<tap, tap, tap.> Is this thing on? Walks-in-Mud, what did you do while we were playing the interview? Oh, its working now? Ok, lets continue.

From that discussion, it appears that we, the peoples of Tamriel will have to be more active about regenerating Stamina while blocking. Now, it is interesting that the original Stamina regen, as noted in the slide earlier, was passive, meaning you did not have to do anything to regen it. It replenished itself no matter what you were doing, while in combat, including the times when blocking.

Those on the front lines of battle report that once a fighter holds up thier weapons, whether carnal or arcane, to block an attack, their Stamina regen stops, for a period of two seconds after that block is released. During a longer fight of, say a minute, should the fighter hit block, hold for a second, then release, then reblock, they could potentially loose all stamina regen for the period of a minute and two seconds. Considering the defender is loosing stamina by preventing an attack on his person, the lack of regeneration of the energy needed to provide that same protection could lead to injury or death.

Kena Wrobel also mentioned that this change was to prevent all peoples, not just those who tank, from holding block all the time. It should be noted here that the phrase "perma-block" has been adopted by the populace for those who walk around constantly in fear of attack, so they have thier block up. Reportedly, this tactic is especially effective in the lands of the battles of the Three Alliances, Cyrodiil, to prevent being attacked while defending walls. Should your block NOT BLOCK anything, you would loose no stamina, so your bar would be full. ONLY when you actively block something would your stamina pool drop, needing to be refilled. Because such timid ones, and I use the term loosely, are still holding block, their stamina pool would not refill, unless they had the active skills we will consider later to refill their bar while holding block.

Kena Lambert mentioned something interesting also. To quote him: "Its actually really interesting looking at the feedback. So when we initially announced the change, the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. You know, nobody had a chance to play it and what not. ...Now that ..... a bunch of people actually playing this. The feedback is actually closer now. Its actually closer to 50/50. So, yeah, there may be some tuning and tweaking, and more tuning and tweaking going on there, but.."

A learned one might point out that those who were having problems reported the problem and hoped that the ZoS demigods would not need to be reminded again and again of continuing issues on the same topic. However, this humble scholar guesses that, when it becomes a problem, again and again, those who have issues with their stamina must do their sacred duty to the warrior poet and submit the /bug and /feedback reports to keep the issue firmly in the minds of the sacred coders.

Let us now look to the reasons for the change. Amazing insight into the minds of those who hold us in their hands, is it not? For we heard from Kena Wrobel, "Overall it creates a lot more technical, more interesting gameplay." Also, "but we're pretty happy with that and it makes the game a lot more interesting, and a lot better, in both PVE and PvP combat. " Finally, "You need .. want to be blocking for the attacks that are big and important, and you wanna be doing other things during the rest of the time. You know. Activating abilities, or trying to get in a heavy attack, or just, you know, regenerating your stamina. "

In summary, apparently, we, the peoples have stated that the profession of tanking is "boring". That tanking just involves two things, holding block and hitting taunt once in a while. So to prevent that boredom during long fights, we are going to have to actively do things to increase our stamina regen while still holding block, like we always do. We will also want to only hold block when an attack is directlly immenent, not just because it SHOULD be coming. So, those who love to stand in red circles may want to consider rolling out of them and dropping block to regen some stamina, while a mob has a temper tantrum, in an area of relative safety, for example.

Would one race be better than another in this situation? We saw the question raised, but not really answered in the interview. After all, the original description of the situation we now face, apparently now lost to time, basically said that "While holding block, players will no longer be able to passively regenerate stamina."
The large majority of the community, many scholars included, thought that that would be limited to just the passive in the Character information. Many of you have undoubtedly seen my scholarly work on the racial passives, recreated here.



<Again muttering to his collegue> Available here as a spreadsheet at Google Docs. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qnXBpoRDQgqeXfZBXN-7cYVUH1m9ZnAZYZR9OweQW2g/edit?usp=sharing

So, on paper, the races of Bosmer, Kajiiti and Redguard, would appear better off because thier racials would continue to regenerate Stamina while blocking. Sadly, this concept was disproved in the most recent PTS patch notes.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS, BASE-GAME PATCH
[*] Fixed an issue that allowed those with racial passives which increased Stamina Recovery to still recover Stamina while blocking.

