One major problem with Heavy Armor

Yiko · October 2016

I posted this in another thread, but I thought I'd repost it for visibility. I want to hear people's thoughts on it.

Blackrose DOES give users too many stats and resources, but another huge part of the problem IMO is the Constitution passive itself. With Black Rose it can give up to around 1.8-1.9k stam/magicka back every 4 seconds, and around 1300-1400 w/o it IIRC. That's around 900 stam and magicka regen in utility, provided you're in combat and constantly being hit. That's about DOUBLE what a typical stam character's default magicka regen is at. I don't know how much this has been touched on, but I think the magicka utility that heavy armor provides for stam users has lead to complete overperformance. The gameplay is incredibly forgiving courtesy of the inherent tankiness and utility of heavy armor. For example, look at the following class skills that are spammable due to the magicka sustain that BR and heavy armor in general provide:
- Templars are able to use Restoring Focus & Extended Ritual (purge) more freely, both providing Major Mending.
- Sorcerers are able to streak and use Dark Deal (HUGE resource return) very often
- Dragonknights aren't quite as popular these days, but they're able to use Igneous Shield constantly to keep up Major Mending & return stam
- Nightblades are able to use Dark Cloak (invisibility + damage reduction) + Mass Hysteria (AOE CC)

Magicka abilities offer incredibly powerful sustainability on the already tanky Heavy Armor builds. Due to that magicka sustain, Heavy Armor stamina users can completely bypass the use of drinks & can neglect to build for any magicka recovery. What does that mean? Pure emphasis on damage.
These builds have unholy levels of damage due to weapon damage stacking & the use of proc sets (such as Viper, Velidreth, and Tremorscale, another problem in their own right). Because BR & Heavy armor provide huge levels of sustain (almost double the regen that a stam/magicka drink provides or default magicka regen), high levels of mitigation (increased armor), and increased healing (due to passives) among other benefits such as reduced block costs, Heavy Armor users simply build for damage.

Where's the tradeoff for using Heavy Armor? Medium Armor builds need to run food in order to not be completely obliterated by these Heavy Armor builds and therefore forfeit magicka sustain unless intentionally building for it (but will have to sacrifice stats for it).

A 20k health 30k stam medium armor build who runs drink for magicka sustain will wind up with effectively ~+500 mag regen & a bit more stam regen.
That same 20k health and 30k stam build that runs food on heavy armor will wind up with ~ +800 mag/stam regen and THEN gain ~5k health & stam from the food +10-14% more total health because of heavy armor passives + possibly more % to all stats due to undaunted passives. That's at LEAST 11,000 value in raw stam/health stats alone while keeping up in regen & sustainability.
Medium armor passives do not even remotely compare to heavy armor.

Heavy Armor is the pinnacle of stat value, and Black Rose exacerbates that issue. Constitution passive should give EITHER stamina or magicka based on whichever stat is higher, or if that isn't found to be a generally appropriate change, it at least needs to undergo some kind of rework.

Minno · October 2016

Yiko wrote: »

I posted this in another thread, but I thought I'd repost it for visibility. I want to hear people's thoughts on it.

Blackrose DOES give users too many stats and resources, but another huge part of the problem IMO is the Constitution passive itself. With Black Rose it can give up to around 1.8-1.9k stam/magicka back every 4 seconds, and around 1300-1400 w/o it IIRC. That's around 900 stam and magicka regen in utility, provided you're in combat and constantly being hit. That's about DOUBLE what a typical stam character's default magicka regen is at. I don't know how much this has been touched on, but I think the magicka utility that heavy armor provides for stam users has lead to complete overperformance. The gameplay is incredibly forgiving courtesy of the inherent tankiness and utility of heavy armor. For example, look at the following class skills that are spammable due to the magicka sustain that BR and heavy armor in general provide:
- Templars are able to use Restoring Focus & Extended Ritual (purge) more freely, both providing Major Mending.
- Sorcerers are able to streak and use Dark Deal (HUGE resource return) very often
- Dragonknights aren't quite as popular these days, but they're able to use Igneous Shield constantly to keep up Major Mending & return stam
- Nightblades are able to use Dark Cloak (invisibility + damage reduction) + Mass Hysteria (AOE CC)

Magicka abilities offer incredibly powerful sustainability on the already tanky Heavy Armor builds. Due to that magicka sustain, Heavy Armor stamina users can completely bypass the use of drinks & can neglect to build for any magicka recovery. What does that mean? Pure emphasis on damage.
These builds have unholy levels of damage due to weapon damage stacking & the use of proc sets (such as Viper, Velidreth, and Tremorscale, another problem in their own right). Because BR & Heavy armor provide huge levels of sustain (almost double the regen that a stam/magicka drink provides or default magicka regen), high levels of mitigation (increased armor), and increased healing (due to passives) among other benefits such as reduced block costs, Heavy Armor users simply build for damage.

Where's the tradeoff for using Heavy Armor? Medium Armor builds need to run food in order to not be completely obliterated by these Heavy Armor builds and therefore forfeit magicka sustain unless intentionally building for it (but will have to sacrifice stats for it).

A 20k health 30k stam medium armor build who runs drink for magicka sustain will wind up with effectively ~+500 mag regen & a bit more stam regen.
That same 20k health and 30k stam build that runs food on heavy armor will wind up with ~ +800 mag/stam regen and THEN gain ~5k health & stam from the food +10-14% more total health because of heavy armor passives + possibly more % to all stats due to undaunted passives. That's at LEAST 11,000 value in raw stam/health stats alone while keeping up in regen & sustainability.
Medium armor passives do not even remotely compare to heavy armor.

Heavy Armor is the pinnacle of stat value, and Black Rose exacerbates that issue. Constitution passive should give EITHER stamina or magicka based on whichever stat is higher, or if that isn't found to be a generally appropriate change, it at least needs to undergo some kind of rework.

