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Lokey0024 wrote: »

Put a cast time on all morphs of hardened ward. Fixed. Would give a reason for silence range effect abilities.

So that a class can not use it's main defensive mechanic when someone *bashs* it? Imagine the outcry if you had a casttime on BoL or Cloak. What a horrible idea.

Essiaga wrote: »

How about scaling ALL shields off stats that are not normally stacked like health and regen?

This just makes the absurdity of that idea so appearant. It would basically mean that all shields would be crap because you have to go out your way to make use of them, or too powerful because you can spam them, while healing is scaling with magicka/stamina and even weapon/spell damage on top of that. Sun Shield and Obsidian Shield used to be great skills up to 1.5, apart from the higher cost definitely superior to Conjured Ward. What made them great was that players were stacking health anyway because it was so easy to cap the magicka softcap, so that's were we need to start. With disincentives to stack magicka/stamina too high.

I think both healing and scale-able mitigation skills should NEVER be based on something that makes you hit harder. You should sacrifice damage for mitigation and vise-versa.

Then tell us what kind of system you would like instead and provide arguments for it? This is true for magicka/stamina/health, spell/weapon damage, spell/weapon crit and spell/weapon crit damage so far.

Also a Sorc can use combat prayer and have a heal about as strong as BoL instead of stacking shields, where as a Templar and DK would HAVE to stack shields to get even close to Ward AND Sorc still has mobility and superior burst damage, etc.

Nah, not really. For one, BoR isn't as strong as BoL. Secondly, you need to equip a resto staff to use it, which believe it or not, is a huge drawback in PvP. Also the burst damage is only so powerful in this particular meta, 1.5 Sorcs were complaining they didn't have any sustain damage in their class skills or melee magicka skills at all. And no, that didn't change.

I think magicka builds need more from shields since Stam builds have more resources for CC break, dodge roll, block, and have access to Evasion and other skills at a stamina cost. With the removal of caps stamina is at a premium on magicka builds as they would have to sacrifice healing, dps, etc. So to give magicka players a better shield base it on health with a magicka regen multiplier of some sort, idk. I'm not going to attempt to come up with math. I don't know how it will effect game processes, etc. but something like 25% health + 170% magicka regen (with a diminishing return) would allow magicka builds to have larger shields then stam builds but not all be as OP as Hardened is currently.

So base heals and shields on stats that are not going to increase DPS and they'll balance themselves out. That solves Battle Spirit neft to shields (that currently cripples Temp and DK shields) and heals.

Okay, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but please, this isn't thought through at all. Enabling me to increase my shield(s) by stacking health and magicka regen would make it easier to keep up an even larger shield. If at all, it would reduce my damage slightly while increasing my regen and defense. I hope that's not what you want.

Now for shields stacking ...
Class shields and Healing Ward should be considered 'major shields' but not in a buff. Just for this discussion.

• A caster should not be able to cast a 'major shield' AND another shield on himself. Pick a shield.
• However, other players can cast a shield on a player with a 'major shield.' So a Sorc with Ward could not shield stack, but a DK could share his Igneous shields or Bone shield with that Sorc.
• No more then 2 shields on a player at a time.
• Healing Ward should consider shields as health when seeking a target which would pretty much make it impossible to stack ON TOP of a 'major shield.' But it can find a player with low health with no shield up and apply to that player. Then the player will still be able to cast another shield on top of it.

Making Healing Ward unable to stack with class shields essentially disables it as a burst heal for someone using a class shield. Also if something like you suggest would happen, then at least make Annulment a major shield, leaving out the only actual issue when it comes to shieldstacking would be quite embarassing.
Lastly, you realize that your last point would be both buff and nerf to Healing Ward, yes? It would make it easier to heal a group of players with it, but impossible to save one in a situation where you'd currently have to spam it.

Xeven wrote: »

18% mitigation with hardy is only 60 CP, which everyone has (and will continue to have) because of Unchained, and because it's awesome.

Lets pretend you are naked.

9k becomes 7,380 with 18% hardy

Half that with battle spirit becomes 3,690

This is all over every magicka users damage log. Ask them. Get a clue.

Lets say it crits, and you're still naked. Thats 13.5k.

13.5k becomes 11,070 after hardy.

11,070 becomes 5,535 after battle spirit.

These are facts. Grind some CP, put on some Impen, stop being a scrub, and stop vomiting your BS numbers all over these forums. Magic damage has been garbage for the last six months.

