . . .

Garetth · December 2014

LOL! If any of you people think that ZOS is going to implement anything even CLOSE to class balance in 1.6, all I can say is put the glue down now.

Domander · December 2014

It looks like ultimate generation will require light and heavy attacks, so... yeah, block and cast will mean 0 ultimate gain. Gonna have to open yourself up by light attacking if you want any ultimate :P

Forestd16b14_ESO · December 2014

We all feel the pain and we all have asked ZoS to fix the blocking from block casting to 360 block and they even said in dec 19 stream when they answered a question about block casting that is is staying in the game cause for some very very very odd reason they don't see any problems with it or event he whole blocking system in general. Cause now before 6 drops Light armor wears can tank and DPS at the same time due to block casting... thats just silly a PJ wearing guy shouldnt be able to take the same ammount of heat as a guy who is wearing full heavy armor jsut cause he is holding up a shield... not even a shield a stick ... A bloody stick

Here's how i see it should be

No block casting your skill bar goes dark when blocking
No 720 blocking make it um.... 100 or 120

Shields block 75% damage
2H weapons block 50%
1H weapons block 25% bump up to 50% when dual wielding
Bow and Staffs block 15% since there most likely farther away from the guy

But I do think block should be based on weapon and not armor to make it still play how you want so players can try to make you know battle mage build or assassins build or berserker/reaver builds.

JackDaniell · December 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeEYsF6wi3g

I left my shield in Windhelm

Cyantific87 · December 2014

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

We all feel the pain and we all have asked ZoS to fix the blocking from block casting to 360 block and they even said in dec 19 stream when they answered a question about block casting that is is staying in the game cause for some very very very odd reason they don't see any problems with it or event he whole blocking system in general. Cause now before 6 drops Light armor wears can tank and DPS at the same time due to block casting... thats just silly a PJ wearing guy shouldnt be able to take the same ammount of heat as a guy who is wearing full heavy armor jsut cause he is holding up a shield... not even a shield a stick ... A bloody stick

Here's how i see it should be

No block casting your skill bar goes dark when blocking
No 720 blocking make it um.... 100 or 120

Shields block 75% damage
2H weapons block 50%
1H weapons block 25% bump up to 50% when dual wielding
Bow and Staffs block 15% since there most likely farther away from the guy

But I do think block should be based on weapon and not armor to make it still play how you want so players can try to make you know battle mage build or assassins build or berserker/reaver builds.

I agree with the block casting, most stupid thing in the game but why should a two handed weapon user be able to block more when they have stronger weapon skills than the staffs?

I have a sorc with all skill lines maxed and can play any style, any way, any weapon(which I have tried all) This doesn't sound any more balanced than it already is.

What I mean is the staff has less dps than the two handed, I've played both and the two handed skill line is the stronger if played correctly.

How would that get balanced?

Lava_Croft · December 2014

Thread is like 3 months too late.

Xexpo · December 2014

everyone calm breasts, and wait to see how 1.6 it plays out on pts
save your QQ resources for next month

S&B might not be as epic then
(honestly tho it it could end up being even better :awesome: )

in a world where everyone 2/3 of the players want to kill you...
shields should be a very strong option

you have to look at the bigger picture now
i mean you can keep running s&b LA until 1.6 (i know i will)
but after that, I think it has good odds to fix itself

daswahnsinn · December 2014

I will say as a PVE/PVP tank/dps that blocking with S/B bar gets little love. It should be blocking some arrows or so spells but it doesn't. I wear 7pc HA with my bars S/B then a bow for some DPS. When I go 1v1 with a LA w/ S/B and some form of a stick they DPS the crap out of me, so I heal as much as I can w/o depleting my mana and stam to turn fire. So I attack and they switch or their S/B and block the most of the dmg I try to do. Then I hope I didn't use a tri-pot when they attacked me b/c my resources are gone and my health is low.

A player with LA on should not be able to block as much or as good as a HA using player. That's not how it should be. I have read some good suggestions here, I.e. that HA should have a skill line for great shield usage or something to that affect. You should be able to use a S/B with LA but not be as good.

Cody · December 2014

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

We all feel the pain and we all have asked ZoS to fix the blocking from block casting to 360 block and they even said in dec 19 stream when they answered a question about block casting that is is staying in the game cause for some very very very odd reason they don't see any problems with it or event he whole blocking system in general. Cause now before 6 drops Light armor wears can tank and DPS at the same time due to block casting... thats just silly a PJ wearing guy shouldnt be able to take the same ammount of heat as a guy who is wearing full heavy armor jsut cause he is holding up a shield... not even a shield a stick ... A bloody stick

Here's how i see it should be

No block casting your skill bar goes dark when blocking
No 720 blocking make it um.... 100 or 120

Shields block 75% damage
2H weapons block 50%
1H weapons block 25% bump up to 50% when dual wielding
Bow and Staffs block 15% since there most likely farther away from the guy

But I do think block should be based on weapon and not armor to make it still play how you want so players can try to make you know battle mage build or assassins build or berserker/reaver builds.

