How are shields after the patch? (murkmire)

zaria · October 2018

Apherius 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.

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 ....

If you face lots of mobs its obviously better, single target its not very good.
Same with plenty of stuff, Vicious Ophidian is an trial set but is pretty pointless on final bosses as they rarely has adds.
Public dungeons however and this one is an hedgehog

Vahrokh · October 2018

ZOS actually managed to make me hate more the pets nerfs than the shields nerf, and this is not a small feat!

Vahrokh · October 2018

Sadly for me, I cannot really give shields feedback because I don't sit in red circles to see if it hurts.

But pets cannot be made to roll dodge or similar, I think today I have summoned them both about 200 times each.

Moloch1514 · October 2018

The combat team is great at pushing loyal customers away from this game, thats about it. What a sad patch...the people in the middle of the road, those of us who can barely stand trying vMA (but want to) get hurt every patch.... with this patch being worse for vMA noobs like me than even the horrible Morrowind patch. I'm so tired of getting weaker every quarter @ZOS_RobGarrett!

Hurbster · October 2018

Well, at least I can rearrange the characters so I can put my sorcs at the bottom..

I don't pug, I don't PvP and I don't do trials. In my limited time to play I just do overland content and it's quite frankly miserable. Not fun in the slightest.

This is an awful patch.

OrdoHermetica · 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?

So, on that point, @Tasear - the healers in my vet Trials group were absolutely baffled by the logic that "they didn't have enough to do" that ZoS used to justify this change. They were already extremely busy, and felt very needed - because they were. Now they feel more helpless than anything, because without shields keeping people up, they just flat-out die well before a healer can do anything to help them. Before Murkmire a strong shield would keep them standing long enough for healers to do their work; now not even that's happening.

I understand that another aspect of this was that ZoS saw that no one was bringing stamina DD/DPS toons into vet Trials like Cloudrest, and rightly wanted to even things out. Unfortunately, all they really seem to have done is make it unfeasible to use stamina OR magicka DPS toons in some of these Trials.

Also, related: I find it very frustrating that this entire game is built around Attribute stacking in end game content, to the point where loading screen tips more or less tell you to do it, but then we're... punished for doing that? Like, I would love for it to be more viable for people to put more points into Attributes other than their main attribute, especially since ZoS likes to say this is a "play how you want" game (it isn't), but when almost everything scales off of max Attributes, that's very difficult to do.

OrdoHermetica · October 2018

Shantu wrote: »

These are miserable changes. I'm dumbfounded by the fact that you and the entire development team can't see this.

Class reps aren't part of the development teams. They're unpaid players. They just happen to be unpaid players who act as a point of contact for passing feedback along to the dev team. So, I guarantee you that Tasear was not the one making out shields to be some incredible panacea - that would be the dev team.

TheValar85 · October 2018

It is sheet. never should have happend.

crjs1 · October 2018

It’s awful, actually worse than expected. Literally no point to shields in PvE now. They are vaporised in vet dungeons within seconds and constant recasting depletes resources and damages DPS. Utterly dumbfounded by the change, what is the point in PTS when this gets through despite near universal disagreement with the changes.

joaaocaampos · October 2018

Bastion needs to be fixed:

Increases the effectiveness of damage absorbing effects by [0-25]%.
Reduces damage taken while using a damage shield ability by [0-25]%.

If after this change 25% is too much, put 15% (for Bastion and Shattering Blows).

Increase the Health shield cap for:

50% for Conjured Ward, Annulment, Empowered Ward and Harness Magicka.
60% for Hardened Ward and Dampen Magic.

Done!

WrathOfInnos · October 2018

joaaocaampos wrote: »

Bastion needs to be fixed:
Increases the effectiveness of damage absorbing effects by [0-25]%.

Reduces damage taken while using a damage shield ability by [0-25]%.

If after this change 25% is too much, put 15% (for Bastion and Shattering Blows).

Increase the Health shield cap for:
50% for Conjured Ward, Annulment, Empowered Ward and Harness Magicka.

60% for Hardened Ward and Dampen Magic.

Done!