In PvP the strength of heavy armor is not in its constitution passive. it's via the fact you gain extra passives all at once:
- 8% increased healing received = 32 points in Quick recovery. Or 10 in blessed 10 in quick recovery
- extra health and health recovery per piece of armor slotted. If you have skills that scale off health, you can potentially concentrate on adding either stam or Magicka. It's possible to reach 30k health and 34k Magicka.
- extra resistance. Heavy boots, legs, helm and chest are the same armor value. this is separate from chest, legs and helm having better enchantment values. Also you gain more resistance per passives.
- increased resource regen from heavy attack by 50%. A Magicka build could slot a melee weapon and lighting staff for regen of both.

Constitution and wraith passives are icing on the cake, IMHO.

Niaver · October 2016

So HA had been useless for like a year, and now you want to nerf it again, right?..

Don't want a dude in HA to regenerate? Don't hit him, anyway he doesn't have a lot of DPS.
Want to kill him? You have a lot of options how to do it fast: this meta is all about burst damage including all kind of cancer build, like current viper stuff.

Yiko · October 2016

Niaver wrote: »

So HA had been useless for like a year, and now you want to nerf it again, right?..
Don't want a dude in HA to regenerate? Don't hit him, anyway he doesn't have a lot of DPS.
Want to kill him? You have a lot of options how to do it fast: this meta is all about burst damage including all kind of cancer build, like current viper stuff.

Doesn't matter if it was useless for whatever length of time. That's not an argument. It's overperforming now and needs to be addressed.
Sounds like you haven't even played this meta to be quite honest. HA users do extremely competitive dps.

Minno wrote: »

In PvP the strength of heavy armor is not in its constitution passive. it's via the fact you gain extra passives all at once:
- 8% increased healing received = 32 points in Quick recovery. Or 10 in blessed 10 in quick recovery
- extra health and health recovery per piece of armor slotted. If you have skills that scale off health, you can potentially concentrate on adding either stam or Magicka. It's possible to reach 30k health and 34k Magicka.
- extra resistance. Heavy boots, legs, helm and chest are the same armor value. this is separate from chest, legs and helm having better enchantment values. Also you gain more resistance per passives.
- increased resource regen from heavy attack by 50%. A Magicka build could slot a melee weapon and lighting staff for regen of both.

Constitution and wraith passives are icing on the cake, IMHO.

Agreed, heavy armor provides too many stats to the point that they can just build for damage. That's was the main point of my post. The solution I offered was to cut the magicka regen for stamina builds, so they wouldn't have as much access to the sustain/utility magicka abilities that allow them to build full damage while having inherent tankiness. They would have to sacrifice sustainability or damage. Is your solution to just trim the stats across the board? That could achieve a similar effect if done well.

Minno · October 2016

Yiko wrote: »

Niaver wrote: »

So HA had been useless for like a year, and now you want to nerf it again, right?..
Don't want a dude in HA to regenerate? Don't hit him, anyway he doesn't have a lot of DPS.
Want to kill him? You have a lot of options how to do it fast: this meta is all about burst damage including all kind of cancer build, like current viper stuff.

Doesn't matter if it was useless for whatever length of time. That's not an argument. It's overperforming now and needs to be addressed.
Sounds like you haven't even played this meta to be quite honest. HA users do extremely competitive dps.

Minno wrote: »

In PvP the strength of heavy armor is not in its constitution passive. it's via the fact you gain extra passives all at once:
- 8% increased healing received = 32 points in Quick recovery. Or 10 in blessed 10 in quick recovery
- extra health and health recovery per piece of armor slotted. If you have skills that scale off health, you can potentially concentrate on adding either stam or Magicka. It's possible to reach 30k health and 34k Magicka.
- extra resistance. Heavy boots, legs, helm and chest are the same armor value. this is separate from chest, legs and helm having better enchantment values. Also you gain more resistance per passives.
- increased resource regen from heavy attack by 50%. A Magicka build could slot a melee weapon and lighting staff for regen of both.

Constitution and wraith passives are icing on the cake, IMHO.

Agreed, heavy armor provides too many stats to the point that they can just build for damage. That's was the main point of my post. The solution I offered was to cut the magicka regen for stamina builds, so they wouldn't have as much access to the sustain/utility magicka abilities that allow them to build full damage while having inherent tankiness. They would have to sacrifice sustainability or damage. Is your solution to just trim the stats across the board? That could achieve a similar effect if done well.

The post was to highlight what I consider the strength of using HA. It's also to illustrate that i personally consider HA superior to med/light in that many of its passives require an action to proc (must heal yourself for the extra 8% to happen in solo play, constitution requires you to be hit, armor values heavily countered by mauls/sharpened, must use heavy attack to use one passive) If we want changes I'd probably say this:

- HA currently requires actions with core game mechanics to activate. Other sets to be brought in line with this intent. Currently medium comes close in that you have decreased cost in dodge roll/sprint.
- We could see armor as all having equal offense/defense stats that are tied to other mechanics. For example, medium armor could have extra dmg tied to sprint (gain say x weapon dmg per distance run) or have light armor gain extra penetration and crit per shield duration.
- gain stamina and Magicka on dodge roll for medium.
- gain stamina/Magicka each spell that crits
- balance loss of dmg and tie back to weapons.

Basically make armor a choice of preference instead of solidifying choices. This aspect of the skill system should be the only skills that get a hybrid treatment. Then you can balance the classes/weapons on dmg/utility leaving armor solely for regen and situational dmg increases that promote counter play.

Satiar · October 2016

I'm still incredibly confused as to how heavy armor is over performing when you can literally 100-0 someone with 25k health in one GCD. One GCD.

CP5 · October 2016

In my opinion this is just people not being used to fighting enemies who aren't light/medium armored glass cannons. Someone comes along in heavy armor and its different, takes time to get used to.

Yiko · October 2016

Satiar wrote: »

I'm still incredibly confused as to how heavy armor is over performing when you can literally 100-0 someone with 25k health in one GCD. One GCD.

Because it's the heavy armor builds doing exactly what you just said while having incredible regen and survivability.. Hello? Medium armor can obviously do it too, but those builds flop over as soon as they're touched.

