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.
Have you considered leaving the shields slightly stronger, but allowing them to be crit?
The problem uncrittable shields create is that they make the whole crit stat (already less beneficial than stamina or weapon dmg) useless against certain opponents.
This leads to less build diversity and more "stack weapon dmg/stamina".
For instance, daggers are just downright bad in PvP compared to swords or maces (partly) due to this.
Crazy idea.
Why not just make shields function completely like health?
- Allow bleeds, crits, knockbacks, force siphon procs etc.
- Allow armor and spell mitigation to work on shields.
- Then adjust shield values as needed to find balance.
Crazy idea.
Why not just make shields function completely like health?
- Allow bleeds, crits, knockbacks, force siphon procs etc.
- Allow armor and spell mitigation to work on shields.
- Then adjust shield values as needed to find balance.
Ezareth (and this isn't a disagreement with you, more an alternative idea) I understand that this would make the game more simplistic, and that you and other players' competitive advantage comes from understanding the complicated mechanics at work. Which you graciously do share, and I have personally benefited from. At the same time, if you showed me 100 players, probably at least 90 of them wouldn't understand every single damage shield mechanic.
There is no documentation, no F.A.Q, no (reliable) tooltip information, no duels, no target dummies, no damage info w/o add-ons, that easily allow players to understand these ideas. Frankly, this game needs more understandable mechanics in order to retain players that feel like they understand what is happening on the battlefield, rather than to drive away those that don't. At the end of the day, it is unsatisfying for many to just keep wailing away with all their might on a bunny-hopping, OP build, have zero effect, and watch them streak into the sunset. (Not to mention the stack, prox, ST, barrier, purge meta that is just lame and unimaginative. Oops)
My point is, the damage shield mechanics are needlessly confusing. There have been so many threads, and so many complaints about this. Now it is turning into a "how do we change the battle spirit buff" game. It's just adding another layer!
Why not simplify the whole thing, adjust the values as needed, and be done with it. Once and for all.
And this would allow a build around Axes. LOL
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.
Have you considered leaving the shields slightly stronger, but allowing them to be crit?
The problem uncrittable shields create is that they make the whole crit stat (already less beneficial than stamina or weapon dmg) useless against certain opponents.
This leads to less build diversity and more "stack weapon dmg/stamina".
For instance, daggers are just downright bad in PvP compared to swords or maces (partly) due to this.
Personally I like the paper, scissors, rock concept that uncrittable shields introduces.
If all damage done to everyone behaves in the same way no matter what you're attacking then the game becomes a straight math calculation for what is best. Uncrittable shields means throws a monkey wrench into that kind of calculation.
And if weapon damage/stamina was the only viable build option right now everyone would be running swords instead of maces (which shows that penetration is valued over top end damage even though it is worthless on shields).
Well, convince me why I'd want to have any crit bonuses on my gear then, when 50%~ of players are immune to it most of the time.
It already is a math calculation, which says "dont use daggers, dont get crit bonuses".
The only reason maces are used currently is because they provide so much value (against the other 50% of players, and sorcs that dont have shield up which is a rarity) due to this bug.
After they're fixed, swords will be hands down the best choice for PvP.
For plenty of reasons. There are plenty of abilities/situations that guarantee crit, there are quite a few abilities/CP passives that give you a bonus on crit and depending on the situation and has both know burst damage streaks are usually what kills players and that is going to be more important than ever in a 50% reduced damage Cyrodiil.
Also keep in mind that if your base attack breaks through a shield it will still crit if it was going to.
I don't think that when sharpened is fixed swords will be hands down the best choice, I think they will be pretty balanced from the numbers I've run, especially since the 50% damage debuff from cyrodiil being fixed just nerfed swords down to 2.5% where before it was additive with it.
There are a ton of different equations for different thing depending on the situation and its still very possible to design a build/playstyle around any of the weapons (except axes haha).
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.
Have you considered leaving the shields slightly stronger, but allowing them to be crit?
