Tapio75 wrote: »

Lets face it, we dont really need optimal/meta builds in any content of the game. The delusion of needing one is only derived from DPS competition. S litle unorthodox builds are fully viable in top content as well but the DPS is not up to some players standards which is fine by me, for each its own.

In group PVE, people tend to go over the top to do optimals/meta so that they fit the DPS meter standard of the competitive PVE player, this is fine as i say but it does not mean that5 this idea should be forced upon anyone.

Just come back when you have at least 25k DPS self buffed and complete top level PvE, at least vet DLC dungeons HM.

You have no idea whatsoever about PvE.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

So we should just have 20 seconds shields so we just stand their and ignore mechanics? Sorry, I disagree. In group PVE content, there are only 2 places you NEED shields. VMOL HM and VMA (VMA is only for certain builds). They also happen to be the laggiest PVE instances in the game. Shields work just fine in there. As @STEVIL pointed out, any time you actually need a shield, its gone in a second or 2 anyways. In VMOL HM, you are frankly almost always double casting it in high damage situations, so duration is irrelevant. If you need a 20 second shield, you arent following mechanics properly, bottom line.

I do agree, duration is irrelevant, this is what i have been telling in almost every post i have. It is the streth of the shield that matters. Therefore shields can have more duration than 6 seconds and it wont bring any imbalance to the game. Only thing longer duration brings is small quality of life improvement and more immersive and relaxed gameplay in places where it is needed but someone wants to use it for immersion reasons.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

This flies out the window at the highest level of endgame. You arent clearing VMOL HM if you arent pulling 35-40k DPS.

This is what you folks say in every game Still we can do content with relaxed guild groups that should not be possible to do with less than optimal DPS. I think tis is something that we can only agree to disagree.

@STEVIL

As i said in few posts allready, i am aware of the shield stacking issue and the short duration is not the right way to go, the right way is to totally remove shield stacking so that people wont use shield stacking

Besides at this point, nobody should be stacking shields anymore as that will just basically cut off allmost all damage. Healers are for keeping people alive in group content and shields to prevent burst damage kills to ease up healers work, at least in my opinion. In PVP, nobody should be able to stack shields in any way, just one damage shield, one ward, one evasion etc,

Not annulment, conjured ward and igneous ward at the same time.

@Minalan

And double evasion while using Mirage and Hisst bark at the same time, its great that it was fixed. If you try it now, the blur/mirage/doubletake wont work at all, it does not even cast it, just says PUF XD

Anyway, thats the right way to fix things, prevent exploitation of mechanics that give godlike invulnerability.

They should have prevented double damage shields as well instead of reducing the duration.. For example no annullment and conjured ward at the same time, if one allready exists on you, the other says PUF and nothing happens.. Also as Igneous shield is considered damage shield, that would not be castable on ally near you which allready has some sort of damage shield up on character.

Tapio75 wrote: »

@STEVIL

As i said in few posts allready, i am aware of the shield stacking issue and the short duration is not the right way to go, the right way is to totally remove shield stacking so that people wont use shield stacking

Besides at this point, nobody should be stacking shields anymore as that will just basically cut off allmost all damage. Healers are for keeping people alive in group content and shields to prevent burst damage kills to ease up healers work, at least in my opinion. In PVP, nobody should be able to stack shields in any way, just one damage shield, one ward, one evasion etc,

Not annulment, conjured ward and igneous ward at the same time.

i get that you think a total elimination of shield stacking instead of making it possible but at the expense of offense is a better way.

me? i have found that in general design, absolute prohibitions are usually not a better option than costly trade-offs.

What six second shields does is make multi-shield stacking as an ongoing things very costly, but leaves basically one-off or two-off shield stacking with consequence as an option.

that leaves the potential for limited use and curbs the abuse of constant use as opposed to a quite draconian total elimination of the possibility.

Its a more dynamic alternative, not so black and white.