CP5 wrote: »

In my opinion this is just people not being used to fighting enemies who aren't light/medium armored glass cannons. Someone comes along in heavy armor and its different, takes time to get used to.

Heavy Armor, especially BR, has been the meta for pretty much every stam build (outside of gankers) for awhile now. It's not about getting used to heavy armor.

Minno wrote: »

The post was to highlight what I consider the strength of using HA. It's also to illustrate that i personally consider HA superior to med/light in that many of its passives require an action to proc (must heal yourself for the extra 8% to happen in solo play, constitution requires you to be hit, armor values heavily countered by mauls/sharpened, must use heavy attack to use one passive) If we want changes I'd probably say this:

- HA currently requires actions with core game mechanics to activate. Other sets to be brought in line with this intent. Currently medium comes close in that you have decreased cost in dodge roll/sprint.
- We could see armor as all having equal offense/defense stats that are tied to other mechanics. For example, medium armor could have extra dmg tied to sprint (gain say x weapon dmg per distance run) or have light armor gain extra penetration and crit per shield duration.
- gain stamina and Magicka on dodge roll for medium.
- gain stamina/Magicka each spell that crits
- balance loss of dmg and tie back to weapons.

Basically make armor a choice of preference instead of solidifying choices. This aspect of the skill system should be the only skills that get a hybrid treatment. Then you can balance the classes/weapons on dmg/utility leaving armor solely for regen and situational dmg increases that promote counter play.

The only engaging passive of Heavy Armor is the heavy attack one.

But I do agree in making armor a choice of preference. However, you're calling for a complete overhaul of passives and balancing strategies while I'm calling for one change: to limit the magicka regen for heavy armor stamina builds. If they want magicka regen for those clutch abilities that further bolster their already high defenses, they will have to sacrifice damage. No matter what build you're running right now, you can do 25k damage in one second, even light armor using stamina abilities. It's how this game was designed. Glyphs, CP, & set passives are such a major contributor to PVP. In order to nerf heavy armor, you have to attack them in a place where they currently have the freedom to build damage. If they STILL opt for damage, they will die that much more easily. Nerfing the weapon damage passive is fine and probably recommendable, but changing the other passives definitely hurts every type of heavy armor build. I don't think that straight up tanks or magicka heavy armor users are overperforming, so think of a way to primarily target the stam meta heavy armor users. My way is to limit the Constitution passive for stam users. We need INCREMENTAL CHANGES & TESTING, not overhauls.

Satiar · October 2016

@Yiko Heavy armor can hit hard but it doesn't hold a candle to a fully specced Medium armor proc build. It's an absolutely insane amount of damage.

Heavy armor is good but it's hard for me to accept its truly over performing when I see the sheer DPS that can be out put with medium.

Minno · October 2016

Yiko wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

I'm still incredibly confused as to how heavy armor is over performing when you can literally 100-0 someone with 25k health in one GCD. One GCD.

Because it's the heavy armor builds doing exactly what you just said while having incredible regen and survivability.. Hello? Medium armor can obviously do it too, but those builds flop over as soon as they're touched.

CP5 wrote: »

In my opinion this is just people not being used to fighting enemies who aren't light/medium armored glass cannons. Someone comes along in heavy armor and its different, takes time to get used to.

Heavy Armor, especially BR, has been the meta for pretty much every stam build (outside of gankers) for awhile now. It's not about getting used to heavy armor.

Minno wrote: »

The post was to highlight what I consider the strength of using HA. It's also to illustrate that i personally consider HA superior to med/light in that many of its passives require an action to proc (must heal yourself for the extra 8% to happen in solo play, constitution requires you to be hit, armor values heavily countered by mauls/sharpened, must use heavy attack to use one passive) If we want changes I'd probably say this:

- HA currently requires actions with core game mechanics to activate. Other sets to be brought in line with this intent. Currently medium comes close in that you have decreased cost in dodge roll/sprint.
- We could see armor as all having equal offense/defense stats that are tied to other mechanics. For example, medium armor could have extra dmg tied to sprint (gain say x weapon dmg per distance run) or have light armor gain extra penetration and crit per shield duration.
- gain stamina and Magicka on dodge roll for medium.
- gain stamina/Magicka each spell that crits
- balance loss of dmg and tie back to weapons.

Basically make armor a choice of preference instead of solidifying choices. This aspect of the skill system should be the only skills that get a hybrid treatment. Then you can balance the classes/weapons on dmg/utility leaving armor solely for regen and situational dmg increases that promote counter play.

The only engaging passive of Heavy Armor is the heavy attack one.

But I do agree in making armor a choice of preference. However, you're calling for a complete overhaul of passives and balancing strategies while I'm calling for one change: to limit the magicka regen for heavy armor stamina builds. If they want magicka regen for those clutch abilities that further bolster their already high defenses, they will have to sacrifice damage. No matter what build you're running right now, you can do 25k damage in one second, even light armor using stamina abilities. It's how this game was designed. Glyphs, CP, & set passives are such a major contributor to PVP. In order to nerf heavy armor, you have to attack them in a place where they currently have the freedom to build damage. If they STILL opt for damage, they will die that much more easily. Nerfing the weapon damage passive is fine and probably recommendable, but changing the other passives definitely hurts every type of heavy armor build. I don't think that straight up tanks or magicka heavy armor users are overperforming, so think of a way to primarily target the stam meta heavy armor users. My way is to limit the Constitution passive for stam users. We need INCREMENTAL CHANGES & TESTING, not overhauls.

I see your point. But while I want a quick change that's easy to have zos add, we should have the discussion that aims to provide the best intent. Sometimes good work is incredibly dirty which shouldn't be a negative.

That said, it wouldn't hurt to review changes related to making the armor lines reflect ones preference instead of isolating playstyles.

HoloYoitsu · October 2016

Satiar wrote: »

I'm still incredibly confused as to how heavy armor is over performing when you can literally 100-0 someone with 25k health in one GCD. One GCD.

Cuz sometimes it takes 2 GCD to kill ppl w/ 30k HP. That's twice as long!

