The Problem with Shieldbreaker

Edziu · January 2018

Feanor wrote: »

Cloakbreaker

2 items: Adds 1096 Magicka
3 items: Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
4 items: Adds 129 Spell Damage
5 items: When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack against a Player using a cloak ability you deal an additional 2150 Damage to them for every second the player is invisible.

but then add also block breakrer dealing those raw damage by basic block, it will be better solution for tanks, "permblockers" on pvp and this set would be used more than shieldbreaker I think

Feanor · January 2018

Or maybe ZOS creates a set that automatically one shots anyone who even tries to actively defend. Would go well with the trend of making powerful sets for the lesser skilled.

Zer0oo · January 2018

Feanor wrote: »

Cloakbreaker

2 items: Adds 1096 Magicka
3 items: Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
4 items: Adds 129 Spell Damage
5 items: When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack against a Player using a cloak ability you deal an additional 2150 Damage to them for every second the player is invisible.

This set is actually underpowered compared to shieldbreaker. Shieldbreaker does counter the light armor defense (shields), class defense of sorcs(shields) and the single target heal of healing staff (shield).

5th piece should also counter dodging(medium armor defense) and rally+ vigor (stam heals)

Edziu · January 2018

and to everyone qq on shieldbreaker....idk how as I dont main sorc...but I just dueled some with my friend who know every class except warden very well and is very experienced, I rarely win with him but in opecyro I have no bigger problems with average players
but to the topic, he had no problem to deal with shieldbreker
he dueled with other my my friend, he won 3-0 on mag sorc agaisnt shieldbreaker stamblade
the he duealed with me on stamblade and he won 2-1 against me with this breaker but for me it was really hard to win this single fight against him even ith this shieldbreaker because he really know how magsorc is working and how to deal with sb

so no, sb isnt problem as you dont want to adapt to this like other people wrote, this sint to hard to outheal it while still stacking shield

yes, in zerg is to annyoing like many other skills like many undodgable *** in zerg but the how about make sb work only on melee attacks? ti wont be exploited be zerg v 1 and then this will need to have some more skill to use agaisnt sorc as you need to have more skill with survive in melee range in mines etc if you have madium armor especially (heavy armor is other story)

Azurya · January 2018

but be honest, the set is ingame since Imperial City, amd now it is a problem???

funny, looks to me like someone has nothing to do

Feanor · January 2018

Azurya wrote: »

but be honest, the set is ingame since Imperial City, amd now it is a problem???

funny, looks to me like someone has nothing to do

It always has taken a lot of criticism. A quick forum search will show you that. It’s just that no amount of arguing leads to anything and therefore you could just as well give it up.

ToRelax · January 2018

Azurya wrote: »

but be honest, the set is ingame since Imperial City, amd now it is a problem???

funny, looks to me like someone has nothing to do

Because no one ever criticized it before.

Ragnaroek93 · January 2018

They should give the 5p bonus a 4 second cooldown and the set would be fine in my opinion.

Edziu · January 2018

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

They should give the 5p bonus a 4 second cooldown and the set would be fine in my opinion.

the set would be useless against shieldstackers for against was created, like *** mark which is just death sentence for nb in outnumbered situation and nothing could help while agaisnt shieldbreaker with just not big HoT is enough to deal with

Unfadingsilence · January 2018

Feanor wrote: »

Cloakbreaker

2 items: Adds 1096 Magicka
3 items: Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
4 items: Adds 129 Spell Damage
5 items: When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack against a Player using a cloak ability you deal an additional 2150 Damage to them for every second the player is invisible.

Who runs cloak anymore??

Gnozo · January 2018

techprince wrote: »

If you can't survive someone with sb then thats l2p as well, horrible post. Learn to adapt or die its that simple.

i can survice 1 guy with SB cause i can apply pressure on him and healing with dark deal since normal light attacks don´t hit that much. Or even with shields up i can do it.

If you getting attacked by 3-4 ppl you need to focus on stacking shields and wait for the moment to burst someone down. But if there is a player who JUST needs to do light attacks to ALWAYS give you a 2.1k hit with shields up its not possibile to do anything except running. Even with kiting like crazy its too hard cause showing yourself to burst someone takes 3-4 seconds with means you get 10k dmg from shieldbreaker. Its not balanced cause to proc it you just need to do light attacks. Nothing required for the set. JUST light attacks.

