Restore Bracing - Never Ask for Buffs

Armitas · May 2016

Ivan04 wrote: »

Currently medium armor simply makes you tankier because everything you do scales off stam and weapon damage, and medium armor users get a lot of those, while heavy armor users end up being helpless pulling no damage and basically withstanding damage for a couple seconds longer than a med armor user which NOW CAN DO PERMAROLLDODGING AGAIN with the well-fitted change.

I agree. In PvP medium is tankier than Heavy Armor. All 5 pieces of your heavy armor can be circumvented just by equipping a mace2/maul giving Heavy armor actually no defense what so ever. Meanwhile the medium armor user can dodge roll, dodge miss, and pop Stamina based shields for his defense...all of which are parallel to the users damage via stamina sourcing. You can penetrate shields a little but you can't circumvent the defense of roll, miss, shield like they can circumvent yours. I realize I am mixing things outside of MA but this is the reality of it's conclusion.

It's going to be ridiculous in PvP. Dodge Dodge, Miss Miss, Absorb Absorb, dodge, Absorb, Miss, hit, vigor, Dodge, Absorb, Miss. etc It was not a good idea to buff dodge rolling after you just brought it in line, and then add shields to the fire.

GeertKarel · May 2016

Wrobel wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for your feedback on the recent changes to Bracing. We wanted to free up Heavy Armor to be able to fulfill more roles, and not pigeonhole those who use Heavy Armor to just a tanking role. However, we also didn't want the net effect of the changes to Heavy Armor to affect tanks too much by offsetting the loss of Bracing with buffs to Constitution and Mending--passives that also help non-tanks manage their resources.

The overall goal here is not to make tanking more difficult. The numbers for constitution were balanced around being hit every second. You guys have identified situations where you're getting hit every half second and having trouble with the quick stamina depletion. We're going to be reworking some things to make tanking easier in these situations.

Overall, we want players to have fun playing a tank and have enough resources to activate abilities. You aren't being ignored, we just didn't want to rush out a change for this past PTS incremental.

Don't forget I tank sometimes 4 adds and without a regeneration we have to do with our stamina pool. You can't really afford to drop block because then a one-shot mechanics is in place. 20% might not seem much but the difference is noticeable. I could always swap out with 3 pieces with the block cost trait on the armor but the trait is so weak it should be 5-7% block cost per item instead of 3%. Also I need kind of my reinforcements otherwise I will be way under the armor cap.

all the small things that hit you what you block adds up by a lot so hope you do things right because tanking has only seen a nerf never ever a buff. The things might not change a lot for dk tanks since they can handle their resources pretty well. You need to figure out how tanking works with sorc/templar/nightblade since those classes need proper balancing so they are a reliable tank.

hrothbern · May 2016

Armitas wrote: »

hrothbern wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

Wrobel wrote: »

We wanted to free up Heavy Armor to be able to fulfill more roles, and not pigeonhole those who use Heavy Armor to just a tanking role.

Thank you for stopping by to dialogue with us.

If I am reading this right your intention is NOT to remove the role of tanking from Heavy Armor but instead to give Heavy Armor a role beyond tanking. I wanted to warn you about something regarding this. If the Constitution passive does not become the essential role in tanking due to stamina return while blocking then Heavy Armor will cease to be a preferred armor class for tanking. If I can handle the costs for blocking without the constitution passive then I will couple block cost reduction to a LA armor, Armor Master set and sit at mitigation cap, with all the blocking and health of a heavy armor tank along with all the sustain and damage of light armor. If you must decouple bracing, could we at least get 10% on Heavy armor and the rest on Sturdy (cut sturdy in half). This would let us have some remaining trait choices for our heavy set while also making a tank role highly sacrificial in Light Armor due to the reduction of sturdy.

Please also consider PvP in your changes to heavy armor.
1. The 20% armor penetration of the mace/maul passive entirely negates the mitigation of 5 gold heavy armor pieces. The penetration this provides is enormously excessive.
2. People use the bracing in PvP for "damage braking", and not just permablocking. When I am tanking in PvP and my health starts to lose balance I block for 2-3 seconds to allow my healing to catch up. With all the people hitting me my stamina would be destroyed in a second without block cost reduction. With the decoupling of bracing from heavy armor I can regain this through adding the trait, but now I lose the essential crit reduction trait.

