Time To Fix Heavy Armor Meta

Amdar_Godkiller · October 2018

The main issue is that medium armor needs better sets for both damage and sustain. Oh and shuffle needs to provide a unique and useful buff to defenses, not the new "blade cloak" version of evasion. The nerf to dodge roll is also going to hit medium armor especially hard and it requires that something else is added to the medium armor toolkit, such as passive crit resistance for example.

Bitmun · October 2018

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

The main issue is that medium armor needs better sets for both damage and sustain. Oh and shuffle needs to provide a unique and useful buff to defenses, not the new "blade cloak" version of evasion. The nerf to dodge roll is also going to hit medium armor especially hard and it requires that something else is added to the medium armor toolkit, such as passive crit resistance for example.

It could also be a new tiny movement speed increase passive instead of improved sprinting. :P

lucky_dutch · October 2018

The problem isn’t so much that heavy is OP, it’s that “avoidance” is UP.

Dodge doesn’t work on 2/3rds of commonly used PvP abilities and absolutely everyone is running OP gap-closers so kiting or LoS isn’t a practical strategy.

Heavy being over-used is a symptom, not a cause.

Dramatically increase the cost of gap-closers and make dodge work on everything and then you’ll see more balance in Armor usage.

mojomood · October 2018

WreckfulAbandon wrote: »

Next patch light gets the new set which gives 500 spell dmg vs a target and medium builds are already hitting 7.5k weapon damage on decent open world builds. If you don't believe me then look at the dude from Xbox who posted that nice stamplar build with clever alchemist+ravager+balorgh. Heavy can build good damage with good survivability but won't be hitting those numbers guaranteed. I have a lot of PvP builds including 1 medium stamsorc and 1 heavy stamsorc and they are both competitive builds.

Spell strategist is trash compared to any if the proc heavy sets. The idea was to make it "for assassins", aka magblades. But:
1. Light attack required to proc, so magblade opening with heavy attack or concealed is out (98% of magblade combos from stealth are out)
2. Only affects one target
3. Does not help heals
4. Light armor

If they want to make it affect all spell damage on a crit, cool. Otherwise, people will keep using current damage sets. Bright Throat will get in builds though.

Nicko_Lps · October 2018

mojomood wrote: »

WreckfulAbandon wrote: »

Next patch light gets the new set which gives 500 spell dmg vs a target and medium builds are already hitting 7.5k weapon damage on decent open world builds. If you don't believe me then look at the dude from Xbox who posted that nice stamplar build with clever alchemist+ravager+balorgh. Heavy can build good damage with good survivability but won't be hitting those numbers guaranteed. I have a lot of PvP builds including 1 medium stamsorc and 1 heavy stamsorc and they are both competitive builds.

Spell strategist is trash compared to any if the proc heavy sets. The idea was to make it "for assassins", aka magblades. But:
1. Light attack required to proc, so magblade opening with heavy attack or concealed is out (98% of magblade combos from stealth are out)
2. Only affects one target
3. Does not help heals
4. Light armor

If they want to make it affect all spell damage on a crit, cool. Otherwise, people will keep using current damage sets. Bright Throat will get in builds though.

You also forgot to add that its a set we already have in a slight different state, Burning Spellweave is identical to it.

lucky_dutch wrote: »

The problem isn’t so much that heavy is OP, it’s that “avoidance” is UP.

Dodge doesn’t work on 2/3rds of commonly used PvP abilities and absolutely everyone is running OP gap-closers so kiting or LoS isn’t a practical strategy.

Heavy being over-used is a symptom, not a cause.

Dramatically increase the cost of gap-closers and make dodge work on everything and then you’ll see more balance in Armor usage.

Agree but you forget that such balanced cost increase's happens only to sorc's streak, while its absolutely balanced 3-4 staminators gapclosing a sorc payin 10k mag with just 2k stam each

keeno9881 · October 2018

they should make hvy slower if you weear 5 peice movement speed should be slow medium should be about damage/dodging/and speed

keeno9881 · October 2018

that will make people stop using it and go to medium make them turtles.

FearlessOne_2014 · October 2018

SilverPaws wrote: »

Nicko_Lps wrote: »

SilverPaws wrote: »

Cripple stamina so much that we will become crafters or what ?

Crippled stamina players will be like 90% of murkmire Cyrodiil.

So much crippled

I can understand that you are angry, i know that you play magsorc and i don't agree with zenimax changes as well, but stamina players will get nerfed hard with mobility gutted.

