WolffenBloodseeker wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

I will add, that it doesn't make sense to allow classes that can generate stamina while blocking, regardless of the fact that other classes that have strong stamina regen meant for tanking do not. Example Earthen Heart +Battle Roar vs. NB's Refreshing shadows+Siphons vs. Repentence vs. Dark Exchange (Which I doubt people do). You can clearly see in this instance the DK has a marked advantage over the other classes in this arena, despite the Devs desires for the game.

WolffenBloodseeker wrote: »

I play a templar tank in both PVP and PVE and i rarely hold the block button for more than a few seconds, i prefer to use a damage shield to be able to keep attacking while also mitigating damage and only use the block to mitigate hard attacks and i don't have any problems in pvp and pve with this setup, also i like anything that they make to stop abusers, just learn how to play better without using an UNFUN mechanic like blocking all the **** time and doing nothing more, i remember it was the same when shield bash could kill ANYTHING AND ANYONE then they nerfed it and people started complaining that ZOS was ruining their playstyle and taking away their freedom of choice of how they wanted to play, but be serious, that was ridiculous just like everyone perma-blocking in pvp and pve is q

So what you're suggesting is that all Tanks need to be magicka based. Right.

Nope, i use magicka only for the damage shield and all the rest of my skills use stamina, you have your magicka pool no matter if you focus on a pure or hybrid build, best use it for something, also i'm not telling everyone "DO IT MY WAY IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO PLAY", just that it's not the end of the world and the content will still be completable and let's be honest, perma-blocking is ridiculous just like shield bashing everything to the death was and it's clearly not the intended design of the blocking feature if they are changing it q

Ridiculous from what point of view? I'm fairly certain that fighting with a shield in any culture ever involved constantly using that shield for defense, except for the most rarest of instances. The reason sword and shield is so prevalent is people don't like dying. The reality is, dual wielding in real life is not 'faster' as some people think. However it is also unequivocally a lot less defensive than not having a shield. The reason people used two swords or a sword and dagger was for duels, an oddball result of trying to remain civil and kill each other while not wearing battlefield attire at the Palace/Manor/Inn/what-have-you. What a shield affords you is the ability to strike while also minimizing risk. From the point of view of actually fighting, a shield is an amazing tool, and the shield wall was developed millennia ago for that reason.

In the point of view of gaming and balance you might be right, possibly. Lets consider though that the sword part of the sword and shield combo presents very little danger to the enemy. The Debuff from Reverberating bash is good, although you have to be at melee range and there are ranged abilities that do the trick just as well. There are armor debuffs in the skill line, as well. The point is its not a damage dealing skill line but a debuffing and protective skill line meant for crowd control. It is also 100% reliant upon stamina, whose costs and values were scaled higher than magic usually because stamina regen use to be higher. We live in the world of 1.6/TU and beyond though. My point regarding your discussion of shields is quite simply that Templar tanks already use them, quite heavily and necessarily. What you fail to recognize is that their value will be halved for defense, and essentially quartered for damage. On top of this the Templar Shield despite not really being that strong even if you have maxed your health to the nines, only lasts six seconds. (which you must clip if you don't want to spend 2 of those 4 seconds flailing your arms in an animation). Why you ask? The reason it is like this is that it also does a laughable bit of burst damage either at firing or once it has been broken. Amazingly, the Dragon Knight has a similar ability but it can also protect the DK and 30 of his closest friends while also exploding on ALL OF THOSE CLOSEST friends and the cost is better. Oh and it activates not one but two passives which are fantastic for Dk Tanks, Helping hands (returns stamina), Mountains Blessing (increases Ultimate Gain), and Battle Roar (Massive heal to all attributes upon activating an ultimate). On top of this DK's have the highest passive defenses from their Draconic skill line, and the most synergistic actives in the game it could be argued. I'm not hating on DK's here, but the point I'm making is some classes come out clearly on top. DK will also be receiving a TAOE heal on Stonefist. I'm actually fond of this change. I strongly believe that all classes should be able to fill all roles, in large part because that is the game they sold us. If they didn't want it to be that way they shouldn't bait and switch over a year in. The problem with this is that no other class is going to get the same kind of ability to hold up a shield and regenerate ultimate/stamina, not even close. Nightblades will be a playable second, and everyone else will get dropped in the toilet, unless they are working on changes we are not privy to.

(I would like to make a correction so my point was clear. Battle Roar is important simply because Mountains blessing helps to feed into it, and it feeds resources back into the system, allowing you to activate more abilities which in turn makes it easier to make use of Battle Roar again.)