Minus the sacrifice of bracing I am pleased with your addition of Wrath, and the recognition that heavy armor needed damage on it.

@Armitas , you say:
If I can handle the costs for blocking without the constitution passive then I will couple block cost reduction to a LA armor, Armor Master set and sit at mitigation cap, with all the blocking and health of a heavy armor tank along with all the sustain and damage of light armor.

With Bracing removed from HA, replaced by Sturdy, and if the Resource sustain of HA becomes comparable with LA and MA, you can indeed still prefer for certain raids or solo to exchange some more Health and Healing from HA for some more Damage from Penetration and SPS/self-HPS from the 10% Crit of LA.
So what ?
That is not only fine, that is also exactly the freedom of choice that is being achieved now for a Role with much Blocking in the game
Certainly for the too easy raids, you can with LA contribute more to the DPS score or better solo.
But other (future) raids will perhaps demand more a max miti build, with high Health and Healing.
Other future raids again something else to be optimal.
More Armor types than can be used for Tanking means also many more Armor sets to choose from. Also choosing between supporting ways to the group.

This all will only increase the freedom of raid dungeon design for the devs
and will increase the build and role diversity and choices for Tanks.
With all their own charm and challenge.

Mr Wrobel made no mention of any intent to hand over the tanking role to LA/MA. The purpose of decoupling block cost was "to not pigenhole those who use heavy armor to just a tanking role". While his statement may appear awkward at first glance, I think it is a precisely chosen statement to withhold any impression that the role of tanking was being given away. It means that we can do more than just tank, not now other armor classes can tank.

You say you lose health and healing by switching to LA armor but do you really?

Health - You only need as much health as you need, beyond that it provides nothing but a bigger shield for igneous shield if you have it. The sustain you get from light armor will allow you to regularly pop shields which is a health bubble much larger than the +health that HA provides. Also by choosing LA Armor Master you get a head start on where you need to be then you would with Heavy Armor. In fact you are just done with what makes you a tank at 5 pieces. So maybe you pick up a different Jewelry set with health on it that you could not of chosen in Heavy Armor due to sustain issues.

Healing - How does +% healing compare to the sustain to cast self heals? It doesn't, any heal you yourself cast is way more health than the % extra from someone elses heal. It's also far more likely to be a crucial save then the % extra heal.

I think if you hand out the role of tanking to LA/MA then HA just has no purpose. Constitution would be the only unique aspect that could qualify HA for success in tanking. If it fails to be a make or break condition for the tanking role then HA will just be a sub armor class with no role but RP. If they have the intention of all 3 armor classes being equally viable for tanking then there needs to be no restraint at all on heavy armor so that Heavy armor can be equally viable for dps but balanced against it's 5%? extra mitigation. Wrath is great if we maintain the exclusive tank role, but if we are making all armor roleless then it needs a huge buff.

on Healing:
Rapid Mending increases Healing Received. That is for both Heals: Heals from somebody else, AND your own self Heals. The self-Heal increase does not show on your tooltip heal. But you do get it (tested in PTS).
The difference in sustain is there, but only for the more expensive abilities. Cheaper abilities benefit from the flat Constitution value.

On the Health.
I think that as it is now in PTS,
LA with for example Armor Master, is a valid choice, for certain raids. If you use a bubble instead of Shuffle you get both Health as a kind of self-heal. Health Jewelry will not be needed per se, you can use Attributes. And with the current PTS, you can use Sturdy (tho I would welcome that to be buffed a bit: additive or 4.75% each)
So... why would it not be viable ?
and why would we not do it, and use it for those raids where it is (slightly) better.
And IF viable..... the Tank role is already not tightly bound anymore to the mitigation/blocking HA build.
It is however still losely bound, because the advantage of HA Constitution stays, that you get Stamina back while blocking, without using abilities for that. It only does not scale proportional to the number of hits. So currently you gain in PTS Stamina against one add and you lose against more. Perhaps when Constitution is upgraded to deliver some more Stamina/Magicka when more adds hit, Constitution would be better for mobs. And HA has a benefit for a Tank role.
And I think it must be tweaked up, until people like you, doing so many raids, can tell ZOS that it is fine, and it is secured that the HA Tank role functions. In all my post, I always took that as a condition to judge whether the change would be ok.