I mostly agree, but I’m not sure it would even be worth putting points in Bastion if it scaled to 25%. 1% more of a 7k shield is only 70 damage absorbed. Previously 1% in Bastion would increase 20-25k shields by 200-250 points. Even then I found it was best to put points in other defenses after about 30 in Bastion.

And if damage shields are gone in one light attack from an enemy, the uptime on the damage reduction from Bastion wouldn’t be very good. If anything I think it would have to scale to more than 25% before it would outweigh other defensive CPs, at least 35%. Otherwise you would get more benefit out of just stacking other % damage reductions and Spell and Physical Resistances.

As for the increase to 50% and 60% of max health, I agree entirely.

Ender1310 · October 2018

I am finding sorcs in particular can face tank me now. I was melting them pre patch. You should try armor master build with the new mag bone pirate. But as other users have said small sample size.

umagon · October 2018

I like the shield changes. Replenishing barrier is working great on my tank. In pve is like I get whole ~60k more health plus heals because of the resistance changes. In pvp its like having ~30k barrier from the previous patch. Combined with the changes with major evasion it works out well.

BigBadVolk · October 2018

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

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.

is he, I find the Gargoyle in Rivenspire much more harder

ALso today after leveled out my third mNB went into an nAA to get daily skull with some guildies and maybe some randoms, and tbh, shields just disappeard and peopled died to first boss aoe, and I only survived thanks to trying out Mirage + healing (self heal + healer)
so in short I think I'll ditch shields for the time being

Shawn_PT · October 2018

It happened to me two times today. World boss ADD. Not the WB itself. One of the adds. It was coming my way. Popped shield. One second later I was dead with a single punch. It tore through the shield and my health with a single blow. Guess this means I get to use my stam char more now!

The_Old_Goat · October 2018

Today I dug out my magsorc that I use for soloing dungeons now and then for gear. Midway through VoM, I realized I hadn't spent my newly increased champion points. Spent them and moved on finishing the dungeon just fine. I even ran it once more and then jumped to Banished Cells, the only difference I did notice was my pets dying less due to the update changes for them in dungeons and trials. I use hardened ward repeatedly to make it though most of these and it still performs fine so I don't really understand where all the hyperbole is coming from regarding "the great sorc nerf of 2018".

Tasear · October 2018

Noted things down to share with others

Tasear · October 2018

chainlink01 wrote: »

Today I dug out my magsorc that I use for soloing dungeons now and then for gear. Midway through VoM, I realized I hadn't spent my newly increased champion points. Spent them and moved on finishing the dungeon just fine. I even ran it once more and then jumped to Banished Cells, the only difference I did notice was my pets dying less due to the update changes for them in dungeons and trials. I use hardened ward repeatedly to make it though most of these and it still performs fine so I don't really understand where all the hyperbole is coming from regarding "the great sorc nerf of 2018".

Ty for feedback from a different perspective.

firedrgn · October 2018

I like the lightning theme so suuucks for me i .. am lvling a new toon going going heavy arrmor full pet build since i heavy attsck anyways .. dps is already way lower so im sure ill be the red headed step kid in dungeons now. Before i could dps and heal vet 4

DanteYoda · October 2018

No Magsorc is Shelved and Magwardens are done.

BretonMage · October 2018

I play a petsorc. I did a normal group dungeon, a few of the easier world bosses and a couple of abyssal geysers.

Buffed health is 20K, using Empowered Ward of 8K shields. I spent much, much more time re-shielding than usual, to the point where it got quite tedious. Less time attacking, as a result. The pet died several times against the world bosses and at the geysers (it never died against the easier world bosses before). It did not die in the group dungeon as far as I can remember.

If I need to spend all my time re-shielding and (at world bosses and geysers/dolmens) re-summoning my pet, I don't see how difficult content will ever be any fun to play. So if shields are going to be nerfed to this extent, I'm quite positive that we and the pets will need much stronger resistances than what we were given.