I am a Magsorc that just brought GW2 Path of Fire, Heart of Thorns, and Season 2. So I will be a magsorc that will be taking a long break from the game UNSUBBED.

Almost all of my Magicka builds to include magesorc is rendered completely useless. While the already huge gap in power outside of zerging between magicka and stamina get even bigger. I think I'll sit this one out.

Chilly-McFreeze · October 2018

keeno9881 wrote: »

they should make hvy slower if you weear 5 peice movement speed should be slow medium should be about damage/dodging/and speed

Ah, there it is again. Talking about passives, arent we? You basically say heavy shouldnt be as mobile as light and medium, right? Yet you totally ignore that ha doesn't have any passives that boost mobility, snare reduction, speed or dodge. All while light and medium have such passives. If you want to widen the gap, buff these passives but don't implement penalties for one weight only. You wouldn't be ok with resistance debuffs to med and light, right? Or when given a constant snare to heavy, they could also give constant vulnerability to the other lines? Trade offs are appreciated but outright punishment is a really bad idea.
Of course only of your aim is to increase diversity and not to replace one meta with another by killing an entire armor class.

IZZEFlameLash · October 2018

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

keeno9881 wrote: »

they should make hvy slower if you weear 5 peice movement speed should be slow medium should be about damage/dodging/and speed

Ah, there it is again. Talking about passives, arent we? You basically say heavy shouldnt be as mobile as light and medium, right? Yet you totally ignore that ha doesn't have any passives that boost mobility, snare reduction, speed or dodge. All while light and medium have such passives. If you want to widen the gap, buff these passives but don't implement penalties for one weight only. You wouldn't be ok with resistance debuffs to med and light, right? Or when given a constant snare to heavy, they could also give constant vulnerability to the other lines? Trade offs are appreciated but outright punishment is a really bad idea.
Of course only of your aim is to increase diversity and not to replace one meta with another by killing an entire armor class.

It's pretty funny whenever I see those posts wanting HA nerfed. They keep talking like HA some sort of god tier passives and yet passives don't really help you survive longer but strong sets that weight has for stam does. If HA was truly OP because of my passives, my HA magicka builds should be completely unkillable without investing into defense. But it does not and even for stam, you have to have sets to survive. Always funny how people think HA is used because of passives. Lol

templesus · October 2018

This wouldn’t even solve anything though. It is not currently possible to have negative stats, so the lowest pen you could have is 0. In reality, mag and Stam players in heavy already have 0 pen before CP and Sets, so it would have a minuscule difference on damage at best.

ezio45 · October 2018

templesus wrote: »

This wouldn’t even solve anything though. It is not currently possible to have negative stats, so the lowest pen you could have is 0. In reality, mag and Stam players in heavy already have 0 pen before CP and Sets, so it would have a minuscule difference on damage at best.

not really with sharp weapons, mayor fracture and champion points can get you alot of pen

but i will agree im starting to learn more about this and think bleed dmg might be the problem

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Nicko_Lps wrote: »

Agree but you forget that such balanced cost increase's happens only to sorc's streak, while its absolutely balanced 3-4 staminators gapclosing a sorc payin 10k mag with just 2k stam each

This!

templesus · October 2018

ezio45 wrote: »

templesus wrote: »

This wouldn’t even solve anything though. It is not currently possible to have negative stats, so the lowest pen you could have is 0. In reality, mag and Stam players in heavy already have 0 pen before CP and Sets, so it would have a minuscule difference on damage at best.

not really with sharp weapons, mayor fracture and champion points can get you alot of pen

but i will agree im starting to learn more about this and think bleed dmg might be the problem

1. I don’t know anybody who still runs sharpened in pvp. It’s a dps loss over Nirn.
2. Major fracture isn’t pen. It’s reducing the opponents armor through a status effect. So reduces penetration won’t effect Major or Minor fracture/breach in any way.
3. CP will net you about 3k on most builds. So that cp would just get allotted somewhere else for more damage in other areas. Resulting in a minimal loss in damage.

To put in perspective, a basic heavy armor build for a Stam dk is 5 fury, 5 hulk, 2 BS. Most builds will put about 30-40 points in Piercing which nets roughly 3k pen. These points will go into mighty, master at arms, and precise strikes for more damage in those areas instead if your proposed changes went live. Heavy armor gives 0 pen already, and you’re not wearing any sets for pen, so the net loss in damage would equate to: (the sum of damage that the 3k pen from CP would give you) - (the extra damage gained from allotting it elsewhere). Without crunching any numbers, I promise you it’s low.