Changing HA should ofc never lead to OP effects. And ofc HA will never suit a pure DPS or HPS build.

I think that the greater good is to get HA on similar footing with LA and MA for many more kind of builds, not just tanking.
That is what I read from Wrobels remarks and I read as well:
Changing HA to get HA out of her pigeon role, get HA desirable outside the Tank role, is aimed for....

As long as HA is not negatively changed to fulfill the Tank role as of now.
I guess @GeertKarel , you agree on the last sentence

Jar_Ek · May 2016

As a stamina sorcerer tank, I am somewhat worried by this as stamina management whilst blocking is already a nightmare for me. I suspect I will be forced in sturdy armour master or similar.

Elsterchen · May 2016

Using 5H /2 M gear on live I was eager to test the changes. I thought that there would be some trade off for the big buff in physical and spell resistance.

However, I didn't find anything to complain about. Increased blocking costs seem to be leveled out, or idk, my current setup is just suited to cope with them? At no point I was out of stam, unable to block or felt some need for better ressouce management.

While I used a template to test I keept gear, CP and attributes like I have them on my main on live-server. I keept one skill bar a DW copy of my mains and tested some 1H&S skills on the other skillbar. Both felt great, if anything I noticed that even with (DPS focused) DW active I got tankier. Even in situations with many enemies to fight.

I like the changes.

Myerscod · May 2016

I'm quite perplexed that ZOS want all the armours (I'm English so armour has a u) to be equally balanced...

Light armour = more DPs, less survivability
Medium armour = average DPs, average survivability
Heavy armour = less DPs, more survivability

This is a tried and tested method since the dark ages (of life, not just video games), why such the emphasis on equalising everything?

hrothbern · May 2016

Myerscod wrote: »

I'm quite perplexed that ZOS want all the armours (I'm English so armour has a u) to be equally balanced...

Light armour = more DPs, less survivability
Medium armour = average DPs, average survivability
Heavy armour = less DPs, more survivability

This is a tried and tested method since the dark ages (of life, not just video games), why such the emphasis on equalising everything?

Equally balanced does not mean identical.

If you read Wrobel Official thread header, he says: "all Armor types should be desirable"

If HA is in general much less used than LA and HA, then it is clear that HA is atm less desired.

Armitas · May 2016

hrothbern wrote: »

on Healing:
Rapid Mending increases Healing Received. That is for both Heals: Heals from somebody else, AND your own self Heals. The self-Heal increase does not show on your tooltip heal. But you do get it (tested in PTS).
The difference in sustain is there, but only for the more expensive abilities. Cheaper abilities benefit from the flat Constitution value.

I understand that the % healing from heavy armor works for both. I am comparing regular self heals vs (healer heals +%) via sustain. The sustain allows you to rely on self healing more than you could otherwise. The addition of extra casted heals far surpasses the % increase on each individual heal that is cast.

You can't safely use resto heals on your back bar because block does not transition from shield to staff, only shield to shield. If you need to swap for that heal you will need to hold block because you are moving to your nuke heal because you are almost dead. So you have to rely on class healing which is expensive for anything significant. Things like BOL or DB don't become cheap without cost reduction. So with LA you can regularly rely on the bulk heals and the minor heals, and with HA you can regularly rely on the minor heals plus a small increase in healing. It just doesn't compare, minor self heals and universal %healing are a convenience and a sustain benefit to your primary healer, they don't often create a situation of success or failure, whereas the light armor healing and shielding if very likely to create success where failure should have occurred.

hrothbern wrote: »

It is however still losely bound, because the advantage of HA Constitution stays, that you get Stamina back while blocking, without using abilities for that. It only does not scale proportional to the number of hits. So currently you gain in PTS Stamina against one add and you lose against more. Perhaps when Constitution is upgraded to deliver some more Stamina/Magicka when more adds hit, Constitution would be better for mobs.