Your proxies only hit for 5.5k damage against players ? I've hit medium armor users and templars/dks who have built in spellres for 10k+ proxies in this patch xD DW, magicka nightblade, bosmer without being cloaked/invis. No undaunted passives Tough it was a crit ^^

ToRelax wrote: »

Essiaga wrote: »

How about scaling ALL shields off stats that are not normally stacked like health and regen?

This just makes the absurdity of that idea so appearant. It would basically mean that all shields would be crap because you have to go out your way to make use of them, or too powerful because you can spam them, while healing is scaling with magicka/stamina and even weapon/spell damage on top of that. Sun Shield and Obsidian Shield used to be great skills up to 1.5, apart from the higher cost definitely superior to Conjured Ward. What made them great was that players were stacking health anyway because it was so easy to cap the magicka softcap, so that's were we need to start. With disincentives to stack magicka/stamina too high.

Which is what I say in the next sentence ...

I think both healing and scale-able mitigation skills should NEVER be based on something that makes you hit harder. You should sacrifice damage for mitigation and vise-versa.

Then tell us what kind of system you would like instead and provide arguments for it? This is true for magicka/stamina/health, spell/weapon damage, spell/weapon crit and spell/weapon crit damage so far.

One that Disincentives the stacking of DPS for lost of mitigation ... Caps are never coming back, though I really wish they never left ...

Also a Sorc can use combat prayer and have a heal about as strong as BoL instead of stacking shields, where as a Templar and DK would HAVE to stack shields to get even close to Ward AND Sorc still has mobility and superior burst damage, etc.

Nah, not really. For one, BoR isn't as strong as BoL. Secondly, you need to equip a resto staff to use it, which believe it or not, is a huge drawback in PvP. Also the burst damage is only so powerful in this particular meta, 1.5 Sorcs were complaining they didn't have any sustain damage in their class skills or melee magicka skills at all. And no, that didn't change.

Didn't say it is as strong as BOL, but Templars don't have access to shield as large as Ward so that would make sense. Resto is a huge drawback (when DPS is king). Which is why it stinks to have a class shield that's Battle Nerfed to make resto that much more attractive. Sorc's don't have legit sustain damage (pets, lightning form, etc could be seen as sustain but not legit), they have burst. They can take Destro and sustain away if they didn't mind giving up spell damage. Other classes have to use Det or ult to get the kinda burst Sorcs have in class.

I think magicka builds need more from shields since Stam builds have more resources for CC break, dodge roll, block, and have access to Evasion and other skills at a stamina cost. With the removal of caps stamina is at a premium on magicka builds as they would have to sacrifice healing, dps, etc. So to give magicka players a better shield base it on health with a magicka regen multiplier of some sort, idk. I'm not going to attempt to come up with math. I don't know how it will effect game processes, etc. but something like 25% health + 170% magicka regen (with a diminishing return) would allow magicka builds to have larger shields then stam builds but not all be as OP as Hardened is currently.

So base heals and shields on stats that are not going to increase DPS and they'll balance themselves out. That solves Battle Spirit neft to shields (that currently cripples Temp and DK shields) and heals.

Okay, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but please, this isn't thought through at all. Enabling me to increase my shield(s) by stacking health and magicka regen would make it easier to keep up an even larger shield. If at all, it would reduce my damage slightly while increasing my regen and defense. I hope that's not what you want.

Are you not making MY point? "reduce my damage slightly while increasing my regen and defense." Isn't that what you pointed out "disincentives to stack magicka/stamina too high" ? It becomes self regulating.

There are simple ways to counter this. Increasing the cost of skills and limiting the amount of return you get as you stack stats. etc. It's still better to have a Sorc, or any class, lose some DPS when increasing mitigation/healing. Why aren't we all running regen builds now? We don't need that much. Here's the MIN ... now MAX your DPS. Damage is more important. So if you choose to not stack regen you'll hit hard but take more damage or heal of less and regen slower. It's a trade off and again there are many ways to make it more or less attractive.

Now consider your running VMSA but your shields are not based on max magicka ... do you think your run time will go up or down as a Magicka Sorc? Are they not currently completing VMSA faster then all other classes still? I seriously don't know cause I haven't been following.

Now for shields stacking ...
Class shields and Healing Ward should be considered 'major shields' but not in a buff. Just for this discussion.

