For reference, a hard counter is move or ability that beats another move or ability EVERY time. For example in rock/paper/scissors, rock hard counters scissors every time.

Before this PTS patch. Reflective scales had TWO hard counters when fighting DKs (while using spell projectiles): Defensive Posture, and Eclipse. These abilities when used against a DK, resulted in your (magic based) projectile hitting the DK every time due to the nature of the two reflections limit.

With the new changes on the PTS limiting reflections to only one reflect, neither of these abilities used against a DK will result in the projectile hitting the DK. Limiting reflections to 1 time effectively makes reflective scales hard counter ALL projectile types in the game (except for meteor in this latest patch which is a special case and doesn't really count as a projectile anymore).

Without Eclipse or defensive posture, here are the remaining "soft" counters to reflective scales:

1. Engage DKs with non-projectile attacks (which now include meteor). These are considered soft counters (since they bypass scales instead of defeating them) and their effectiveness depends on a variety of factors. More importantly, the availability of non-projectile attacks depends highly on your class and weapon types. The people that respond to this thread by saying "Countering wings is easy, just use X" are most likely playing a class or role where non-projectile attacks are plentiful and powerful. This is not true for all classes and builds and is one of the reasons reflective scales was considered one of the most powerful DK abilities before the reflect limit nerf
2. Eat four projectiles and hit the DK with the 5th one before they refresh scales. Which technically possible, this is highly impractical and only included on this list to discourage pedantic responses to this post.

So to summarize, the way it is now, reflect mechanics favor the aggressor (Player 1).

Player 1: Fires projectile (with a reflect skill up)
Player 2: Reflects projectile (with a reflect skill up)
Player 1: Reflects a second time.
Result: Twice reflected projetile hits player 2.


This is the proposed PTS state, where reflect mechanics will always favors the defender (Player 2).

Player 1: Fires projectile (with a reflect skill up)
Player 2: Reflects projectile (with a reflect skill up)
Result: Projectile can not be reflected again and hits Player 1

Note that I am not screaming for ZOS to change this, I just think a further discussion is warranted. The initial reflective scales nerf was pretty much the ONLY (non-exploit) balance nerf I supported in this game, mainly because scales has so few viable counters for projectile based builds and classes. However, I would much rather have had an additional skill added to the game (such as an offensive dispel) that could counter scales instead of the nerf. I always support more counters instead of more nerfs. This patch removes two of these counters. Hence the need for further discussion.

What are your thoughts on this change?