Actualy we have:
15% - weaker shields in cyro
20% - less dmg to players

After update:
50% - weaker shields - increase 35%
50% - less dmg - increase 30%

So basicaly shields will be weaker by only 5%, cause evry1 will deal also less dmg..

Yeah, that's a good point. I wasn't considering the damage decrease.

I guess nothing will really change then except TTK.


Still, the only thing that makes it acceptable to keep Hardened Ward OP is the extra Bolt Escape nerf.

If they think I'm gonna cast a 3k blazing shield though, then lol

On another note, the culprit has never been Hardened Ward. Never.

Up to 1.5, the culprit was shield stacking it with harness magicka and the bugs the latter had. When some of the bugs were fixed in 1.5, it wasn't perfect (we still had shield stack) but that was the closest we've ever got to it.

In 1.6, not only did they not address shield stacking, but they added the Bastion passive and removed the soft-caps that were keeping shield size and shield spam in check.

The above changes have led to my 36k magicka/2.2k regen build having a total 28k shield stack which I can keep up nearly forever, meaning fights with other sorcs, or generally magicka builds, become extremely dull affairs.

And now they proceed to blanket nerf everything from bolt escape, to heals, to damage, everything, everything INSTEAD of actually targeting the source of the problem: infinite resources and shield stacking.

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

And now they proceed to blanket nerf everything from bolt escape, to heals, to damage, everything, everything INSTEAD of actually targeting the source of the problem: infinite resources and shield stacking.

This...

<All the CP into Bastion>

Sureshawt wrote: »

Quantine wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

And now they proceed to blanket nerf everything from bolt escape, to heals, to damage, everything, everything INSTEAD of actually targeting the source of the problem: infinite resources and shield stacking.

This...

This again....but the Sorc class has always been the favored class and that looks to continue indefinitely. They will be able to stand around the battlefield shield stacking indefinitely while blasting everything in site with lightning bolts from their arse. They are able to stack 20-28K shields right now and with a 50% damage decrease across the board coming they must be laughing their asses off.

Someone did not pay much attention during maths class at school. 50% reduction in shield size and 50% reduction in damage leaves you percentage wise in the same place as before. Not better, not worse.

I'm certainly not laughing my ass off about it.

I am looking at it this way,

Currently-
15% Shield/Healing reduction
20% Damage reduction

Proposed-
50% Shield/healing reduction
50% Damage reduction

Just taking this change into account, as the guy above pointed out, numbers will be lower all the way around, but essentially the same as now. With a 5% Shield/Healing nerf. Nothing to really freak out about.

Ghostbane wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

I think defenses into the other 3 abilities (Magic/dots/elemental) would go a lot further than maxing Bastion since they also reduce damage to shields and aren't being nerfed like shields.

Your troll senses are weakening.

No, he's right. You will see much more point for point, by at least hitting the diminishing returns threshold in those 3 before going past it in Bastion.

Now of coarse we are not fully aware of the rest of the Class/Skill/Armor set changes yet. But without taking any of that into account, he is spot on.

Ezareth wrote: »

Ghostbane wrote: »

<All the CP into Bastion>

I think defenses into the other 3 abilities (Magic/dots/elemental) would go a lot further than maxing Bastion since they also reduce damage to shields and aren't being nerfed like shields.

I think that going equally between all these defensive passives and bastion would be the way to go after this update.

I've been doing this before too but have switched to more bastion due to pushing my max magica higher. Now after this update, I've been thinking about it again and I think I'll go back to what I've been doing originally, and that's pushing the defensive passives more instead of bastion. Of course, I will bump up bastion as well, just not exclusively.

50 points into all these passives (dots, element defense, magic defense and bastion) equates to 200 points in total, which is 600 CP rank. 400 cp rank can do it too, just a bit less effective.

Ryuho wrote: »

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Ghostbane wrote: »

<All the CP into Bastion>

I think defenses into the other 3 abilities (Magic/dots/elemental) would go a lot further than maxing Bastion since they also reduce damage to shields and aren't being nerfed like shields.

I think that going equally between all these defensive passives and bastion would be the way to go after this update.

I've been doing this before too but have switched to more bastion due to pushing my max magica higher. Now after this update, I've been thinking about it again and I think I'll go back to what I've been doing originally, and that's pushing the defensive passives more instead of bastion. Of course, I will bump up bastion as well, just not exclusively.

50 points into all these passives (dots, element defense, magic defense and bastion) equates to 200 points in total, which is 600 CP rank. 400 cp rank can do it too, just a bit less effective.

Dots def is pointless mage, cause dots don't go trough shields (entropy does - yupi), you get initial dmg only from skills like vamp bane or destro reach.. Imo better to put CPs in rest.. but if they change that mechanic, yeah why not..

What about dk dots, I always thought they do, or did at least in the past? From my epic fights with Dusky boy.

Ezareth wrote: »

Don't forget crit damage reduction!

Figure there are a lot of people running 50%+ crit and then there are the guaranteed crit (Crit-charge + stealth). Sure shields can't be crit but when they are broken through they can and that is when a sorc is most vulnerable. Reducing damage during those moments of burst (even like getting ganked on your horse which we all unfortunately will now be using ) = ) are worth putting 10 points or so into even if you're a shield stacker.