ZOS really does not see any problem with the current blocking system.....

Are those people just stupid or ignoring half of the game?

Turelus · December 2014

Lhorion wrote: »

My thought is:

S&B is a weapon that is defensive. You can survive much longer. But in my oppinion you should have to pay for this great bonus. At the moment you do even more damage because you don't have to selfheal as much as you would have to with other weapons.
If you choose a weapon that helps you a lot in "getting little damage" it is okay if this weapon makes you "doing less damage".
At the moment you don't have any disadvantaces by using S&B: You do normal damage, you have a great gab closer and you get less damage by less costs.

I would say you do less damage, you miss out on the trait benefits for having a two handed or 2x weapons.

The disadvantage is that they don't have damage skills for the weapons, you can't use any other weapon attacks from staves etc.
Throw some caltrops on the floor to deplete stamina and if this is a player who is full magicka hiding behind their shield it won't help for long.
If it's a full heavy armour tank in a shield then I feel they should have some good strength.

Pathfinder · December 2014

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

No block casting your skill bar goes dark when blocking

Excellent idea, treat blocking like sprinting. Block casting is stupid.

JackDaniell · December 2014

To be fair, people who never drop block won't build ult in 1.6, unless they use only ult building skills.

frozywozy · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Yusuf wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They need to remove the reduction in block costs from the 1h/Shield line and move them into the Heavy Armor line. Make it so someone in full HA w/ 1h+Shield has the same costs as current, but the pajama wearing masses can't block for bupkiss.

No, what about medium-armor or lightarmor tanks huh ?

Medium Armor tanks should be dodge rolling most things.

Light Armor should be suboptimal for tanking. You gain way too much damage and resource management to be good at survivability as well.

My opinion is the following :

- Every class should be able to tank, dps or heal.
- Every armor tree should give the same survivability and damage output.
- Every weapon tree should define your survivability and damage output.

I don't think that Immovable and Evasion are even close to Annulement in term of survivability at the moment. They should redesign or add new active skills in those armor trees to make them equal.

It's really unfair for medium armor at the moment that it is a MUST to roll to survive. What is the use of steel tornado if you have to roll out of the damage delt by a blob all the time? You should be able to tank a or dodge more than Evasion actually let you to match the tankiness of light armor. Rolling is not an option in aoe battles because you can't deal damage while rolling like you can do with Annulement up.

I won't even talk about heavy armor because there is so much work to do to make it equal in term of damage and survivability that I don't know where to start.

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

frozywozy wrote: »

- Every class should be able to tank, dps or heal.
- Every armor tree should give the same survivability.
- Every weapon tree should define your survivability.

Just to respond to your points:

1. Agreed. You should be able to work out how to do each of those within any four of the classes. They just do it in different ways. NBs with Saps, DKs with Igneous shields and Resto staves, Templars with direct class abilities, etc.
2. No, they should not. They can, perhaps, synergize into survivability. LA having the sustain to keep healing, shield, etc. The light armor tree itself should not give it away. Heavy Armor comes at the price of both resource management and damage, so it should receive large survivability buffs to compensate.
3. Absolutely disagree. Weapon trees should define your damage potential and how you interact with other players. 1H+Shield should be the only one that modifies your damage (by being mediocre damage preferably) to give you a survivability boost. Being 2H or Destro or Bow all be within a reasonable distance of each other in regards to DPS/Survivability, but with a different flair to how they go about doing things.

frozywozy · December 2014

Also a question remain here. Does Zenimax wants to give the freedom to every armor tree to use all weapon trees or should they be restricted to certain types?

If Zenimax really wants to let the player does what he wants, that means you could pick a templar, use light armor, with dual wield and be as efficient as a sorcerer using medium armor and two-handed weapon. That would bring alot of redundancy in the passives for ressource management, survivability and damage done.

To be honest, I would rather associate :
- HA/MA to stamina builds (one hand shield, two-handed, dual wield and bows)
- LA to magicka builds (resto staff and destruction staff)

Other options should penalize you alot.

[EDIT] :

When I said every weapon tree should define your survivability, the way I see it is that one hand shield + resto should give the max survivability but poor damage output, two-handed should give an average survivability/damage output and dual wield + bow + destruction staff should give minimum survivability but highest damage output.

Also, maybe make it so the only damage multipliers would be in the weapon skills, ressource management in the class skills and survivability in the armor skills.

And of course you could still customize your character a lil bit more with enchants, traits and the champion system coming up.