How are shields after the patch? (murkmire)

Tasear · October 2018

Is it working for you? Is it better to fight against? How does x shield feel compared to other shields in game?

WrathOfInnos · October 2018

Shields feel useless this patch. I attempted vCR+3 last night and it was rough. A single attack from any small Yaghra will now take out an entire shield. Even spamming shields is not enough to survive Dark Drain ticks if you are unlucky with how many spheres target you. Combine that with Hoarfrost ticks and/or Flares (both unavoidable damage if you are playing the mechanics) and the result is a previously fun trial feeling cheap and unfair. Before the Murkmire update I could reliably clear this trial deathless, now with everyone dropping like flies we could not even get past 50%.

Edit: I should also add that I am far from a glass cannon build. I was running over 20k health and had both Major and Minor Ward and Resolve from Bound Aegis and Boundless Storm.

Edit 2: I also ran several BG’s. And while shields felt slightly weaker than before, it wasn’t gamebreaking in PVP like it was in PvE. The lack of a Battle Spirit effect on the health cap still seems backwards to me. PVE shields should have a magnitude double their PVP equivalents, just like any other source of healing or damage. Negating the only mechanism to simultaneously balance PVP and PVE for just two shield abilities is not working out well.

Edit 3: Apparently I’m not alone in my thoughts about Cloudrest. There are currently 0 clears of vCR on PC NA, not even a +0.

Tasear · October 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Shields feel useless this patch. I attempted vCR+3 last night and it was rough. A single attack from any small Yaghra will now take out an entire shield. Even spamming shields is not enough to survive Dark Drain ticks if you are unlucky with how many spheres target you. Combine that with Hoarfrost ticks and/or Flares (both unavoidable damage if you are playing the mechanics) and the result is a previously fun trial feeling cheap and unfair. Before the Murkmire update I could reliably clear this trial deathless, now with everyone dropping like flies we could not even get past 50%.

Edit: I should also add that I am far from a glass cannon build. I was running over 20k health and had both Major and Minor Ward and Resolve from Bound Aegis and Boundless Storm.

Have healers stepped in to help adjust for the changes?

Yolokin_Swagonborn · October 2018

ZOS will probably read this and think "Good our content is challenging again." Just kidding, they aren't going to read this.

Shields were a response to stupid unavoidable damage phases in PvE content. Or was unavoidable damage in response to shields? Whichever came first, this nerf broke the balance.

How can you tune the game for some mechanic, like shields, then nerf shields, and not re-tune the game?

I hate the fact that ZOS thinks nerfs exist in a vacuum. That somehow they can balance the game for years around some mechanic, then just knock out a load bearing wall like mitigation and somehow the entire structure will remain standing.

ezio45 · October 2018

Will let you know on the 6th

Tasear · October 2018

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

ZOS will probably read this and think "Good our content is challenging again." Just kidding, they aren't going to read this.

Shields were a response to stupid unavoidable damage phases in PvE content. Or was unavoidable damage in response to shields? Whichever came first, this nerf broke the balance.

How can you tune the game for some mechanic, like shields, then nerf shields, and not re-tune the game?

I have an idea what you are talking about, but what damage is unavoidable?

IcyDeadPeople · October 2018

seem you need very high crit resistance no matter what kind of build. before this patch had rather tanky mag DK, used dampen magic shield and blocking a lot to mitigate damage. tried playing a bit since murkmire and dies very fast, certainly going to take some time to figure out new build

GrigorijMalahevich · October 2018

Tasear wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

ZOS will probably read this and think "Good our content is challenging again." Just kidding, they aren't going to read this.

Shields were a response to stupid unavoidable damage phases in PvE content. Or was unavoidable damage in response to shields? Whichever came first, this nerf broke the balance.

How can you tune the game for some mechanic, like shields, then nerf shields, and not re-tune the game?

I have an idea what you are talking about, but what damage is unavoidable?

The one that hits you in the feels, man

Qualanthar · October 2018

Before the patch the shield was more than half my health bar. It is now less than 10%. Back to hitting a heal and hoping it gets off before I die.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · October 2018

Tasear wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

ZOS will probably read this and think "Good our content is challenging again." Just kidding, they aren't going to read this.

Shields were a response to stupid unavoidable damage phases in PvE content. Or was unavoidable damage in response to shields? Whichever came first, this nerf broke the balance.

How can you tune the game for some mechanic, like shields, then nerf shields, and not re-tune the game?

I have an idea what you are talking about, but what damage is unavoidable?

The only examples I can think of off the top of my head will lead to a "OH THAT'S NOT EVEN TOUGH" type of response.

But there are several dungeons, and a few rounds in Vet Maelstrom where the damage is either unavoidable or you have to have cat like reflexes 100% of the fight/round.

