The Uselessness of Heavy Armor.

Zsymon · August 2015

With the huge amounts of penetration that can be achieved without sacrificing anything, as well as the extremely weak passives, heavy armor is something only PvE tanks use, and PvPers who don't know they are actually losing (a lot) survivability by wearing heavy armor.

- The bonus from Resolve is meaningless because your armor rating is 0 against most opponents.
- Constitution is meaningless as well, because health recovery is useless, and the secondary "sustain" bonus is so incredibly tiny it is negligible.
- Juggernaut is a good idea, but the bonus to max health again is so small it doesn't amount to any noticeably increased survivability.
- Bracing only helps PvE tanks, with the changes to blocking this passive is now very weak in PvP.
- Rapid Mending again is a good idea, but the value to received healing is far too low to make any difference.

Compared to the light and medium armor passives, the heavy armor passives are deplorable. Where as light and medium armor passives make a huge difference in all content, the heavy armor passives make no difference what so ever, apart from Bracing for PvE tanks.

In my opinion, two things need to happen:
1) Massively nerf the penetration values, or change them to percentages capped at 50%.
2) Greatly improve the heavy armor passives, so it becomes worth placing skill points there.

Bashev · August 2015

+1
I said it several times. The only useful bonus for pvp was Bracing. Now with the stamina regen nerf while blocking, heavy armor will be useless.

Zsymon · August 2015

Suggestion:

1) Resolve: stays the same if pen values are nerfed.
2) Constitution: health recovery bonus of 56% and gain 14% of max magicka/stamina when hit, every 6 seconds.
3) Juggernaut: 14% bonus to max health at 7 pieces and +7% to physical melee damage.
4) Bracing: 20% reduced block cost and +2 seconds CC immunity after breaking free.
5) Rapid Mending: +7% to healing received, and +7% to healing done.

This way heavy armor actually becomes desirable and an equal choice to the large bonuses gained from medium/light armor.

Akinos · August 2015

You can still perma block in 1.7. There are already people that have figured out how to do so on the PTS.

Zsymon · August 2015

Akinos wrote: »

You can still perma block in 1.7. There are already people that have figured out how to do so on the PTS.

That changes nothing about the fact that heavy armor offers no mitigation and apart from one, no useful passives.

Having one single build with perma block that utilizes one single passive, doesn't mean heavy armor is fine the way it is. There are a lot of people that'd like to use heavy armor, and that don't use that particular perma block build.

Akinos · August 2015

Zsymon wrote: »

Akinos wrote: »

You can still perma block in 1.7. There are already people that have figured out how to do so on the PTS.

That changes nothing about the fact that heavy armor offers no mitigation and apart from one, no useful passives.

Having one single build with perma block doesn't mean heavy armor doesn't need changing.

I agree with you that heavy armor needs changing for the better, but you going around screaming that heavy armor sucks isn't helping anybody either.

And heavy still provides migation, and not just through blocking. No useful passives? That's probably debatable for a lot of players.

Zsymon · August 2015

Akinos wrote: »

And heavy still provides migation, and not just through blocking. No useful passives? That's probably debatable for a lot of players.

It does not provide any mitigation in PvP, since many players run around with 20-25K penetration, where as heavy armor doesn't provide much more than 18K armor rating. So even if you use Major Resolve you're still running around with 0 armor rating. And the passives are extremely weak compared to the passives provided by light and medium armor, I'd think that is very obvious.

Armitas · August 2015

We have 0 options for defense right now...

Damage shields have their crit and overflow problem
Armor has full penetration update - being fixed
Block is unsustainable as anything other than a moving statue
Healing/recovery 35% global nerf, plus any disease in cyrodiil.

I have no words for that. In a way it's kind of beautiful, kinda like watching a black hole tear a solar system apart.

I honestly think the only reason nirn got fixed now was because of the increase in global nerfs, not because they were actually interested in fixing a broken mechanic. If they were actually interested in that stuff we wouldn't still have 100% ipen and nirn would have been fixed months ago.

Akinos · August 2015

Akinos wrote: »

Zsymon wrote: »

Kulvar wrote: »

Not at all. Heavy Armor is for Tanking

Yeah but heavy armor should be for more than just tanking, it should be a survivable PvP option.

Right now using heavy armor in PvP, means losing survivability, losing offense, losing mobility, you lose on everything and gain nothing, as pen values are 5x too high.

1) Penetration values need to be nerfed massively or changed to percentages, capping at 50%.
2) Heavy armor passives need to be changed as well as buffed a great deal.

Heavy armor IS a survivable PvP option. All the bashing you've done on heavy armor, you always fail to mention one thing: BLOCK ABILITY.

