An alternative to uncrittable shields

krathos · April 2016

So shields are a touchy topic... however, I have a suggestion that might fix people's problem with shield being strong yet not nerf it into the ground like a lot of others.

What if instead of being impervious to crit, shields gave a flat impen bonus. A big one.

Right now it takes ~3.2k impen to negate all of potential crit damage available in the game. You can achieve this in game already. Right now I run 5 impen and 40pts into resistant and get about 2.5k.

What if damage shields gave like 1000 impen rating (not per shield, but in lieu of being crit resistant while a shield is up). This would force shield stack builds to at least run some impen or put some points into resistant in order to get the full crit resistance they have now. So, you can achieve the current defensive capabilities of shields but will have to sacrifice a tiny bit of sustain/damage in the form of not wearing divines or running fewer points into hardy/ele defender/bastion.

myrrrorb14_ESO · April 2016

Interesting idea. It would have a meaningful impact on PvP without touching PvE.

I still think the best solution is to normalize shields. Minor and Major for physical and Magicka based damage. This would eliminate the dreaded shield stacking and keep values equivalent across the board for all shield users.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield. Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking? Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

krathos · April 2016

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

leepalmer95 · April 2016

Shields being uncritable is very annoying, sorc manage to be very tanky in pvp as well as putting out stupid dmg.

Though i'd love for hardened ward + harness magicka to not be stackable, that is my only wish at the moment.

I do like your idea of shields having crit resist, i've mentioned this a few times but while you say 3.2k is enough to stop the extra dmg from crit is that at a base of 50% more dmg?

Don't forget templars have 10% extra crit dmg and you can easily get 15% from cp. Not to mention you get some builds using the shadow for even more. So even if someone gets 3.2k resistance with a shield you get characters with 175% base crit dmg (my templar/nb which are sustained builds) and some which have around 190% ( the 1 hit ganking nb's usually).

You'd have to take that into account when decided on the base crit resist shields should give.

Anyway i'm all for it, healing ward is very strong to the point where even if someone is at 5% hp if they get a healing ward off they'll be able to heal before i can execute them, which shouldn't be a thing. Mainly because i can't crit them, if i could then i'd likely be able to out dps the ward or reduce it's heal significantly.

RinaldoGandolphi · April 2016

Making Damage shield critable under any circumstances in PVP will render then completely useless.

Folks are forgetting one thing:

Damage shields have ZERO armor and ZERO Spell resistance.

The problem with Shields right now is they are bugged and the Champion System Hardy, Elemental Defender, and Thick Skinned are reducing the damage those damage shields take.

The solution to fix this:

1. Fix the bugged CS so Elemental Defender, Hardy, and Thick Skinned do not reduce the damage your damage shields take.
2. All abilities that would proc from a cit or proc from a DOT or damage ability work on damage shields.

Thats all that needs to be done, then you will hit the shields for tooltip damage all the time(because the CS will no longer reduce damage to them) and any effects that would proc on hitting someones health will work on shields. In return shields have no armor or spell resit rating and cna't be crit. this is fair.

Damage Shields were never intended to benefit from those CS passives, fix that and damage shields are balanced.

leepalmer95 · April 2016

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Making Damage shield critable under any circumstances in PVP will render then completely useless.

Folks are forgetting one thing:

Damage shields have ZERO armor and ZERO Spell resistance.

The problem with Shields right now is they are bugged and the Champion System Hardy, Elemental Defender, and Thick Skinned are reducing the damage those damage shields take.

The solution to fix this:

1. Fix the bugged CS so Elemental Defender, Hardy, and Thick Skinned do not reduce the damage your damage shields take.
2. All abilities that would proc from a cit or proc from a DOT or damage ability work on damage shields.

Thats all that needs to be done, then you will hit the shields for tooltip damage all the time(because the CS will no longer reduce damage to them) and any effects that would proc on hitting someones health will work on shields. In return shields have no armor or spell resit rating and cna't be crit. this is fair.

