Biro123 wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

But I digress.. I see the intention of them as:

• Light armour - aids with magick - players rely on magickal defences
• Medium - Avoidance based defence (dodging/stealth/mobility)
• Heavy - Mitigation-based defence (hits are a bit lighter, you recover from them better with more health/healing and resource recov allows for blocking

As long as they are relatively even in defence, they should be relatively even in offence.. However, I think what skews the balance is high-cp's and certain class-based resource recov. mechanics that can allow for unlimited blocking and/or fantastic sustain without having to sacrifice other stats for it.

I tried a heavy armour DD-type build on Azura - I've tried a few. It doesn't work - which is why I point the balance issues towards CP.

Light armor only provides strong damage mitigation if you have access to the large sorc class shields which scale based on your offensive stat pool, otherwise you are rather squishy in light armor even with 7/7 impen.

Medium armor provides some extra mitigation by reduced dodge roll cost; however, frequently dodge rolling and trying to land hits here or there is a somewhat challenging play style.

In contrast, benefiting from heavy armor mitigation doesn't require any special play style. It is also not hard to reach 35-40k offensive stat and 3k+ weapon damage or spell damage in heavy armor, plus decent sustain, while being rather tough to kill.

If you spec into excellent damage mitigation and sustain, I can understand. However, it seems there should be a bit more of a tradeoff in terms of damage output with this kind of build. At least not all three.

I gather the intent of the constitution and wrath passives was to provide a boost when you are being hit frequently by other players. However, unless you are actively trying to disengage and hide, streak or cloak away, everyone gets hit frequently in almost every small or large battle.

Maybe light and medium need slightly stronger damage or penetration passives. Maybe shuffle could be adjusted to require 5 medium, as some have suggested.

All I know is so many are using heavy armor these days that it is beginning to remind me of launch when everybody was in light armor robes.

I did not write what you quoted there. That´s from @Biro123

Light armor provides "mitigation" with shields for NBs aswell. A 7/7 or 6/7 light armor NB will most likely see higher shield values than a sorc for dampen magica - which coupled with NBs selfhealing capabilities results in light armor nightblades working pretty well.

The main problem for any light armor user not a sorc is - they can´t combat root/snares. They have a mobility problem to make the armor work for them. Even NBs do once they get caught.

Either light needs to provide better mobility options or it needs to provide better utilizeable defense options in general - with sorc shields (or stacking if you´d ask me) getting a nerf. I don´t agree with the statement of light armor being range combat oriented - that would equal saying DKs should not wear light armor period.

Yeah, seen a few quotes lately with the wrong person mentioned..

This not from the magblade perspective - but from the perspective of playing against them.. as much as cloak gets complained about - it does cause a lot of attacks to miss. As someone attacking a magblade, it *feels* like a combination of cloak and dampen magicka (similar to stacked shields for a sorc on the defensive) can do a good job of avoiding a lot of damage and mitigating what's left.
Arguably as number of attackers scale up, cloak could potentially avoid a lot more damage than hardened could absorb. (even avoiding a single empowered frag is almost enough to break even).

The problem when fighting magblades on a ranged projectile character (as your magsorc) is: Cloak forcemisses projectiles for roughly a second. This happens even when the nightblade is revealed to the attacker (for example poisons or a detect potion).
Cloak spam offers near 100% dmg immunity against projectile based builds when you´re revealed.
The minor protection from darkcloak also is applied on the shield and recasting the shield is possible while invisible in cloak ( Hey @ZOS_GinaBruno wasn´t there a statement that abilities should pull you out of invisibility? - well harness/dampen magica does not aswell as magelight and morphs).

This does not happen for nonprojectiles or melee attacks (without casttime). Cloaks forced miss behavior is inconsistent across different abilities and hugely favors nbs in any encounter with a player using casttime abilities and projectiles (simply because it acts like a magica dodge without cost increase in that case).

My opinion on HA in PvP:

I am in favor of changing shuffle requirements into 5 med, but I´m afraid it wont have the effect people think it will. I run without shuffle on my heavy builds atm (many reasons, most importantly the unchained nerf in combination with mdk roots everywhere, using shuffle as breakfree once every 5-8 sec lacks now both, efficiency and effect) - it doesn`t really touch my survivability.

I also doubt the argument that cp cause ha to overperform is true, my nonproc heavy dd builds work just as well in azura (only changing jewelry enchants).

The overall combination of hp increase, bonus healing, resistances and constitution from ha is just very, very well synergizing, while none of those is overperforming when singled out (imo). Wrath is kinda irrelevant, it wouldnt make any difference to my choice of armor if ZOS deleted it without replacement.