Banana · October 2018

Its only going to get worse with all the shield changes. I was light now im thinking heavy.

Kadoin · October 2018

Banana wrote: »

Its only going to get worse with all the shield changes. I was light now im thinking heavy.

Next patch there is ZERO reason to wear light armor, unless they increase cost reduction by 1% per piece to actually justify the shield nerf. Since magicka will no longer be "safe at a distance" or "shielded up" all the time, the skill cost is ridiculous even in light, and if heavy can give you enough defense to not have to cast shields/heal 2-3 times or more in the same battle (when these skills cost around 4K+ EACH), then essentially heavy is even better than light in sustain. The penetration and crit become the only things that matter, but considering PvP even now is dominated by tank builds that do damage, I highly doubt any of the light armor passives will outweigh he benefits of heavy in nearly every PvP build.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Banana wrote: »

Its only going to get worse with all the shield changes. I was light now im thinking heavy.

The shield changes are a bit insane tbh. They should scale off mag.

Chilly-McFreeze · October 2018

Kadoin wrote: »

Banana wrote: »

Its only going to get worse with all the shield changes. I was light now im thinking heavy.

Next patch there is ZERO reason to wear light armor, unless they increase cost reduction by 1% per piece to actually justify the shield nerf. Since magicka will no longer be "safe at a distance" or "shielded up" all the time, the skill cost is ridiculous even in light, and if heavy can give you enough defense to not have to cast shields/heal 2-3 times or more in the same battle (when these skills cost around 4K+ EACH), then essentially heavy is even better than light in sustain. The penetration and crit become the only things that matter, but considering PvP even now is dominated by tank builds that do damage, I highly doubt any of the light armor passives will outweigh he benefits of heavy in nearly every PvP build.

1) When was that ever the case? People used gap closers on many builds. Then they were nerfed but swift was introduced. Now swift, snare immunity, maj Expedition and speed pots get nerfed as well. And if I can believe in "magbuilds can't afford to use speed pots" (beside the glaring fact that ling. health + mE pots are a thing that don't benefit stamina over mag), this should slow down chasers. But people will probably go back to use the still damage-nerfed gap closers.

2) Fun fact: Heavy grants neither crit nor pen. But light and medium do.

But if you ask me, shield costs should be lowered to meet the smaller size and give incentive to run light. Mag should get a snare removal outside of purge and mist form. Medium's sprint passive should be changed to movement speed (but % lowered, maybe) and gap closers should get a bit of a range reduction, maybe to 15-18 meters?

Kadoin · October 2018

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Kadoin wrote: »

Banana wrote: »

Its only going to get worse with all the shield changes. I was light now im thinking heavy.

Next patch there is ZERO reason to wear light armor, unless they increase cost reduction by 1% per piece to actually justify the shield nerf. Since magicka will no longer be "safe at a distance" or "shielded up" all the time, the skill cost is ridiculous even in light, and if heavy can give you enough defense to not have to cast shields/heal 2-3 times or more in the same battle (when these skills cost around 4K+ EACH), then essentially heavy is even better than light in sustain. The penetration and crit become the only things that matter, but considering PvP even now is dominated by tank builds that do damage, I highly doubt any of the light armor passives will outweigh he benefits of heavy in nearly every PvP build.

1) When was that ever the case? People used gap closers on many builds. Then they were nerfed but swift was introduced. Now swift, snare immunity, maj Expedition and speed pots get nerfed as well. And if I can believe in "magbuilds can't afford to use speed pots" (beside the glaring fact that ling. health + mE pots are a thing that don't benefit stamina over mag), this should slow down chasers. But people will probably go back to use the still damage-nerfed gap closers.

2) Fun fact: Heavy grants neither crit nor pen. But light and medium do.

But if you ask me, shield costs should be lowered to meet the smaller size and give incentive to run light. Mag should get a snare removal outside of purge and mist form. Medium's sprint passive should be changed to movement speed (but % lowered, maybe) and gap closers should get a bit of a range reduction, maybe to 15-18 meters?

Shield costs reduced for light to solve its balance v. heavy?

Yeah, you obviously haven't logged onto the PTS and used light armor. Speed increase for medium...when the entire patch was aimed at lowering speed because the game bugs out? Really? Nothing more needs to be said.