As Kena Bruno pointed out, the intent of the sacred coders was to eliminate ALL passive stamina regen while blocking. All races are now on an equal footing, when in that situation.

As a fellow colleague pointed out during a previous speech on this subject, holding block constantly is a rather tiring exercise, so most of the peoples do it only when needed. With the focus on it right now, that seems to be much of the time. But, really, out of your time in Tamriel, how often do YOU hold block when not in combat?

Let us then, change our focus to what CAN be done to regenerate Stamina while holding block. It is quite a list, so we have provided hand-written copies, to be handed out while I read them off. See my colleagues standing under the flag of their respective class to purchase copies of the skills for that class.

Dragonknight

-Draconic Power Line
-(Active) Skill "Green Dragon Blood" - a morph of "Dragon Blood" this skill "increases Health and Stamina recovery by 20% for 23 seconds.

<whisper to colleague.> If this reads correctly, when blocking, your stamina recovery is zero. 20% of zero is still zero. So, you would still not get any stamina regen. Should it be on the list? Further testing needs to be done.

-Earthen Heart Line
-(Passive) Battle Roar - "When ACTIVATING AN ULTIMATE ABILITY, restore health/magica/Stamina in amounts increased by 35/70 % of Ulti Cost"
-(Passive) Helping Hands - "ACTIVATING an Earthen Heart abilty restores 2/5% Sta"

-Affects these (Active Skills) {Ultimate} Magma Armor (Magma Shell/Corrosive Armor) Stonefist (Obsidian Shard/Stone Giant) Molten Weapons (Igneous Weapons/ Molten Armaments) Obsidian Shard (Igneous Shield/Fragmented Shield) Petrify (Fossilize/Shattering Rocks) Ash Cloud (Cinderstorm/Eruption)

NightBlade

-Assasination Line
-(Active) Skill Grim Focus morph (Relentless Focus)-increases your Stamina recovery by 10%

<whisper to collegue.> Again, if this reads correctly, when blocking, your stamina recovery is zero. 10% of zero is still zero. So, you would still not get any stamina regen. We NEED someone to test this further.

-Shadow Line
-(Passive) Refreshing Shadows - Increaases Stamina Regen by 7/15%

-Siphoning Strikes Line
-(Active) Siphoning Strikes- For 15s, each basic attack returns 891 Magicka and Stamina
-(Active) Leeching Strikes- For duration of toggle, each basic attack returns 238 Magicka and Stamina, plus 2% Health
-(Active) Siphoning Attacks- For 15s, each basic attack returns 891 Magicka and Stamina. Each non-basic attack has a 10% chance to returns 1782 Magicka and Stamina

<whisper> At last, a pure number of regen.


Sorcerer-
It should be noted here, that, with PTS patch 2.1.2, only the Daedric Summoning skill line passively restores Stamina, but some others reduce the stamina cost of skills, which should help keep the stamina pool higher.

-Dark Magic Line
-(Passive) Unholy Magic- Decrease the cost of Stamina for all abilities by 3 or 5 %

<whisper> Again, we need to test to find out if "all abilities" includes blocking.

-(Ultimate) Absorption Field- Allies within the field get increased Stamina regen

<whisper> SIGH. Again with the lack of numbers, this time not even a percentage. And, does the caster also get regen? Or just allies? Sometimes, our sources are so lacking in understanding the necessity of preciseness.

-(Active) Dark Exchange (Dark Deal morph)- Pay 2331 Magicka to get 3024 Health and 2025 Stamina

-Daedric Summoning Line
-(Passive) Daedric Protection When a Daedric Summoning Line ability is SLOTTED, increase Health and Stamina regen by 10/20%


Templar-
Again, it should be noted that no direct passives restore Stamina.

