I Did vMA on Magsorc With Shield Cast Time on the PTS and It was Hell

WuffyCerulei · September 2018

I decided to see how hellish vMA would be in the new Murkmire patch and the stupid cast time on shields. And I was right. It was hell. My score was 464k with 4 vitality and at 1:11. I did take a few pauses, mainly to get potions and food. Now I'll go stage by stage explaining how hellish each was. I will upload a crap quality video soon of the full run (OBS decided to record it in terrible resolution).

Note: I want to state that I don't do vMA very much. This place gives me pretty bad anxiety at times, and I already have the weapons I need, so I rarely touch it. I guess you can consider this run to be average, not of someone who is either new to vMA nor of someone who can do it in their sleep.

Stage 1: There weren't really any clutch moments. I had spent a lot of time on this round and knew what to do. No deaths.
Stage 2: Slightly hard, but the spinning blade damage didn't hurt too much. No deaths.
Stage 3: Again, slightly hard, but probably one of the easiest rounds in vMA. No deaths.
Stage 4: A few times where my shield didn't go up until I was at like half health. No deaths.
Stage 5: This is where it really started to get hellish. At the 4th round, there was literally 2 times my health dropped to under 1k. If I had insta-cast shield, I wouldn't have almost died twice. No deaths tho.
Stage 6: I died this round. 3 times in a row. Once those lurchers started spawning, and the spiders who hate the glowing thing showed up, it was hard. My shield wasn't up in time 3 times in a row during the same round. Insta-cast shields would have saved me. 3 deaths. All to shield not coming up in time,
Stage 7: There as 1 time I died on the last boss due to my own dumbness. 2 times, however, my shield did not come up in time to save me. 3 deaths, 1 to my own mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 8: This round was painful as well. I went out my way to get better potions here and lower my vamp stage as well. I died once to not getting out of an aoe, which is my fault. However, I did die once due to my shield not coming up in time. 2 deaths, 1 to mistake, 1 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 9: Now I was worried about the daedroth in this stage, and I was right. I died twice to their fire because my shield did not come up in time. On the current live server, I can avoid dying to them with shield no problem. 1 death was just me being a dodo and dying to an NPC's thrown fire. 3 deaths, 1 due to mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.

Death Cause Tally
Player Error: 3
Shield Not Coming Up In time: 8

I suffered to show how stupid this shield cast time is. Sorcs aren't the only ones affected. Magicka nightblades, magicka templars, magicka wardens, and magicka dragonknights all have to suffer with Annulment having a cast time as well, and that shield is more expensive and covers less damage than Hardened Ward.

I HAVE THE "HIGH QUALITY" VIDEO NOW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB1lnRi_te4

Joy_Division · September 2018

I did too. Just use healing ward instead and it's fine. Because that ability works like a shield should.

WuffyCerulei · September 2018

Joy_Division wrote: »

I did too. Just use healing ward instead and it's fine. Because that ability works like a shield should.

I did double destro to mock how I'd run it on live.

drummindrummer · September 2018

Yeah the moment you go resto staff it screws up the entire mag dps build. In order to get the vMA staff bonus and the destro passive you'd have to stay on you vMA staff bar while doing your spammables and whatnot. Basically forcing you to run 5/3/2 again

WrathOfInnos · September 2018

Joy_Division wrote: »

I did too. Just use healing ward instead and it's fine. Because that ability works like a shield should.

Lol, all PVE DDs running Resto staves would be a hilarious end result of the shield nerf. Talk about not needing healers if all the DDs had healing ward or ward ally slotted. Not to mention 10 stacking mutagens or rapid regens in trials.

Nox_Noir · September 2018

I can imagine how painful this must have been.
May I ask what kind of scores you are used to getting on live? This might be relevant for sake of comparison, otherwise people might say that 464k is a decent score and therefore sorc will be fine...

Fortunatto · September 2018

the cast time really should go

ccfeeling · September 2018

Cant you cast earlier?

Toc de Malsvi · September 2018

I just did VMA with the shield and no healing ward and it was pretty easy...

I died 4 times, mostly from lag, 1hr 8min, running seven light, 5 mothers sorrow and 5 Bright Throats roast, VMA resto, VMA destro. I can easily trim that up a bunch, ran high recovery and spent 90% of the time above 70% magicka. No sigils used...

I don't play a sorc on live, I have a max level sorc but its just a crafter and doesn't have all the skill lines leveled.