Damage Shields were never intended to benefit from those CS passives, fix that and damage shields are balanced.

When most people refer to shields they usually mean sorc or a magicka build using harness or something.

Now usually these types of builds have very low armour rating in the first place so even if resistance did work, because of the amount of penetration people have the armour will be pretty useless anyway.

Anyway my suggestion is:

1. Hardened + Harness to not be stackable, healing ward stacking is fine.
2. Armour to work on shields
3. Shields to be critable but to have a base 10-15% crit dmg reduction when their on.
4. In return lower the 50% shield debuff to around 40% or something.

So people won't be shield stacking, yes they can be crit but if they build for crit reduction like every other class they'll be fine with the added dmg, in return armour will effect shields as well as shields having a small buff in pvp because they can no longer be stacked. Should weaken shields very slightly overall but not destroy them.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

leepalmer95 · April 2016

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Making Damage shield critable under any circumstances in PVP will render then completely useless.

Folks are forgetting one thing:

Damage shields have ZERO armor and ZERO Spell resistance.

The problem with Shields right now is they are bugged and the Champion System Hardy, Elemental Defender, and Thick Skinned are reducing the damage those damage shields take.

The solution to fix this:

1. Fix the bugged CS so Elemental Defender, Hardy, and Thick Skinned do not reduce the damage your damage shields take.
2. All abilities that would proc from a cit or proc from a DOT or damage ability work on damage shields.

Thats all that needs to be done, then you will hit the shields for tooltip damage all the time(because the CS will no longer reduce damage to them) and any effects that would proc on hitting someones health will work on shields. In return shields have no armor or spell resit rating and cna't be crit. this is fair.

Damage Shields were never intended to benefit from those CS passives, fix that and damage shields are balanced.

Hardy, elemental defender and thick skinned applying to shields isn't a bug. Think about it; you increase your physical damage by putting cp into mighty, well shields don't negate that extra damage, they take it. So when you spend cp in mighty you effectively increase your physical damage against shields. Hardy is the counter to mighty for shields as well as health pool, if hardy didn't apply to my shield then your cp in mighty would be a direct counter to my shield. I don't feel like I explained as well as I could cos I'm on my phone, but I hope you understood.

Minalan · April 2016

How about we wait and see what they do for Stam builds before destroying the sorcerer class.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

krathos · April 2016

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

I'm not trying to prevent shield stacking, though. I'm not trying to make a huge nerf or call for sweeping changes or anything else either. Simply have sorcs and other classes that rely on shields for 100% of their defensive capabilities need to gear a little more defensively. Sorcs are the tankiest, one of the most mobile, and highest DPS class in the game right now. That is because they can stack their primary defense without any sacrifice to their offensive capabilities. This change doesn't effect PvE. It doesn't effect other magicka builds who simply use healing ward (since they are hopefully already using at least 5impen).

Sorcs don't need a nerf. Shield stacking doesn't need a nerf. We just need to turn the dial down one tick and that's what this does.

krathos · April 2016

Minalan wrote: »

How about we wait and see what they do for Stam builds before destroying the sorcerer class.

Ah yes, this would absolute decimate them. RIP. Did you even read it?

leepalmer95 · April 2016

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

10-12k hardened wards do not get 1 shot.

Saying a 10k hardned gets one shot, most people at least have 10-15% reduce physical/magic dmg as well due to the cp tree.

Dmg in halved in cyrodiill.

If i was to one shot a 10k hardened ward that much mean the tooltip of the skill i was using must be 20k...

Thats not taking into account the dmg reduction from the cp, i have 15% usually so that would mean my skill tooltip would be 23k... Yeah nothing is hitting that hard.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

I'm not trying to prevent shield stacking, though. I'm not trying to make a huge nerf or call for sweeping changes or anything else either. Simply have sorcs and other classes that rely on shields for 100% of their defensive capabilities need to gear a little more defensively. Sorcs are the tankiest, one of the most mobile, and highest DPS class in the game right now. That is because they can stack their primary defense without any sacrifice to their offensive capabilities. This change doesn't effect PvE. It doesn't effect other magicka builds who simply use healing ward (since they are hopefully already using at least 5impen).