These pictures are from yesterday and i am not shaming anyone. Just the set itself wich is too easy to proc with 0 cooldown doing insane dmg to shield users who need to stack if getting attacked by multiple targets.

gepe87 · January 2018

Using SB is the ultimate counter to someone who died to many Mage's Wrath Explosion.

BohnT · January 2018

Unfadingsilence wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

Cloakbreaker

2 items: Adds 1096 Magicka
3 items: Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
4 items: Adds 129 Spell Damage
5 items: When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack against a Player using a cloak ability you deal an additional 2150 Damage to them for every second the player is invisible.

Who runs cloak anymore??

All nbs except for the very bad ones

Biro123 · January 2018

Edziu wrote: »

and to everyone qq on shieldbreaker....idk how as I dont main sorc...but I just dueled some with my friend who know every class except warden very well and is very experienced, I rarely win with him but in opecyro I have no bigger problems with average players
but to the topic, he had no problem to deal with shieldbreker
he dueled with other my my friend, he won 3-0 on mag sorc agaisnt shieldbreaker stamblade
the he duealed with me on stamblade and he won 2-1 against me with this breaker but for me it was really hard to win this single fight against him even ith this shieldbreaker because he really know how magsorc is working and how to deal with sb

so no, sb isnt problem as you dont want to adapt to this like other people wrote, this sint to hard to outheal it while still stacking shield

yes, in zerg is to annyoing like many other skills like many undodgable *** in zerg but the how about make sb work only on melee attacks? ti wont be exploited be zerg v 1 and then this will need to have some more skill to use agaisnt sorc as you need to have more skill with survive in melee range in mines etc if you have madium armor especially (heavy armor is other story)

I'm good with that too. As I keep saying, the biggest problem with it is that those using it cannot be identified and are normally hiding behind others. There is absolutely no risk/reward balance for the user.

I like to compare it to the old viper that would hit you for 4-6k every 4 seconds.. or 1-1.5 per second. Melee only. vs. 2.2k every 0.6 seconds - ranged.. At least the viper user had to put himself in the firing line.

Beat a sb user today.. was in a 1v3.. Only happened because he came too close so I could easily identify him - and he didn't defend himself at all. But I was left in execute range and his 2 friends finished me off.
If he just stayed further away, the extra time it would have taken me to id him - and then get to him to land that dawnbreaker.. well, I'd have been dead from him first.

@BohnT Biggest difference with SB and the other zerging tools - be it birds, radient, soul-assault etc... All those others are VERY easy to see the source of. You don't have to search for them to figure out which way to run. Those valuable seconds are what makes the difference. The sound isn't enough. it tells you you're dying - but not which way to go to try to stay alive.

BohnT · January 2018

Biro123 wrote: »

Edziu wrote: »

and to everyone qq on shieldbreaker....idk how as I dont main sorc...but I just dueled some with my friend who know every class except warden very well and is very experienced, I rarely win with him but in opecyro I have no bigger problems with average players
but to the topic, he had no problem to deal with shieldbreker
he dueled with other my my friend, he won 3-0 on mag sorc agaisnt shieldbreaker stamblade
the he duealed with me on stamblade and he won 2-1 against me with this breaker but for me it was really hard to win this single fight against him even ith this shieldbreaker because he really know how magsorc is working and how to deal with sb

so no, sb isnt problem as you dont want to adapt to this like other people wrote, this sint to hard to outheal it while still stacking shield

yes, in zerg is to annyoing like many other skills like many undodgable *** in zerg but the how about make sb work only on melee attacks? ti wont be exploited be zerg v 1 and then this will need to have some more skill to use agaisnt sorc as you need to have more skill with survive in melee range in mines etc if you have madium armor especially (heavy armor is other story)

I'm good with that too. As I keep saying, the biggest problem with it is that those using it cannot be identified and are normally hiding behind others. There is absolutely no risk/reward balance for the user.

I like to compare it to the old viper that would hit you for 4-6k every 4 seconds.. or 1-1.5 per second. Melee only. vs. 2.2k every 0.6 seconds - ranged.. At least the viper user had to put himself in the firing line.

Beat a sb user today.. was in a 1v3.. Only happened because he came too close so I could easily identify him - and he didn't defend himself at all. But I was left in execute range and his 2 friends finished me off.
If he just stayed further away, the extra time it would have taken me to id him - and then get to him to land that dawnbreaker.. well, I'd have been dead from him first.