-Aedric Spear Line
-(Active)- Spear Shards (plus morph Blazing Spear)-(For allies only) When active, ONE ally can pick up a Spear Shard and restore 25% Stamina, plus 1700 Stamina over 10 sec
-(Active)- Spear Shards (Luminous Shards)-(For allies only) When active, ONE ally can pick up a Spear Shard and restore 25% Stamina, plus 1590 Magica and Stamina over 10 sec

-Dawn's Wrath Line
-(Passive) Restoring Spirit- Reduces Magicka, Stamina and Ulti ability costs by 2/4%

-Restoring Light Line
-(Active) Restoring Aura (plus morphs Radiant Aura)- WHILE SLOTTED, receive 10% increase in Health, Magicka and Stamina regen. When ACTIVATED, ALLIES in the area (12/18m) receive 20% increase in Health and Stamina.

-(Active) Restoring Aura (morphs Repentance)- WHILE SLOTTED, receive 10% increase in Health, Magicka and Stamina regen. When ACTIVATED, ALLIES in the area receive 875 Health and Stamina regen.

Thus concludes our section on class skills to be used to recover stamina. Please hold any questions until the end.

We will now run through the other skills, as they are all over the skill map. As previously noted, consideration was also given to skills that reduce stamina usage, even if that does not directly increase the Stamina regen, it does increase the available pool vs non-reduced.

Weapon Skills-(most of which are Stamina based)

-Two Handed
-(Passive)- Balanced Blade - Reduce cost of 2H abilities by 10 / 20 %
-(Passive) - Battle Rush- With Two Handed Weapon equipped, after killing a target inc Sta regen by 15/30% for 10 sec

-1 Hand and Shield
-(Passive) Fortress - With 1HS EQUIPPED Reduce cost of 1H abilities by 5/10 % and block cost by 15/30 %
-(Passive) Deadly Bash- With 1HS EQUPPED Bashing = 50/100 % more dmg, 20/40 % less Sta
-(Active) Defensive Posture (plus both morphs Defensive Stance and Absorb Magic)- When SLOTTED, the amount of damage blocked is increased by 8% and cost of blocking decreased by 8%

To be noted here, combining just slotting Defensive Posture with the Fortress results in a 38% reduction in stamina cost to block.

-Dual Wield
-(Passive) Controlled Fury- With Dual Weild equipped: Reduce the cost of Dual Weild abilites by 10/20%
-(Active) Whirlwind (morph Whirling Blades)- Increases Stamina recovery by 20% for 10s

<muttering> I give. i guess if you are using dual wield, you wont be blocking.

-Bow
-(Passive) Ranger- Reduce Sta cost of Bow abilites by 10/20 %

Armor Skills-

-Medium Armor
-(Passive) Wind Walker- Inc Sta Recovery by 2 or 4 % and reduce Sta cost 2/3% per piece Med Armor equipped
-(Passive) Improved Sneak- Reduce Sta cost by 4/7 % per piece med armor equipped

<mutters> Mental note, mention sneak in the introduction as a use for stamina

-(Passive) Athletics- Reduce Sta cost of dodge roll by 2/4 % per med armor equipped

<mutter> AND dodge roll.

-Heavy Armor
-(Passive) Constitution- Restore Magicka and Stamina (49 per piece at VR16), when hit, once every 8/4 sec, per piece heavy armor equipped.
-(Passive) Bracing- Decrease Sta cost of blocking by 10/20 % when five pieces of heavy armor equipped.
-(Active) Immovable (only morph Imovable Brute)- When SLOTTED, the cost of break free is reduced 4% per Heavy piece of armor

<LOUDER mutter> What in Hermaus Mora's name? Sigh.. guess I am just rewriting my introduction next time. Walks-in-Mud, make a note of it also, so you are responsible for it.