CP5 wrote: »

In my opinion this is just people not being used to fighting enemies who aren't light/medium armored glass cannons. Someone comes along in heavy armor and its different, takes time to get used to.

THIS.

As someone who's been on heavy armor s/b since 1.5, I can tell you distinctly that heavy armor is much much less tanky now than it was in 1.5 & 1.6, back before Bracing was deleted from the game. And let's not forget about how before that, heavy armor had the 20% break free cost reduction too until Wrobel decided to put that on Immovable.

And please, Rapid Mending's 8% (4% after battle spirit) heal boost is hardly anywhere close to 'OP'. The same goes for Constitution, 930 in 5 heavy, even with blackrose that's just 1302. In 7/7 heavy with blackrose, you get 1822 but let's be honest, how many people are running around in 7/7 heavy? Meanwhile ability costs are about 100 more in 7 heavy compared to 5.

Now before anyone says 7/7 heavy makes blackrose too stronk let's do the math. Using 7 heavy loses you about 200 regen worth of resources if you're performing one action per GCD, while gaining you 260 regen worth of resources if you are being hit every 4 seconds. That is a provisional net gain of ~60 regen. You also lose 4% max stats.

Ergo, most blackrose users will run 5 heavy.
As you can see, the difference between blackrose vs other sets is only 372 constitution in that case.
That is at most equivalent to 186 regen!
You know what other set provides even more mag/stam regen? Amberplasm coupled with heavy armor! (from a magicka build perspective)

I've run my mag sorc in both blackrose & rattlecage, and I can tell you that the difference in sustain feels marginal compared to the dmg from running rattlecage. In both setups, the most significant boost to my sustain that heavy armor is giving me is the boost to heavy attacks.

Last point, the "high dmg" people keep complaining about in these heavy armor threads is all proc dmg from stuff like Tremorscale + Viper, that has nothing to do with heavy armor balance, regardless of whether or not it can be combo'd with heavy armor! That high dmg is entirely a problem of the design of those proc sets, the answer is not 'nerf heavy armor.'

Comments like 'reduced block cost' and 'no trade off for using heavy armor' are so ridiculous I don't think they warrant further comment.

Magus · October 2016

@HoloYoitsu nailed it.

Main reason you see these kinds of posts is that it is harder to 1vX, 2vX, 3vX a group of people that figured out they should wear impen and heavy armor. Many of the videos of the impressive exploits in highlight videos are against low alliance rank players not wearing heavy nor impen. The overall PVP population has declined and the regulars who play have figured out it's not fun to run around in light armor and get one shot. There's still plenty of new players though but small scale fights are dead, it's stacked alliance vs stacked alliance for the most part. In that context, balancing for 1v1 and duels is a fruitless effort because none of it really matters in the zerg vs zerg fights. Duels are ridiculously imbalanced right now. Look at the latest King Richard video where he goes from playing non-meta to meta build and see the results. Funny how big of a difference vitality pots and poisons have in duels. If you are using them and your opponent isn't, then you really shouldn't feel that good about your victory lol.

Satiar · October 2016

The hilarious thing is that you can STILL get rekt hard in heavy armor. Last night I was just messing around and suddenly dropped over dead. One GCD. I'm in seven HA with 27k health and over 2k impen. Surprise attack/med attack/procs.

As long as you can do that, resistance and tankyness needs to be upped, not Nerfed.

Lord_Hev · October 2016

Heavy armor is fine. It's the stam proc sets that are over killing it. Heavy armor meta is only a sympton. ZOS needs to get to the root of the problem, not the symptom.

Magus · October 2016

Satiar wrote: »

The hilarious thing is that you can STILL get rekt hard in heavy armor. Last night I was just messing around and suddenly dropped over dead. One GCD. I'm in seven HA with 27k health and over 2k impen. Surprise attack/med attack/procs.

As long as you can do that, resistance and tankyness needs to be upped, not Nerfed.

Yes that's something different. That's the stealth damage bonus modifier. The forums will tell you that it is balanced and you should slot radiant magelight now.

Satiar · October 2016

Lord_Hev wrote: »

Heavy armor is fine. It's the stam proc sets that are over killing it. Heavy armor meta is only a sympton. ZOS needs to get to the root of the problem, not the symptom.

I feel strange agreeing with QAM but he's right. Proc sets artificially inflate the damage HA can do.

Sharee · October 2016

Yiko wrote: »

With Black Rose it can give up to around 1.8-1.9k stam/magicka back every 4 seconds, and around 1300-1400 w/o it IIRC. That's around 900 stam and magicka regen in utility, provided you're in combat and constantly being hit. That's about DOUBLE what a typical stam character's default magicka regen is at.

It is also about half what a typical stam character's default stamina regen is.

Yiko wrote: »

Where's the tradeoff for using Heavy Armor?

See above.

leepalmer95 · October 2016

Wraith needs to go , healing needs to go and constitution needs to only give your your biggest stat back, e.g. Magicka OR stamina, not both.

Satiar · October 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Wraith needs to go , healing needs to go and constitution needs to only give your your biggest stat back, e.g. Magicka OR stamina, not both.

Wraiths are a known menace, despicable creatures bound by rings of power to the Lord Sauron. I agree, they must go. But I warn you, it is said no man can kill their leader, the fearsome Witch King.

HoloYoitsu · October 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Wraith needs to go , healing needs to go and constitution needs to only give your your biggest stat back, e.g. Magicka OR stamina, not both.

Wrath is only 200 dmg max, and you would have to be attached 10x in less than 6 sec to even get that. Meanwhile light armor gets 4884 spell pen, which is equivalent to about 7% dmg boost. And medium armor gets 12% wep dmg, which is a hella lot more than 200. Personally, I strongly preferred Bracing, but since that's gone, what exactly is so OP about Wrath?
This is going to be the 3rd time I've asked, what is so OP about 8% heal boost that gets dropped to 4% by battle spirit? I have yet to get any answer.
What reason is there to nerf Constitution in its current form? Before the buff in 2.0 it was pretty much completely negligible. As it is, it is the only type of sustain that heavy armor gets, and as I already showed above, in 5 heavy it's 415 regen at best. Meanwhile light & medium armor get 4% regen + 3% reduced cost per piece, in a 5/1/1 setup that's 20% regen + 15% cost reduction. The only advantage heavy armor gets at all in regards to sustain is that Constitution returns both magicka & stamina. Take that away, and there is literally no point to wearing heavy armor except for the base armor values - which are already largely negated by high pen builds.