The problem uncrittable shields create is that they make the whole crit stat (already less beneficial than stamina or weapon dmg) useless against certain opponents.
This leads to less build diversity and more "stack weapon dmg/stamina".
For instance, daggers are just downright bad in PvP compared to swords or maces (partly) due to this.
Personally I like the paper, scissors, rock concept that uncrittable shields introduces.
If all damage done to everyone behaves in the same way no matter what you're attacking then the game becomes a straight math calculation for what is best. Uncrittable shields means throws a monkey wrench into that kind of calculation.
And if weapon damage/stamina was the only viable build option right now everyone would be running swords instead of maces (which shows that penetration is valued over top end damage even though it is worthless on shields).
Well, convince me why I'd want to have any crit bonuses on my gear then, when 50%~ of players are immune to it most of the time.
It already is a math calculation, which says "dont use daggers, dont get crit bonuses".
The only reason maces are used currently is because they provide so much value (against the other 50% of players, and sorcs that dont have shield up which is a rarity) due to this bug.
After they're fixed, swords will be hands down the best choice for PvP.
For plenty of reasons. There are plenty of abilities/situations that guarantee crit, there are quite a few abilities/CP passives that give you a bonus on crit and depending on the situation and has both know burst damage streaks are usually what kills players and that is going to be more important than ever in a 50% reduced damage Cyrodiil.
Also keep in mind that if your base attack breaks through a shield it will still crit if it was going to.
I don't think that when sharpened is fixed swords will be hands down the best choice, I think they will be pretty balanced from the numbers I've run, especially since the 50% damage debuff from cyrodiil being fixed just nerfed swords down to 2.5% where before it was additive with it.
There are a ton of different equations for different thing depending on the situation and its still very possible to design a build/playstyle around any of the weapons (except axes haha).
I don't think you quite understand the mechanics as well as you think you do.
Critical Strike chance doesn't increase your burst damage, it increases your sustained damage (and even that it increases less than raw weapon damage or stamina).
More raw damage->bigger crits=more burst
More critical strike chance->more crits=more sustained damage
Atleast in theory.
Sadly, critical strike chance isn't quite balanced with raw damage, where your sustained DPS is increased much, much more by getting weapon damage instead (or even stamina).
More things which devaluate critical strike chance:
- Abilities which guarantee a critical strike
- Damage Shields
- Blocking
Here's how I see the sword vs mace vs dagger vs axe:
Sword - good against everyone
Mace - good against heavily armoured targets, as long as they dont use a dmg shield
Daggers - decent against people who dont use dmg or block
Axe - meh
I think we have a clear winner, when considering that a Mace only gives 5% increase (when not bugged) compared to sword against people with 50% resistance.
Against medium armour targets, it's a tie between sword & mace (sword slightly favored by 1%, unless medium armour user has 100 points in Medium Armour Focus which brings it to even), with the big drawback on mace that it deals no increased damage vs dmg shields (your biggest obstacle in PvP).
Against targets in light armour, sword wins 100% of the time.
[b]ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »Could have sworn I already responded to this but I can't find my post![/b]
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.
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.
Have you considered leaving the shields slightly stronger, but allowing them to be crit?
The problem uncrittable shields create is that they make the whole crit stat (already less beneficial than stamina or weapon dmg) useless against certain opponents.
This leads to less build diversity and more "stack weapon dmg/stamina".
For instance, daggers are just downright bad in PvP compared to swords or maces (partly) due to this.
Personally I like the paper, scissors, rock concept that uncrittable shields introduces.
If all damage done to everyone behaves in the same way no matter what you're attacking then the game becomes a straight math calculation for what is best. Uncrittable shields means throws a monkey wrench into that kind of calculation.
And if weapon damage/stamina was the only viable build option right now everyone would be running swords instead of maces (which shows that penetration is valued over top end damage even though it is worthless on shields).
Well, convince me why I'd want to have any crit bonuses on my gear then, when 50%~ of players are immune to it most of the time.
