Question Regarding Armor Cap, Damage Mitigation and Heavy Armor

incognito222 · July 2016

Good Day Everyone,

Would like to ask for clarification regarding damage mitigation in relation to spell and physical resist values. Having read posts from @Asayre and hearing from friends, I understand the game has spell and physical resist values hard cap set at 33K, please correct me if this is not accurate.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom , @ZOS_AlanG , @ZOS_DaryaK , please share some insight if you can on this topic as well.

The following are my questions.

(1) Would putting more points above the 33K value produce diminishing returns, or no benefit whatsoever is obtainable from doing so.

(2) Are there plans to raise this 33K cap in future? I ask myself as to why there is no cap to damage output and yet a hard cap is in place for damage mitigation.

(3) Champion Point allocation in 'Mighty' increases Physical, Poison and Disease damage. Consequently, does physical resistance help to mitigate damage from poisons and disease?

(4) Are you satisfied with the recent changes in Heavy Armor passives in the game compared to LA and MA ?

Perhaps those with knowledge on this can share with the rest of the community. Thank you very much and I look forward to constructive discussion with the aim to help everyone theorycraft builds that benefit their playstyle.

Wish you all a pleasant day ahead, peace and happiness to all.

mistermutiny89 · July 2016

1) There is no benefit at all. A hard cap is a hard cap.

2) really hope they remove the hard cap for mitigation but ZoS hates tanks.

3) I'd say yes, physical resistance does cover poison and disease as spell resistances SEEMS to cover fire resistance but I have no hard data on that. I'll have to follow this post myself.

4) Heavy armour is still the weakest set out of the three armour types and the changes made me hate the passives even more. My sap tank's spell damage is lower than before thanks to the removal of bracing and moving the block cost in the red tree to the green tree meant less green points to spend on cost reduction of skills and break free. This was made to look like a buff but ZoS despises tanks.

Semoga berhasil!

DRXHarbinger · July 2016

It needs raising. Vet sanctum mantikora hits really really hard. Even having 5 axes in archive is very hard. God knows what to do when when that goes vet. They won't be sponged easily.

Asayre · July 2016

1. The only benefit from having more than 33,100 spell/physical resistance is in case you are affected by debuffs that push your resistance below the limit. For instance if you had 40k resistance and are debuffed by Major Fracture/Breach to ~35k resistance you will still get 50% armour mitigation.
2. I think the armour cap will raise as gear CP level increases.
3. Generally yes. All player poison damage I tested appears to check for physical resistance.
4. Not quite

incognito222 · July 2016

@mistermutiny89 ... Thank you for your comments and kind wishes, "semoga berhasil" to you too, in everything that you do.
For others that are wondering, this translates as : (Semoga Berhasil = Hope you succeed)

@DRXHarbinger ... Thank you for sharing, I agree that the harder content is a real challenge to tank, even in full heavy armor.

@Asayre ... Thank you for confirming, your insight is as usual, valuable and much appreciated by many of us in the community.

Perhaps others may contribute as to what can be done to HA passives to make them less lackluster and more desirable compared to LA or MA. I understand this is easier said than done as whatever changes will affect both PVE and PVP alike.

Generally, IMHO protection from full Heavy Armor cannot keep up with the ever increasing high damage output from Vet content (PVE), or from fellow players (PVP). The thing that comes to my mind is if perhaps the developers are able to give a passive for those wearing FIVE or more pieces of HA : "reduces incoming damage by 1% / 2% per piece of HA equipped".
Theoretically, If a player wears 7/7 HA this would provide 14% incoming damage reduction after factoring in mitigation from spell and physical resist values. Which again IMHO is needed for the role, as tanks draw agro from multiple (and continuous) attacks both in PVE and PVP.

I don't know if the above percentage is too much / too little and can be defined accordingly later on if the idea is adopted, but it would be logical for a character wearing full plate armor to have a rather desirable bonus with regards to received incoming damage.

I shall not comment on the removed bracing passive as this has been discussed many times over on numerous threads.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler ... it would be much appreciated if you could provide insight as to whether any plans are underway to change HA passives or skills as many players (including myself) believe HA is still less desirable than other armor types. This can be seen in PVP where the ratio of LA and MA users outnumber HA users by quite a bit.

@DKsUnite ... we hope you are able to provide insight as well. If I understand correctly you are well versed in tanking / HA.

Thank you everyone, I look forward to a constructive and positive discussion on the topic, cheers.

Armitas · July 2016

incognito222 wrote: »

(4) Are you satisfied with the recent changes in Heavy Armor passives in the game compared to LA and MA ?

It's better, but I won't be satisfied until something is done about the amount of penetration in this game. It is very common in PvP for a full set of heavy to be rendered useless for mitigation. Would be nice if impenetrable lost the 50% durability decrease and protected against penetration instead. Impenetrable-penetration, just seems like a good match.

Also the armor skill for heavy armor is the highest cost skill for any armor type and comes with no cost reduction in heavy armor. It cost 4384 stamina. Immovable needs to have it's cost reduced based on HA pieces equipped.