@BohnT Biggest difference with SB and the other zerging tools - be it birds, radient, soul-assault etc... All those others are VERY easy to see the source of. You don't have to search for them to figure out which way to run. Those valuable seconds are what makes the difference. The sound isn't enough. it tells you you're dying - but not which way to go to try to stay alive.

well i know almost anyone on PC Eu who is running SB so i don't have a hard time finding them but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with the hardcounter

Universe · January 2018

As I previously suggested in other thread, cooldown for the set's proc is needed:

Lord wrote: »

There is a need to change the Shield Breaker set.
I don't think that removing this set entirely will be good, it is a bit of overkill solution.
The current function of Shield Breaker:
"(5 items) When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack against a Player with a damage shield, you deal an additional 2150 Oblivion Damage to them."

My suggestion is that it should be the following instead:
(5 items) When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack against a Player with a damage shield, you deal an additional 2150 Oblivion Damage to them, 3 seconds cooldown.

This set is good against shield stacking sorcerers but it needs some adjusting so it won't be OP.
Currently this set is overperforming.
Can you please consider adding a cooldown(between 2-4 seconds) to this set @ZOS_Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno ?

Ankael07 · January 2018

Here's some advice from a sorc. main;

Surge spell alone will heal you for 1.250 hp per second when you have a couple of DOTs on the enemy. That leaves like what 900 damage per second? If you cant even outdamage someone doing 900, Shieldbreaker is the least of your problems.

The set becomes a problem when youre outnumbered. When in such situation you need to constantly shuffle around left and right or break line of sight so the enemy cant target you properly. Always focus on the bow light attack spammer as theyre squishy most of the time.

Gnozo · January 2018

Ankael07 wrote: »

Here's some advice from a sorc. main;

Surge spell alone will heal you for 1.250 hp per second when you have a couple of DOTs on the enemy. That leaves like what 900 damage per second? If you cant even outdamage someone doing 900, Shieldbreaker is the least of your problems.

The set becomes a problem when youre outnumbered. When in such situation you need to constantly shuffle around left and right or break line of sight so the enemy cant target you properly. Always focus on the bow light attack spammer as theyre squishy most of the time.

Assuming that the dot will always crit wich dot on a magicka sorc would you use? Tell me senpai

Ankael07 · January 2018

Notice I said couple of dots and not a dot (pun intended). You can use Entropy, Destructive reach, poison and fire enchantment as a start.

@Gnozo

Minalan · January 2018

Feanor wrote: »

Cloakbreaker

2 items: Adds 1096 Magicka
3 items: Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
4 items: Adds 129 Spell Damage
5 items: When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack against a Player using a cloak ability you deal an additional 2150 Damage to them for every second the player is invisible.

Hey, it’s a WHOLE five piece that I have to wear just to counter stealth. That makes it fair right?

Gnozo · January 2018

Ankael07 wrote: »

Notice I said couple of dots and not a dot (pun intended). You can use Entropy, Destructive reach, poison and fire enchantment as a start.

So i use Entropy AND Surge on my Skillbar? And Entropy doing dmg every 6 seconds. Also poison and fire enchant wich both only having a chance to proc. 20% on proccing poison and 20% on the enchant to proc the burning effect.

Not really reliable tbh. To identify the SB user and applying all these dot takes so much time where you are already dead.

Koensol · January 2018

Can we all just agree SB is bad design? I mean people are literally forced to light attack spam to make it work... how is that in any shape or form good game design?

I am trying my best to be objective about this because I abhor shieldstacking as a mechanic. But the problem I see with counters such as this, similar to piercing mark, the amount of undodgable attacks (some are fine, but currently there are way too many) and soul assault against medium armor, is that they completely remove the skill factor from the fight. And many of them can be used non stop.

For example: Try surving as a medium armor stamina nb in a BG against a duo of a markspamming magnb and bird spamming warden. That is 2 abilities, completely removing all my defences, because lets face it... healing sucks without using cloak. The only thing you can do to survive is A: burst them down quickly (gl against treetard spam and generally hard to do if they are competent), or B: run like hell.

For magsorc specifically, I can imagine having a SB spammer or two on you must feel the same. And this outcry is part of a bigger problem. If I as a nb get birdspammed, I have cloak to fall back on, which means I still have a defence and can stay on the offensive. Magsorc has all of their native defence completely focussed on using shields to negate damage. THAT right there is the core of the problem guys. Look at magnb for example which has a lot of native healing and other ways of mitigation. SB is a lot less of a problem there.