MaximusDargus wrote: »

<rant>

I considered commenting, but in the end I just refrain myself to saying this:

Good thing these mature PvE tanks give the change a chance and will evaluate whether the added group synergy effects will compensate for PvE activities as soon as this gets on PTS.

Leandor wrote: »

MaximusDargus wrote: »

<rant>

I considered commenting, but in the end I just refrain myself to saying this:

Good thing these mature PvE tanks give the change a chance and will evaluate whether the added group synergy effects will compensate for PvE activities as soon as this gets on PTS.

There is no need to wait until its too late for PTS and giving ZOS excuses that "it will be fine". Its a case of simple Ubernerf going from 100% to absolute 0. Like flipping switch from on to off. You dont need to be math magician to realise what impact it will have.

Of course people who vouch for this change, those who "think" they are tanks but they end up being actually DPSes with taunt or just DPS with sword and board in one of the slots or PVP nerds will keep repeating "wait for PTS, wait for PTS, its for your own good.

You prevent bad things happend, not let them happen and then apply bandaid fixes.

MaximusDargus wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

MaximusDargus wrote: »

<rant>

I considered commenting, but in the end I just refrain myself to saying this:

Good thing these mature PvE tanks give the change a chance and will evaluate whether the added group synergy effects will compensate for PvE activities as soon as this gets on PTS.

There is no need to wait until its too late for PTS and giving ZOS excuses that "it will be fine". Its a case of simple Ubernerf going from 100% to absolute 0. Like flipping switch from on to off. You dont need to be math magician to realise what impact it will have.

Of course people who vouch for this change, those who "think" they are tanks but they end up being actually DPSes with taunt or just DPS with sword and board in one of the slots or PVP nerds will keep repeating "wait for PTS, wait for PTS, its for your own good.

You prevent bad things happend, not let them happen and then apply bandaid fixes.

BTW, i did vDSA with my 400stam reg and a pool about 14k, it worked just fine. no Need for me to have 30k stam and 4k stam reg lol

DDuke wrote: »

This thread still going on?

Last 20 pages have been 3-4 disgruntled tanks arguing ad nauseam how they deserve to be OP and how this change supposedly takes away their OPness, without even testing the change & seeing how they work in tandem with other balance changes (which no one has been kind to mention). Ignorance at it's finest...

>deserve to be op

nice strawman argument

>Desperately want nerf to tanks stamina regen
>Realize that other people don't
>Claim "Gotta test it first ya know"
>Know if it enters testing, then it will launch

BuggeX wrote: »

guys, this is immersion.

in RL the best Shildman could not block forever.
the shilds weight was arround 2-5kg. Lets dont Forget about the weight about the armor itself.
Just to hold this weight up, will result in exhaust after time, even without blocking somthing.
Then, over this, any hit blocked will result in a even higher Exhaustion Speed.
Cause of this, no stam reg for us.

From a realism standpoint you have this all wrong. From the way shields and armor weigh, to how difficult it is to use them. Compare Shield weights with sword weights. Also consider that the way a shield is used is a lot less taxing than how the attacks of a sword (or other weapon) is used. I don't want to belabor the point, but this is just wrong.

LOL yes people did block all the time using shields in real life.... That is exactly how they worked. the damn thing was often strapped to their arm. They were always behind the shield. ALWAYS. The shields were often so big that they had to move the shield out of the way to attack at all.

The Romans had shields that were so big they could hide completely behind them and they developed a short thrusting sword to go along with that. They would stand shoulder to shoulder with shields pressed together and give the enemy almost no target only sliding the short thrusting sword out the side of it pressed against the shield. All you would see of a roman soldier would be his feet and the top of his head inside a very well designed helmet.

Viking shields were round and would be big enough that they would cover the users entire torso down to about their knees.

Yes they did block all the time with the shields. It wasnt activly holding up block like you have to in the game. It was just the simple fact that that huge shield was out in front of them and in the way of attacks. The shields in game are TOO small. Real shields through most of history were much larger.

The only reason shields got smaller in the end was plate armor became so effective that they really didnt even need the shield anymore. That and bucklers that were used by archers to use as a secondary weapon when the enemy was too close for a bow they would pull out the buckler and a light sword. That buckler style of fighting is closer to what active blocking is in the game.

So if you want to bring realism into the argument..... The problem isnt shield blocking all the time. Clearly they need to make heavy plate armors more effective. Raise that damage mitigation up to about 80% with heavy armor. Then make it so you dont even need to block for shields to stop most hits. Simply because that huge shield is in the way. Just holding the shield with your left arm would stop the majority of attacks since most people held a weapon in their right hand and that just happened to be the direction it would come from. Then when it came to real combat they would simple shift their arm around in front of them a bit. They didnt really need to hold it out. Their forearm would be in a strap while their hand gripped a handle of the shield all the weight rested on the forearm right below the elbow. they really didnt need to hold it up.

lathbury wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

lathbury wrote: »

wouldn't the solution to block casting have been to increase cast costs dratically while blocking or stop magika regen?