EDIT: Before someone cries and says its baiting, let me expound on why its dumb. #1 no passive for ANY armor tree right now specifically targets certain skills for it to be usable. None. Armor passives are available and useful at all times. This is exactly what makes heavy better than both medium and light: the passives are simply better to have on all the time, at least in PvP.

To suggest crit and pen actually are game changers when in light vs heavy is just silly. If anything the only reason to wear light is cost reduction. The crit is useful if you are a healer, but considering the change to healing ward, it's simply not going to be as good as having damage reduction 100% of the time. No, nope, not gonna happen.

I don't know anyone that tremendously benefits from either of those stats in general in PvP. You can show some streamtard running around 1vXing idiots, but the problems is that streamers manufacture footage. What they don't show you is what really matters: how they die. Here's an example: some guy might use a somewhat tanky DK LA build where he whips someone three times and they die. Now, that guy he whipped we know nothing about, but what we do know is that its very unlikely anyone with a brain or decent build would die in 3 flame lashes. No one. And certainly not anyone with 33K+ resist, greater than 26K HP, and more than 3K crit resist.

Okay, why does any of this matter? Simple. The guy's build looks good on paper and on video, however I guarantee you when these LA builds start to face enemies with more resist, all of them crumble. The reason is very simple: because in LA you have to sacrifice too much to gain either defense, damage, healing, or sustain. You can do two but not both. Yet, all stam builds can do it all, and at worse only one thing needs to be sacrificed. It's not surprising they don't see a reason to use medium when heavy is not much more different AND gives health, more resist, and depending on your build more sustain.

On live, most LA build crutch on shields and the fact they don't need to stack resist to be able to gain damage and sustain, no healing or healing and sustain, no damage. That effectively only left one weakness compared to stam: having to sacrifice for a stam pool, we cannot forget this weakness of LA builds. Now, in this patch ZOS decided to nerf shields for LA users overall. Now with the changes, its back to TWO. None of the passives ZOS has added to LA address defense, damage, healing, or sustain. None of the passives address roll cost, or break free. As a result the only logical thing to do will be to move to heavy where you can at least get health + defense in resistance and longer shields. I will even wager, that if medium gets the buff you want to speed, magicka builds might move there instead. Even on live you can run a magicka build in medium, in pvp, with success right now. In the future, though, 25% damage reduction, lower roll cost, lower spint, sprint speed increase would be TOO good to pass up. Add movement speed and LA has no place in the armor competition anymore.

What I find interesting is that you can find a fault with medium, that is going to still be good and in some cases better, yet are too blind to see a glaring problem with light? Reading the forums I can see how ZOS comes to the stupidest conclusions when it comes to balance.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Replace Annulment with a short buff that turns dodge rolls into 5m ‘blinks’ that dodge everything, including AoEs.

Problem solved.

Make Light Armor about evasion rather than mitigation.

Illuvatarr · October 2018

Problem is people in heavy gear can spec to do insane dps. This is really bad with templars and wardens. They shrug of your damage and basically one shot with their dps burst. It’s dumb. It’s ridiculous and imbalanced. There should be a huge survivability trade off much like the mag Sorc faces (these classes are much better equipped to deliver their burst dps; mag Sorc dps has been nerfed into the ground by with dodge/stealth and direct nerfs). It’s a silly setup and the fact the developers have let this go on so long shows just how myopic and absurd their balance vision is.

iCaliban · October 2018

Illuvatarr wrote: »

Problem is people in heavy gear can spec to do insane dps. This is really bad with templars and wardens. They shrug of your damage and basically one shot with their dps burst. It’s dumb. It’s ridiculous and imbalanced. There should be a huge survivability trade off much like the mag Sorc faces (these classes are much better equipped to deliver their burst dps; mag Sorc dps has been nerfed into the ground by with dodge/stealth and direct nerfs). It’s a silly setup and the fact the developers have let this go on so long shows just how myopic and absurd their balance vision is.

This is the truth. Heavy armor gets the best of all worlds, not only do they get high resists (which they should ) but they also get a ton of health on top of that; which drastically increases their actual survivability. On top of that they get more healing. This allows them to spec for damage since the armor type does all the work for them.

There are two solutions, either nerf heavy, or make heavy equal for everyone and realize that heavy will be for PVP. Right now mag builds get significantly less out of heavy armor than stamina builds do.