Now then, does anyone want to discuss heavy armor with actual math? And not just, "oh no heavy armor guy had big HP and big Constitution", but actually take things like cost reduction, regen, sustain, and damage into account?

Yiko · October 2016

HoloYoitsu wrote: »

As someone who's been on heavy armor s/b since 1.5, I can tell you distinctly that heavy armor is much much less tanky now than it was in 1.5 & 1.6, back before Bracing was deleted from the game. And let's not forget about how before that, heavy armor had the 20% break free cost reduction too until Wrobel decided to put that on Immovable.

And please, Rapid Mending's 8% (4% after battle spirit) heal boost is hardly anywhere close to 'OP'. The same goes for Constitution, 930 in 5 heavy, even with blackrose that's just 1302. In 7/7 heavy with blackrose, you get 1822 but let's be honest, how many people are running around in 7/7 heavy? Meanwhile ability costs are about 100 more in 7 heavy compared to 5.

Now before anyone says 7/7 heavy makes blackrose too stronk let's do the math. Using 7 heavy loses you about 200 regen worth of resources if you're performing one action per GCD, while gaining you 260 regen worth of resources if you are being hit every 4 seconds. That is a provisional net gain of ~60 regen. You also lose 4% max stats.
Ergo, most blackrose users will run 5 heavy.

As you can see, the difference between blackrose vs other sets is only 372 constitution in that case.

That is at most equivalent to 186 regen!

You know what other set provides even more mag/stam regen? Amberplasm coupled with heavy armor! (from a magicka build perspective)

I've run my mag sorc in both blackrose & rattlecage, and I can tell you that the difference in sustain feels marginal compared to the dmg from running rattlecage. In both setups, the most significant boost to my sustain that heavy armor is giving me is the boost to heavy attacks.

Last point, the "high dmg" people keep complaining about in these heavy armor threads is all proc dmg from stuff like Tremorscale + Viper, that has nothing to do with heavy armor balance, regardless of whether or not it can be combo'd with heavy armor! That high dmg is entirely a problem of the design of those proc sets, the answer is not 'nerf heavy armor.'

Comments like 'reduced block cost' and 'no trade off for using heavy armor' are so ridiculous I don't think they warrant further comment.

I'm saying that even disregarding proc sets, heavy armor is still pound for pound better than medium armor for stamina builds in PVP (outside of ganking).
I've already said "These builds have unholy levels of damage due to weapon damage stacking & the use of proc sets (such as Viper, Velidreth, and Tremorscale, another problem in their own right)"
& "No matter what build you're running right now, you can do 25k damage in one second, even light armor using stamina abilities. It's how this game was designed. Glyphs, CP, & set passives are such a major contributor to PVP."

This isn't about proc sets. That can be addressed elsewhere.
I also have no intention of discussing heavy armor's usage by magicka builds or tanks at this point in time. This is strictly stamina builds.

Yiko wrote: »

Nerfing the weapon damage passive is fine and probably recommendable, but changing the other passives definitely hurts every type of heavy armor build. I don't think that straight up tanks or magicka heavy armor users are overperforming, so think of a way to primarily target the stam meta heavy armor users.

Let's go over some numbers quickly:

43 CP Warlord, 100 CP Mooncalf, 129 stam regen BS, 210 stam regen serpent mundus + Redguard
5 Heavy 2 Med
1835 stam cost surprise attack /
BR: 1302 Constitution/ 651 regen
1320 stam regen
No BR: 930 Constitution / 465 regen

6 Heavy 1 Med
1894 stam cost surprise attack
BR: 1562 Con / 781 regen
1286 stam regen
No BR: 1116 con / 558

7 Heavy
1952 stam cost surprise attack
BR:1822 con / 911 regen

So between BR 5 heavy/2 med and 6 heavy/1 med, there is a difference of 130 regen from constitution, 118 stam cost difference between 2 GCD surprise attacks, and 34 stam regen from dropping a piece of medium armor. When all that comes together, it is a difference of -22 stam / 2 seconds. If I was running this build optimally, I would drop stam regen, CP in stam regen, and add more CP into warlord to make this a positive difference of stam every 2 seconds. But even if I don't do that, 130 magicka regen is worth the drop in stamina over time. We won't talk about 7 heavy, as losing 2% stats from neglecting medium probs isn't worth it.

Also, when I asked "Where is the tradeoff for using heavy armor?" I was drawing attention to what I perceive as the disproportionate values of the passives. Obviously there are tradeoffs.

HoloYoitsu wrote: »

[*]What reason is there to nerf Constitution in its current form? Before the buff in 2.0 it was pretty much completely negligible. As it is, it is the only type of sustain that heavy armor gets, and as I already showed above, in 5 heavy it's 415 regen at best. Meanwhile light & medium armor get 4% regen + 3% reduced cost per piece, in a 5/1/1 setup that's 20% regen + 15% cost reduction. The only advantage heavy armor gets at all in regards to sustain is that Constitution returns both magicka & stamina. Take that away, and there is literally no point to wearing heavy armor except for the base armor values - which are already largely negated by high pen builds.[/list]

You said it yourself, Constitution returns both magicka and stamina. And with 6 piece heavy + black rose, it's 781 regen. Heavy armor users are basically gifted a drink and a half of regen value, so they have the opportunity to run food without regen concern. They also have 10-14% added health. Cyrodiil being pretty bursty these days, players want to reach the 25k+ health threshold. Heavy armor makes that incredibly easy with food even on non +%health races to the tune of about 2 prismatic glyphs or maybe a healthy piece of jewelry. EVERYTHING else is focused on damage now. Regen is taken care of courtesy of Constitution and the heavy attack passive.