Or it already costs quite a bit of stamina to block unless heavily mitigated (balanced) for.

was not talking about the cost of blocking was talking of the cost of the spells being cast and magicka regen

and I am talking about the cost of blocking.

tanks need not be cost more than they are already charged to perform their role. Stamina regeneration nerf or otherwise.

BuggeX wrote: »

guys, this is immersion.

in RL the best Shildman could not block forever.

I bet they never saw a Mantikora in real life too.

Plaid13ub17_ESO wrote: »

LOL yes people did block all the time using shields in real life.... That is exactly how they worked. the damn thing was often strapped to their arm. They were always behind the shield. ALWAYS. The shields were often so big that they had to move the shield out of the way to attack at all.

The Romans had shields that were so big they could hide completely behind them and they developed a short thrusting sword to go along with that. They would stand shoulder to shoulder with shields pressed together and give the enemy almost no target only sliding the short thrusting sword out the side of it pressed against the shield. All you would see of a roman soldier would be his feet and the top of his head inside a very well designed helmet.

Viking shields were round and would be big enough that they would cover the users entire torso down to about their knees.

Yes they did block all the time with the shields. It wasnt activly holding up block like you have to in the game. It was just the simple fact that that huge shield was out in front of them and in the way of attacks. The shields in game are TOO small. Real shields through most of history were much larger.

The only reason shields got smaller in the end was plate armor became so effective that they really didnt even need the shield anymore. That and bucklers that were used by archers to use as a secondary weapon when the enemy was too close for a bow they would pull out the buckler and a light sword. That buckler style of fighting is closer to what active blocking is in the game.

So if you want to bring realism into the argument..... The problem isnt shield blocking all the time. Clearly they need to make heavy plate armors more effective. Raise that damage mitigation up to about 80% with heavy armor. Then make it so you dont even need to block for shields to stop most hits. Simply because that huge shield is in the way. Just holding the shield with your left arm would stop the majority of attacks since most people held a weapon in their right hand and that just happened to be the direction it would come from. Then when it came to real combat they would simple shift their arm around in front of them a bit. They didnt really need to hold it out. Their forearm would be in a strap while their hand gripped a handle of the shield all the weight rested on the forearm right below the elbow. they really didnt need to hold it up.

Interestingly I had a big type up the first time I made my comment about this subject and unfortunately my computer crashed. My second comment (The one that actually made it to the forum) was me trying to boil it all down into a neat subject because I didn't want to type it all again. There are a couple other points I had made in the original post. The Misericorde (act of mercy or mercy stroke) was a dagger many knights/soldiers wore during the era of plate armor. Its purpose was simple. Knights were extremely difficult to kill and deal with if you were not also a knight as well, and the killing blow was often made by toppling a knight, wrestling him to the ground and jabbing a dagger into the soft bits. This was through weaknesses in the armor often at the armpits to the heart, the groin, and the visor. Think about that a moment. While standing those were essentially your best targets as well. The other solution to heavy armor were big weapons like halberds, polearms, two handed weapons, maces, etc. The purpose of those weapons was to put so much shock into the knights head or to puncture the armor, or to hook into the armor and topple the knight. Plate armor was more or less like wearing a full body shield.

Armor also was weight distributed across the whole body, making it actually relatively easy to wear and carry. Shields were also of more than one type. The large square shield and the Viking shield that were mentioned by Plaid actually were held mostly by a handle in the center of the grip. This is actually surprisingly very easy to carry, and the purpose of this device is to remove shock from the wearer while simultaneously deflecting and taking away all the energy of the sword, axe, or whatever weapon is being struck at you. The other type of Shield was strapped on and there were reasons for this design as well. I'm not going to go into all of them (and probably don't know them all) but one example of why the buckled shields were used was for cavalrymen while on their horse. This buckled shield could theoretically be a liability if the Knight was outnumbered because one could grab hold of it like a steering wheel and break his arm more easily than one could with a wrestling or jiujitsu move (thanks to having a nice rigid lever to grab). This of course presupposes that one has help tackling this knight, and he is not also hacking away at you with his sword.

In short, the heavy infantry/cavalry that knights presented were completely terrifying to people who were not equally armored and armed. It took firearms/cannons to change the way knights fought as well as removing the need for a shield wall with polearms toward the back.