I say this as somebody with experience who has proven that heavy is viable in most of the game updates since day one( I say most because I took several breaks from the game and missed some major updates). For Templars and DK's heavy is probably the best option in terms of survivability, mobility means nothing since we have none to begin with except for mist form and perma dodging. You can still have high stats, high regen, low spell cost, and high dps in heavy.

I understand your reasoning behind preaching to everybody to not wear heavy, but I gotta say that not everybody has stupid high armor pen. Not everybody is running mace/dual maces. Not everybody is a stam build.

I agree with you on the last thing though, heavy armor and it's passive tree really does need some kind of buffs. And armor penetration SERIOUSLY needs to be fixed/lowered.

Self-quote ftw

. I also wanted to add that while in IC, an area that has very powerful monsters in addition to the players, not having a decent amount of armor or not wearing heavy is just asking to get killed in one hit from some of the monsters in IC, let alone players.

Zsymon · August 2015

Zsymon wrote: »

In my opinion, two things need to happen:
1) Massively nerf the penetration values, or change them to percentages capped at 50%.
2) Greatly improve the heavy armor passives, so it becomes worth placing skill points there.

Akinos wrote: »

I agree with you on the last thing though, heavy armor and it's passive tree really does need some kind of buffs. And armor penetration SERIOUSLY needs to be fixed/lowered.

That's all I've been saying, heh, if you agree with that then we are in agreement!

Akinos · August 2015

Zsymon wrote: »

Zsymon wrote: »

In my opinion, two things need to happen:
1) Massively nerf the penetration values, or change them to percentages capped at 50%.
2) Greatly improve the heavy armor passives, so it becomes worth placing skill points there.

Akinos wrote: »

I agree with you on the last thing though, heavy armor and it's passive tree really does need some kind of buffs. And armor penetration SERIOUSLY needs to be fixed/lowered.

That's all I've been saying, heh, if you agree with that then we are in agreement!

Sure, why not

actosh · August 2015

Heavy should get back the cc break cost reduce and also nreds to double the amount of ressources restored on hit!

Paulhewhewria · August 2015

Heavy does need some more love its not really were it should be right now.

Stalwart385 · August 2015

Agree heavy needs love. Most importantly, armor pen needs to be fixed. You should not be able to fully ignore heavy armor.

Alucardo · August 2015

I have to admit, every time I thought about going heavy armour I'd remember the beautiful stamina love I get from medium and go back to that. I just feel there's no reason to use heavy, except maybe to make use of undaunted passives.

Teiji · August 2015

Heavy armor is my favourite in all MMOs, right now it's in a sorry state.

I had less issues with heavy armor during launch than now; the reduced break free cost was great, then they removed it and added it to Immovable instead.

Then they also hammered the stamina & magicka regain when you take damage severely, I have no idea what purpose heavy armor fulfils in PvP.

PvE it's obvious, it helps you tank as a tank during group and solo play.

PvP your armor is ignored, you're laughed at and take severe damage whilst doing low physical damage, you can't physically damage your enemies in order to outlast them with them dying by drained resources, medium armor wearers outlast you better.

Heavy armor for PvP, what makes it identifiable? What should make it identifiable?

A heavy armor warrior, who is it not stealthy at all, whom does low damage but becomes a threat over time with their ability to be durable?

david.haypreub18_ESO · August 2015

List of things that ZOS just can't get right because they just aren't listening to their players:

--Heavy Armor

--Argonians

--Templars

--Werewolves

Anything I missed?

Teiji · August 2015

david.haypreub18_ESO wrote: »

List of things that ZOS just can't get right because they just aren't listening to their players:

--Heavy Armor

--Argonians

--Templars

--Werewolves

Anything I missed?

64bit client.

Stalwart385 · August 2015

What should make Heavy identifiable?
Heavy should be universally defensive and help support hybrid builds.

First:
- Fix penetration so heavy isn't completely ignored. Max penetration should be around 15k not the 50k numbers we can see now.

Then:
- Increase mana and stam when hit.
- Reduced block free cost, with a full set equipped.

I would also like to see:
- Recovering some stamina regen while blocking, with a full set equipped. Increasing the mana and stam recovered when hit could effectively do this though.

Ezareth · August 2015

Penetration is supposedly being fixed in next update so we'll know soon enough if Heavy makes a difference again.

vortexman11 · August 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

Penetration is supposedly being fixed in next update so we'll know soon enough if Heavy makes a difference again.

I didn't quite understand if he meant they've fixed it for the next update, or if it's supposedly already fixed.

Ezareth · August 2015

vortexman11 wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Penetration is supposedly being fixed in next update so we'll know soon enough if Heavy makes a difference again.

I didn't quite understand if he meant they've fixed it for the next update, or if it's supposedly already fixed.

I'd say next PTS build and he mentioned they fixed that as well as an afterthought. It's definitely not fixed on current PTS.

monkeymystic · August 2015

Heavy armor is indeed 100% useless at the moment, and using it in PvP is basically just gimping yourself hard.