Did you touch on any of the abilities I mentioned above that are abused because of the Constitution passive? They're pretty good.
If a medium armor user wants to use those abilities with the same frequency, they will have to use drink or run food + sacrifice damage to build for it. In either case, upon reaching similar levels of magicka sustain, the max stam or weapon damage differential after sacrifice is enough to the point that heavy attack users hit comparably hard, if not harder. Wrath passive helps with this too.

Now if you don't care about magicka sustain on stamina builds or if you think that this is how heavy armor builds should be designed and played, then that's where we'll have to agree to disagree. Yes, if you build for it, medium stamina obviously hits harder than heavy armor. I'm just saying that there's a reason that every stam player with half a bit of understanding of the game (outside of gank builds) is running around in heavy armor: the rounded out stats of heavy armor currently far outweigh the damage specialization of medium armor, regardless of proc sets or not.

HoloYoitsu wrote: »

Now then, does anyone want to discuss heavy armor with actual math? And not just, "oh no heavy armor guy had big HP and big Constitution", but actually take things like cost reduction, regen, sustain, and damage into account?

Also, I'm not too keen on talking numbers with you if you can't divide 930 by 2.

umagon · October 2016

Those "proc" sets are not really a valid argument as they have counters. Some are classified as aoe damage which can be reduced dramatically by two sets available in the game. The others do a specific type of damage which can be mitigated with use of resist jewelry glyph and application of minor/major maim. The ignoring these counters is the real problem people are having, because they don't want to trade off damage output for damage mitigation.

Heavy armor is fine the way it is and should not go back to being useless because some people refuse to use the counters in the game to defeat it. There are number of ways to strip points off a target's resistances, there are a number of ways to burn a target's resource pool, and there are a number of ways to reduce a target's healing. It's time for people to stop complaining about heavy armor, when their real issue is they refuse to use the counter play system given to them.

thankyourat · October 2016

umagon wrote: »

Those "proc" sets are not really a valid argument as they have counters. Some are classified as aoe damage which can be reduced dramatically by two sets available in the game. The others do a specific type of damage which can be mitigated with use of resist jewelry glyph and application of minor/major maim. The ignoring these counters is the real problem people are having, because they don't want to trade off damage output for damage mitigation.

Heavy armor is fine the way it is and should not go back to being useless because some people refuse to use the counters in the game to defeat it. There are number of ways to strip points off a target's resistances, there are a number of ways to burn a target's resource pool, and there are a number of ways to reduce a target's healing. It's time for people to stop complaining about heavy armor, when their real issue is they refuse to use the counter play system given to them.

So we should have to all wreck are builds to counter heavy armor proc builds, while at the same time they can have everything? That doesn't sound like balance at all. Not to mention if I add all this mitigation I'll never be able to burst through a heavy armor build

DKsUnite · October 2016

IMO the problem comes from stamina having too much easy resource management and proc sets and not heavy armour and constitution.

It's not hard to weave in a heavy attack as a stam user and regen stamina while with magicka you need to run a staff (which sometimes isn't optimal). Unchained allows free casts of vigors/rallys/shuffles. You can use magicka to regen your stamina like what you mentioned. Stamina has cheaper skill costs all round. Proc sets mostly favour stamina and are way too strong.

While as a magicka user, you can't double dip and use stamina to regen magicka (sorc can however) but it would be suicide to do it anyways because of not being able to block/break free. Magicka skills cost a huge amount aswell. We dont get a passive like unchained, we get 80% reduction on our next ability after you drink a potion which is every 45s....

Heavy buffs came at the same time as viper and proc sets and as someone who ran heavy stam DK without proc sets until this patch, killing people could sometimes be an issue. Again, it mostly came down to having poison proc so i could have some burst.

TL;DR
Remove proc sets. Increase stamina costs. Change unchained to "next cast is 80% cheaper".
Heavy armour isn't the issue! It's finally in a usuable spot for magicka builds (like mDK). Stamina just way overbuffed

leepalmer95 · October 2016

umagon wrote: »

Those "proc" sets are not really a valid argument as they have counters. Some are classified as aoe damage which can be reduced dramatically by two sets available in the game. The others do a specific type of damage which can be mitigated with use of resist jewelry glyph and application of minor/major maim. The ignoring these counters is the real problem people are having, because they don't want to trade off damage output for damage mitigation.

Heavy armor is fine the way it is and should not go back to being useless because some people refuse to use the counters in the game to defeat it. There are number of ways to strip points off a target's resistances, there are a number of ways to burn a target's resource pool, and there are a number of ways to reduce a target's healing. It's time for people to stop complaining about heavy armor, when their real issue is they refuse to use the counter play system given to them.

Never heard so much noob in one post.

The resist glyth's? really? The mitigate like 3% dmg gold.

Aoe dmg mitigation? Really?

The only people that still defend heavy armor are the bad players who rely on it in order to think they are good and pugs who have no idea what their talking about.

Now i suspect your at least one of these, likely both though.

GreenSoup2HoT · October 2016

The only thing op about heavy is the fact you can hold block and get tons of resources back with Red Guard + Black Rose while healing. You can reset fights whenever you want.

This is why medium users have to use proc sets. You cant whittle down heavy users anymore. They will whittle the squishy medium/light builds easy and all it takes is Viper or Tremorscale.

Proc sets need to be toned down yes but medium armour users need somthing to take on a heavy user. Either it be healing debuffs or breaking there sustain. Problem is heavy gives a load of both WITH block sustain. That is huge.

I dont really care much anymore. I just have fun and try to ignore the bad. Nerf Proc sets and nerf constitution. Heavy should be the counter to burst, not out sustain medium/light users while dealing tons of damage too.

I kind of feel like heavys identity is falling closer to the dps role (because of proc sets) then tank role these days (in pvp).

Also i think Vitality potions are an issue aswell. They kind of make the whole heavy meta worse.

frozywozy · October 2016

Yiko wrote: »

I posted this in another thread, but I thought I'd repost it for visibility. I want to hear people's thoughts on it.