World-

-Soul Magic
-(Active) Soul Trap (only morph Consuming Trap)-if affected target dies, fills soul gem and restores 7% Health, Magicka and Stamina

-Fighter's Guild
-(Active)- Expert Hunter (only morph Evil Hunter)- 15% chance to restore 750 Stamina against Undead and Daedra

-Undaunted
-(Passive) - Undaunted Command- Activating a synergy will restore 2/4 % max Health/Magicka/Stamina

For those on the front lines, we especially want to thank them for their service to their Alliances, as the Mage's Guild is neutral in the situation, only wanting to be restored to their rightful place in the Arcane University, inside Imperial City. For those noble warriors we have a few skills listed below specifically for use in Cyrodiil.

Alliance War-
-Assault
-(Passive) Continuous Attack - Increase Magicka and Stamina Recovery by 10/20% for 10 min after capturing a resource or Keep.

2015/08/18 Edited for corrections and new patch notes for both NB and Sorc skills.

<2015/08/31 Edited for Live Patch Notes>

Eric Wrobel needs to go tank the Warrior in Hel Ra and see if you get to drop your shield. Has he even played the game? We are supposed to burn our stamina blocking and still use stamina abilities without regen. Lets not forget that Stamina based tanks have limited magicka pools, expensive to use magicka abilities and these abilities have greatly reduced effect since we are spec'd for stamina. You want to make tank obtain stamina through peripheral means that are complicated or require that other players who may not use, have or be willing to use the abilities to aid the tank. There are too many variables for that to be a good idea. I am not a static poke and soak tank, I charge into that fight with much finesse and actively steer the fight. Much of that will now be shifted to just keeping the gas tank filled. If anything they just made hiding behind the shield more of the fight. Then you have the new sets which a fair many players will not have access to or be able to craft or afford. We paid for the game, we pay for the content so when we clearly don't want something more consideration than "You are just gonna have to find a way to be ok with it" is needed.

I agree and there are many things they could have "fixed" before "fixing" stamina builds on a scale like this. In construction we work by the premise that the architect and engineers have no field experience so what they put on paper does not always work in the actual building. This is most likely one of those instances. To further the construction metaphor the foundation is full of cracks and is missing re-bar but they wanna add another story and kick out a load bearing wall.

Thank you for the analysis @Darlgon

When non-tanks will realise that they will not complete content without tanks?

Just an awesome post...sad but awesome.

Strange and unclear presentation, but thank you for taking the time to write it. The changes are easily balanced and tanking is still no issue in all content (even without the use of Black Rose). Good Job ZoS, a worthwhile change.

Darlgon wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

You left out Repentance, a pretty big one.

Thank you for your due diligence. However, the case may be made for it being implied, as a morph of Restoring Aura that has no cost and ... Oh, yes, missed that. Apparently it also restores stamina and health to ALLIES on activation. Source material updated.

Not sure why you are highlighting the term "allies". It restores the stamina and health to you and your allies. All skills that say "allies" actually mean "you and your allies" in practice.

Maybe you already know this.

Darlgon wrote: »

-Siphoning Strikes Line
-(Active) Siphoning Strikes- For 10s, each basic attack returns 891 Magicka and Stamina
-(Active) Leeching Strikes- For duration of toggle, each basic attack returns 891 Magicka and Stamina
-(Active) Siphoning Attacks- For 10s, each basic attack returns 891 Magicka and Stamina. Each non-basic attack returns 1782 Magicka and Stamina

Leeching Strikes returns 238 magicka and stamina, and 2% health, on each basic attack.

Siphoning Attacks- it's a 10% chance to restore the larger magicka/stamina total from non-basic attacks.

Apokh wrote: »

The problem with "this scholar" and his followers is, they only hear what they want to. When you want sth anecdotal, look at the 1st and second post in this thread.

There are SOME Guilds that DID play Trial on PTS. All of them who shared their wisdom, said - taht its (after some Minutes) doable - the question would be, wheather or wheather not you did infact tank on PTS . That simple "YES" or "NO".

Me myself and I only tanked one run in WGT VET -guess that is much more than you, Swarog and the Cookieroman did and althought you miht say "Ohh WGT VET ONLY...no comparism" ...ask other players- WGT VET is pretty tough.
Not said, that we had to play with template Chars on VR14 which gear, which was by far ...worse.