Chrlynsch · October 2018

iCaliban wrote: »

Illuvatarr wrote: »

Problem is people in heavy gear can spec to do insane dps. This is really bad with templars and wardens. They shrug of your damage and basically one shot with their dps burst. It’s dumb. It’s ridiculous and imbalanced. There should be a huge survivability trade off much like the mag Sorc faces (these classes are much better equipped to deliver their burst dps; mag Sorc dps has been nerfed into the ground by with dodge/stealth and direct nerfs). It’s a silly setup and the fact the developers have let this go on so long shows just how myopic and absurd their balance vision is.

This is the truth. Heavy armor gets the best of all worlds, not only do they get high resists (which they should ) but they also get a ton of health on top of that; which drastically increases their actual survivability. On top of that they get more healing. This allows them to spec for damage since the armor type does all the work for them.

There are two solutions, either nerf heavy, or make heavy equal for everyone and realize that heavy will be for PVP. Right now mag builds get significantly less out of heavy armor than stamina builds do.

What passives benefit stamina over Magicka?

lucky_dutch · October 2018

iCaliban wrote: »

Illuvatarr wrote: »

Problem is people in heavy gear can spec to do insane dps. This is really bad with templars and wardens. They shrug of your damage and basically one shot with their dps burst. It’s dumb. It’s ridiculous and imbalanced. There should be a huge survivability trade off much like the mag Sorc faces (these classes are much better equipped to deliver their burst dps; mag Sorc dps has been nerfed into the ground by with dodge/stealth and direct nerfs). It’s a silly setup and the fact the developers have let this go on so long shows just how myopic and absurd their balance vision is.

This is the truth. Heavy armor gets the best of all worlds, not only do they get high resists (which they should ) but they also get a ton of health on top of that; which drastically increases their actual survivability. On top of that they get more healing. This allows them to spec for damage since the armor type does all the work for them.

There are two solutions, either nerf heavy, or make heavy equal for everyone and realize that heavy will be for PVP. Right now mag builds get significantly less out of heavy armor than stamina builds do.

The problem is that it’s not consistent. The difference in burst between heavy and medium for stam is pretty moderate. The difference between heavy and light for mag is huge and heavy also comes with major sustain issues for them that stam don’t have to deal with.

There are other issues too. Stam gap closers are cheaper than mag gap-makers. Their snares are substantially stronger, their self-heals are over-tuned.

This is why Magsorcs are so titled over the shield changes. 1v1 against a determined stam class there is no way to shake them and your only option is to face-tank the damage.

ZOS basically aren’t confident in their ability to balance different archetypes so they homogenise everything. Other devs who are a bit more experienced and confident in balancing do a better job by acknowledging that not everyone needs to do everything.

If you’re a heavy brawler guardian build in GW2 you know you’ve no chance of catching and locking-down a thief that’s built for evasion but your utility in a team fight far exceeds theirs. ZOS would look at that and think “well thief mobility is OP so let’s nerf that.” Then they become trash overal so they end up buffing their team utility and before you know it both setups are the same with different skins on the abilities.

I don’t think every class needs to be equally competent when it comes to every aspect of PvP. It’s ok for some classes to be better at 1vX and others to be better at zerging. Some setups might be better at bursting key targets whilst others are better at team fighting and ball carrying. As long as any class can walk into each type of PvP and perform well in at least one role, that’s OK.

Death to homogenisation!

NuarBlack · October 2018

No more nerfs to heavy period! Quit watering down the game and actually make Light and medium more appealing in pvp. For those that haven't been around know the nerfing heavy route hasn't worked. Heavy has been nerfed the most of all the lines. It used to have a stacking wep and spell power buff on taking damage and constitution used to be way better. It still hasn't changed the meta cause medium armor brings nothing valuable to pvp.

Medium needs better sets and better survivability passives and an armor skill that is unique and an almost a must slot. Old evasion or new isn't that. Focus on medium to fix medium.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

NuarBlack wrote: »

No more nerfs to heavy period! Quit watering down the game and actually make Light and medium more appealing in pvp. For those that haven't been around know the nerfing heavy route hasn't worked. Heavy has been nerfed the most of all the lines. It used to have a stacking wep and spell power buff on taking damage and constitution used to be way better. It still hasn't changed the meta cause medium armor brings nothing valuable to pvp.

Medium needs better sets and better survivability passives and an armor skill that is unique and an almost a must slot. Old evasion or new isn't that. Focus on medium to fix medium.

The problem with trying to buff medium and light (as opposed to needing heavy) is that dodging is *** in this game. Half the nastiest PvP abilities aren’t dodgeable anyway as ZOS don’t like the idea of high-skill players slaughtering noobs because they’re so good at timing their dodges.