Last boss of Vet Fungal, Poison phase of Darkshade II, Lamia round of maelstrom where you are just pummeled with lightning strikes. Yes on that last one, you could dance around like a headless chicken but the point is you are going to take damage eventually.

I know there are better trials examples. There are tons of times where this is just a wave of damage that everyone takes regardless.

AcadianPaladin · October 2018

Took my magsorc out yesterday and the joy, fun, elegance is gone. So shelved her for now.

Tasear · October 2018

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Took my magsorc out yesterday and the joy, fun, elegance is gone. So shelved her for now.

You mean the set or the feeling of playing Sorc? What could change to make it more fun?

Oreyn_Bearclaw · October 2018

In PVP, with 18k resistances and 2500 crit resist (will likely need to push this further), my shields simply melt. Most stamina players can use one skill to remove them. If I get more than one bleed/DoT on me, forget about it. Any two competent players can melt your shields faster than you can stack them.

In PVE, I dont stand in stupid and don't play with pets, so no real issue here, not that I would bring a sorc into group PVE content. There are objectively better options, and I play them all.

WrathOfInnos · October 2018

Tasear wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Shields feel useless this patch. I attempted vCR+3 last night and it was rough. A single attack from any small Yaghra will now take out an entire shield. Even spamming shields is not enough to survive Dark Drain ticks if you are unlucky with how many spheres target you. Combine that with Hoarfrost ticks and/or Flares (both unavoidable damage if you are playing the mechanics) and the result is a previously fun trial feeling cheap and unfair. Before the Murkmire update I could reliably clear this trial deathless, now with everyone dropping like flies we could not even get past 50%.

Edit: I should also add that I am far from a glass cannon build. I was running over 20k health and had both Major and Minor Ward and Resolve from Bound Aegis and Boundless Storm.

Have healers stepped in to help adjust for the changes?

I had two excellent healers with me in vCR. They were doing as much as they could, including running Bone Shield (which still only applies to 4/12 players and is now half the strength it was before). The problem is that the combined mechanics result in health going from 100% to 0% within a second. There is no time for healers to react, and any HoTs they have out may not even tick within that second. Not to mention that healers were struggling to keep themselves alive just like all the DDs.

SirAndy · October 2018

It's rough in the more challenging parts of PvE, haven't been to PvP yet ...

My mag Pet Sorc is build for DPS, the base resistances are only around the 10k mark, so she relies heavily on shields for survival. With only 17k health (buffed) my shield is now somewhere in the low 8k range.
That's two hits from dungeon trash mobs or one hit from a boss.

Meaning i have to constantly re-cast shields.
Meaning i run out of resources fast.
Meaning i have to weave in many more heavy attacks than previously.
Meaning i have no time or magicka left for a lot of offensive skills or attacks.
Meaning the dps on my DPS character now sucks.

TL:DR
ZOS sucked all the fun out of that build, gonna switch to my StamBlade for a while ...

Yolokin_Swagonborn · October 2018

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

In PVP, with 18k resistances and 2500 crit resist (will likely need to push this further), my shields simply melt. Most stamina players can use one skill to remove them. If I get more than one bleed/DoT on me, forget about it. Any two competent players can melt your shields faster than you can stack them.

In PVE, I dont stand in stupid and don't play with pets, so no real issue here, not that I would bring a sorc into group PVE content. There are objectively better options, and I play them all.

I think it might be helpful for the class reps to see some numbers. I haven't been to PvP yet with a sorc. Now that you can crit on shields, and now that shield size is limited, how much does a NB surprise attack hit a shield?

Here are some reference values. Before this patch. Most sorcs were running about 15- 18k combined shields with hardened/harness. If you had a rediculous magicka pool or were using the other morph of harness, you could get 19-20k shield stack in CP PvP with Bastion, but that wasn't without tradeoffs in sustain and utility.

Abilities hit from about 4k-15k the upper value being ults. But this was before they could crit on shields.

So a sorc with a 18k shield stack could take about 3-4 hits (depending on ults, dots on them) before having to refresh. That sounds like a lot but it goes by in a few seconds because most players are running 3-4 ability rotations with dots so it really isn't.

What is the shield stack lsize (in HP) looking like now?
What is the average incoming damage with crits on shields?

zaria · October 2018

I say horrible, it feels like the shield who proc from combat physician, not healing ward who is more of an heal than an shield.
I used it in the poison phase in the murkmire quest there you fell down an hole, it was some chests I wanted to force as I thought they might have motifs or similar. Shields melted away in an quest delve yes overland content.