IMO unless one has compelling reasons to the contrary the more dynamic less black and white options are the better ones - and so far the main thing you seem to be saying the six second shields vs longer shileds would be is... and i quote -

"I do agree, duration is irrelevant, this is what i have been telling in almost every post i have. It is the streth of the shield that matters. Therefore shields can have more duration than 6 seconds and it wont bring any imbalance to the game. Only thing longer duration brings is small quality of life improvement and more immersive and relaxed gameplay in places where it is needed but someone wants to use it for immersion reasons."

Small QoL improvements where the shield is not needed is not compelling enough to me to gravitate toward an absolute elimination of a capability in favor of a costly trade-off option that curbs abuse by reducing offense.

You yourself just pointed out that the trade off is so costly it should be used rarely - or what was it " nobody should be stacking shields anymore as that will just basically cut off allmost all damage. " So it looks like shield stacking was in your view moved to something not usually worth doing but the option was left as a potential tool for limited circumstances.

But an absolute ban on it - " totally remove shield stacking" - doesn't have the same dynamic potential for both sides as the reduced duration does.

Tapio75 wrote: »

Hello.

I dont know if i am alone or not but the fact, that because PVP, all the shields seem to have ridiculously short durations, 6 seconds is just enough time for one fully charged heavy attack and after that, recast. These durations feel very annoying while playing normal PVE content like quests and instances, shields should be something you cast on beginning of fight and recast if necessary, not something that is in rotation all the time..

These durations just make my mages feel like button spammer classes as aside from staff attacks, i need to press all sorts of buttons in a game where button pressing sometimes works and sometimes will not, adding a shield to that mess only makes things feel more bad.

Could we get some more intelligent ,methods of preventing shield stacking that this mess please?

oh hey another one of these threads.

shield stacking has been discussed to death and isn't going to change, shield duration has been discussed to death end isn't going to change.

bowmanz607 wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Egonieser wrote: »

Shield was reduced to make it a defensive ability to negating a incoming heavy hitting attack, not to easy mode your way through with 2x shields than your own health on a permanent basis.
You do know shields are rarely needed in PvE and PvP if played properly, right? Because they just used to be cructhes for the poor

I hear a lot of complaining about shields in this thread from heavy-armor 35k health, 35K/35K resists, 2800 impen, near perma-block tank DPS stam builds running major mending and vigor/rally continually to bounce that health back to full.

Try playing sorc outside of Zerg surfing before you want it nerfed.

Sorcs have 20K health, no armor, and no resists under those 18K shields, which also has no resists either except for no crits. The stack lasts for 4 seconds tops including the back bar swap, and then it doesn't protect against CC. Sorcs can't block effectively with no mitigation, and they can't dodge roll more than a couple of times.

But hey, nerf shields! Duuuuuh...

maybe i missed some comments, but no one is saying nerf shields. People are saying dont buff shield duration. It is perfect as is.

on another note, shields have no resist???? idk how that even make sense. They are the resistance. Additionally, on top of not being critable, they also are not effected by major armor deuffs, light armor passives, spriggan or spinners (2 highly used dps sets), and secondary effects of attacks etc.

While it's totally unrelated, he probably meant shields do not take your armor/spell resistance into account. So if let's say you're sitting on capped spellresist, it'd reduce a non crit 10k spell hitting you to 5k(not taking any other modifiers in to simpify), but a shield would get hit with 10k nonetheless. Shields also don't take blocking into account so while blocking you should only get like 2.5k of that spell(not sure if armor applies before/after block though. Either way it's not really relevant in this example), assuming block to be the base 50% damage reduction. But even if you were blocking (and at capped resistance), the shield would still eat the whole 10k. It actually gives shields being uncrittable some perspective when you think about it. If on top of all that they were also crittable they'd just be a waste of a slot pretty much.

Tapio75 wrote: »

This is what you folks say in every game Still we can do content with relaxed guild groups that should not be possible to do with less than optimal DPS. I think tis is something that we can only agree to disagree.

So...when was the last time you ran one of the dlc dungeons on vet or a vet trial? It's not that you're utterly wrong, there're very few pieces of content that require any build whatsoever beyond spamming light attacks to complete, but while other people here have been backing up their arguments by their experience(on side note, I don't run vet trials. I do run vet dungeons though, and yes dps matters in some of them. Unfortunately not too many), you're conveniently avoiding telling us what exactly your relation to PvE is and where your conclusions are coming from.