In regards to the game I'm not stating that they should make it so a Sword and Shield Heavy Armor wearing character should obliterate a light armor staff user or medium armor dual wielder. Please don't misunderstand that. I just wanted to add clarity on the real life comparisons.

Plaid13ub17_ESO wrote: »

Something like that would give tanks an interesting role as a decoy in pvp. Right now true tank builds do very little damage in pvp but can still be killed fairly easy considering how harmless they are. Not talking about dps builds with heavy armor and shield. But true tanks. Lots of health stacked defenses Whole build based around survival. But with the change to blocking coming its clear they want even fewer people playing true tanks not more. Less defense not more.

I have a feeling zos doesn't want tanks in pvp.

Plaid13ub17_ESO wrote: »

Something like that would give tanks an interesting role as a decoy in pvp. Right now true tank builds do very little damage in pvp but can still be killed fairly easy considering how harmless they are. Not talking about dps builds with heavy armor and shield. But true tanks. Lots of health stacked defenses Whole build based around survival. But with the change to blocking coming its clear they want even fewer people playing true tanks not more. Less defense not more.

It's exactly how I build my tank. Strong survivabilty, low damage. I rarely go with him to pvp, I use my nightblade for that.

Plaid13ub17_ESO wrote: »

The Uninvited wrote: »

Plaid13ub17_ESO wrote: »

Something like that would give tanks an interesting role as a decoy in pvp. Right now true tank builds do very little damage in pvp but can still be killed fairly easy considering how harmless they are. Not talking about dps builds with heavy armor and shield. But true tanks. Lots of health stacked defenses Whole build based around survival. But with the change to blocking coming its clear they want even fewer people playing true tanks not more. Less defense not more.

It's exactly how I build my tank. Strong survivabilty, low damage. I rarely go with him to pvp, I use my nightblade for that.

yeah no one takes true tanks to pvp because the defense isnt good enough to make up for the lack of damage. You need some sort of a dps in tank gear set up to do any good and they are nerfing that with this change to blocking.

I really don't think, when you take into account all of the other changes (which haven't been mentioned in this thread yet to my knowledge) and how they effect everything in relation to each other. For instance the scaling cost on dodge roll will mean that in order to survive heavy amounts of damage, you have to be built as such, they've also reduced the effectiveness of everything by 50% which gives your healers more time to react to keeping you alive thus enabling 'pure tanks' to serve as a distraction of sort. And people in tank gear with dps skills won't even really need to block as much so long as they have a healer around.

If anything the collective changes BUFF tanks in pvp and this nerf is a MINOR compensation. It's also aimed at making tanking a little more interactive in PVE - yes you will still want to hold block all the time, yes you still will want to keep aggro as much as possible and yes you will want to spam whatever debuffs buffs and self healing you have, BUT now you will also have to focus on keeping your stamina high. You may have to use more potions now, you may see more synergies getting a stam restore on them - absorb magic might get a % chance to restore 30% max stamina on spell absorption. Every class is probably going to get some kind of stamina sustain buff (except Dragon Knights and ESPECIALLY sorcs). They might buff the SnB tree reduce block cost passive, introduce a set that has a 20% chance to not consume stamina on block. WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE DETAILS YET - the only things we've got to work on is that this is happening (you will have to *** accept that) and that they intend to compensate for group content (the wording on the ESO live video was 'group content' not 'PVE content') So maybe with a coordinated group you'll see a net change in the positive for holding block compared to a 100% nerf with trying to solo things.

DDuke wrote: »

This thread still going on?

Last 20 pages have been 3-4 disgruntled tanks arguing ad nauseam how they deserve to be OP and how this change supposedly takes away their OPness, without even testing the change & seeing how they work in tandem with other balance changes (which no one has been kind to mention). Ignorance at it's finest...

Good to see you're still using the "need to test it argument." I would say at least 2-3 of those last 20 pages are populated by your "need to test it argument" as a more than one can stomach rebuttal.

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Slonekb05 wrote: »

Anything to make this game have some level of difficulty i am all for, So yes to block changes. ( Main is a tank)

So I have been playing ping-pong lately and paying attention to the olympic ping-pong committee. The committee recently decided that the game is too easy because players are just hitting ping-pong balls back and forth. Even though the game is uninteractive and boring now, they plan on implementing a rule in which players will have to use sponges or stainless steel bowls rather than their ping pong paddles. Some of the players objected to the change, saying that it would make ping-pong silly, but other players insisted that they would have to test the change before knowing for sure if it was good for the game, and other players said the change would be good no matter what because it would add a new level of difficulty to the game.

I think this details it perfectly why we have no desire, need, or reason to test it at all. Thank you Personofsecrets for the excellent analogy.