Sorcs don't need a nerf. Shield stacking doesn't need a nerf. We just need to turn the dial down one tick and that's what this does.

Shield stacking does need a nerf though, purely in the interest of diversity and options for sorcs. Stacking shields is undoubtedly more effective than just using one ward. If this is allowed to continue then wards will be balanced around the expectation that they are used together, combined as one super ward. Where would this leave players who only use one ward? As I've already mentioned hardened ward can be one-shot by the hardest hitting skills currently in pvp, this will only get worse as power creep progresses. What happens when sorcs want hardened ward buffed cos now the medium and low hitting skills are one-shotting it? People will say hell no cos shield stacking doesn't need a buff, and sorcs will be forced to use over half of one bar just to hold wards, forever more. See where I'm going with this? I don't want to be forced to slot 3 wards just to survive in pvp.

For the sake of arguement sorcs aren't the only ones who can stack offense without sacrifice to defensive capabilities. Vigor, rally and every heal in the game scales with primary resource and weapon/spell damage. So stam builds get more healing (and therfore survivability) the more stamina and weapon damage they have. By comparison shields just scale with max magicka. But that's another argument.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

10-12k hardened wards do not get 1 shot.

Saying a 10k hardned gets one shot, most people at least have 10-15% reduce physical/magic dmg as well due to the cp tree.

Dmg in halved in cyrodiill.

If i was to one shot a 10k hardened ward that much mean the tooltip of the skill i was using must be 20k...

Thats not taking into account the dmg reduction from the cp, i have 15% usually so that would mean my skill tooltip would be 23k... Yeah nothing is hitting that hard.

I know all this. I have 30+ cp in hardy and elemental defender. There's not much that will one-shot my ward but certain maelstrom 2h builds can, and do some damage to my health pool with the same hit. With power creep it's only a matter of time before less hard-hitting skills can one-shot it. I feel like I'm repeating myself now.

leepalmer95 · April 2016

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

10-12k hardened wards do not get 1 shot.

Saying a 10k hardned gets one shot, most people at least have 10-15% reduce physical/magic dmg as well due to the cp tree.

Dmg in halved in cyrodiill.

If i was to one shot a 10k hardened ward that much mean the tooltip of the skill i was using must be 20k...

Thats not taking into account the dmg reduction from the cp, i have 15% usually so that would mean my skill tooltip would be 23k... Yeah nothing is hitting that hard.

I know all this. I have 30+ cp in hardy and elemental defender. There's not much that will one-shot my ward but certain maelstrom 2h builds can, and do some damage to my health pool with the same hit. With power creep it's only a matter of time before less hard-hitting skills can one-shot it. I feel like I'm repeating myself now.

Please give me an example of a build/skill with a picture or something that can do 10k dmg without a crit to your ward.

Actually why is your ward so low, it's very easy to get 40k+ magicka should easily get 13/14k ward.

I'm guessing sorc will eventually have to give up some dps in order to stack more magicka, but that won't be for a very, very long time, 54 cp's per months and you could just throw those cp into hardy/elemental defender to counter any increase in dmg people will do.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

10-12k hardened wards do not get 1 shot.

Saying a 10k hardned gets one shot, most people at least have 10-15% reduce physical/magic dmg as well due to the cp tree.

Dmg in halved in cyrodiill.

If i was to one shot a 10k hardened ward that much mean the tooltip of the skill i was using must be 20k...

Thats not taking into account the dmg reduction from the cp, i have 15% usually so that would mean my skill tooltip would be 23k... Yeah nothing is hitting that hard.