ZOS needs to fix penetration, and make armor useful again, and buff the heavy armor passives.

They should also add cost reduction to both magicka and stam abilities, with lower numbers in each of course.

david.haypreub18_ESO · August 2015

Stalwart385 wrote: »

What should make Heavy identifiable?
Heavy should be universally defensive and help support hybrid builds.

First:
- Fix penetration so heavy isn't completely ignored. Max penetration should be around 15k not the 50k numbers we can see now.

Then:
- Increase mana and stam when hit.
- Reduced block free cost, with a full set equipped.

I would also like to see:
- Recovering some stamina regen while blocking, with a full set equipped. Increasing the mana and stam recovered when hit could effectively do this though.

The idea of heavy armor giving back resources when hit had some merit to it-- unfortunately, the gains were pitiful. So that might work. At least you will be regenerating SOME stamina while blocking in heavy, which would make sense.

I can anticipate ZOS response right now though: 'Increased the stamina gain when getting hit in armor by %1.' LOL. They have some good ideas, but for some reason they just will not give heavy armor enough resources; they'll just turn the dial way to low again.

xaraan · August 2015

If you have 5 heavy and passives then armor pen should cap or hit a minimum where it does not go past a certain point, giving a 'tank' build at least a minimum amount of armor/spell resist no matter their attackers pen.

To make it more useful I'd also give them a base amount of crit resistance for wearing heavy since impen has been nerfed so badly and isn't as crazy as it once was, giving them a starting amount of 150 or 200 to stack with other impen if they wish wouldn't hurt either.

There are a lot of ways to make armors more useful to their role than just upping numbers of the Phys Resist/Spell resist.

Zsymon · August 2015

actosh wrote: »

Heavy should get back the cc break cost reduce and also nreds to double the amount of ressources restored on hit!

It only restores like 0.1% of your max stamina/magicka on hit, doubling that is still only 0.2%, which is negligible.

Zsymon · August 2015

I agree @monkeymystic, adding 7% spell and feat cost reduction to heavy armor would help.

olemanwinter · August 2015

Zsymon wrote: »

Akinos wrote: »

You can still perma block in 1.7. There are already people that have figured out how to do so on the PTS.

That changes nothing about the fact that heavy armin many ways r offers no mitigation and apart from one, no useful passives.

Having one single build with perma block that utilizes one single passive, doesn't mean heavy armor is fine the way it is. There are a lot of people that'd like to use heavy armor, and that don't use that particular perma block build.

Thats true but if your answer to fixing heavy armor is to reduce penetration values (effectively nerfing damage) then that presents a HUGE problem in a world where shield stacking bubble builds not only exist but in many ways got buffed.

Zsymon · August 2015

olemanwinter wrote: »

Zsymon wrote: »

Akinos wrote: »

You can still perma block in 1.7. There are already people that have figured out how to do so on the PTS.

That changes nothing about the fact that heavy armin many ways r offers no mitigation and apart from one, no useful passives.

Having one single build with perma block that utilizes one single passive, doesn't mean heavy armor is fine the way it is. There are a lot of people that'd like to use heavy armor, and that don't use that particular perma block build.

Thats true but if your answer to fixing heavy armor is to reduce penetration values (effectively nerfing damage) then that presents a HUGE problem in a world where shield stacking bubble builds not only exist but in many ways got buffed.

Bubbles are getting a gigantic nerf with the coming recalculation.

And honestly even if bubbles remained the same, that is no excuse to having 100% of your heavy armor completely ignored.

s1gm4xb14_ESO · August 2015

olemanwinter wrote: »

Zsymon wrote: »

Akinos wrote: »

You can still perma block in 1.7. There are already people that have figured out how to do so on the PTS.

That changes nothing about the fact that heavy armin many ways r offers no mitigation and apart from one, no useful passives.

Having one single build with perma block that utilizes one single passive, doesn't mean heavy armor is fine the way it is. There are a lot of people that'd like to use heavy armor, and that don't use that particular perma block build.

Thats true but if your answer to fixing heavy armor is to reduce penetration values (effectively nerfing damage) then that presents a HUGE problem in a world where shield stacking bubble builds not only exist but in many ways got buffed.

Bubbles don't have resistances. Changing any penetration values will NOT effect bubbles.
If anything nerfing penetration will forced people to build raw damage over pen causing bubbles to be "weaker".

On a side note, balancing penetration shouldn't be that hard.

Stalwart385 · August 2015

From another discussion:

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Could have sworn I already responded to this but I can't find my post!

We have a fix in for the next PTS build that resolves an issue with Battle Spirit where the damage/healing/shield values were not being calculated properly.

We're going to test this change before making any other changes to shields.

As an aside... we also fixed the armor penetration issue with the sharpened and piercing traits.