Yeah Constitution is going to be the real factor here. If and how well can LA overcome the need for it.
_________
Mr Wrobel, think deeply about constitution, if it's not right these changes will not be a success, and Heavy Armor will collapse into some obscure role. Right now HA is clinging entirely to constitution to maintain it's relevancy.

There are two methods to overcome the need to block and it's contingency on Constitution for sustain while blocking.
1) Stamina management - Heavy attacks under shielding, glyphs, poisons, stat juggling (casting magicka for Stamina)
2) Shielding - With Harness Magicka now covering all damage types all classes can use large shields instead of blocking single attacks. Igneous will be preferable due to it's scaling off health, but harness magicka will still be a viable contender with Bastion. Having this shield creates an alternate means to juggle stats. You can block for a bit to regain magicka, and shield for a bit to regain stamina.

If the need for constitution can be successfully, reliably and commonly overcome using any or all of these methods in LA then I think it just will be the preferred outfit for tanking instead of HA. I think splitting bracing between heavy armor and Sturdy (reduce sturdy by 50%) would mostly prevent this. But I honestly don't see any reason to decouple bracing when there is balanced room for Heavy Armor to include bracing and wrath. Wrath is already balanced in a perpendicular direction with having to take damage to give damage.

zerosingularity · May 2016

Keep in mind that while LA/MA can hit mit cap with Armor Master for tanking, HA can hit cap without it, opening things up for other sets like Tava's or w/e you want.

hrothbern · May 2016

Armitas wrote: »

hrothbern wrote: »

on Healing:
Rapid Mending increases Healing Received. That is for both Heals: Heals from somebody else, AND your own self Heals. The self-Heal increase does not show on your tooltip heal. But you do get it (tested in PTS).
The difference in sustain is there, but only for the more expensive abilities. Cheaper abilities benefit from the flat Constitution value.

I understand that the % healing from heavy armor works for both. I am comparing regular self heals vs (healer heals +%) via sustain. The sustain allows you to rely on self healing more than you could otherwise. The addition of extra casted heals far surpasses the % increase on each individual heal that is cast.

You can't safely use resto heals on your back bar because block does not transition from shield to staff, only shield to shield. If you need to swap for that heal you will need to hold block because you are moving to your nuke heal because you are almost dead. So you have to rely on class healing which is expensive for anything significant. Things like BOL or DB don't become cheap without cost reduction. So with LA you can regularly rely on the bulk heals and the minor heals, and with HA you can regularly rely on the minor heals plus a small increase in healing. It just doesn't compare, minor self heals and universal %healing are a convenience and a sustain benefit to your primary healer, they don't often create a situation of success or failure, whereas the light armor healing and shielding if very likely to create success where failure should have occurred.

yeah @Armitas, LA will be stronger for Heals and yeah, no Resto.
in a LA5/HA2 build compared to LA2/HA5 build you lose 9% Magicka cost reduction.
You can do something about that with 1 perhaps 2 Jewelry enchants, but they give a flat sustain and no percentual, so the difference is there.
The balance will be different between NB and DK Tanks.

and Constitution seems also key to me.

Perhaps a bit more Block cost saving in S&B, in a better Sturdy and a Constitution that scales a bit with hits per second, does the job.

Armitas · May 2016

zerosingularity wrote: »

Keep in mind that while LA/MA can hit mit cap with Armor Master for tanking, HA can hit cap without it, opening things up for other sets like Tava's or w/e you want.

Thats true, but Heavy Armor meets the same mitigation without having the advantage of magicka recovery and cost reduction (or damage). So from the get go LA has mitigation, health, and sustain and from the get go heavy armor has Mitigation, health and minor sustain. You are just there in 5 pieces with LA plus sustained large shielding and healing.