In the end of the day, all it comes down to is "immersion" vs "gameplay". Your argument is "it's irrelevant for the gameplay...and doesn't make sense for a mage..."(*cough* Gandalf *cough*), ours is "it's better for the gameplay". Gameplay wins. Sorry.

STEVIL wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

bowmanz607 wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Egonieser wrote: »

Shield was reduced to make it a defensive ability to negating a incoming heavy hitting attack, not to easy mode your way through with 2x shields than your own health on a permanent basis.
You do know shields are rarely needed in PvE and PvP if played properly, right? Because they just used to be cructhes for the poor

I hear a lot of complaining about shields in this thread from heavy-armor 35k health, 35K/35K resists, 2800 impen, near perma-block tank DPS stam builds running major mending and vigor/rally continually to bounce that health back to full.

Try playing sorc outside of Zerg surfing before you want it nerfed.

Sorcs have 20K health, no armor, and no resists under those 18K shields, which also has no resists either except for no crits. The stack lasts for 4 seconds tops including the back bar swap, and then it doesn't protect against CC. Sorcs can't block effectively with no mitigation, and they can't dodge roll more than a couple of times.

But hey, nerf shields! Duuuuuh...

maybe i missed some comments, but no one is saying nerf shields. People are saying dont buff shield duration. It is perfect as is.

on another note, shields have no resist???? idk how that even make sense. They are the resistance. Additionally, on top of not being critable, they also are not effected by major armor deuffs, light armor passives, spriggan or spinners (2 highly used dps sets), and secondary effects of attacks etc.

While it's totally unrelated, he probably meant shields do not take your armor/spell resistance into account. So if let's say you're sitting on capped spellresist, it'd reduce a non crit 10k spell hitting you to 5k(not taking any other modifiers in to simpify), but a shield would get hit with 10k nonetheless. Shields also don't take blocking into account so while blocking you should only get like 2.5k of that spell(not sure if armor applies before/after block though. Either way it's not really relevant in this example), assuming block to be the base 50% damage reduction. But even if you were blocking (and at capped resistance), the shield would still eat the whole 10k. It actually gives shields being uncrittable some perspective when you think about it. If on top of all that they were also crittable they'd just be a waste of a slot pretty much.

Tapio75 wrote: »

This is what you folks say in every game Still we can do content with relaxed guild groups that should not be possible to do with less than optimal DPS. I think tis is something that we can only agree to disagree.

So...when was the last time you ran one of the dlc dungeons on vet or a vet trial? It's not that you're utterly wrong, there're very few pieces of content that require any build whatsoever beyond spamming light attacks to complete, but while other people here have been backing up their arguments by their experience(on side note, I don't run vet trials. I do run vet dungeons though, and yes dps matters in some of them. Unfortunately not too many), you're conveniently avoiding telling us what exactly your relation to PvE is and where your conclusions are coming from.

In the end of the day, all it comes down to is "immersion" vs "gameplay". Your argument is "it's irrelevant for the gameplay...and doesn't make sense for a mage..."(*cough* Gandalf *cough*), ours is "it's better for the gameplay". Gameplay wins. Sorry.

if its just an immersion effect thing, why not lobby for a "shielded mage" costume/skin or memento effect that runs for a long time and puts a shield bubble around your character for appearance sake. or of course run some of the sets that put up shields for you - if indeed its not about gameplay as claimed and running thru content without higher dps is fine?

I did suggest that in my first post in this thread but somehow op didn't seem impressed with that idea

Yes, go ahead and insult, its always nice to be in an civilised conversation
Anyway, the old 20 sec harness magicka only clocked magical damage, did you remember that opposed to current any damage?

@Royaji
Naturally self cats should always take priority over "Cas6t on you" effect. In case of PUG's, it does not matter that much, we dont come across so many "Insta kill" situations at all if any, in VET dungeons, you should do as a good players in group do, play as a team, know what yor healers do and talk about tactics before proceeding. There could also be a system that where the shield with most absorption takes priority over previous shield.