I know all this. I have 30+ cp in hardy and elemental defender. There's not much that will one-shot my ward but certain maelstrom 2h builds can, and do some damage to my health pool with the same hit. With power creep it's only a matter of time before less hard-hitting skills can one-shot it. I feel like I'm repeating myself now.

Please give me an example of a build/skill with a picture or something that can do 10k dmg without a crit to your ward.

Actually why is your ward so low, it's very easy to get 40k+ magicka should easily get 13/14k ward.

I'm guessing sorc will eventually have to give up some dps in order to stack more magicka, but that won't be for a very, very long time, 54 cp's per months and you could just throw those cp into hardy/elemental defender to counter any increase in dmg people will do.

My ward is so low because I only have 78cp in bastion and 36k magicka, because I choose to wear 5 light/2 heavy with 5x impen and 2x reinforced. I choose to play like this because I made the decision a while ago to only play with one ward, this means I need to plan for when my ward gets broken hence the high armor and impen values. It works but for how long idk, hence my opposition to the shield stacking meta. I love just having one ward on bar 2, it's amazing.

I can't provide a picture because I don't take screen shots, you're just gonna have to take my word for it. If I find anything in future I will post it and tag you.

leepalmer95 · April 2016

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

10-12k hardened wards do not get 1 shot.

Saying a 10k hardned gets one shot, most people at least have 10-15% reduce physical/magic dmg as well due to the cp tree.

Dmg in halved in cyrodiill.

If i was to one shot a 10k hardened ward that much mean the tooltip of the skill i was using must be 20k...

Thats not taking into account the dmg reduction from the cp, i have 15% usually so that would mean my skill tooltip would be 23k... Yeah nothing is hitting that hard.

I know all this. I have 30+ cp in hardy and elemental defender. There's not much that will one-shot my ward but certain maelstrom 2h builds can, and do some damage to my health pool with the same hit. With power creep it's only a matter of time before less hard-hitting skills can one-shot it. I feel like I'm repeating myself now.

Please give me an example of a build/skill with a picture or something that can do 10k dmg without a crit to your ward.

Actually why is your ward so low, it's very easy to get 40k+ magicka should easily get 13/14k ward.

I'm guessing sorc will eventually have to give up some dps in order to stack more magicka, but that won't be for a very, very long time, 54 cp's per months and you could just throw those cp into hardy/elemental defender to counter any increase in dmg people will do.

My ward is so low because I only have 78cp in bastion and 36k magicka, because I choose to wear 5 light/2 heavy with 5x impen and 2x reinforced. I choose to play like this because I made the decision a while ago to only play with one ward, this means I need to plan for when my ward gets broken hence the high armor and impen values. It works but for how long idk, hence my opposition to the shield stacking meta. I love just having one ward on bar 2, it's amazing.

I can't provide a picture because I don't take screen shots, you're just gonna have to take my word for it. If I find anything in future I will post it and tag you.

If your going to play with 1 ward then i'd suggest using inner light on your dps bar because you'll have the spare slot, the 7% extra magicka, 2% regen and 10% crit should help a lot. Why only 78 in bastion? Your using undaunted right? If so go 5/1/1 instead, the difference between heavy and medium isn't too much. You'll get 2% everythings, boosting dmg/ward, hp/stamina.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

10-12k hardened wards do not get 1 shot.

Saying a 10k hardned gets one shot, most people at least have 10-15% reduce physical/magic dmg as well due to the cp tree.

Dmg in halved in cyrodiill.

If i was to one shot a 10k hardened ward that much mean the tooltip of the skill i was using must be 20k...

Thats not taking into account the dmg reduction from the cp, i have 15% usually so that would mean my skill tooltip would be 23k... Yeah nothing is hitting that hard.

I know all this. I have 30+ cp in hardy and elemental defender. There's not much that will one-shot my ward but certain maelstrom 2h builds can, and do some damage to my health pool with the same hit. With power creep it's only a matter of time before less hard-hitting skills can one-shot it. I feel like I'm repeating myself now.