Anzriel · October 2018

lucky_dutch wrote: »

NuarBlack wrote: »

No more nerfs to heavy period! Quit watering down the game and actually make Light and medium more appealing in pvp. For those that haven't been around know the nerfing heavy route hasn't worked. Heavy has been nerfed the most of all the lines. It used to have a stacking wep and spell power buff on taking damage and constitution used to be way better. It still hasn't changed the meta cause medium armor brings nothing valuable to pvp.

Medium needs better sets and better survivability passives and an armor skill that is unique and an almost a must slot. Old evasion or new isn't that. Focus on medium to fix medium.

The problem with trying to buff medium and light (as opposed to needing heavy) is that dodging is *** in this game. Half the nastiest PvP abilities aren’t dodgeable anyway as ZOS don’t like the idea of high-skill players slaughtering noobs because they’re so good at timing their dodges.

The lowering of the skill cap has honestly been one of the biggest issues with the game imo. Heavy being powerful and all these sets leads to gear carry rather than having skill being the most important factor.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Anzriel wrote: »

lucky_dutch wrote: »

NuarBlack wrote: »

No more nerfs to heavy period! Quit watering down the game and actually make Light and medium more appealing in pvp. For those that haven't been around know the nerfing heavy route hasn't worked. Heavy has been nerfed the most of all the lines. It used to have a stacking wep and spell power buff on taking damage and constitution used to be way better. It still hasn't changed the meta cause medium armor brings nothing valuable to pvp.

Medium needs better sets and better survivability passives and an armor skill that is unique and an almost a must slot. Old evasion or new isn't that. Focus on medium to fix medium.

The problem with trying to buff medium and light (as opposed to needing heavy) is that dodging is *** in this game. Half the nastiest PvP abilities aren’t dodgeable anyway as ZOS don’t like the idea of high-skill players slaughtering noobs because they’re so good at timing their dodges.

The lowering of the skill cap has honestly been one of the biggest issues with the game imo. Heavy being powerful and all these sets leads to gear carry rather than having skill being the most important factor.

A lot of MMOs are like that to some extent but I think this one gets the balance wrong in a few key areas. Dodging is one of them. Mobility is another.

Anti_Virus · October 2018

ezio45 wrote: »

Its time to do something about heavy armor builds with high damage, Players in 5-7 heavy shouldnt be able to take players in light or medium armor.

A great way to do this without effecting heavy armor healer? Add to battle spirit that every piece of heavy armor after 1 reduces spell and physical pen by 3k ish

At 3k reduced pen a player wearing 5 pc of heavy will be down 15k pen and thats the average amount of penetration you can get out of heavy armor build. They wont be able to kill anything, which is how TANKS SHOULD BE . Bleed and oblivion dmg might still be a problem but this should do a decent job of fixing things.

Heavy healers will be fine because pen doesnt effect heals

People like you complain about heavy armor killing people, but when an actual Tank comes around and DOESN'T kill people you guys still whine that they are unkillable and slow down the gameplay, Which is it?

NuarBlack · October 2018

lucky_dutch wrote: »

The problem with trying to buff medium and light (as opposed to needing heavy) is that dodging is *** in this game. Half the nastiest PvP abilities aren’t dodgeable anyway as ZOS don’t like the idea of high-skill players slaughtering noobs because they’re so good at timing their dodges.

Seems a bit of a red herring. While maybe some heavy sets specifically could be adjusted it sounds like dodge roll as the primary survival mechanic does need looked at or less emphasis put on it. I do remember the days of trying to land attacks on NB and never seeming to be able to get much to land and it wasn't that they were skillful just that major evasion used to be 25% chance and the dodge window was so long. ESO's dodge window has never been even close to something like Dark Souls on skill needed to dodge so you can quit pretending you were good. But it shouldn't be that way as eso is an MMO and latency exists. The problem came from spamming it and near 100% up time.

Medium should have better dodge rolls and needs to be a part of the armor class but if ESO is hell bent on having certain damage being un-dodgeable(another red herring problem) then medium needs more universally useful survival passives or armor skills. That's what makes heavy so much better, its passives and skills are universally useful. More resistance, health, and sustain are useful in every situation. Most pvp builds are not resistance capped and definitely not once penetration is taken into account. Shields for LA were universally useful, dodge hasn't been for awhile. So when I say buff LA and MA think outside the box, I'm not saying to double down on what already has proved not to work. Just like nerfing HA hasn't proved to work yet, only hurt pve tanks.