They might have some utility against marginal one shots, last boss of vBC1 springs to mind, also as an sort of self heal for sorc.
But pointless to slot on healer as you can just use HoT instead then ressing tank.
However sorcerer can just put an class heal on overload bar

RIP CoS HM with cp180 tank and low dps group, HM as tank did not know he activated it

Shield up and rez tank then one DD who rez the other, do some damage, repeat.
Yes the long duration of sorc shield had an impact not any longer as shield take full damage before armor, cp and buffs.

SpacemanSpiff1 · October 2018

smaller. i haven't done vet dungeons or trials yet since update, but I was able to solo some world bosses with harness magicka(no clue if they were easy ones or not).

RANKK7 · October 2018

The shield I did put on my wallet is very strong, got a massive buff.

TheCyberDruid · October 2018

Changed legs and chest to health enchantment to have a bit more health which means I deal less damage and have a smaller shield... yeah exactly that

Yolokin_Swagonborn · October 2018

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

smaller. i haven't done vet dungeons or trials yet since update, but I was able to solo some world bosses with harness magicka(no clue if they were easy ones or not).

The other issue that makes this very hard to figure out is the insane deviation of difficulty in this game. Normal Dungeons are stupid easy. Some vet dungeons are nightmares. Some world bosses can be killed with non-vet characters, but Bittermaw from Deshaan, will wreck your day no matter who you are.

ZOS doesn't need to balance shields, it needs to balance content. I would love to be able to roam open world without RoflStomping everything or getting Roflstomped myself in certain dungeons.

How can we tell ZOS how shields are performing when there is such a wild variation in content difficulty?

SpacemanSpiff1 · October 2018

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

but Bittermaw from Deshaan, will wreck your day no matter who you are.

is that the guar one? he wrecked me (on my stamplar) and my friend the other day.

brutal fight.

TheCyberDruid · October 2018

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

ZOS doesn't need to balance shields, it needs to balance content. I would love to be able to roam open world without RoflStomping everything or getting Roflstomped myself in certain dungeons.

^ This. But you know that would mean actual effort and spending money on things. Like say putting new nodes into the game instead of randomly replacing old ones. Just not going to happen and the fact that they try to 'balance' PVP and PVE with a couple of '50% of this and that' is not helping either.

Shantu · October 2018

These are miserable changes. I'm dumbfounded by the fact that you and the entire development team can't see this. They have essentially eliminated an entire character build and play style people enjoyed. For challenging content, shields were NOT the defensive panacea you make them out to have been. Now that they have been rendered essentially useless, the light armored, high magicka and dps Sorc build is essentially dead. You now must engage in an entire character rebuild for high resistance and health, which neuters dps for the Sorc class, which few will now feel have a meaningful contribution to end game content. The changes may be good for PVP, but for PVE, it has been very poorly thought out and implemented. Big disappointment in this entire development team.

Jaraal · October 2018

Tasear wrote: »

Is it working for you? Is it better to fight against? How does x shield feel compared to other shields in game?

I'm curious why this matters. This discussion took place for weeks in the test forum, vast majority disliked the changes, said so, and ZOS went ahead with them anyway. The only thing different now is that the casuals who don't play on test or come to the forums to be educated are now wondering to themselves why they (and their pets) are now dying regularly while trying to complete quests or farm materials.

Go ask the level 10 who keeps respawning at the wayshrine. There are 100 of them who are suffering from these changes for every one of us max CP hardcore players who might have to make slight adjustments in our rotations to keep soloing vet dungeons.

SirAndy · October 2018

Jaraal wrote: »

Go ask the level 10 who keeps respawning at the wayshrine. There are 100 of them who are suffering from these changes for every one of us max CP hardcore players who might have to make slight adjustments in our rotations to keep soloing vet dungeons.

:idea:

Maybe this was all just a front so ZOS could get rid of all those Pet Sorc farming bots!

Apherius · October 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Shields feel useless this patch. I attempted vCR+3 last night and it was rough. A single attack from any small Yaghra will now take out an entire shield. Even spamming shields is not enough to survive Dark Drain ticks if you are unlucky with how many spheres target you. Combine that with Hoarfrost ticks and/or Flares (both unavoidable damage if you are playing the mechanics) and the result is a previously fun trial feeling cheap and unfair. Before the Murkmire update I could reliably clear this trial deathless, now with everyone dropping like flies we could not even get past 50%.

Edit: I should also add that I am far from a glass cannon build. I was running over 20k health and had both Major and Minor Ward and Resolve from Bound Aegis and Boundless Storm.

Edit 2: I also ran several BG’s. And while shields felt slightly weaker than before, it wasn’t gamebreaking in PVP like it was in PvE. The lack of a Battle Spirit effect on the health cap still seems backwards to me. PVE shields should have a magnitude double their PVP equivalents, just like any other source of healing or damage. Negating the only mechanism to simultaneously balance PVP and PVE for just two shield abilities is not working out well.