Please give me an example of a build/skill with a picture or something that can do 10k dmg without a crit to your ward.

Actually why is your ward so low, it's very easy to get 40k+ magicka should easily get 13/14k ward.

I'm guessing sorc will eventually have to give up some dps in order to stack more magicka, but that won't be for a very, very long time, 54 cp's per months and you could just throw those cp into hardy/elemental defender to counter any increase in dmg people will do.

My ward is so low because I only have 78cp in bastion and 36k magicka, because I choose to wear 5 light/2 heavy with 5x impen and 2x reinforced. I choose to play like this because I made the decision a while ago to only play with one ward, this means I need to plan for when my ward gets broken hence the high armor and impen values. It works but for how long idk, hence my opposition to the shield stacking meta. I love just having one ward on bar 2, it's amazing.

I can't provide a picture because I don't take screen shots, you're just gonna have to take my word for it. If I find anything in future I will post it and tag you.

If your going to play with 1 ward then i'd suggest using inner light on your dps bar because you'll have the spare slot, the 7% extra magicka, 2% regen and 10% crit should help a lot. Why only 78 in bastion? Your using undaunted right? If so go 5/1/1 instead, the difference between heavy and medium isn't too much. You'll get 2% everythings, boosting dmg/ward, hp/stamina.

No I'm undaunted rank 4, that's what you get for being a loner in an mmo. Inner light is a good suggestion, thanks. I'm in love with defensive rune atm though. I'm not complaining about being weak with one ward though, cos I'm not; I feel I have to work harder at survival but I like that. I complain when I see people asking for shield nerfs because of shield stacking. If shield stacking is op then it shouldn't result in any nerf to hardened ward or it will just cement the shield stacking meta. This is my main argument.

Edit: only 78cp in bastion cos it's a nice round 21% and the other 28cp would only add another 4%. I feel they're better spent in hardy, elemental defender, thick skinned and resistant.

leepalmer95 · April 2016

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

10-12k hardened wards do not get 1 shot.

Saying a 10k hardned gets one shot, most people at least have 10-15% reduce physical/magic dmg as well due to the cp tree.

Dmg in halved in cyrodiill.

If i was to one shot a 10k hardened ward that much mean the tooltip of the skill i was using must be 20k...

Thats not taking into account the dmg reduction from the cp, i have 15% usually so that would mean my skill tooltip would be 23k... Yeah nothing is hitting that hard.

I know all this. I have 30+ cp in hardy and elemental defender. There's not much that will one-shot my ward but certain maelstrom 2h builds can, and do some damage to my health pool with the same hit. With power creep it's only a matter of time before less hard-hitting skills can one-shot it. I feel like I'm repeating myself now.

Please give me an example of a build/skill with a picture or something that can do 10k dmg without a crit to your ward.

Actually why is your ward so low, it's very easy to get 40k+ magicka should easily get 13/14k ward.

I'm guessing sorc will eventually have to give up some dps in order to stack more magicka, but that won't be for a very, very long time, 54 cp's per months and you could just throw those cp into hardy/elemental defender to counter any increase in dmg people will do.

My ward is so low because I only have 78cp in bastion and 36k magicka, because I choose to wear 5 light/2 heavy with 5x impen and 2x reinforced. I choose to play like this because I made the decision a while ago to only play with one ward, this means I need to plan for when my ward gets broken hence the high armor and impen values. It works but for how long idk, hence my opposition to the shield stacking meta. I love just having one ward on bar 2, it's amazing.

I can't provide a picture because I don't take screen shots, you're just gonna have to take my word for it. If I find anything in future I will post it and tag you.

If your going to play with 1 ward then i'd suggest using inner light on your dps bar because you'll have the spare slot, the 7% extra magicka, 2% regen and 10% crit should help a lot. Why only 78 in bastion? Your using undaunted right? If so go 5/1/1 instead, the difference between heavy and medium isn't too much. You'll get 2% everythings, boosting dmg/ward, hp/stamina.