Llilium · May 2016

DDuke wrote: »

Oh, and I have demonstrated you'd have zero problems as a templar either. That's 2/4 classes. Maybe I should slot some heavy armor on NB & show you how to have no problems with it as well?

@DDuke

would you? i mean, this is a legitimate request. I've been complaining about some of these thngs because blocking has been the only real effective way of staying alive in pvp, for example
.
surviving as a NB tank thus far has been solely based on my gear (reactive armor, due to the 35% damage reduc while CC'd) and being able to block because no matter what I still get hit for way higher than i feel i should be.

last night i fought a sorc that was wearing heavy armor and running around with shields as high as his entire health pool and no one could even damage him. likewise, he was able to still kill people without issues. he would hit me with 6-7k abilities through 25k spell and phys resistance, plus 6% nord damage reduction passive.

so, yeah, i mean if you could show proper tanking with a NB after these changes, that would be pretty fantastic. i'd love to not have to rely on block.

zerosingularity · May 2016

Something that I just thought of that makes Wrath bad for PvE tanking.

Say you are a Nightblade tank in vet Banished Cells or vet Crypt of Hearts, and you are tanking the daedroth/ghosts. You need to keep many of these alive and generally keep aggro via sap essence (since there are many and the other party members should NOT be hitting them.) In this case higher damage (which wrath forces upon us) runs the risk of killing the adds by mistake. I am sure this applies to other classes in some form as well.

Just food for thought.

NBrookus · May 2016

zerosingularity wrote: »

Something that I just thought of that makes Wrath bad for PvE tanking.

Say you are a Nightblade tank in vet Banished Cells or vet Crypt of Hearts, and you are tanking the daedroth/ghosts. You need to keep many of these alive and generally keep aggro via sap essence (since there are many and the other party members should NOT be hitting them.) In this case higher damage (which wrath forces upon us) runs the risk of killing the adds by mistake. I am sure this applies to other classes in some form as well.

Inner Fire does almost no damage on a tank build. I don't think wrath is going to be enough to make it do enough to kill the ghosts.

Joy_Division · May 2016

zerosingularity wrote: »

Something that I just thought of that makes Wrath bad for PvE tanking.

Say you are a Nightblade tank in vet Banished Cells or vet Crypt of Hearts, and you are tanking the daedroth/ghosts. You need to keep many of these alive and generally keep aggro via sap essence (since there are many and the other party members should NOT be hitting them.) In this case higher damage (which wrath forces upon us) runs the risk of killing the adds by mistake. I am sure this applies to other classes in some form as well.

Just food for thought.

The main problem here is those dungeons have been hit with the nerfhammer so hard is that the biggest challenge to getting the gold Key comes from restraining yourself from playing well.

ZoS always thinks how to nerf interesting content ... never how to buff old interesting content that has been rendered obsolete by the power creep.

Myerscod · May 2016

hrothbern wrote: »

Myerscod wrote: »

I'm quite perplexed that ZOS want all the armours (I'm English so armour has a u) to be equally balanced...

Light armour = more DPs, less survivability
Medium armour = average DPs, average survivability
Heavy armour = less DPs, more survivability

This is a tried and tested method since the dark ages (of life, not just video games), why such the emphasis on equalising everything?

Equally balanced does not mean identical.

If you read Wrobel Official thread header, he says: "all Armor types should be desirable"

If HA is in general much less used than LA and HA, then it is clear that HA is atm less desired.

I agree, although with the current changes it looks like the only person who this will benefit is magplars and dduke and make LA or MA more desirable for a tank.

Any idea when the block cost will be changed on PTS to what is expected on live from DB?

PS4_ZeColmeia · May 2016

I can't do PTS but isn't this a relative non issue when you say constitution changes + CP + defensive posture morphs? I have with 5 piece LA on live and don't see why this is an issue as I routinely pull mass amounts of high level dungeon mobs and have no issue tanking.

Teridaxus · May 2016

Welp looks like there won't discuss any balance during eso live and only will before the release, which sounds a lot like: Here we did this, deal with it like no stam during blocking before...