Blackrose DOES give users too many stats and resources, but another huge part of the problem IMO is the Constitution passive itself. With Black Rose it can give up to around 1.8-1.9k stam/magicka back every 4 seconds, and around 1300-1400 w/o it IIRC. That's around 900 stam and magicka regen in utility, provided you're in combat and constantly being hit. That's about DOUBLE what a typical stam character's default magicka regen is at. I don't know how much this has been touched on, but I think the magicka utility that heavy armor provides for stam users has lead to complete overperformance. The gameplay is incredibly forgiving courtesy of the inherent tankiness and utility of heavy armor. For example, look at the following class skills that are spammable due to the magicka sustain that BR and heavy armor in general provide:
- Templars are able to use Restoring Focus & Extended Ritual (purge) more freely, both providing Major Mending.
- Sorcerers are able to streak and use Dark Deal (HUGE resource return) very often
- Dragonknights aren't quite as popular these days, but they're able to use Igneous Shield constantly to keep up Major Mending & return stam
- Nightblades are able to use Dark Cloak (invisibility + damage reduction) + Mass Hysteria (AOE CC)

Magicka abilities offer incredibly powerful sustainability on the already tanky Heavy Armor builds. Due to that magicka sustain, Heavy Armor stamina users can completely bypass the use of drinks & can neglect to build for any magicka recovery. What does that mean? Pure emphasis on damage.
These builds have unholy levels of damage due to weapon damage stacking & the use of proc sets (such as Viper, Velidreth, and Tremorscale, another problem in their own right). Because BR & Heavy armor provide huge levels of sustain (almost double the regen that a stam/magicka drink provides or default magicka regen), high levels of mitigation (increased armor), and increased healing (due to passives) among other benefits such as reduced block costs, Heavy Armor users simply build for damage.

Where's the tradeoff for using Heavy Armor? Medium Armor builds need to run food in order to not be completely obliterated by these Heavy Armor builds and therefore forfeit magicka sustain unless intentionally building for it (but will have to sacrifice stats for it).

A 20k health 30k stam medium armor build who runs drink for magicka sustain will wind up with effectively ~+500 mag regen & a bit more stam regen.
That same 20k health and 30k stam build that runs food on heavy armor will wind up with ~ +800 mag/stam regen and THEN gain ~5k health & stam from the food +10-14% more total health because of heavy armor passives + possibly more % to all stats due to undaunted passives. That's at LEAST 11,000 value in raw stam/health stats alone while keeping up in regen & sustainability.
Medium armor passives do not even remotely compare to heavy armor.

Heavy Armor is the pinnacle of stat value, and Black Rose exacerbates that issue. Constitution passive should give EITHER stamina or magicka based on whichever stat is higher, or if that isn't found to be a generally appropriate change, it at least needs to undergo some kind of rework.

So I'll start replying to your post by saying that in my opinion, the best way to figure out if something is over performing or not is to test it out in duels with combat log opened and a friendly opponent who is open to try stuff out. I have been dueling alot since the patch got released. Prolly got over 300 fights already. I have been fighting the meta cancer builds in heavy armor using proc sets and I have a pretty good idea of what they can achieve.

This being said, you state that someone in heavy doesn't need to run drinks because of the sustain they get. I'm sorry but you must be confused between someone running black rose and someone running heavy in general. black rose broken, heavy is not. I am running 6heavy -1medium at the moment and my magicka recovery is sitting at 1.8k. I got 80points in arcanist, 2 magicka recovery enchants yellow and I use max health / magicka recovery drinks. On top of that I've got 2.4k crit resist, 30k physical resist and undeath passive from vampire.

When I fight against a viper/tremor s&b animation clipping build, moving around and trying to survive as best as I can, they can still deal a constant 25-30k dps and drain my ressources in less than 30 seconds if played properly.

The problem is Black Rose and all damage proc sets, not heavy armor. Nerf Heavy armor and you condemn the remaining chances that magplars and magdks have in small scale openworld pvp.

GreenSoup2HoT · October 2016

frozywozy wrote: »

Yiko wrote: »

I posted this in another thread, but I thought I'd repost it for visibility. I want to hear people's thoughts on it.

Blackrose DOES give users too many stats and resources, but another huge part of the problem IMO is the Constitution passive itself. With Black Rose it can give up to around 1.8-1.9k stam/magicka back every 4 seconds, and around 1300-1400 w/o it IIRC. That's around 900 stam and magicka regen in utility, provided you're in combat and constantly being hit. That's about DOUBLE what a typical stam character's default magicka regen is at. I don't know how much this has been touched on, but I think the magicka utility that heavy armor provides for stam users has lead to complete overperformance. The gameplay is incredibly forgiving courtesy of the inherent tankiness and utility of heavy armor. For example, look at the following class skills that are spammable due to the magicka sustain that BR and heavy armor in general provide:
- Templars are able to use Restoring Focus & Extended Ritual (purge) more freely, both providing Major Mending.
- Sorcerers are able to streak and use Dark Deal (HUGE resource return) very often
- Dragonknights aren't quite as popular these days, but they're able to use Igneous Shield constantly to keep up Major Mending & return stam
- Nightblades are able to use Dark Cloak (invisibility + damage reduction) + Mass Hysteria (AOE CC)

Magicka abilities offer incredibly powerful sustainability on the already tanky Heavy Armor builds. Due to that magicka sustain, Heavy Armor stamina users can completely bypass the use of drinks & can neglect to build for any magicka recovery. What does that mean? Pure emphasis on damage.
These builds have unholy levels of damage due to weapon damage stacking & the use of proc sets (such as Viper, Velidreth, and Tremorscale, another problem in their own right). Because BR & Heavy armor provide huge levels of sustain (almost double the regen that a stam/magicka drink provides or default magicka regen), high levels of mitigation (increased armor), and increased healing (due to passives) among other benefits such as reduced block costs, Heavy Armor users simply build for damage.