But all of these cheesy hardcounters need to go. They enable players to counter you too easily with the press of 1 or 2 buttons. You don't have to die to any of these counters, but they often force you 100% on the defensive, even against complete trash players. It just feels so bad when it happens...

Its a lot better to try and balance certain defensive mechanics by introducing trade-offs such as for example increased dodge cost or streak cost on spamming it too much, or no stam regen while blocking and sprinting. And give players more choice in defence other than having to rely on one OP mechanic such as shieldstacking to mitigate damage. This would make counters against said mechanic a lot less frustrating for players.

Biro123 · January 2018

Koensol wrote: »

Can we all just agree SB is bad design? I mean people are literally forced to light attack spam to make it work... how is that in any shape or form good game design?

I am trying my best to be objective about this because I abhor shieldstacking as a mechanic. But the problem I see with counters such as this, similar to piercing mark, the amount of undodgable attacks (some are fine, but currently there are way too many) and soul assault against medium armor, is that they completely remove the skill factor from the fight. And many of them can be used non stop.

For example: Try surving as a medium armor stamina nb in a BG against a duo of a markspamming magnb and bird spamming warden. That is 2 abilities, completely removing all my defences, because lets face it... healing sucks without using cloak. The only thing you can do to survive is A: burst them down quickly (gl against treetard spam and generally hard to do if they are competent), or B: run like hell.

For magsorc specifically, I can imagine having a SB spammer or two on you must feel the same. And this outcry is part of a bigger problem. If I as a nb get birdspammed, I have cloak to fall back on, which means I still have a defence and can stay on the offensive. Magsorc has all of their native defence completely focussed on using shields to negate damage. THAT right there is the core of the problem guys. Look at magnb for example which has a lot of native healing and other ways of mitigation. SB is a lot less of a problem there.

But all of these cheesy hardcounters need to go. They enable players to counter you too easily with the press of 1 or 2 buttons. You don't have to die to any of these counters, but they often force you 100% on the defensive, even against complete trash players. It just feels so bad when it happens...

Its a lot better to try and balance certain defensive mechanics by introducing trade-offs such as for example increased dodge cost or streak cost on spamming it too much, or no stam regen while blocking and sprinting. And give players more choice in defence other than having to rely on one OP mechanic such as shieldstacking to mitigate damage. This would make counters against said mechanic a lot less frustrating for players.

^^ This guy gets it.

clocksstoppe · January 2018

You literally have 3k tooltip heal per second PASSIVELY from surge and you are complaining about someone dealing 2k to you per second while not even trying to counterplay him. Sorc mains everyone.

LordSemaj · January 2018

clocksstoppe wrote: »

You literally have 3k tooltip heal per second PASSIVELY from surge and you are complaining about someone dealing 2k to you per second while not even trying to counterplay him. Sorc mains everyone.

Yep. If they can't stack their shields to beat it, they want it nerfed into the ground. There are Major Defile armor sets that counter healing, undodgeable attacks that counter rolling, and there are attacks that can't be blocked either. If people would rather ZOS nerf shield breaker and give every class skills that IGNORE SHIELDS then so be it.

Lexxypwns · January 2018

Derra wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Mag sorc has a lot of problems, particularly the fact that they can't consistently do threatening damage to competent players alone, but if you're dying to shieldbreaker its definitely a build or positioning issue.

So you´re saying a set that forces you to be defensive even more than you already have to be on a class that can´t pressure competent opponents enough to kill them at this point is not problematic?

I mean you´re literally saying yourself the class has offensive problem rn - and then you say a set that forces you to play overly defensive when an opponent just lightattack spams you is the users fault for dying to?

I mean sure if you want the player to always bolt into the sunset as soon as he gets shieldbreakered that´s fine i guess. But if that´s your opinion i guess every sorc just has to respectully disagree.

Edit: Also saying that surge + RR counters shieldbreaker is very debateable. In a 1v1 against a competent nb you won´t land enough attacks for surge to even outheal entropy. This leaves you with basically only RR + healingward against a class that will also healdebuff you with every melee burstrota they do when not spamming shieldbreaker.
You won´t win that fight without line of sight + mines ever.