It already is a math calculation, which says "dont use daggers, dont get crit bonuses".
The only reason maces are used currently is because they provide so much value (against the other 50% of players, and sorcs that dont have shield up which is a rarity) due to this bug.
After they're fixed, swords will be hands down the best choice for PvP.
For plenty of reasons. There are plenty of abilities/situations that guarantee crit, there are quite a few abilities/CP passives that give you a bonus on crit and depending on the situation and has both know burst damage streaks are usually what kills players and that is going to be more important than ever in a 50% reduced damage Cyrodiil.
Also keep in mind that if your base attack breaks through a shield it will still crit if it was going to.
I don't think that when sharpened is fixed swords will be hands down the best choice, I think they will be pretty balanced from the numbers I've run, especially since the 50% damage debuff from cyrodiil being fixed just nerfed swords down to 2.5% where before it was additive with it.
There are a ton of different equations for different thing depending on the situation and its still very possible to design a build/playstyle around any of the weapons (except axes haha).
I don't think you quite understand the mechanics as well as you think you do.
Critical Strike chance doesn't increase your burst damage, it increases your sustained damage (and even that it increases less than raw weapon damage or stamina).
More raw damage->bigger crits=more burst
More critical strike chance->more crits=more sustained damage
Atleast in theory.
Sadly, critical strike chance isn't quite balanced with raw damage, where your sustained DPS is increased much, much more by getting weapon damage instead (or even stamina).
More things which devaluate critical strike chance:
- Abilities which guarantee a critical strike
- Damage Shields
- Blocking
Here's how I see the sword vs mace vs dagger vs axe:
Sword - good against everyone
Mace - good against heavily armoured targets, as long as they dont use a dmg shield
Daggers - decent against people who dont use dmg or block
Axe - meh
I think we have a clear winner, when considering that a Mace only gives 5% increase (when not bugged) compared to sword against people with 50% resistance.
Against medium armour targets, it's a tie between sword & mace (sword slightly favored by 1%, unless medium armour user has 100 points in Medium Armour Focus which brings it to even), with the big drawback on mace that it deals no increased damage vs dmg shields (your biggest obstacle in PvP).
Against targets in light armour, sword wins 100% of the time.
Either I'm completely off base or you have that completely backwards.
In any game I've ever played, crit chance is more *expensive* than base damage stats because crit chance leads to more volatile (bursty) damage which in PvP translates to kills (back to back crits or triple crit streaks etc.).
Base damage increasing stats will lead to higher DPS yet will be a more stable "sustainable" mode of damage.
That is how it *should* work. The availability of Crit damage bonus increasing gear/abilities/passives/CPs and crit damage reducing countering factors muddies the waters on this somewhat but anything dealing with crit itself is usually very expensive pound for pound compared to damage.
You're right on the things the devalue crit chance which is why I think crit on a whole right now is probably *too* expensive. Then again it's really hard to tell with so many exploits like magelight and mundus with thief/shadow to get a good idea of how the balance up.
One thing is certain, with the nerfing of both damage shields and blocking, crit is going to become much more powerful than it is on live.
I think securing 4 different viable and balanced modes for weapons was pretty far reaching of ZoS and it obviously fell short. They should have made Axes a hybrid of both Maces and Swords which I believe is the more standard approach.
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.
Have you considered leaving the shields slightly stronger, but allowing them to be crit?
The problem uncrittable shields create is that they make the whole crit stat (already less beneficial than stamina or weapon dmg) useless against certain opponents.
This leads to less build diversity and more "stack weapon dmg/stamina".
For instance, daggers are just downright bad in PvP compared to swords or maces (partly) due to this.
Personally I like the paper, scissors, rock concept that uncrittable shields introduces.
If all damage done to everyone behaves in the same way no matter what you're attacking then the game becomes a straight math calculation for what is best. Uncrittable shields means throws a monkey wrench into that kind of calculation.