Where's the tradeoff for using Heavy Armor? Medium Armor builds need to run food in order to not be completely obliterated by these Heavy Armor builds and therefore forfeit magicka sustain unless intentionally building for it (but will have to sacrifice stats for it).

A 20k health 30k stam medium armor build who runs drink for magicka sustain will wind up with effectively ~+500 mag regen & a bit more stam regen.
That same 20k health and 30k stam build that runs food on heavy armor will wind up with ~ +800 mag/stam regen and THEN gain ~5k health & stam from the food +10-14% more total health because of heavy armor passives + possibly more % to all stats due to undaunted passives. That's at LEAST 11,000 value in raw stam/health stats alone while keeping up in regen & sustainability.
Medium armor passives do not even remotely compare to heavy armor.

Heavy Armor is the pinnacle of stat value, and Black Rose exacerbates that issue. Constitution passive should give EITHER stamina or magicka based on whichever stat is higher, or if that isn't found to be a generally appropriate change, it at least needs to undergo some kind of rework.

So I'll start replying to your post by saying that in my opinion, the best way to figure out if something is over performing or not is to test it out in duels with combat log opened and a friendly opponent who is open to try stuff out. I have been dueling alot since the patch got released. Prolly got over 300 fights already. I have been fighting the meta cancer builds in heavy armor using proc sets and I have a pretty good idea of what they can achieve.

This being said, you state that someone in heavy doesn't need to run drinks because of the sustain they get. I'm sorry but you must be confused between someone running black rose and someone running heavy in general. black rose broken, heavy is not. I am running 6heavy -1medium at the moment and my magicka recovery is sitting at 1.8k. I got 80points in arcanist, 2 magicka recovery enchants yellow and I use max health / magicka recovery drinks. On top of that I've got 2.4k crit resist, 30k physical resist and undeath passive from vampire.

When I fight against a viper/tremor s&b animation clipping build, moving around and trying to survive as best as I can, they can still deal a constant 25-30k dps and drain my ressources in less than 30 seconds if played properly.

The problem is Black Rose and all damage proc sets, not heavy armor. Nerf Heavy armor and you condemn the remaining chances that magplars and magdks have in small scale openworld pvp.

His whole comment was towards stamina heavy builds fyi. The magicka utility every stamina class has is very strong. The fact black rose and 7 heavy means you have enough magicka to neglect it completly compared to medium builds is the issue he was trying to get across.

I agree wih him. I have to sacrifice a lot of max hp and stamina to have decent magicka recovery in a medium build. If magicka recovery, maximum stamina drinks/foods existed maybe medium would be at a fair playing field compared to heavy.

He sumed it up pretty well. Im not gunna repeat what he said.

Sharee · October 2016

Yiko wrote: »

I'm saying that even disregarding proc sets, heavy armor is still pound for pound better than medium armor for stamina builds in PVP (outside of ganking).
I've already said "These builds have unholy levels of damage due to weapon damage stacking & the use of proc sets (such as Viper, Velidreth, and Tremorscale, another problem in their own right)"

I disagree with the damage statement. The unholy levels of damage come entirely from the use of proc sets, and have nothing to do with heavy armor whatsoever. Heavy armor damage is a 200 point bonus, which is both laughable compared to the power of those sets and only available after a prolonged fight, and comes at the price of giving up a constant 12% weapon damage bonus of medium armor.

It's like giving a guy wearing coldharbour rags a machine gun, send him to PvP, and then claim coldharbour rag builds do unholy levels of damage because he is mowing down opponents left and right. No, they don't. The machine gun does.

On the sustain side of things, there is only one scenario where heavy armor sustain is better than medium armor sustain: a perma block build that takes advantage of the fact constitution continues to regen resources even while holding block.

In any other scenario medium armor is better than heavy for stamina sustain, and about equal in overall sustain (when magicka regen is accounted for), but only as long as the heavy armor user is being hit every 4 seconds. If for any reason your opponent stops hitting you (hes fighting someone else, or he is running away) your resources in heavy armor drop like a rock.

That is the tradeoff.

Yiko · October 2016

Sharee wrote: »

Yiko wrote: »

I'm saying that even disregarding proc sets, heavy armor is still pound for pound better than medium armor for stamina builds in PVP (outside of ganking).
I've already said "These builds have unholy levels of damage due to weapon damage stacking & the use of proc sets (such as Viper, Velidreth, and Tremorscale, another problem in their own right)"

I disagree with the damage statement. The unholy levels of damage come entirely from the use of proc sets, and have nothing to do with heavy armor whatsoever. Heavy armor damage is a 200 point bonus, which is both laughable compared to the power of those sets and only available after a prolonged fight, and comes at the price of giving up a constant 12% weapon damage bonus of medium armor.

It's like giving a guy wearing coldharbour rags a machine gun, send him to PvP, and then claim coldharbour rags are overpowered because he is mowing down opponents left and right. No, they are not. The machine gun is.

You're right. There's no damage coming from the 3400+ wpn damage or 40k stam.

Sharee · October 2016

Yiko wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Yiko wrote: »

I'm saying that even disregarding proc sets, heavy armor is still pound for pound better than medium armor for stamina builds in PVP (outside of ganking).
I've already said "These builds have unholy levels of damage due to weapon damage stacking & the use of proc sets (such as Viper, Velidreth, and Tremorscale, another problem in their own right)"

I disagree with the damage statement. The unholy levels of damage come entirely from the use of proc sets, and have nothing to do with heavy armor whatsoever. Heavy armor damage is a 200 point bonus, which is both laughable compared to the power of those sets and only available after a prolonged fight, and comes at the price of giving up a constant 12% weapon damage bonus of medium armor.

It's like giving a guy wearing coldharbour rags a machine gun, send him to PvP, and then claim coldharbour rags are overpowered because he is mowing down opponents left and right. No, they are not. The machine gun is.

You're right. There's no damage coming from the 3400+ wpn damage or 40k stam.

And how much of that 3400+ weapon damage or 40K stam did that guy get only thanks to wearing heavy armor?