Skills:

Gear/food:

Stats:

Joy_Division · September 2018

Nox_Noir wrote: »

I can imagine how painful this must have been.
May I ask what kind of scores you are used to getting on live? This might be relevant for sake of comparison, otherwise people might say that 464k is a decent score and therefore sorc will be fine...

My score on PTS was about 20K lower than I'd get on Live.

The content can get done, it's not really the point. It's that the skills impede rather than assist doing so.

Toc de Malsvi · September 2018

I can do a lot better than that if I really want to get a high score, the sustain on that is stupid high and I'm running resto back bar which was completely unnecessary. Power Surge and the Shield offered more than enough defense to tank things 2nd stage bosses heavy attack didn't knock down my fresh shield. Just pre-shield between rounds, for bosses there are plenty of opportunities to shield if you look for them.

Perhaps playing with snipe regularly has me used to a cast time ability but I honestly don't get all the tears for PVE. PVE boss mechanics are known and with a 9 second uptime window you can pre-buff for the big ones just like in any other MMO. Sure certain fights might be harder, but its really a matter of changing your attitude towards when you shield. You simply cannot expect to shield at the last second with these shields, but they work fine if you pre-shield for big mechanics.

Wardens will possibly be more desirable as healers for the AOE Major Buffs since these boost the effective shield strength. Long duration high shields like Barrier also may be more desirable when you have stacks of 6 or smaller. I just think people need to really try it out more, its not as terrible as its made out to be for PVE.

I don't PVP on a sorc, I'll see about throwing a build together to see that side of things.

Mayrael · September 2018

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

I just did VMA with the shield and no healing ward and it was pretty easy...

I died 4 times, mostly from lag, 1hr 8min, running seven light, 5 mothers sorrow and 5 Bright Throats roast, VMA resto, VMA destro. I can easily trim that up a bunch, ran high recovery and spent 90% of the time above 70% magicka. No sigils used...

I don't play a sorc on live, I have a max level sorc but its just a crafter and doesn't have all the skill lines leveled.

Skills:

Gear/food:

Stats:

So much wow, now go there and show us how you survive in PvP with healing ward

Toc de Malsvi · September 2018

Joy_Division wrote: »

Nox_Noir wrote: »

I can imagine how painful this must have been.
May I ask what kind of scores you are used to getting on live? This might be relevant for sake of comparison, otherwise people might say that 464k is a decent score and therefore sorc will be fine...

My score on PTS was about 20K lower than I'd get on Live.

The content can get done, it's not really the point. It's that the skills impede rather than assist doing so.

Sorc and NB scores were stupid high already, this would only bring them down to more comparable to other classes. At least on the average.

ccfeeling · September 2018

When a player run vma over 200 times, 1 sec shield doesnt really matter.

We can predict everything gonna happen

Splattercat_83 · September 2018

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Nox_Noir wrote: »

I can imagine how painful this must have been.
May I ask what kind of scores you are used to getting on live? This might be relevant for sake of comparison, otherwise people might say that 464k is a decent score and therefore sorc will be fine...

My score on PTS was about 20K lower than I'd get on Live.

The content can get done, it's not really the point. It's that the skills impede rather than assist doing so.

Sorc and NB scores were stupid high already, this would only bring them down to more comparable to other classes. At least on the average.

If you have skill you can make leader boards on any class. Maelstrom also only ranks classes together. If your not making the leader boards then it's a problem with you not sorcs or mnb

WuffyCerulei · September 2018

ccfeeling wrote: »

When a player run vma over 200 times, 1 sec shield doesnt really matter.

We can predict everything gonna happen

I'm way more concerned about less experienced and completely new players in vMA.

swaggasm · September 2018

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I decided to see how hellish vMA would be in the new Murkmire patch and the stupid cast time on shields. And I was right. It was hell. My score was 464k with 4 vitality and at 1:11. I did take a few pauses, mainly to get potions and food. Now I'll go stage by stage explaining how hellish each was. I will upload a crap quality video soon of the full run (OBS decided to record it in terrible resolution).

