I think boneshield just got a huge buff in group play.

Casul · September 2018

Because boneshield also carries the defenses with it like all the other shields do you think that the synergy carries the defenses to the group?

Imagine being in a vet trial. One of he tank is some super beefy 60k hp 32k defense setup. He activated bone shield and now everyone gets a 15k shield with 50% damage reduction. This isn’t even including if the tank was to run bastion or harmony trait on the activator. This has a lot of potential in my opinion.

Edit: actually bone shield is 60% on the synergy right? So what is that like a 36k shield?

DeadlyRecluse · September 2018

In PvE, where we don't have to worry about crits, yes. Bone shield, igneous shield, healing ward, barrier, and blazing shield all got buffs (along with other instant cast shields/shield procs).

They use the resists of whoever the shield is on, though, not the caster--so your DPS in your example would have 15k shields with 20-30% mitigation, or whatever light/medium armor PvE dudes end up with for mitigation.

Casul · September 2018

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

In PvE, where we don't have to worry about crits, yes. Bone shield, igneous shield, healing ward, barrier, and blazing shield all got buffs (along with other instant cast shields/shield procs).

They use the resists of whoever the shield is on, though, not the caster--so your DPS in your example would have 15k shields with 20-30% mitigation, or whatever light/medium armor PvE dudes end up with for mitigation.

Well that’s a bummer but it’s understandable I suppose. You could keep it up a good amount of the time. Either happy to see that it has more use now.

raj72616a · September 2018

the problem with bone shield (if you pug), is that no one ever pop your synergy.

Liofa · September 2018

It's already being widely used in end-game for "fake health". Now, with the new changes, it's gonna be literally fake health.

Another thing is, it gives 100% of your Max Health for 6 seconds and Major Vitality for the duration.

One more info to make sure everyone understands how messed up it will be, it can stack. Two different Bone Surge synergies will stack on top of each other and give twice the amount. We were doing a Cloudrest run a while ago and I saw 72k shield on a Magblade, no Barriers have been used. Just 3 Bone Shields (may be 2 Bone Shields combined with Harness from the DD himself) stacking together and maybe a Fragmented Shield from tank. It was a magical moment ^^

Silver_Strider · September 2018

Liofa wrote: »

It's already being widely used in end-game for "fake health". Now, with the new changes, it's gonna be literally fake health.

Another thing is, it gives 100% of your Max Health for 6 seconds and Major Vitality for the duration.

One more info to make sure everyone understands how messed up it will be, it can stack. Two different Bone Surge synergies will stack on top of each other and give twice the amount. We were doing a Cloudrest run a while ago and I saw 72k shield on a Magblade, no Barriers have been used. Just 3 Bone Shields (may be 2 Bone Shields combined with Harness from the DD himself) stacking together and maybe a Fragmented Shield from tank. It was a magical moment ^^

This might be the norm come Murkmire. I can already see Tanks being made to run this skill just to help in end game, since most other commonly used shields got nerfed.

Samsgaard · September 2018

Never tried Bone Shield in a trial, but according to the tooltip, the synergy will only apply to "up to 3 allies" besides the caster. So in a trial, you'd need a lot of people casting it to shield everyone.

My nightblade tank uses it in dungeons. Front bar, re-cast when timer expires as often as possible. Unfortunately, even the people I regularly run with rarely hit the synergy, so the shield just goes on me. I'm told you have to be very close to the tank to even see the synergy (much less, get its effect) and that the window to activate the synergy is very tight. DPS prefer to keep DPS'ing and only stop for shards/orbs

.

I'm convinced PUGs don't even know what it is -- or think it's something bad that they should avoid. Pretty sure I saw a guy dodge roll away from it a couple times!

Kanar · September 2018

Bone shield has been very powerful for quite some time now, it's just the synergy is hard to use.

I'm personally surprised that trials groups don't have a dedicated harmony-DD for hitting various synergies. Group damage could go up but it would add a lot of complexity and failure points to an already challenging environment.