• A caster should not be able to cast a 'major shield' AND another shield on himself. Pick a shield.
• However, other players can cast a shield on a player with a 'major shield.' So a Sorc with Ward could not shield stack, but a DK could share his Igneous shields or Bone shield with that Sorc.
• No more then 2 shields on a player at a time.
• Healing Ward should consider shields as health when seeking a target which would pretty much make it impossible to stack ON TOP of a 'major shield.' But it can find a player with low health with no shield up and apply to that player. Then the player will still be able to cast another shield on top of it.

Making Healing Ward unable to stack with class shields essentially disables it as a burst heal for someone using a class shield. Also if something like you suggest would happen, then at least make Annulment a major shield, leaving out the only actual issue when it comes to shieldstacking would be quite embarassing.

Yes I do. But I also understand there needs to be variation and parity in builds. So use your class shield and Blessing of resto or use Healing Ward and blessing of resto, etc. Stacking shields just make the guy with the superior shield that much harder to kill. Adding heals makes him even stronger yet. People need to die in PVP ... but not there needs to be balance so everyone can kill and everyone can die in a balanced way.

Harness was classified (by me) as a minor shield because it will stack with bone shield. Both are limited to 1 type of damage. Did i miss a shield? Honestly I would like harness changed into something other then another shield as other suggested.

I pointed out that major shields should be the only shield you can cast on your self. So harness could not stack with any class or healing ward.

Lastly, you realize that your last point would be both buff and nerf to Healing Ward, yes? It would make it easier to heal a group of players with it, but impossible to save one in a situation where you'd currently have to spam it.

It's obviously not polished and ready for implementation. I typed it up at like 4am when I was having trouble sleep in. I didn't look at it from EVERY angle. I figured the discussion board would bring discussion to hash it out or it would just be ignored. Besides its the concept I'd like ZOS to consider and hopefully come up with something better considering they're the professionals and I'm an insomniac.

Words like "absurdity" and saying 'not to be rude' are just ways of establish superiority or backhanded attempts at putting people down. I ask you stick to the facts instead of /flexing.

I thank you for engaging me in discussion and look forward to seeing your reply. Please forgive the bolds. Just using them to track the [quotes].

Force-Siphon wrote: »

.and by the way other classes have passive mitigation that sorcs do not. Sorcs continue to be hated bc pls refuse to learn to counter them, this is laughable.

Not to be argumentative but what are the passive mitigation other classes don't have?
Sorc has both major and minor ward and resolve. They have Streak and Expedition for mobility, and Ward that is stronger in PVP then other class shields are in PVE, because its based on a desired/stacked stat that Sorc's get an 8% boost.

If you're talking about from passives, then I believe the DK is the only one that has both major and minor ward/resolve and something extra. Templars do have a passive for spell resist but no access to Minor Resolve/Ward ... and both classes have skills that are severely reduced by battle spirit with out a reduce to cost. Ward is still very useful and stack-able with the skills other class are using in place of class shields.

The classes do have other skills to mitigate such as Reflect, Double Take, CCs , Mobility etc. aside from the Templar, unless you count single target CC. Oh and Eclpise, I guess.

Healing and BoL are also OP currently due to the desired stat scaling, which has resulted in numerous Templar nerfs to mitigation abilities. I've already posted on that in this thread and others.

The OP failed to mention why SS was so popular. It's literally the only thing a magicka sorcerer has to SURVIVE!

How fast have you killed a Light Armor sorcerer without a shield? Half a second?

If you want to address shield stacking then you have to address Light Armor sorcerers and their lack of survivability to mitigate or soak damage.

Only then will shield stacking be addressed.

ToRelax wrote: »

@Essiaga you are missing the point concerning the effect of a health+regen scaling ward. It would make it even harder to run out of resources, thus making the Sorc class even tankier than it is now. While on the other hand, as I said before, making it scale only with health would make it pretty crappy, resulting in Sorcs suddenly having the weakest defense of all the classes.
Sorcs (or anyone else) who don't invest into regen aren't a problem already, it just makes it way easeir for good players to kill them.
Increasing skill costs makes it actually mostly harder for those players who do not follow a meta, like making the shield useless again for stam sorcs because it's too expensive, even though it could have been useful scaling with those stats.

I'm not missing it at all. I'm simply not the game designer who has access to all the intricacy of the game and how it works, nor am I getting paid to come up with the solution. Health and regen are suggestions as they are not stats people Max. The concept is base healing and mitigation on something that doesn't benefit DD, and if I'm not mistaken you also stated something similar with making state stacking less desirable. I'm not suggesting this as THE plan. Simply a concept.