And if weapon damage/stamina was the only viable build option right now everyone would be running swords instead of maces (which shows that penetration is valued over top end damage even though it is worthless on shields).
Well, convince me why I'd want to have any crit bonuses on my gear then, when 50%~ of players are immune to it most of the time.
It already is a math calculation, which says "dont use daggers, dont get crit bonuses".
The only reason maces are used currently is because they provide so much value (against the other 50% of players, and sorcs that dont have shield up which is a rarity) due to this bug.
After they're fixed, swords will be hands down the best choice for PvP.
For plenty of reasons. There are plenty of abilities/situations that guarantee crit, there are quite a few abilities/CP passives that give you a bonus on crit and depending on the situation and has both know burst damage streaks are usually what kills players and that is going to be more important than ever in a 50% reduced damage Cyrodiil.
Also keep in mind that if your base attack breaks through a shield it will still crit if it was going to.
I don't think that when sharpened is fixed swords will be hands down the best choice, I think they will be pretty balanced from the numbers I've run, especially since the 50% damage debuff from cyrodiil being fixed just nerfed swords down to 2.5% where before it was additive with it.
There are a ton of different equations for different thing depending on the situation and its still very possible to design a build/playstyle around any of the weapons (except axes haha).
I don't think you quite understand the mechanics as well as you think you do.
Critical Strike chance doesn't increase your burst damage, it increases your sustained damage (and even that it increases less than raw weapon damage or stamina).
More raw damage->bigger crits=more burst
More critical strike chance->more crits=more sustained damage
Atleast in theory.
Sadly, critical strike chance isn't quite balanced with raw damage, where your sustained DPS is increased much, much more by getting weapon damage instead (or even stamina).
More things which devaluate critical strike chance:
- Abilities which guarantee a critical strike
- Damage Shields
- Blocking
Here's how I see the sword vs mace vs dagger vs axe:
Sword - good against everyone
Mace - good against heavily armoured targets, as long as they dont use a dmg shield
Daggers - decent against people who dont use dmg or block
Axe - meh
I think we have a clear winner, when considering that a Mace only gives 5% increase (when not bugged) compared to sword against people with 50% resistance.
Against medium armour targets, it's a tie between sword & mace (sword slightly favored by 1%, unless medium armour user has 100 points in Medium Armour Focus which brings it to even), with the big drawback on mace that it deals no increased damage vs dmg shields (your biggest obstacle in PvP).
Against targets in light armour, sword wins 100% of the time.
Either I'm completely off base or you have that completely backwards.
In any game I've ever played, crit chance is more *expensive* than base damage stats because crit chance leads to more volatile (bursty) damage which in PvP translates to kills (back to back crits or triple crit streaks etc.).
Base damage increasing stats will lead to higher DPS yet will be a more stable "sustainable" mode of damage.
That is how it *should* work. The availability of Crit damage bonus increasing gear/abilities/passives/CPs and crit damage reducing countering factors muddies the waters on this somewhat but anything dealing with crit itself is usually very expensive pound for pound compared to damage.
You're right on the things the devalue crit chance which is why I think crit on a whole right now is probably *too* expensive. Then again it's really hard to tell with so many exploits like magelight and mundus with thief/shadow to get a good idea of how the balance up.
One thing is certain, with the nerfing of both damage shields and blocking, crit is going to become much more powerful than it is on live.
I think securing 4 different viable and balanced modes for weapons was pretty far reaching of ZoS and it obviously fell short. They should have made Axes a hybrid of both Maces and Swords which I believe is the more standard approach.
In other games, you're not made to choose between critical strike chance & damage ;P
In most of them, you get multiple stats from gear and best gear comes with both crit rating & raw damage (sometimes combined to a single stat).
In ESO however, you're choosing between the two and obviously more dmg leads to bigger crits and thus more burst damage (and even more sustained damage as well, as theorycrafted by players).
HeroOfNone wrote: »I would not recommend a blanket improvement to DOTs, we should put a bit more thought to it.
