Zeni just wanted to gut sorc in PvP no matter the cost, they managed to get plenty of people extremely angry at the change and I personally hope they review this change and decided to change it again before it hits live. Because if this hits live I know many, MANY players will quit.

Exactly, if my shield drops off once in VMA, I die, adding in the fact that the cast will be interruptable too means no more VMA for my mag sorc, and probably no more vet trials either. I'm levelling a mag NB, but after 4.5 years I'm starting to get a little jaded with the whole thing. Might be time to take a bit of a break.

@Alcast Where art though...Looking for a Trial Raiders input after testing this. I know some trial mechanics need you to wear shields or Die as a DPS... Not sure how this will affect rotations in practice.

In PVP my insta-cast shield was the ONLY thing keeping me alive.

[Double Sledgehammer nerf]
1. Shields will be CRITTABLE
2.Shields now have what looks like a greater than 1 sec cast time.

I think my Mag Sorc days in PVP are over. I cannot imagine how this is not to be received as shields Gutted.

Yeah, I’m basically shelving my mag sorc until these changes are reverted. Although, given that pet sorcs are getting bugged and targeting is such a pain in the rear... maybe I’ll just roll in pet sorc BG groups and zergs. *rolleyes*

Whats sad about this nerf is them inadvertently raising the ceiling again for learning players. Yes in my near perfect group comp with tons of practice under our belts, shields are not super necessary and we know when shields are going to be needed to be able to cast them preemptively. For us this is more of an annoyance. Same goes for vMA. But the people who really need the shields are players and groups learning the content. This hurts them, it just annoys us.

Miswar wrote: »

Read the parch notes. This is absurd and beyond joke.

What the "piip" are Wrobel and co thinking?

From the patch notes:

"Damage shields are very powerful because they can be used to instantly reduce incoming damage, and allow the user to stack offensive stats while also being very difficult to kill. Adding a cast time and increasing the duration makes this an ability to use proactively before damage happens, or at opportune times during combat."

Basically, they figure that being able to do ungodly amounts of damage should not also come with being hard to put down, as in the OP's example of laying down a bunch of AoE DoTs and then standing behind a shield making faces until the enemy keels over.

In other words, glass cannons should be made of glass, not transparent aluminum.

Glurin wrote: »

Miswar wrote: »

Read the parch notes. This is absurd and beyond joke.

What the "piip" are Wrobel and co thinking?

From the patch notes:

"Damage shields are very powerful because they can be used to instantly reduce incoming damage, and allow the user to stack offensive stats while also being very difficult to kill. Adding a cast time and increasing the duration makes this an ability to use proactively before damage happens, or at opportune times during combat."

Basically, they figure that being able to do ungodly amounts of damage should not also come with being hard to put down, as in the OP's example of laying down a bunch of AoE DoTs and then standing behind a shield making faces until the enemy keels over.

In other words, glass cannons should be made of glass, not transparent aluminum.

"allow the user to stack offensive stats while also being very difficult to kill"

This shows how out of touch ZOS is since everyone can do this because of the way healing works

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

VagabondLife wrote: »

Can anybody explain to me how I'm supposed to survive ANY solo content if shields have a cast time? Or do any kind of reasonable DPS in a trial, when I have to interrupt my attack weaving every five seconds to hard cast a shield?

*every 8 seconds, as shield duration has been increased to 9 seconds. But yeah, definitely not a fan. I guess I need to run vMA as many times as I can before this nerf hits...

Expires in 9, broken in 5

VagabondLife wrote: »

My magsorcs wear cloth armor. They have exactly enough stamina to roll dodge twice (assuming they haven't recently needed to Break Free or block cast, that is. Ha ha.) All of their skills are AoEs, so they aggro EVERYTHING in a trial or dungeon that hasn't been taunted. In VMA or other solo content, they basically just put down their dots, and then spam shields until everything around them is dead.

Can anybody explain to me how I'm supposed to survive ANY solo content if shields have a cast time? Or do any kind of reasonable DPS in a trial, when I have to interrupt my attack weaving every five seconds to hard cast a shield?

Who wanted this??? How is this a good or necessary change?

Oh, and thanks for killing my magsorc healer while you were at it. The third skill bar from Overload is the only advantage a sorcerer has over ANY other class when it comes to healing.

WTH is wrong with you ZoS? I'm asking this in all seriousness. Have you lost your minds?

This is the problem with not separating PvP and PvE rulesets. In order to "balance" (appease the vocal minority) PvP, they needlessly damage PvE players.

I agree with you.

There is no need whatsoever to keep nuking PvE players. I am one of those people who was quite happy with ESO and didn't have a need to come to these forums and voice my opinion. Recently, however..wow. I am NOT happy with the direction the game is going.