Stage 1: There weren't really any clutch moments. I had spent a lot of time on this round and knew what to do. No deaths.
Stage 2: Slightly hard, but the spinning blade damage didn't hurt too much. No deaths.
Stage 3: Again, slightly hard, but probably one of the easiest rounds in vMA. No deaths.
Stage 4: A few times where my shield didn't go up until I was at like half health. No deaths.
Stage 5: This is where it really started to get hellish. At the 4th round, there was literally 2 times my health dropped to under 1k. If I had insta-cast shield, I wouldn't have almost died twice. No deaths tho.
Stage 6: I died this round. 3 times in a row. Once those lurchers started spawning, and the spiders who hate the glowing thing showed up, it was hard. My shield wasn't up in time 3 times in a row during the same round. Insta-cast shields would have saved me. 3 deaths. All to shield not coming up in time,
Stage 7: There as 1 time I died on the last boss due to my own dumbness. 2 times, however, my shield did not come up in time to save me. 3 deaths, 1 to my own mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 8: This round was painful as well. I went out my way to get better potions here and lower my vamp stage as well. I died once to not getting out of an aoe, which is my fault. However, I did die once due to my shield not coming up in time. 2 deaths, 1 to mistake, 1 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 9: Now I was worried about the daedroth in this stage, and I was right. I died twice to their fire because my shield did not come up in time. On the current live server, I can avoid dying to them with shield no problem. 1 death was just me being a dodo and dying to an NPC's thrown fire. 3 deaths, 1 due to mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.

Death Cause Tally
Player Error: 3
Shield Not Coming Up In time: 8

I suffered to show how stupid this shield cast time is. Sorcs aren't the only ones affected. Magicka nightblades, magicka templars, magicka wardens, and magicka dragonknights all have to suffer with Annulment having a cast time as well, and that shield is more expensive and covers less damage than Hardened Ward.

I don't agree with the shield change but MagSorc is still really easy in vMA with this change. Had no issues even with high latency on the PTS. Haven't tried it in a trial or a PVP situation on the PTS to compare to live but...

What_In_Tarnation · September 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I did too. Just use healing ward instead and it's fine. Because that ability works like a shield should.

Lol, all PVE DDs running Resto staves would be a hilarious end result of the shield nerf. Talk about not needing healers if all the DDs had healing ward or ward ally slotted. Not to mention 10 stacking mutagens or rapid regens in trials.

It would be really hilarious, cause they want to make healers more viable in dungeons, but instead lots of magicka DDs start using resto staff and it simply make healer useless in dungeons since everyone can shield ally/themselves.

Sharee · September 2018

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I did too. Just use healing ward instead and it's fine. Because that ability works like a shield should.

I did double destro to mock how I'd run it on live.

That means you did not use the right tool for the job. And it was hell. Naturally.

WuffyCerulei · September 2018

swaggasm wrote: »

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I decided to see how hellish vMA would be in the new Murkmire patch and the stupid cast time on shields. And I was right. It was hell. My score was 464k with 4 vitality and at 1:11. I did take a few pauses, mainly to get potions and food. Now I'll go stage by stage explaining how hellish each was. I will upload a crap quality video soon of the full run (OBS decided to record it in terrible resolution).

Stage 1: There weren't really any clutch moments. I had spent a lot of time on this round and knew what to do. No deaths.
Stage 2: Slightly hard, but the spinning blade damage didn't hurt too much. No deaths.
Stage 3: Again, slightly hard, but probably one of the easiest rounds in vMA. No deaths.
Stage 4: A few times where my shield didn't go up until I was at like half health. No deaths.
Stage 5: This is where it really started to get hellish. At the 4th round, there was literally 2 times my health dropped to under 1k. If I had insta-cast shield, I wouldn't have almost died twice. No deaths tho.
Stage 6: I died this round. 3 times in a row. Once those lurchers started spawning, and the spiders who hate the glowing thing showed up, it was hard. My shield wasn't up in time 3 times in a row during the same round. Insta-cast shields would have saved me. 3 deaths. All to shield not coming up in time,
Stage 7: There as 1 time I died on the last boss due to my own dumbness. 2 times, however, my shield did not come up in time to save me. 3 deaths, 1 to my own mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 8: This round was painful as well. I went out my way to get better potions here and lower my vamp stage as well. I died once to not getting out of an aoe, which is my fault. However, I did die once due to my shield not coming up in time. 2 deaths, 1 to mistake, 1 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 9: Now I was worried about the daedroth in this stage, and I was right. I died twice to their fire because my shield did not come up in time. On the current live server, I can avoid dying to them with shield no problem. 1 death was just me being a dodo and dying to an NPC's thrown fire. 3 deaths, 1 due to mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.

Death Cause Tally
Player Error: 3
Shield Not Coming Up In time: 8

I suffered to show how stupid this shield cast time is. Sorcs aren't the only ones affected. Magicka nightblades, magicka templars, magicka wardens, and magicka dragonknights all have to suffer with Annulment having a cast time as well, and that shield is more expensive and covers less damage than Hardened Ward.

I don't agree with the shield change but MagSorc is still really easy in vMA with this change. Had no issues even with high latency on the PTS. Haven't tried it in a trial or a PVP situation on the PTS to compare to live but...