Sorc's would only become more tanky if the devs do not balance it correctly. If any one, including the Devs, 'fix' one thing in this or any game it would probably create problems somewhere else. That's the job of the dev team. To balance the game in a way were things are still effective but not OP or UP or unchecked as they are now. Battle Spirit is not a good check and dungeons DD don't need 25k shields.

So if you switch your set up to remove spell damage for regen you'll be tankier then someone who has less regen, but you'll also hit harder then someone with more regen and less spell damage but not as tanky as someone who traded damage for health. You would be able to spam shields more but again the skills will need to be balanced against that. I can make a bunch of suggestion but this is all hypothetical and again regen is just a not absolute suggestion I'm making. Its simply a stat that is Min rather than Max. I recommended a health shield with regen multiplier so regen would be the smaller factor of the 2 by a bunch. So stacking magick wouldn't be as beneficial and stacking regen would require a good bit of investment in to increase shields. Switching 130 spell damage for 130 regen should not give you super regen, super shields, or cripple your DPS. It will even them out if its implemented correctly.

I don't want to nerf Hardend Ward in PVP. I just want shields balanced so Battle spirit can go away. If it were scaled in PVE to be what it in PVP then the Sorc DD loses nothing in PVP while the rest of the battle nerfed shield are once again useful. However I believe it that happens with out any shield stacking fix you'll end up with everyone stacking shields. Also I think
Healing will require a nerf to Sun Shield. BOL still needs checked ... then Resto heals will out shine it ... it's just better to change the way that mitigation and healing works.

Skills have a base effect. If you take off all your gear, spend no CP or attribute points you'll still do some damage, healing, shield, etc. There is a base. Now you scale Damage off something, and Mitigation and/or healing off of something else.

Health I believe is a good stat for Shields since it scales with the character and health and mitigation are fairly similar. Health is rather weak at this point so its a MIN stat. If you stack health to 50k and use any kind of a health based shield you're going to be hard to kill, but you'll hit like a child. It's a self balanced. Sorcs will NOT have weaker shields as they can have a larger BASE shield, or be based on % of health or the % of regen, or what ever. For instance Ward could be 40% health where all other 'major' shields would be 30%, or 25% health and 2.3% regen multiplier where all other 'major' shield 25% and 1.7% multiplier ... there's a bunch of ways to do it, but again I don't design games. These numbers are just place holders.

Regen could be a good stat to base heals on since it scales with the character and regen and healing are fairly similar. Regen is more useful then spell damage, etc as a healer since healing is currently OP... but spell damage and max magicka effect healing AND DPS. So the harder you hit, the harder you heal ... not at all balanced.

Again regen could be used as multiplier of some sort to increase shields/healing on magicka builds. It would have to be done in away that Regen's in pact on shields/heals is not OP, so a diminishing returns might be needed to keep people from stacking health and regen and becoming an unkillable healing machine.

If the original design was closer to what I'm suggesting most people would argue like hell against it changing to how it is now. It's what were used to and understand. We think every change is nerf unless its CLEARLY a buff.

What I'm suggestion sound good to me now. However if it's instituted I might find it terrible, but again I wouldn't ask a game designer to design me a real life house and expect it to be cost efficient and structurally sound.

About the other points:

I listed a number of stats that increase both damage and healing/defense, if one really wanted to split the two, there has to be a realistic plan on how to do just that.

Absolutely, but don't think it's not going to be done by you and I. It's up to the devs. All we as customers can do is make statements and suggestions. Its up to them to decide if its a L2P issue or if there needs to be true adjustments made. I mean if your class is weak and another is better is it not a L2P issue? "Play the better class you Noob." However if a skill is under performing or over performing or is being exploited, etc, then you might find a way around it but it doesn't change the fact of the skill/mechanic being UP, OP, or exploited, etc.

A resto staff is even more of a drawback for resource management based combat, when you need another weapon (destro) for sustained or AoE damage, so you can't use a shield like everyone else.

Resto heavy attack are great for regen/resource management. Drain vs Siphon ... did they change drain to include magicka damage? In PVE most DPS are glass cannons because they get their regen from a healer using both of those skills, as well as Shard, etc. Honestly I don't enjoy PVE the way I used to for this concept. I find it simple and boring.