Yeah, that too! Almost forgot.

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

Quantine wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

And now they proceed to blanket nerf everything from bolt escape, to heals, to damage, everything, everything INSTEAD of actually targeting the source of the problem: infinite resources and shield stacking.

This...

This again....but the Sorc class has always been the favored class and that looks to continue indefinitely. They will be able to stand around the battlefield shield stacking indefinitely while blasting everything in site with lightning bolts from their arse. They are able to stack 20-28K shields right now and with a 50% damage decrease across the board coming they must be laughing their asses off.

Someone did not pay much attention during maths class at school. 50% reduction in shield size and 50% reduction in damage leaves you percentage wise in the same place as before. Not better, not worse.

I'm certainly not laughing my ass off about it.

Math isn't something, I've noticed especially moreso recently with larger numbers of balance discussions cropping up, that most people seem to do before they post.

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Ghostbane wrote: »

<All the CP into Bastion>

I think defenses into the other 3 abilities (Magic/dots/elemental) would go a lot further than maxing Bastion since they also reduce damage to shields and aren't being nerfed like shields.

Sureshawt wrote: »

Quantine wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

And now they proceed to blanket nerf everything from bolt escape, to heals, to damage, everything, everything INSTEAD of actually targeting the source of the problem: infinite resources and shield stacking.

This...

This again....but the Sorc class has always been the favored class and that looks to continue indefinitely. They will be able to stand around the battlefield shield stacking indefinitely while blasting everything in site with lightning bolts from their arse. They are able to stack 20-28K shields right now and with a 50% damage decrease across the board coming they must be laughing their asses off.

Until that second fear hits and they can't break free while you go to town on them and since they can't afford to bolt escape to safety.

I was actually thinking this same exact thing this morning...Elemental Defender, Hardy, and Thick Skinned will be very attractive in the next major update. Should get a lot of bang for your buck there.

They already are, and have been since 1.6 landed. One of the larger problems is 99% of people going essentially 100%, or 95%, glass cannon, and then complaining that they die because they are extremely squishy versus other people who also went the same way, turning it into a fragfest. The tools to not die instantly in one hit are already in-game and some people are using them . Come next patch, these people won't die anywhere nearly as easily, and the 99% of people who are for all intents and practical purposes, going glass cannon, will still die fairly easily, just a little more slowly, time after time.

The whole time to kill thing is a problem, don't get me wrong, from some of the power creep that's cropped up. However, the majority of the problem that most are complaining about lately... that has nothing to do with the game mechanics. All ZOS did was say "We are no longer strongly encouraging you to not stack all of your gear and stat allocations into raw damage by having softcaps. You're free. Go do what you want." That doesn't automatically mean that what you want to do isn't going to stink.

The TTK Issue was chiefly introduced by reducing the HP bonus from 50% to 10% and nerfing impenetrable thus deincentivizing survivability builds. The removal of caps and stacking of damage IMO didn't have nearly as much impact. Glass cannons existed in 1.5 and theose guys got blown up fast all the time. 1.6 just made survivability builds far less attractive for most players.

Xsorus wrote: »

Shields became a larger problem when they nerfed impenetrable more then anything, Look at the fact that if you have shields up you're basically running with old school impenetrable, and if you don't have shields up you're eating a huge damage increase because of Crits now. The other things added on top of it are just icing on the cake.

They are adding a new set to the game next patch designed around fighting shielded targets, Maybe that'll make things interesting again.

I can see it now:

2 piece set bonus: add health recovery
3 piece set bonus: add health
4 piece set bonus: add health recovery
5 piece set bonus: attacks on shielded targets do 8% more damage

Ezareth wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

Quantine wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

And now they proceed to blanket nerf everything from bolt escape, to heals, to damage, everything, everything INSTEAD of actually targeting the source of the problem: infinite resources and shield stacking.

This...

This again....but the Sorc class has always been the favored class and that looks to continue indefinitely. They will be able to stand around the battlefield shield stacking indefinitely while blasting everything in site with lightning bolts from their arse. They are able to stack 20-28K shields right now and with a 50% damage decrease across the board coming they must be laughing their asses off.

Someone did not pay much attention during maths class at school. 50% reduction in shield size and 50% reduction in damage leaves you percentage wise in the same place as before. Not better, not worse.

I'm certainly not laughing my ass off about it.

Math isn't something, I've noticed especially moreso recently with larger numbers of balance discussions cropping up, that most people seem to do before they post.

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Ghostbane wrote: »

<All the CP into Bastion>

I think defenses into the other 3 abilities (Magic/dots/elemental) would go a lot further than maxing Bastion since they also reduce damage to shields and aren't being nerfed like shields.

Sureshawt wrote: »

Quantine wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

And now they proceed to blanket nerf everything from bolt escape, to heals, to damage, everything, everything INSTEAD of actually targeting the source of the problem: infinite resources and shield stacking.

This...