Edit: Tonight I tried a moderately challenging non-DLC WB that I had beaten before (2 bosses, a few adds and CCs), and I just kept dying (not to mention I gave up re-summoning the pet after a while because they barely survived 10s). This was really no fun. We need more resistances or reversion of the shield nerf. I agree with others that non-elite players (like me) will struggle to adapt.

Darkenarlol · October 2018

The shield up and do dps playstyle is gone
Why even bother to play mag char now if you end up
dodgerolling any serious attack to don't get a oneshot?

Kadoin · October 2018

I've only slotted healing ward, and even without the initial heal I see little difference except that I die when mutagen is not on me in PvP. Other than that, no real difference noted. Shield changes actually seem to make ward last longer when it is bigger, though its only at best three more attacks and at worse part of a dawnbreaker.

AcadianPaladin · October 2018

Tasear wrote: »

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?

Heh, not the set Elegance; the feeling of elegance she gave me. She was a solo PvE player of full CP. She was built for her end game and was happily there. Her end game was soloing non-DLC wbs and soloing several non-DLC normal dungeons. She was built for very high survival & sustain and happily accepted moderate dps (15-20K) as the trade off.

The survivability came from Surge, Boundless Storm, Empowered Ward, Matriarch. The sustain came from heavy attacks. Her only additional dps came from Lightning Flood and Blockade. Necrox5 + Julianosx5.

Empowered Ward was a 20k shield that protected both her and her Matriarch, meaning she could save magicka by only using the Matriarch heal in emergencies. I have zero interest in a 6 second buff so that is why she ran the 10 second Empowered Ward.

She double slotted Matriarch and Inner Light so had three usable skills on each bar. Her rotation was to cast and keep up Surge, Boundless Storm and Eledrain from her back bar. Then she would go to front bar and cycle through Ward, Lightning Flood, Blockade, Heavy Attack. She was not a glass cannon. She was not overpowered. She was simply exactly what I wanted for this solo character. To support all that, she focused on a very large magicka pool (big shield) and high crit % (good procs for Surge heals) and sacrificed on other areas to do this (like poor magicka regen, modest spell damage and moderate dps).

On an unrelated note, my magplar healer assures you that mages with shields is absolutely not a problem for healers. In fact, my healer appreciates a mage who can take a hit or two. The problem my healer faces is one shot mechanics and this patch did nothing to address that. I totally reject that the shield nerf had anything to do at all with PvE healers. Though I don't play PvP, the PvP players assure me that the shield nerf was not requested by them either.

What could change to make it more fun is to completely undo this horrible nerf that no one asked for.

As far as adapting and adjusting, there was absolutely nothing wrong with my magsorc and I've had a gut full of having ill-conceived nerfs pushed out with nearly every significant update.

Caligamy_ESO · 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?

People in my guild are already running vet dungeons as 4 dps again so not really? My playstyle is never going to be to build my character around expecting someone to cure me either, as I always slot in something to keep myself alive. The day that possibility is gone is the day I won't play it.

Edit: Shields are kinda done, use surge heals. Oh and that ghost boss in VoM with the unbreakabale, undodgeable, unstoppable blue beam of death is super fun now.

firedrgn · October 2018

I think zos blew it on shields from a business perspective.. if you look at dolmens where the new players are lvling there are a ton of mag sorcs
Once battle lvl wears off they going to be shelving them.

VilniusNastavnik · October 2018

Havent been on much lately and honestly considering staying away for good.

dpencil1 · October 2018

Honestly, I prefer the first iteration of the shield nerf over this. A longer duration with a 1 sec cast time was better than gutting shield strength and shifting shield size to benefit heavy armor users over light armor users.

D0PAMINE · October 2018

@Tasear one of my friends in AT was going into a massive rant about the shields. Im working on his build with him to compensate.

Tasear · October 2018

Caligamy_ESO wrote: »

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?

People in my guild are already running vet dungeons as 4 dps again so not really? My playstyle is never going to be to build my character expecting someone to cure me either, as I always slot in something to keep myself alive.

Edit: Shields are done, use surge heals. Oh and that ghost boss in VoM with the unbreakabale, undodgeable, unstoppable blue beam of death is super fun now.

What ghost boss?