I'm not reading this right or simply not understanding. Are you referring to shield or sword & shield? If you mean for a damage shields how are you not? Shields are used to mitigate damage. They'll do that no matter the weapon you're using unless it is a weapon skill like Healing Ward.

If you mean sword and shield ... I rarely see sorcs with a shield but even then how does your damage shield not still do the same exact thing? However when a healer switch to DW from destro his heals get stronger.

You might be referring to Sorcs burst vs sustain. How is it done with DW? I don't play the class due to lack of weakness and lack of diversity. It's holes are to easily filled. I've got a V1 that out performs v8 of other classes in v8+ content. I don't want to be a god. I want some challenge. At v1 my sorc's shield is larger then my v16 Templar and DK who have 15 more attribute points spent in magicka.

Stacking Harness and Bone Shield is already a weird idea as you need light armor to make Harness worth it. I don't want to disable that option of course, but that's one reason why I don't like the buff system anyway (and yes, I read you don't want to make shields part of it). However I don't see how "shield stacking" can be solved while letting Harness stack with Hardened Ward. I agree that Harness should just be completely reworked, and then shield stacking simply wouldn't be a problem anymore.[

Harness is great for resource management. So to use it you'd have less shield or slotting Bone to try to off set it's limitations. It would be balanced, rather then being OP due to stacking on a 'Major Shield.'

Harness should not stack with any major shield, as I mentioned in the original posting. Just the minor ones, which I think is just Bone shield.

The buff system could work but it doesn't fix healing, and promotes stat stacking which is how the buff system works in general. Ward/Resolve are static #s, but Brutality/Sorcery/Berserk, etc all increased damage by a %, which means the higher you stack, the better.

The buff system could be done like this to balance shields, but not solve stacking unless Harnass were a major shield or reworked ...

• All shields based on health
• Major Shield buff on Hardened Ward only
• Minor Shield buff on the other class shields.

It could increase Ward over other class shields, but then it would be the same for magicka/stam, DPS/healer, and only improved from investing more in health. I like the concept I'm proposing better cause I think it's self balancing.

But again, it is just a concept. Please don't take it literal. I'd love to read your proposal or suggestions to better this concept.

ToRelax wrote: »

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Lokey0024 wrote: »

Put a cast time on all morphs of hardened ward. Fixed. Would give a reason for silence range effect abilities.

So that a class can not use it's main defensive mechanic when someone *bashs* it? Imagine the outcry if you had a casttime on BoL or Cloak. What a horrible idea.

If your sitting in the face of whoever youre attacking spamming shield you are negating 10k damage every second, thats just hardend ward. If you try to cc or los then streak it would be a skill play, not abusing a broken skill. If you couldnt understand that enjoy your crutch till tjey fix it.

it's a learn to play issue.

As someone who plays a sorc, a nb and a DK, there's nothing wrong with sorc shields EXCEPT, being able to stack harness with hardened ward. This is broken as *** and makes sorc vs sorc or sorc vs magicka 1v1s indefinite......

If youre having trouble killing sorcs with a stam build youre def doing it wrong. Just keep on them and keep pressure with constant CC. It just takes 1 or 2 break frees to burn a meta cheese proxy/curse/frag/ult sorc stam to 0. Then when you see them lying flat on their face without breaking free go stomp them into the ground.... People panic too much when they notice sorcs keep reapplying their shields and your attacks seemingly do nothing to them. Your attacks are DOING something, you just cant see it but know that every time you make them break free, about 40-50% of their stam bar is gone. Once its 0, its just going to take 1 or 2 Wbs followed by an ulti like leap to end it.

Also most sorcs run 35k+ magicka and 1.5k + regen. You are NOT(likely) going to be able to run them out of magicka or make them stop casting shields. However remember most of these cheese sorcs have less than 10k stamina with even less stam regen. Focus on CC and running their stam bar out. All the health in the word with 15k shields mean NOTHING when things like wb and snipe hits in the range of 15-20k. Its basically 2-3hit once their stam bar is gone.

Enraged_Tiki_Torch wrote: »

Just make the Healing Reduction effect shield strength as well. Sorcerers need their shields as much as other classes need their heals. It's unbalanced for Defile to effect heals but not shields.

When we go that route, another debuff would make more sense. It would otherwise make defile pretty much must have, wich is very limiting to build diversity. Also, the initial Healing Ward should not be effected by defile then (not exactly sure wether it does atm, testing some months ago).