Poisons, bleeds, disease should work better against enemies with out shields, physical damage and debuffs that need to get through a shield.
Fire, frost, and electrical would give higher damage on shields, stripping them down faster, but then you're hitting armor and spell mitigations when you get through.
Melee hits, arrows, and standard staff attacks would all do standard un crit able damage. This is what they are made to soak up.
This makes a rock paper scissors game with most classes, nightblades able to surprise attack but not do a lot of damage to shielded opponents. But DKS and Templars might be able burst down that shield better than others, forcing sorcs to run away less they suffer low magicka from constantly putting up shields. NBS though constantly waiting for glass cannons that don't bother slotting a Damage shield.
This would also force some to clense and then put on a damage shield, instead of shielding and ignoring the damage.
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.
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.
Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »How about no. Cause that basicly means players have to take out the shield first before actually doing any real damage to the other player...... Which is what were at basicly right now on live were players have to destroy the shield first to do anything to the player but they can't cause as soon as it pops they blow another bubble and rinse and repeat till one runs out of resources. The crit and overflow damage is just gonna make it easier to pop the bubbles no matter how much QQ you shield stackers do this change is gonna happen and it is gonna make AvA alot better.
Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »How about no. Cause that basicly means players have to take out the shield first before actually doing any real damage to the other player...... Which is what were at basicly right now on live were players have to destroy the shield first to do anything to the player but they can't cause as soon as it pops they blow another bubble and rinse and repeat till one runs out of resources. The crit and overflow damage is just gonna make it easier to pop the bubbles no matter how much QQ you shield stackers do this change is gonna happen and it is gonna make AvA alot better.
I am sorry but this "builds" are not negated mainly by absorb shields but by the cheap and spammable skill named Purge/Cleanse, which every, really every single PvP group is spamming.HeroOfNone wrote: »[absorb shields] almost totally negate DOT builds in general, something DKs specialize in.
Whats sad is he thinks that fixing the damage shields is somehow going to make them on par.
When I can watch a Sorc just throw up 12k-20k shields over and over again on PTS non stop while throwing out damage the change in formula is not going to stop that..Because you simply can't put out enough damage to pressure those shields..and since you can pretty much stack Magicka Recovery to take care of those shields and not be penalized for it like ya do with Block or Dodge...its still going to work out in the end.
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.
Stop crying guys. Your shields are absolutely broken and if you think they aren't then you're bad and you should feel bad. All survivability mechanics were nerfed so they aren't spammable anymore. Thus effected all but shields. Well shields are next because they are absolutely broken.
Stop crying guys. Your shields are absolutely broken and if you think they aren't then you're bad and you should feel bad. All survivability mechanics were nerfed so they aren't spammable anymore. Thus effected all but shields. Well shields are next because they are absolutely broken.
mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »Stop crying guys. Your shields are absolutely broken and if you think they aren't then you're bad and you should feel bad. All survivability mechanics were nerfed so they aren't spammable anymore. Thus effected all but shields. Well shields are next because they are absolutely broken.
Errr no, that statement could not be more wrong.
You can still spam heals and you can still spam cloak or scales or anyother other skill that boosts your survivability.
And yes shields are broken, the devs even said so, but not the way you seem to think they are.
mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »Stop crying guys. Your shields are absolutely broken and if you think they aren't then you're bad and you should feel bad. All survivability mechanics were nerfed so they aren't spammable anymore. Thus effected all but shields. Well shields are next because they are absolutely broken.
Errr no, that statement could not be more wrong.
You can still spam heals and you can still spam cloak or scales or anyother other skill that boosts your survivability.
And yes shields are broken, the devs even said so, but not the way you seem to think they are.
Heals and cloak have counters. Shields don't.
Sallington wrote: »Anything useful that players are wanting added into the game all fall under the category of "Yer ruinin my 'mersion!"
...
Sallington wrote: »Anything useful that players are wanting added into the game all fall under the category of "Yer ruinin my 'mersion!"
...