Asayre wrote: »

2. I think the armour cap will raise as gear CP level increases.

The cap raises but the mitigation stays the same. So right now it takes 33k resistance to reach 50% mitigation. When they raise it it may take 34k to reach 50% mitigation.

nordsavage · July 2016

32.5k resistance is equal to 50% total mitigation and you cannot exceed 50% from all sources.

incognito222 · July 2016

Armitas wrote: »

show previous quotes

incognito222 wrote: »

(4) Are you satisfied with the recent changes in Heavy Armor passives in the game compared to LA and MA ?

It's better, but I won't be satisfied until something is done about the amount of penetration in this game. It is very common in PvP for a full set of heavy to be rendered useless for mitigation. Would be nice if impenetrable lost the 50% durability decrease and protected against penetration instead. Impenetrable-penetration, just seems like a good match.

Also the armor skill for heavy armor is the highest cost skill for any armor type and comes with no cost reduction in heavy armor. It cost 4384 stamina. Immovable needs to have it's cost reduced based on HA pieces equipped.
show previous quotes

Asayre wrote: »

2. I think the armour cap will raise as gear CP level increases.

The cap raises but the mitigation stays the same. So right now it takes 33k resistance to reach 50% mitigation. When they raise it it may take 34k to reach 50% mitigation.

@Armitas ... I like your idea as I have never pondered over it from a penetration point of view before. Definitely insightful.

Rainteal · July 2016

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

It needs raising. Vet sanctum mantikora hits really really hard. Even having 5 axes in archive is very hard. God knows what to do when when that goes vet. They won't be sponged easily.

**I don't want this to come off as the internet-troll/tough guy post, because that is truly not my intent**

I don't notice the tank getting hit very hard by vet Mantikora (I run healer for vSO). There is way less spike damage going out now compared to the old version. Again, I am not trying to be a know it all jerk, but what kind of gear are you wearing? This seems really odd to me.

And 5 axes? Is your DPS sleeping? If the DPS in my raid got to 5 axes in AA in its current form, I would ask them all to seriously consider switching to Guitar Hero.

DKsUnite · July 2016

incognito222 wrote: »

Good Day Everyone,

Would like to ask for clarification regarding damage mitigation in relation to spell and physical resist values. Having read posts from @Asayre and hearing from friends, I understand the game has spell and physical resist values hard cap set at 33K, please correct me if this is not accurate.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom , @ZOS_AlanG , @ZOS_DaryaK , please share some insight if you can on this topic as well.

The following are my questions.

(1) Would putting more points above the 33K value produce diminishing returns, or no benefit whatsoever is obtainable from doing so.

(2) Are there plans to raise this 33K cap in future? I ask myself as to why there is no cap to damage output and yet a hard cap is in place for damage mitigation.

(3) Champion Point allocation in 'Mighty' increases Physical, Poison and Disease damage. Consequently, does physical resistance help to mitigate damage from poisons and disease?

(4) Are you satisfied with the recent changes in Heavy Armor passives in the game compared to LA and MA ?

Perhaps those with knowledge on this can share with the rest of the community. Thank you very much and I look forward to constructive discussion with the aim to help everyone theorycraft builds that benefit their playstyle.

Wish you all a pleasant day ahead, peace and happiness to all.

1. Yes because thats how you counter penetration.
2. Dont think so because they dont want tanks to be too tanky... however one shotting a tank is perfectly legit....
3. Yes
4. Yes in damage terms, no in tanking terms

Penetration is out of control and has been since 1.6 when armour started to actually matter. They need to reduce all penetration by drastic amounts. Only if you completely spec all your gear and points toward armour/spell pene should you be able to get 50% penetration.

Making penetration drop to a reasonable level is enough to destroy this stupid burst meta we have and allow heavy armour builds to feel tanky.

Forestd16b14_ESO · July 2016

mistermutiny89 wrote: »

1) There is no benefit at all. A hard cap is a hard cap.

2) really hope they remove the hard cap for mitigation but ZoS hates tanks.

3) I'd say yes, physical resistance does cover poison and disease as spell resistances SEEMS to cover fire resistance but I have no hard data on that. I'll have to follow this post myself.

4) Heavy armour is still the weakest set out of the three armour types and the changes made me hate the passives even more. My sap tank's spell damage is lower than before thanks to the removal of bracing and moving the block cost in the red tree to the green tree meant less green points to spend on cost reduction of skills and break free. This was made to look like a buff but ZoS despises tanks.

Semoga berhasil!

What this guy said. Yea heavy armor really needed its only real tank passive removed and replaced with a DPS passive.........

incognito222 · July 2016

I've been browsing through previous discussions and seems that other past (and current) threads have addressed somewhat similar concerns on how lackluster HA is with regards to damage mitigation.

This 'problem' is further compounded by use of : Sharpened trait on weapons, Major Fracture debuff, CP allocation into penetration ... which are commonly used by players in PVP.

I will have to read up more information but I am beginning to understand why those with more experience in the game, have often voiced out that HA and its passives underperforms in the damage mitigation department.