Casul · September 2018

I was thinking the off tank you use bone shield when they are not doing anything. Like during vAS+0 when I off tank I’m just grabbing rez most of the time.

RavenSworn · September 2018

Bone is shield is better for the rest of the group than the caster themselves. Either heals picks it up and a 100% health shield is just crazy being put on a tank, or a tank helps out the rest of the group on their bar.

My bet is healers are a much better role to use that.

Didgerion · September 2018

Adding resistance to shields is a risky business. I'm quite sure there will be lots of exploits around it both in pvp and pve

Elsterchen · September 2018

raj72616a wrote: »

the problem with bone shield (if you pug), is that no one ever pop your synergy.

One would, but the radius for this synergy ends exactly with the animated radius. One has to (at minimum) stand shoulder to shoulder with a tank (better is to just stack on top of the tank) to get the synergy in the first place -> its a nice one tho and if there is the option my melee DD likes to go and hug the tank for it ... during combat.

edit: ... and just to round this up: obviously a DD could run this ability themselves, and their are groups that enjoy a DD taking a turn to hug all group members. ... many players however feel a bit disturbed by such a behaviour (up to my very limited personal observation) and forget to fetch the synergy in the first place.

In PVP thats different, usually allies enjoy the synergy are capable of actively pressing "x" at the appropiate moment ... and are even willing to fetch it, themselves.

El_Borracho · September 2018

Samsgaard wrote: »

Never tried Bone Shield in a trial, but according to the tooltip, the synergy will only apply to "up to 3 allies" besides the caster. So in a trial, you'd need a lot of people casting it to shield everyone.

My nightblade tank uses it in dungeons. Front bar, re-cast when timer expires as often as possible. Unfortunately, even the people I regularly run with rarely hit the synergy, so the shield just goes on me. I'm told you have to be very close to the tank to even see the synergy (much less, get its effect) and that the window to activate the synergy is very tight. DPS prefer to keep DPS'ing and only stop for shards/orbs .

I'm convinced PUGs don't even know what it is -- or think it's something bad that they should avoid. Pretty sure I saw a guy dodge roll away from it a couple times!

I suppose it could be used in the way you can use Vigor to heal a group in the lower section of HRC, where everyone just has to be cognizant of hitting it during your rotation. Something to play around with.

Samsgaard · September 2018

Elsterchen wrote: »

One would, but the radius for this synergy ends exactly with the animated radius. One has to (at minimum) stand shoulder to shoulder with a tank (better is to just stack on top of the tank) to get the synergy in the first place...

Wow, that's worse than I thought. No wonder no one ever hits the synergy in my groups - the people who might be disciplined enough to watch for and activate the synergy are also smart enough not to stand with me in front of the boss.

Not worth a regular spot on my bar, it seems. And going without it, I can move some stamina into magicka or health.

RavenSworn · September 2018

Technically, they just need to increase the radius for bone shield and its good to go. It's one of the best, hands down synergy based ability around. Giving 100% health shield means a lot for a tank, or a dps for that matter. It's why I always say its a healing tool, not a tanking tool, though a tank using it will help the group lots too.

Pre fight - hardened ward
Mid fight - bone shield
Imperium for procs. /shrug. Adapt I guess.

GreenhaloX · September 2018

Man.. it would be so nice if Boneshield is majicka-cost, instead of stam. I would then slot it on every of my tank toons!

Elsterchen · September 2018

GreenhaloX wrote: »

Man.. it would be so nice if Boneshield is majicka-cost, instead of stam. I would then slot it on every of my tank toons!

It got deliberately changed to stamina cost. Adding to it: its the only shield ingame that has a stamina cost.

I agree its usefull, but imo there are more shields costing magica on live (as well as after the patch) then just the ones that are affected by the patches. I don't think taking away the only access (some) stamina builds have to a shield in general is a good move.