Overall I think theres quite a few good suggestions to better align or even buff light and medium armor to have a desirable role. When I try to break down for me personally why I am not using medium armor it`s always the same issues/red flags:

- undodgable high damage range skills (beam, curse, fury, ultimates)
- undodgable ae

There is just too many situations in this game where roll dodging (your favored active defense with ma) is not a savior, but a death sentence. Just to put it into comparison for exclusive magicka players: Imagine all undodgeable skills in this game would also ignore wards/damage shields - magicka classes without sufficient class counters to the problem would go extinct.

Thats what we are witnessing with medium armor. So, in my personal conclusion, the question is not:"what is wrong with ha?". It`s:"what is wrong with the other armor types?" or even "what are the most influencial external factors that contribute to certain armor types being disadvantaged?".

Derra wrote: »

Light armor provides "mitigation" with shields for NBs aswell. A 7/7 or 6/7 light armor NB will most likely see higher shield values than a sorc for dampen magica - which coupled with NBs selfhealing capabilities results in light armor nightblades working pretty well.

The main problem for any light armor user not a sorc is - they can´t combat root/snares. They have a mobility problem to make the armor work for them. Even NBs do once they get caught.

Either light needs to provide better mobility options or it needs to provide better utilizeable defense options in general - with sorc shields (or stacking if you´d ask me) getting a nerf. I don´t agree with the statement of light armor being range combat oriented - that would equal saying DKs should not wear light armor period.

Roots and snares are not too much of a problem with Elusive Mist, which also provides significant mobility. This skill is also available to heavy armor users of course.

As for shields, Magicka NB, Magicka DK and Magicka Templar don't have access to the big sorc class shields which scale based on the offensive stat pool. Dampen Magic scales slightly based on how many pieces of light armor you are wearing, and I'm not entirely sure how the base size of the shield is calclated, but it doesn't seem to be much larger if you have 40k magicka vs 15k. The other available shields (Igneous Shield, Blazing Shield, Healing Ward, Hardened Armor, Ferocious Leap, Barrier, Bone Shield) all scale based on Max Health instead of Max Magicka.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

@IcyDeadPeople

Unfortunately the poll offers a very narrow selection and the half the choices are aimed at heavy armor passives though not a worry because polls in these forums are worthless.

The issue is not heavy armor nor their passives. The issue is we can gear for survival and still be able to do decent DPS, in PvP mostly through the use proc sets.

Setting up proc sets to have some aspect of scaling to our damage stats would go a long way. Changing HA passives could easily create issues elsewhere and is very short sighted.

So you feel the problem is mainly proc sets, even after the recent update removed their capacity to crit? They certainly contribute, but I still encounter quite a lot of players in heavy doing serious damage without any proc sets. It's not too difficult to reach 35-40k max offensive stat and 3500+ weapon/spell damage.

Edziu wrote: »

Entegre wrote: »

If heavy armor provides more defence and more offence then what is the benefit of using medium armor? Currently everyone wears heavy armor in PvP except for shield stackers, only a handful of us nightblades(gangers) still wear the medium armor but I am thinking of switching to heavy as well.

added something

Stamina NB? And I thought all of you finally went to light armor magicka, to bomb with eye of storm bullcrap...

Vaoh wrote: »

The clearest imbalance to me is right within the Evocation and Recovery passives (Light Armor).

• Evocation: Reduce the Magicka Cost of skills - 21%
• Recovery: Increase Magicka Recovery - 28%

These passives are outclassed by a single Medium Armor passive:
• Wind Walker: Increase Stamina Recovery - 28% AND reduce the Stamina Cost of skills - 21%

We need to remove the Recovery passive skill, and add its effect to the Evocation passive. This brings it in line with Wind Walker. It also provides space for a new Light Armor passive.

Thread on the subject

@Vaoh

I like this idea, but do you feel medium armor is currently in a good state relative to heavy? Maybe it needs something comparable to the Concentration passive to provide increased armor penetration.

Garwulf wrote: »

I wack you over the head with a 2 handed sword whist you are wearing your underpants (light armour) and you should be cleaved in two.
Medium armour would not actually be much better and heavy would leave you with severe concusion.

Having seen real live people wearing plate armour and doing essentially sommersults and still being able to weild a 2 hander with ease there is no reason that heavy armour should not protect and the wearer be able to do severe l damage.

NB A typical soldier these days carries more weight than a plate wearing knight of old.

The issue isn't realism, simply that it takes a bit away from the fun of coming up with build ideas if there is one option that is superior to the others for most builds. We had the same problem with light armor at launch and medium armor was perhaps a bit overpowered for a few weeks during 1.6.

For the first couple years since launch, heavy armor has been significantly underpowered. I'm glad it is a viable option now, but maybe it is a little bit too good.