- on the first trash groups we died 3 or 4 times and thought "WTF?" but after half an hour I got it
- In bossfight I took as much Pots as in DSA I guess..btw when you have problems with pots -"I´ve no further questions, your honor"
- my healer could not focus me all the time in the bossfights , -sometimes he even could not heal the group for some time because of the mechanics, but he did not have to because - you know "hit=Block, no hits=no block"
- I had time to throw my nova, to pick dead ppl up and to throw my mystic orb because with this patch you can taunt whenever you want...

bla bla bla bla, i m good like God after 30 mins but with pots, well u know that free pots from crown store will no longer be free on live and thats why ur stamina is reduced to 0 wille block, only that, ur money
hope u be hapy like u are now wen ur crowns for be subed are not enough any more.

Swarog wrote: »

When non-tanks will realise that they will not complete content without tanks?

Using the Armor Master Set, I made a magicka-based NB light armor tank on PTS that hits hard caps for spell and physical resist. With better set arrangements, you could easily get it over 2.5k spell damage. Pretty much a DPS-tank replacement build, so yea, it will definitely happen.

stewie_801 wrote: »

GhostShadows wrote: »

Apokh wrote: »

bla bla bla bla, i m good like God after 30 mins but with pots, well u know that free pots from crown store will no longer be free on live and thats why ur stamina is reduced to 0 wille block, only that, ur money
hope u be hapy like u are now wen ur crowns for be subed are not enough any more.

People actually buy those? I just buy tripots from guild stores so nothing is going to change there. Not spending my crowns on potions on live and won't be when this update hits either.

I haven't had any issues with stamina while tanking the two new dungeons on Vet Mode on the PTS or the few gold pledges scaled up to v16. Haven't done VDSA or trials.

yes i think is about time for u start pay tri pots at a much fair price, now that more ppl will need them

stewie_801 wrote: »

GhostShadows wrote: »

stewie_801 wrote: »

GhostShadows wrote: »

Apokh wrote: »

bla bla bla bla, i m good like God after 30 mins but with pots, well u know that free pots from crown store will no longer be free on live and thats why ur stamina is reduced to 0 wille block, only that, ur money
hope u be hapy like u are now wen ur crowns for be subed are not enough any more.

People actually buy those? I just buy tripots from guild stores so nothing is going to change there. Not spending my crowns on potions on live and won't be when this update hits either.

I haven't had any issues with stamina while tanking the two new dungeons on Vet Mode on the PTS or the few gold pledges scaled up to v16. Haven't done VDSA or trials.

yes i think is about time for u start pay tri pots at a much fair price, now that more ppl will need them

Unlikely. It's the same every update. They go up slightly, then come back down due to people farming mats like crazy and undercutting. If they were to go up more than I felt like paying, I would just farm it myself, like always. But it is way easy to make gold in this game. Have over a million without really selling all that much.

dont know in wat server u play but good for u that u find that pots at a good price. i need farm mats for mines and my in game wife, and i dont have that much time to farm the flowers so many times i find myself geting sumes from shop

I don't understand why they didn't just give it the bolt escape nerf.

For every second in which a block occurs block cost begins to increase after 3 consecutive seconds. Put a max increase cap on it as well. That way you can prep a block for an incoming hit without being penalized and you can drop your guard for 2 seconds in between to shed off the fatigue.

I also don't agree with the assessment on eso live that it's a success because 50% of the people agree with it. If it were a trivial matter like horse color that would be fine, but this is a core game mechanic. 50% is not a success when we are talking about a core game mechanic here. IMO 50% should bring you back to the drawing board.

Only a small percentage of PvPers are in a permablock build, so it's very easy to please the bulk of the player base who don't tank, and don't permablock and who will take full advantage from the nerf in PvP. To them it's a buff to their build. It's like saying 66% percent of players agree with a nerf to scissors when 66% of the players are rocks and paper.

Permablock is dumb, I think we can all agree on that, but we shouldn't hurt everyone in between just to stop people on the end.