I haven't done vMA that much, so I'm not going to have an easy time there. I'm average at best. If I had a hard time in vMA, then it will be absolute hell for newer people.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · September 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I did too. Just use healing ward instead and it's fine. Because that ability works like a shield should.

Lol, all PVE DDs running Resto staves would be a hilarious end result of the shield nerf. Talk about not needing healers if all the DDs had healing ward or ward ally slotted. Not to mention 10 stacking mutagens or rapid regens in trials.

This would be a hilarious side effect. Magicka light armor starts running back bar restos, running 3DPS 1 Tank. Such a good patch for healers. $:\$

Sparr0w · September 2018

swaggasm wrote: »

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I decided to see how hellish vMA would be in the new Murkmire patch and the stupid cast time on shields. And I was right. It was hell. My score was 464k with 4 vitality and at 1:11. I did take a few pauses, mainly to get potions and food. Now I'll go stage by stage explaining how hellish each was. I will upload a crap quality video soon of the full run (OBS decided to record it in terrible resolution).

Stage 1: There weren't really any clutch moments. I had spent a lot of time on this round and knew what to do. No deaths.
Stage 2: Slightly hard, but the spinning blade damage didn't hurt too much. No deaths.
Stage 3: Again, slightly hard, but probably one of the easiest rounds in vMA. No deaths.
Stage 4: A few times where my shield didn't go up until I was at like half health. No deaths.
Stage 5: This is where it really started to get hellish. At the 4th round, there was literally 2 times my health dropped to under 1k. If I had insta-cast shield, I wouldn't have almost died twice. No deaths tho.
Stage 6: I died this round. 3 times in a row. Once those lurchers started spawning, and the spiders who hate the glowing thing showed up, it was hard. My shield wasn't up in time 3 times in a row during the same round. Insta-cast shields would have saved me. 3 deaths. All to shield not coming up in time,
Stage 7: There as 1 time I died on the last boss due to my own dumbness. 2 times, however, my shield did not come up in time to save me. 3 deaths, 1 to my own mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 8: This round was painful as well. I went out my way to get better potions here and lower my vamp stage as well. I died once to not getting out of an aoe, which is my fault. However, I did die once due to my shield not coming up in time. 2 deaths, 1 to mistake, 1 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 9: Now I was worried about the daedroth in this stage, and I was right. I died twice to their fire because my shield did not come up in time. On the current live server, I can avoid dying to them with shield no problem. 1 death was just me being a dodo and dying to an NPC's thrown fire. 3 deaths, 1 due to mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.

Death Cause Tally
Player Error: 3
Shield Not Coming Up In time: 8

I suffered to show how stupid this shield cast time is. Sorcs aren't the only ones affected. Magicka nightblades, magicka templars, magicka wardens, and magicka dragonknights all have to suffer with Annulment having a cast time as well, and that shield is more expensive and covers less damage than Hardened Ward.

I don't agree with the shield change but MagSorc is still really easy in vMA with this change. Had no issues even with high latency on the PTS. Haven't tried it in a trial or a PVP situation on the PTS to compare to live but...

Side question... how high do you jump?!

pteam · September 2018

swaggasm wrote: »

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I decided to see how hellish vMA would be in the new Murkmire patch and the stupid cast time on shields. And I was right. It was hell. My score was 464k with 4 vitality and at 1:11. I did take a few pauses, mainly to get potions and food. Now I'll go stage by stage explaining how hellish each was. I will upload a crap quality video soon of the full run (OBS decided to record it in terrible resolution).

Stage 1: There weren't really any clutch moments. I had spent a lot of time on this round and knew what to do. No deaths.
Stage 2: Slightly hard, but the spinning blade damage didn't hurt too much. No deaths.
Stage 3: Again, slightly hard, but probably one of the easiest rounds in vMA. No deaths.
Stage 4: A few times where my shield didn't go up until I was at like half health. No deaths.
Stage 5: This is where it really started to get hellish. At the 4th round, there was literally 2 times my health dropped to under 1k. If I had insta-cast shield, I wouldn't have almost died twice. No deaths tho.
Stage 6: I died this round. 3 times in a row. Once those lurchers started spawning, and the spiders who hate the glowing thing showed up, it was hard. My shield wasn't up in time 3 times in a row during the same round. Insta-cast shields would have saved me. 3 deaths. All to shield not coming up in time,
Stage 7: There as 1 time I died on the last boss due to my own dumbness. 2 times, however, my shield did not come up in time to save me. 3 deaths, 1 to my own mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 8: This round was painful as well. I went out my way to get better potions here and lower my vamp stage as well. I died once to not getting out of an aoe, which is my fault. However, I did die once due to my shield not coming up in time. 2 deaths, 1 to mistake, 1 to shield not coming up in time.
Stage 9: Now I was worried about the daedroth in this stage, and I was right. I died twice to their fire because my shield did not come up in time. On the current live server, I can avoid dying to them with shield no problem. 1 death was just me being a dodo and dying to an NPC's thrown fire. 3 deaths, 1 due to mistake and 2 to shield not coming up in time.