@Magdalina

I shall be honest, i have not done a vet dungeon in ESO but i have disussed with guildies about them and based on that, i dont see much difference to other games i played. Optimals are rarely needed, usually its enough that you know what to do, are well geared and can do enough damage. In Warcraft for example, people allways talk about how hard were the TBC dungeons and raids, they were difficult, yes, but usually the difficulty or most of it came from neglectin to take all of tactics needed in account, people used to over gear to get around some of the tactics needed in raids and dungeons... Naturally now all dungeons and heroic dungeons are a joke there but some still advocate that one cant do the content without hilariously strong RAID gear for dungeons.. There be mythics and what not and people tell that they cant be done in set x or build y but this is usually only true because someone has dictated a DPS that one can do the instance without wasting too much "valuable" time.. People also often tell there.. That before you can go to RAID, you need to have gear from the exact same raid, same difficulty and all, makes no sense as the content clearly is dsigned to be run with lesser gear than what drops from that said raid.

I do apologise if my assumptions are incorrect, but this is what i truly believe from over 10 years of MMO history.

I am always planning to do these dungeons with groups but i do not like the group atmosphere mane games have today and therefore i have been putting it in the future.

@Magdalina Problem with sets are, that i have to compromise the desired look of the character to get that shield, thats unacceptable to me, has to be crafted gear and besides that, if set gives permashield, it is always active, even in towns. Some memento would not cut it either because the exact same reason why i dont like short duration shields and is gameplay issue. Short duration shield adds unnecessary spell to rotation while in longer duration, it can be use and also keep the flow of combat more enjoyable.

And like others have pointed out as well as i, the short duration or long duration is irrelevant, the shields go when enough damage is applied, 5 minute duration or 3 second duration.. My opinion is, that shield stacking should be totally prohibited by adding mechanisms to prevent it, i am entitled to my opinion as are everyone else to their opinions. It is up to devs to think which is a good compromise between fun, performance and immersion.

STEVIL wrote: »

@Tapio75 says
"I do agree, duration is irrelevant, this is what i have been telling in almost every post i have. It is the streth of the shield that matters. Therefore shields can have more duration than 6 seconds and it wont bring any imbalance to the game. Only thing longer duration brings is small quality of life improvement and more immersive and relaxed gameplay in places where it is needed but someone wants to use it for immersion reasons."

Actually, no.

For folks running ONE shield as opposed to people stacking 2-3, as i and others have pointed out, duration is irrelevant.

For people stacking 2-3 shields the 6s duration matters a lot because it means the lost key-clicks to keep them up cuts into your offense a lot. As ZoS stated back in the day when they made the change they wanted that kind of massive shielding to come at a significant damage loss cost. Dedicating 2-3 click-GCD every 6 seconds to the defense (and typically a bar swap in there) is much harder and more impactful on offense than doing it every 20s or so.

In fact, they should make impossible to stack 2-3 shields at all. The game breaking imbalance comes from THERE, not from 1 shield lasting 6s or 7s.

My main is a magicka Sorc and the 20 second shield WAS easy mode except in PvP and end game PvE. Even now I can solo a lot of group content by keeping shields in my rotation. I was bummed to see super easy mode go away, but I adapted.

rotaugen454 wrote: »

My main is a magicka Sorc and the 20 second shield WAS easy mode except in PvP and end game PvE. Even now I can solo a lot of group content by keeping shields in my rotation. I was bummed to see super easy mode go away, but I adapted.

Actually super easy mode did not go away, it came in.

When spells actually mattered, you would deplete the magicka so you actually had to think before mashing a button.

Now it's a non issue, you mash and your magicka won't go down, so you will always have a fresh and full shield up, with no mana planning.

Another issue is how easy they made NPCs. Back at the beginning, 2 regular NPCs in any outworld quest would be challenging, 3 would be a very possible death.

I came back to the game, just to find out I can clear a *group* public dungeon boss together with a nearby public dungeon boss and a pair of NPCs spawns between the two with barely a sweat. And trials are not in a much better state.
Oh, and my "ESO now = dead easy game" discovery did not come on a CP 600 character, but on my 2014 CP 250 with 2014 gear.