This again....but the Sorc class has always been the favored class and that looks to continue indefinitely. They will be able to stand around the battlefield shield stacking indefinitely while blasting everything in site with lightning bolts from their arse. They are able to stack 20-28K shields right now and with a 50% damage decrease across the board coming they must be laughing their asses off.

Until that second fear hits and they can't break free while you go to town on them and since they can't afford to bolt escape to safety.

I was actually thinking this same exact thing this morning...Elemental Defender, Hardy, and Thick Skinned will be very attractive in the next major update. Should get a lot of bang for your buck there.

They already are, and have been since 1.6 landed. One of the larger problems is 99% of people going essentially 100%, or 95%, glass cannon, and then complaining that they die because they are extremely squishy versus other people who also went the same way, turning it into a fragfest. The tools to not die instantly in one hit are already in-game and some people are using them . Come next patch, these people won't die anywhere nearly as easily, and the 99% of people who are for all intents and practical purposes, going glass cannon, will still die fairly easily, just a little more slowly, time after time.

The whole time to kill thing is a problem, don't get me wrong, from some of the power creep that's cropped up. However, the majority of the problem that most are complaining about lately... that has nothing to do with the game mechanics. All ZOS did was say "We are no longer strongly encouraging you to not stack all of your gear and stat allocations into raw damage by having softcaps. You're free. Go do what you want." That doesn't automatically mean that what you want to do isn't going to stink.

The TTK Issue was chiefly introduced by reducing the HP bonus from 50% to 10% and nerfing impenetrable thus deincentivizing survivability builds. The removal of caps and stacking of damage IMO didn't have nearly as much impact. Glass cannons existed in 1.5 and theose guys got blown up fast all the time. 1.6 just made survivability builds far less attractive for most players.

The HP difference on gear used to be a 50% higher raw value on bonuses of the same power allocation as compared to magicka or stamina, yes... now it's 10%. Yet I haven't seen much difference in how many people sport the bare minimum of HP other than what is incidentally in a set bonus that they wanted the five piece on. Back in 1.5 and prior, the general attitude was to throw half or all of your attributes in HP and then not use any on gear, or to simply avoid HP completely. Post 1.6, the attitude has been to place all of your points in magicka or stamina because you don't lose any to softcaps. Obviously, the moderate HP contribution downscaling from gear impacted things a bit in the metagame, but the majority of people didn't use it much in the first place, and it didn't end up accounting for a large health drop as your health doesn't only come from gear or attributes, but is rather on top of a built in base amount and added to it. The guys running in patch 1.0 to 1.4 with dps setups made to fall over in a stray breeze and only 1800hp... they didn't decide to add more HP in 1.6. They ran from it in 1.5 and stacked damage even over the softcaps. Then when 1.6 came they stacked some more and dropped everything the could to stack their damage stat higher,with squishiness being disregarded entirely.

There hasn't been a huge change to how survivable you can make a build, but there has been a huge change to how high you can ramp your damage stats, and that directly impacts everyone since the survivable builds don't provide much more avoidance and mitigation than they used to, and do have a little less health relatively. Add in, as I said, that everyone sees the shiny big numbers and huge crits tempting them, and most have gone to glass cannon. The problem is they don't understand the glass part and that it requires positioning, timing, avoidance, and los, to allow the cannon part to work. They just see the cannon and then complain they're dying too quickly. Very few build properly for pvp to live, and actually deal that damage... so when they get hit? Splat! It's much more of a meta and player problem overall than it s a game mechanics one, but I do feel damage contribution from stats and the skill coefficients should be toned down for both pve and pvp. It's not fun to instagib mobs, either .

EDIT: Impenetrable is still very, very good. Especially as nirnhoned is being nuked essentially, assuming they've fixed the bug of the champion passive reducing your incoming heal crits instead of just incoming damage crits, it'll be the bread and butter choice of anyone paying attention. It used to be that you could slot impenetrable to completely negate an enemy's stats and in the case of sorcs, their crit leech build potential. Now you instead reduce the bonus damage they gain, but don't completely nullify their stats' existence in the first place. Add on that nice champion passive that heals you when you're crit to some crit damage reduction (when fixed) and it often evens out, the difference being that not everyone takes no real extra amount of damage from crits rather than everyone being entirely (or almost entirely) immune to the critical hit mechanic. When nirn has been brought down... perception will change even though it's not accurate, to it being worthless. What do you think most people will flock to next? Sprint cost reduction? Not likely. Infused? Maybe. Divines? Doubtful, since most don't even understand its value now. Impenetrable? Easily noticed once equipped .

BigTone wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Shields became a larger problem when they nerfed impenetrable more then anything, Look at the fact that if you have shields up you're basically running with old school impenetrable, and if you don't have shields up you're eating a huge damage increase because of Crits now. The other things added on top of it are just icing on the cake.

They are adding a new set to the game next patch designed around fighting shielded targets, Maybe that'll make things interesting again.

I can see it now:

2 piece set bonus: add health recovery
3 piece set bonus: add health
4 piece set bonus: add health recovery
5 piece set bonus: attacks on shielded targets do 8% more damage

Naw I can sework them doing this

2 piece: add health recovery
3 piece : add health
4 piece: add health recovery
5 piece: increase critical damage on shielded targets by 50%

Yup....