And when he cloaks for 3 seconds to reset his combo does RR stop ticking or does it heal all the damage shieldbreaker did? Sorc needs offensive buffs, shieldbreaker is problematic. However, is shieldbreaker even the most problematic set in game? No, not even close

You’re looking at a class matchup that already doesn’t favor the sorc and adding in a setup designed to wreak havoc on sorcs, every spec has some sort of counter. I can give a similar example: it’s very hard for stam DK to get kills against a good player, they already need to tank and hope for an ulti. But then there’s a set like Duroks which forces them to be even more defensive while also completely shutting down their only defense mechanic. The defile meta is much more of a hard counter to stam specs than shieldbreaker is to sorcs because you cannot build to counter it, it’s easier to build for, and has lower opportunity cost. And please, tell me stam specs can wear troll king to counter defile when it also helps counter shieldbreaker...

Lord-Otto · January 2018

Only, that I bet something will be done about Durok's. Shieldbreaker has been here and criticized since Imperial City.

Biro123 · January 2018

clocksstoppe wrote: »

You literally have 3k tooltip heal per second PASSIVELY from surge and you are complaining about someone dealing 2k to you per second while not even trying to counterplay him. Sorc mains everyone.

And then there are the real figures.

Surge tooltip. Mine is 2626:

https://www.screencast.com/t/p2BuC8hfefxL

Happens every second, IF you hit and IF you crit. Sorcs simply don't have many decent, reliable dots for PVP - so you're mostly relying on direct attacks to proc it. What's a realistic amount for this to proc.. assume maybe 2 hits per second (la+ability) but only landing maybe every other second..? Seems reasonable to me.. At a 40% crit chance.. its a 40% chance of surge proccing every second
So heal per second from Surge = 1050.

This is also halved by battle-spririt... So 525 per second ?

Now, not many people seem to know that different weapons light attack at different rates. Bow is the fastest - at every 0.6 seconds. So, 2150 per 0.6 seconds = 3580 per second. And oblivion damage is NOT reduced by battle-spirit.

So... 525 heal per second vs 3.5k dmg per second.

Unfadingsilence · January 2018

BohnT wrote: »

Unfadingsilence wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

Cloakbreaker

2 items: Adds 1096 Magicka
3 items: Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
4 items: Adds 129 Spell Damage
5 items: When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack against a Player using a cloak ability you deal an additional 2150 Damage to them for every second the player is invisible.

Who runs cloak anymore??

All nbs except for the very bad ones

Nope you don't need cloak on a NB anymore even going 1v1 against a warden who spams birds

ToRelax · January 2018

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Mag sorc has a lot of problems, particularly the fact that they can't consistently do threatening damage to competent players alone, but if you're dying to shieldbreaker its definitely a build or positioning issue.

So you´re saying a set that forces you to be defensive even more than you already have to be on a class that can´t pressure competent opponents enough to kill them at this point is not problematic?

I mean you´re literally saying yourself the class has offensive problem rn - and then you say a set that forces you to play overly defensive when an opponent just lightattack spams you is the users fault for dying to?

I mean sure if you want the player to always bolt into the sunset as soon as he gets shieldbreakered that´s fine i guess. But if that´s your opinion i guess every sorc just has to respectully disagree.

Edit: Also saying that surge + RR counters shieldbreaker is very debateable. In a 1v1 against a competent nb you won´t land enough attacks for surge to even outheal entropy. This leaves you with basically only RR + healingward against a class that will also healdebuff you with every melee burstrota they do when not spamming shieldbreaker.
You won´t win that fight without line of sight + mines ever.

And when he cloaks for 3 seconds to reset his combo does RR stop ticking or does it heal all the damage shieldbreaker did? Sorc needs offensive buffs, shieldbreaker is problematic. However, is shieldbreaker even the most problematic set in game? No, not even close

You’re looking at a class matchup that already doesn’t favor the sorc and adding in a setup designed to wreak havoc on sorcs, every spec has some sort of counter. I can give a similar example: it’s very hard for stam DK to get kills against a good player, they already need to tank and hope for an ulti. But then there’s a set like Duroks which forces them to be even more defensive while also completely shutting down their only defense mechanic. The defile meta is much more of a hard counter to stam specs than shieldbreaker is to sorcs because you cannot build to counter it, it’s easier to build for, and has lower opportunity cost. And please, tell me stam specs can wear troll king to counter defile when it also helps counter shieldbreaker...

Defile counters healing but not mitigation, and it doesn't completely shut it down unless you heavily invest into it. It is not a hard counter.
Troll King synergizes best with a build relying on HoTs, using it on a mag Sorc has a much greater opportunity cost.