No I'm undaunted rank 4, that's what you get for being a loner in an mmo. Inner light is a good suggestion, thanks. I'm in love with defensive rune atm though. I'm not complaining about being weak with one ward though, cos I'm not; I feel I have to work harder at survival but I like that. I complain when I see people asking for shield nerfs because of shield stacking. If shield stacking is op then it shouldn't result in any nerf to hardened ward or it will just cement the shield stacking meta. This is my main argument.

Edit: only 78cp in bastion cos it's a nice round 21% and the other 28cp would only add another 4%. I feel they're better spent in hardy, elemental defender, thick skinned and resistant.

I'd really try and get undaunted up, with 9 you'd get 6% extra magicka, with inner light you'd get 7% more, you could increase your shield by quite a bit

I generally hate harness+hardened stacking, thats the only thing that annoys me.

If shields were changed like i suggest, armour working for them, base crit dmg reduction, 50% sheild nerf being reduced to 40% on shield then overall you wouldn't be affected much, your wouldn't see a sudden increase of dmg to shields if you build right. Infact you'd likely be better off. Shields being critable is simple because it completely makes some passives/sets useless in pvp such the the crit chance/dmg increase of some races/passive/class etc... and just by changing shields being critable will make a lot more builds viable and will hopefully stop everyone running the same sets.

FriedEggSandwich · April 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

I don't really understand your suggestion fully. Nerfing shields to punish shield stackers also punishes anyone just using one shield.

Yeah except this change wouldn't at all do that (see my third quote response).

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Fwiw I already run 5x impen and 2x reinforced with 5 light/2 heavy in pvp, and put cp into resistant, because it makes it easier to survive with just one 10.3k ward. How would your suggestion affect me? Would it just make it even harder to survive with one ward therefore encouraging me to go back to shield stacking?

It wouldn't. You would be over 3.2k impen and thus negate all crit damage. This change would literally have 0 effect on your build or play style.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Also if your suggestion is to give a ward 1000 impen then surely stacking 3 wards would give you 3000 impen? How does this punish shield stacking?

Edited the OP for clarity. I meant ~1000 impen period. Not per shield. So if you stack 3 shields you get 1000 if you stack 1 shield you get the same 1000.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Edit: It's worth mentioning that with only 5 light and no infused or divines I still manage to have 1600 magicka regen and 36k magicka with 3k buffed spell damage and a butt ton of cost reduction. I never run out of magicka and do nice damage. It's not that much of a sacrifice is what I'm saying.

It's not intended to be a huge sacrifice. You're just proving my point. Your stats are fine and you do well and you run impen gear. There are people with better overall stats because they choose more offensive traits and enchants who still negate 100% of crit damage because its fairly easy to keep shields up and stacked.

Again, this is a very small "nerf". I don't think shields need to be massively reduced or changed to a major/minor system or made fully crittable or anything like that. This change just means to be fully defensive you need to gear a little more defensive and lose a very small amount of offensive stats.

Ok I think I get what you're saying now. I still don't really understand what the point of crittable shields would be if every sorc runs around with 3k+ impen, which would happen, which is why I pointed out it isn't a huge sacrifice to lose infused/divines. I'm assuming shields would still be stackable in your solution, so what would change?

My suggestion is to remove shield stacking and then there would be no need for shield crits; hardened ward can already be one-shot with base damage.

Because by not being critable you negate a few other class abilities, crit surge for one, the 10% crit dmg from races/classes, the crit chance of sets or races/classes etc...

Certain sets like briarheart are useless is pvp at the moment, but if everyone could be crit then maybe they'd make a return.

Yeah I get why people want shields to be crit but the op's suggestion would still mean sorcs were crit proof with shields, that's what I don't get.