Edit 3: Apparently I’m not alone in my thoughts about Cloudrest. There are currently 0 clears of vCR on PC NA, not even a +0.

I wonder if critical surge isn't better than shield in PVE now ....

DrScott59 · October 2018

Tasear wrote: »

Is it working for you? Is it better to fight against? How does x shield feel compared to other shields in game?

No, not working for me (in PVE)... Switched from Empowered to Hardened to get biggest shield possible, and moved worthless Bastion points into defensive nodes. Shield is ~9k and pretty much vaporizes instantly in tough content -- spamming just drains resources and death follows. Pets stay alive in dungeons/trials but die repeatedly in other content like group bosses and even dolmens -- and when the pet dies, there goes the passive health bonus AND there's a loss of time/dps trying to re-cast the pet over-and-over-and-over. In addition to loss of self-protection, the shield nerf has made pets a "net negative" in overworld and solo arena content.

I'm shelving the Sorc for this patch. Moved to my MagNB -- which has also had the fun drained out of it with sustain issues and shield nerf (Dampen) from this patch -- but is still more playable than Sorc due to better self-heal and not having to manage / re-cast pets. May have to respec him into Stamina...

Really wish ZOS would not make such radical play-breaking changes so frequently.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · October 2018

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

In PVP, with 18k resistances and 2500 crit resist (will likely need to push this further), my shields simply melt. Most stamina players can use one skill to remove them. If I get more than one bleed/DoT on me, forget about it. Any two competent players can melt your shields faster than you can stack them.

In PVE, I dont stand in stupid and don't play with pets, so no real issue here, not that I would bring a sorc into group PVE content. There are objectively better options, and I play them all.

I think it might be helpful for the class reps to see some numbers. I haven't been to PvP yet with a sorc. Now that you can crit on shields, and now that shield size is limited, how much does a NB surprise attack hit a shield?

Here are some reference values. Before this patch. Most sorcs were running about 15- 18k combined shields with hardened/harness. If you had a rediculous magicka pool or were using the other morph of harness, you could get 19-20k shield stack in CP PvP with Bastion, but that wasn't without tradeoffs in sustain and utility.

Abilities hit from about 4k-15k the upper value being ults. But this was before they could crit on shields.

So a sorc with a 18k shield stack could take about 3-4 hits (depending on ults, dots on them) before having to refresh. That sounds like a lot but it goes by in a few seconds because most players are running 3-4 ability rotations with dots so it really isn't.

What is the shield stack lsize (in HP) looking like now?

What is the average incoming damage with crits on shields?

You are of course correct that more data is needed. Last night was first day of the patch, and Cyro was a crowed and laggy Zerg fest. I certainly wasnt taking detailed notes, and did very little to adapt my current build other than beefing up resistances (which i did quite a bit). Once the dust settles hopefully we will be able to get some better numbers with a bigger sample size. I am trying to not rush to snap conclusions, but I will say that it was abundantly clear that I was casting shields significantly more than last week.

I think one of the biggest problems once you do the math is that crits on your shields cant be blocked. I dont think it's too hard to build your resistances to match the average pen you expect your opponenent to have, but when the crit with harder hitting abilities that another player might block or roll, your shield just melts. I think I might actually see if I cant get my crit resistance up to more like 3,500-4,000. I should be able to get to 3500 without specific gear, but 4k is probably not realisitc without Impregnable Armor, which i would like to avoid.

WrathOfInnos · October 2018

@Apherius I’m actually planning to try Surge tonight, as well as a handful of other ideas to try to adapt to these changes. On its own I don’t think it will do much in Cloudrest though, since it only heals once per second and you can easily go from full health to dead within 1-2s.

zaria · October 2018

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

smaller. i haven't done vet dungeons or trials yet since update, but I was able to solo some world bosses with harness magicka(no clue if they were easy ones or not).

The other issue that makes this very hard to figure out is the insane deviation of difficulty in this game. Normal Dungeons are stupid easy. Some vet dungeons are nightmares. Some world bosses can be killed with non-vet characters, but Bittermaw from Deshaan, will wreck your day no matter who you are.

ZOS doesn't need to balance shields, it needs to balance content. I would love to be able to roam open world without RoflStomping everything or getting Roflstomped myself in certain dungeons.

How can we tell ZOS how shields are performing when there is such a wild variation in content difficulty?

I say dungeons scale very well from nBC1 up to March of sacrifice HM.
Its an nice progression ladder, has not done vMoS yet but normal feels like an vet 2 dungeon but quality in normals tend to be very low, also vBC1 has an nasty one shot who don't belong in an 1 dungeon.