NativeJoe · May 2016

As a sorc shield tank, I must ask... what is this Block you speak of?

Teridaxus · May 2016

NativeJoe wrote: »

As a sorc shield tank, I must ask... what is this Block you speak of?

*equips shield breaker with well fitting*

Personofsecrets · May 2016

mzapkeneb18_ESO wrote: »

Welp looks like there won't discuss any balance during eso live and only will before the release, which sounds a lot like: Here we did this, deal with it like no stam during blocking before...

explain more please

Teridaxus · May 2016

Last post on page 1
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/264329/tomorrows-eso-live-what-do-you-wanna-see-hear/p1

Personofsecrets · May 2016

Ahh, I see. I can understand that.

Woeler · May 2016

Block expertise relocated to the green cp trees. Now, I too start to seriously doubt the capacities of the people designing this.

GoodOlPinkly · May 2016

Looks like we have to bring this thread back again????? Wth @Wrobel

Teridaxus · May 2016

Well im a stamn dk tank...

maybe i should just switch to dps too now. Got already the best class for it....

ThatNeonZebraAgain · May 2016

Woeler wrote: »

Block expertise relocated to the green cp trees. Now, I too start to seriously doubt the capacities of the people designing this.

I can't understand this. Now to get the Shield Expert passive, you have to spend points that are completely unrelated to blocking. At least if you had to dump 75 points into block cost reduction constellation previously, you also buffed the armor of your shield. This change makes no sense for PvP or PvE. Not to mention Spell Shield isn't as effective as Elemental Defender.

ThatNeonZebraAgain · May 2016

Here's all the blocking-related changes from the notes:

The Sturdy trait’s block cost reduction is currently a multiplicative bonus with itself, rather than an additive. [This is a bug listed under KNOWN ISSUES]

Fortress [One Hand and Shield Passive]: Increased the block cost reduction from this passive ability to 18/36% at Ranks I/II from 15/30%.

The Steed
Block Expertise:
Renamed this Champion ability to Shadow Ward.
This Champion ability has been switched with the Elusive ability from The Shadow constellation.

The Shadow
Elusive:
Renamed this Champion ability to Ironclad.
This Champion ability has been switched with the Block Expertise ability from The Steed constellation.

Sturdy: Increased the value of the Sturdy trait by 1% at all quality levels. Gold Sturdy-traited gear now gives 4% block cost reduction instead of 3%.

Nothing about Heavy Armor/Constitution.

Armitas · May 2016

PTS Kung Fu: The Beating Continues.

sebban · May 2016

@Wrobel

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS, BASE GAME PATCH
Weapon
One Hand and Shield
Fortress: Increased the block cost reduction from this passive ability to 18/36% at Ranks I/II from 15/30%.

Ok, so you take some block cost reduction that you removed from Heavy armor and add it to 1H/S. This still doesn't make Heavy Armor any better than it was. You just moved the bonus? Why not let it stay in Heavy Armor then?

If you are going to add back the reduced block cost elsewhere, why not just let it be in heavy armor?

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Champion System
The Steed
Block Expertise:
Renamed this Champion ability to Shadow Ward.

This Champion ability has been switched with the Elusive ability from The Shadow constellation.

The Shadow
Elusive:
Renamed this Champion ability to Ironclad.

This Champion ability has been switched with the Block Expertise ability from The Steed constellation.

I fail to see how this is an improvement in any way. The Steed bonuses is all about using a shield and blocking, why move reduced block cost away from it? Reduced block cost makes sense to be in this tree.

The Shadow is a tree with REALLY bad bonuses overall, like REALLY, REALLY, OMG WHY IS THIS TREE SO BAD, bad. They have nothing to do with using a shield and blocking. Why move reduced block cost here?

Did you do it because you want tanks to spend less in the Tower and Lover tree, so tanks will have less resources anyway after you add reduced block cost to 1H/S?

I just can't see WHY you did this, other than to make life harder for tanks. I just can't see any other explanation as to why you keep making these bad changes for tanks.

It's no wonder everyone thinks ZOS hates tanks. It's because of things like this.