Zathras wrote: »

VagabondLife wrote: »

My magsorcs wear cloth armor. They have exactly enough stamina to roll dodge twice (assuming they haven't recently needed to Break Free or block cast, that is. Ha ha.) All of their skills are AoEs, so they aggro EVERYTHING in a trial or dungeon that hasn't been taunted. In VMA or other solo content, they basically just put down their dots, and then spam shields until everything around them is dead.

Can anybody explain to me how I'm supposed to survive ANY solo content if shields have a cast time? Or do any kind of reasonable DPS in a trial, when I have to interrupt my attack weaving every five seconds to hard cast a shield?

Who wanted this??? How is this a good or necessary change?

Oh, and thanks for killing my magsorc healer while you were at it. The third skill bar from Overload is the only advantage a sorcerer has over ANY other class when it comes to healing.

WTH is wrong with you ZoS? I'm asking this in all seriousness. Have you lost your minds?

This is the problem with not separating PvP and PvE rulesets. In order to "balance" (appease the vocal minority) PvP, they needlessly damage PvE players.

I agree with you.

There is no need whatsoever to keep nuking PvE players. I am one of those people who was quite happy with ESO and didn't have a need to come to these forums and voice my opinion. Recently, however..wow. I am NOT happy with the direction the game is going.

Don't be so hasty. They also did this:

"Your Spell and Physical Resistance now reduces incoming damage before it is applied to your damage shield."

"This change makes damage shields function more consistently with the rest of the game’s mechanics. It means that damage shields are more powerful in PvE content since monsters generally don’t reduce armor. Heavy Armor players in particular will receive much more effective damage shields now. This is intended to make damage shields a more potent tools for tanks."

Glurin wrote: »

Basically, they figure that being able to do ungodly amounts of damage should not also come with being hard to put down, as in the OP's example of laying down a bunch of AoE DoTs and then standing behind a shield making faces until the enemy keels over.

In other words, glass cannons should be made of glass, not transparent aluminum.

As the OP, I'm gonna take a wild guess that you've never played a magsorc.

Our two highest damage dealing skills are both ground-based AoE DoTs. Our other skills - Boundless Storm, Haunting Curse, Mage's Fury, and Force Pulse - all have an AoE component. Literally the only skill we use that's NOT an AoE is Crystal Frags - which only procs on damage from one of our other skills.

So I'm wearing cloth armor, my resistances are crap, and all my skills are AoEs. What do you think happens when I run into VMA? I can't pull mobs one at a time. Everything in that room is gonna come at me and try to eat my face off, and unless I plan to light attack 30 mobs to death one-by-one, my only option is to stand in the middle of my DoTs and be as tanky as I can until at least some of them die.

And as for "ungodly damage"... I've played my magsorc main for two years and can't top 30k on a test dummy. This past weekend, I literally threw the exact same gear on a brand-new magblade - skills not fully leveled, missing passives, no Undaunted, etc. Stuck the recommended skills on my bars, practiced the rotation for 20 minutes, and hit 32.5k on the dummy. I swear to god I'm not making this up. "Ungodly damage." LMAO...

Glurin wrote: »

Don't be so hasty. They also did this:

"Your Spell and Physical Resistance now reduces incoming damage before it is applied to your damage shield."

"This change makes damage shields function more consistently with the rest of the game’s mechanics. It means that damage shields are more powerful in PvE content since monsters generally don’t reduce armor. Heavy Armor players in particular will receive much more effective damage shields now. This is intended to make damage shields a more potent tools for tanks."

Exactly how much resistances do you think PVE cloth-wearers are rolling with? I'm sure my 9k is gonna make such a huge difference to my shield strength, I won't even notice I've dropped dead while I was standing there hard-casting the stupid thing...

Just adding my voice to the cacophony of angry folks who think a 1-second cast times on shields is completely absurd.

Not entirely relevant, but as a pet sorc I just feel the need to point out that ZoS decided to quite significantly 'buff' us by reducing the cost of pet skills. Who was ever complaining that pet skills cost too much? Make the little buggers immune to CC, and I might still be intrigued by the upcoming patch, but as it stands...

/drops staff, goes to play DOS:2 definitive edition.

This is gonna suck in vAS...

what a dopey fix.

"oh hey yeah we are gonna nerf shields"

"alright well, i suppose some minor tinkering would be oka...."

"1 sec cast time, just to make them more annoying to use. hehheheheeheheehe"

"wait what? why? Huh?"

"heheheheheheehe"

"you've made this whole game based nearly exclusively on instant casts with the rare channeled ability having a good payoff at the end why would you. ."

"HHAHAHHHehehehehehehe"