Death Cause Tally
Player Error: 3
Shield Not Coming Up In time: 8

I suffered to show how stupid this shield cast time is. Sorcs aren't the only ones affected. Magicka nightblades, magicka templars, magicka wardens, and magicka dragonknights all have to suffer with Annulment having a cast time as well, and that shield is more expensive and covers less damage than Hardened Ward.

I don't agree with the shield change but MagSorc is still really easy in vMA with this change. Had no issues even with high latency on the PTS. Haven't tried it in a trial or a PVP situation on the PTS to compare to live but...

Somebody who gets a 600k score probably is barely shielding. Most people with scores that high don’t even use a shield because you know what is gonna spawn where and when and you kill it before you even have to shield. I bet with a 600k score you probably only used a shield a few times and that was using it just to use it and you didn’t even need it.

code65536 · September 2018

This is another case of lowering the floor. Go watch videos of people clearing vMA on Live. The competitive players getting 590K or higher rarely use their shield. I know some competitive vMA players who don't even slot a shield on some rounds and use that skill slot for something else. It costs resources and eats up a GCD. Keep in mind that the competitive players have all the spawns memorized and will kill things before they become a threat. For players like that, the shield nerf is largely inconsequential.

But then you go watch an average player do vMA. These are the people who get around 500K score--good, competent clears, but taking about twice as long as competitive players, and if you ever catch one of those people on video, you'll see that they rely on the shield much more frequently.

And then you watch people who get first clears or are otherwise struggling through vMA. And they will spam that shield as they get in trouble and try to cling onto life.

It's funny how @ZOS_RichLambert made narrowing the floor-ceiling gap the centerpiece of their balance changes over the past year and a half, and yet here we are with a nerf that, as far as endgame PvE is concerned, penalizes the floor disproportionately more than the ceiling.

Anyway, I'm not at all surprised that @swaggasm can get 601K because I know that people pushing past 600K are rarely using their shield anyway. But in a game where the floor and ceiling gap has gotten only wider in recent patches, this is yet another change that will force that gap even wider.

AgaTheGreat · September 2018

Beginner players rely heavily on heavy attack pet builds to finish VMA and they still struggle. Take away their shield = frustration, rage quitting, loss of playerbase. The learning curve of VMA is steep as it is.

It's easy for the above posters to claim that cast time changed nothing but you had countless vma runs without these stupid changes plus PC crowd has add-ons to help you get through vma smoother. Console people? Not so much.

The decision to change how shields work is going to hit avrage players the hardest. And don't tell me they should learn to play. The devs designed this game so that people of all abilities can play it.

akl77 · September 2018

Good test

WuffyCerulei · September 2018

^^^ These are the people I worry about the most. The newer players, the ones who haven't even cleared vMA yet. Doing the shield cast time will deter many people from doing harder stuff in ESO or even playing the game.

ExcaliburESO · September 2018

Finnaly u will feel like stamina dk doing that arena.. welcome to the club

WuffyCerulei · September 2018

ExcaliburESO wrote: »

Finnaly u will feel like stamina dk doing that arena.. welcome to the club

This is about magicka people. Stam have their own damage mitigation (blade cloak).

ExcaliburESO · September 2018

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

ExcaliburESO wrote: »

Finnaly u will feel like stamina dk doing that arena.. welcome to the club

This is about magicka people. Stam have their own damage mitigation (blade cloak).

then do it on magicka dk without hardened ward i did i know how fun it is

John_Falstaff · September 2018

I was running on my main, stamina DK, before I have grudgingly created the narrowly specialized magblade (because I wanted to pull my weight in CR/AS, and, yes, have easier time in Arena, which all paid off and more, sad as it is). Stamina DK has own way to mitigate; blade cloak, wings (invaluable) and Corrosive Armor. But it's definitely much more painful (though hey, silver lining: simply clearing the arena on DK ensures a leaderboard place and coffer - too few of us crazy people there), and it is - or was - definitely great that new players could have easier time clearing it on magsorcs.