Edit: Additionally if shield stacking was removed but shields remained crit proof I'm suggesting it wouldn't matter; if a 10-12k hardened ward can be one-shot then your follow up shots can still crit. The issue as I see it is that currently sorcs have crit proof wards up constantly, if shield stacking was removed this wouldn't be the case; there would be windows of opportunity for you to crit.

10-12k hardened wards do not get 1 shot.

Saying a 10k hardned gets one shot, most people at least have 10-15% reduce physical/magic dmg as well due to the cp tree.

Dmg in halved in cyrodiill.

If i was to one shot a 10k hardened ward that much mean the tooltip of the skill i was using must be 20k...

Thats not taking into account the dmg reduction from the cp, i have 15% usually so that would mean my skill tooltip would be 23k... Yeah nothing is hitting that hard.

I know all this. I have 30+ cp in hardy and elemental defender. There's not much that will one-shot my ward but certain maelstrom 2h builds can, and do some damage to my health pool with the same hit. With power creep it's only a matter of time before less hard-hitting skills can one-shot it. I feel like I'm repeating myself now.

Please give me an example of a build/skill with a picture or something that can do 10k dmg without a crit to your ward.

Actually why is your ward so low, it's very easy to get 40k+ magicka should easily get 13/14k ward.

I'm guessing sorc will eventually have to give up some dps in order to stack more magicka, but that won't be for a very, very long time, 54 cp's per months and you could just throw those cp into hardy/elemental defender to counter any increase in dmg people will do.

My ward is so low because I only have 78cp in bastion and 36k magicka, because I choose to wear 5 light/2 heavy with 5x impen and 2x reinforced. I choose to play like this because I made the decision a while ago to only play with one ward, this means I need to plan for when my ward gets broken hence the high armor and impen values. It works but for how long idk, hence my opposition to the shield stacking meta. I love just having one ward on bar 2, it's amazing.

I can't provide a picture because I don't take screen shots, you're just gonna have to take my word for it. If I find anything in future I will post it and tag you.

If your going to play with 1 ward then i'd suggest using inner light on your dps bar because you'll have the spare slot, the 7% extra magicka, 2% regen and 10% crit should help a lot. Why only 78 in bastion? Your using undaunted right? If so go 5/1/1 instead, the difference between heavy and medium isn't too much. You'll get 2% everythings, boosting dmg/ward, hp/stamina.

No I'm undaunted rank 4, that's what you get for being a loner in an mmo. Inner light is a good suggestion, thanks. I'm in love with defensive rune atm though. I'm not complaining about being weak with one ward though, cos I'm not; I feel I have to work harder at survival but I like that. I complain when I see people asking for shield nerfs because of shield stacking. If shield stacking is op then it shouldn't result in any nerf to hardened ward or it will just cement the shield stacking meta. This is my main argument.

Edit: only 78cp in bastion cos it's a nice round 21% and the other 28cp would only add another 4%. I feel they're better spent in hardy, elemental defender, thick skinned and resistant.

I'd really try and get undaunted up, with 9 you'd get 6% extra magicka, with inner light you'd get 7% more, you could increase your shield by quite a bit

I generally hate harness+hardened stacking, thats the only thing that annoys me.

If shields were changed like i suggest, armour working for them, base crit dmg reduction, 50% sheild nerf being reduced to 40% on shield then overall you wouldn't be affected much, your wouldn't see a sudden increase of dmg to shields if you build right. Infact you'd likely be better off. Shields being critable is simple because it completely makes some passives/sets useless in pvp such the the crit chance/dmg increase of some races/passive/class etc... and just by changing shields being critable will make a lot more builds viable and will hopefully stop everyone running the same sets.

I would actually be fine with your suggestion, I just don't see how single shields can be balanced concurrently with shield stacking, unless some mechanism was introduced to weaken shield values if they were combined with other shields.

I appreciate your suggestions. I badly want undaunted 9, but if I had it I would still probably wear 5 light/2 heavy as I don't value the passives from 1 piece of medium or heavy, I would rather have the passives from 2 heavy. But 4% more magicka would still be really nice. I can solo v16 group dungeons and have looked at that as a way of increasing my undaunted rank, but unfortunately it's all in the achievements and I don't think I can aquire those solo

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO · April 2016

What this game needs is

critable shields (but possibly adjusting shield strength accordingly)
no magicka regen while a shield is up, any shield
(or the same as for stamina shield "blockers", you know the non magical sort of shields)

Sorry magicka build guys and girls but you are so used to easy mode and being best in all classes (tank, DPS, heal) you really should learn to have to focus on one or be crap in all.

ZOS idea of balancing is in any way the joke of the whole industry.

olsborg · April 2016

Excellent idea!

Rylana · April 2016

krathos wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

How about we wait and see what they do for Stam builds before destroying the sorcerer class.

Ah yes, this would absolute decimate them. RIP. Did you even read it?

It actually would, which is what you want, isnt it? A sorc without a shield is just a one shot kill.

I mean I guess the only allowed builds in PvP anymore are the unhittable but super high damage Stam DK or Nightblade, or the cheesy one rotation = free AP VD Magiblade.

Get off of sorcs already.

raasdal · April 2016

As someone who plays all classes, i dont really understand the aversion towards uncrittable shields. You do all realize that shields have no resistance right? Your average 1,4k light attack will hit a shield for 1,8k (that is the result when testing my light armor DK igneous shield for resistance difference).

So in effect, you don't need to Crit on a shield - because compared to hitting an unshielded person, you are basically critting EVERY SINGLE HIT.

Yes yes, it does provide a hard counter to the famous gank crit build. Nothing deserves to not have a hard counter - that's why we have shield breaker.

Rylana · April 2016

raasdal wrote: »

As someone who plays all classes, i dont really understand the aversion towards uncrittable shields. You do all realize that shields have no resistance right? Your average 1,4k light attack will hit a shield for 1,8k (that is the result when testing my light armor DK igneous shield for resistance difference).

So in effect, you don't need to Crit on a shield - because compared to hitting an unshielded person, you are basically critting EVERY SINGLE HIT.

Yes yes, it does provide a hard counter to the famous gank crit build. Nothing deserves to not have a hard counter - that's why we have shield breaker.

And we need dodge breaker, ya know, to be fair. We have block breaker via fear. We have crit breaker via impen and shields. We have shield breaker. Now if we could just get rid of that stupid shuffle spam....

leepalmer95 · April 2016

Rylana wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

How about we wait and see what they do for Stam builds before destroying the sorcerer class.

Ah yes, this would absolute decimate them. RIP. Did you even read it?

It actually would, which is what you want, isnt it? A sorc without a shield is just a one shot kill.

I mean I guess the only allowed builds in PvP anymore are the unhittable but super high damage Stam DK or Nightblade, or the cheesy one rotation = free AP VD Magiblade.

Get off of sorcs already.

I see more shield stackers than anything else in pvp.

Again it's like your not even reading other peoples comments.

Panth141 · April 2016

Make poisons bypass shields?

krathos · April 2016

Rylana wrote: »

krathos wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

How about we wait and see what they do for Stam builds before destroying the sorcerer class.

Ah yes, this would absolute decimate them. RIP. Did you even read it?

It actually would, which is what you want, isnt it? A sorc without a shield is just a one shot kill.

I mean I guess the only allowed builds in PvP anymore are the unhittable but super high damage Stam DK or Nightblade, or the cheesy one rotation = free AP VD Magiblade.

Get off of sorcs already.

Did you even read the post? Wearing 5pc impen to stay invulnerable to crit dmg wouldn't do anything hardly at all. Changing it to crit dmg reduction instead of crit invulnerable would allow crit based skills and bonuses to have an effect as well like sorc crit surge or briar heart set.