XIIICaesar wrote: »

I think a lot of shield users are missing the point of the shields having a high cost. Its so that you want to continue shield stacking you will need to invest in more regen or max stat to do so. Meaning, you can't spec as much into damage. It's a give & take. You want one thing your gonna lose a little somewhere else. I think thats the intention behind the changes. Its all part of the balance & standardization they're doing right now. The heavy armor meta, stamina users, PvP in general as well as PvE, would get all the changes they have now & they'd forget about the shield stacking meta? Shield stacking meta & magicka glass cannons in PvP are a meta just as powerful as heavy armour stamina PvPers. Balance is both getting adjusted.

This is simply wrong on multiple levels of thinking about shields.

The builds that are hurt by the high costs to shields the most are the builds that do not stack shields but only utilize one shield.
Why is that? Because they generally can not afford to let the shield drop or let it get considerable dmg without refreshing it. Refreshing shields that are only partly dmged is very magica cost inefficient.
Those builds not utilizing harness magica already HAD to invest a great deal into sustain before the changes made to shields. The sustain often critized about shieldstacking was fueled by harness magica - which every reasonable player agreed was broken op and rightfully nerfed.

What the changes to shields are going to achieve is: More shieldstacking.
Why is that? Because that allows you got gain maximum value out of every cast of a shield you make by alternating them. You don´t have to refresh shields which is magica inefficient - you use your other shield.

So if this change would have been intended to make stacking harder it´s not only disconnected from reality in terms of how shields are utilized compared to burstheals.
No it´s also made with so little knowledge about the game that it will achieve the direct opposite. Raised shield costs and lower effectivety will lead to more stacking as that is the only way to maximise value of every cast.

Then i also invite you to read post #7 of this topic and if you will raise arguments against my explanation why holding shields to burstheal standard (i´m not opposing standardisation - just think that shields should have a shield standard not be treated as an ability they don´t are) is wrong from a gamemechanical pov.

Then there´s also often the argument made to use shields only when HP are lost and then to heal up while shielded. This is flawed logic.
Classes that generally have to rely on shields have less potent healing and weaker defense (no tanky class passives or synergies aswell as lack of healing modifiers in their toolkits).
So you´d end up using less effective healing over time while spamming a shield multiple times (the shield is broken on pts in 1 gcd by every reasonable dmg build) to gain your hp back.
Compare this to a burstheal class that has also access to the same healing over time (most likely more due to healing associated on class skills). That healing is also more effective due to class passives and healing modifiers which are generally located on burst heal classes.
Then you couple your burstheal with your already better healing over time and have to spam it less to regain hp than the shieldclass did with it´s shield.
Which ends up massively favoring a burstheal class over utilizing shields this way. Which leads back to why shields aren´t used like burstheals and shouldn´t be held towards their cost standards as explained in post #7.

Edit: I´m not opposed to entirely removing shieldstacking or make it exceedingly prohibitive to do so. Ideally by either raising cost of every other shield if you have one active by X%
or by giving the total value of shields a cap of 60 or 70% health (this would also be ideal with the current iteration of healing ward as you could not protect it with another shield cast first due to reducing it´s size and limiting the healing).
But the costs for annulment + morphs and conjure ward + morphs would have to be reduced back by ~20 to 30%.

My magDK uses harness magicka and doesn't stack shields and I can absorb most peoples damage it's only an issue when I'm being teamed up on by more then 2 people, I'm not sure what the issue is, I don't have sustain issues in PvP with 1.1k mag recovery, and if you are relying on spamming shields in PvE then your group healer isn't doing their job correctly.

Harness magicka right now on live is basically free shield spam, 3k magicka return and then recovery return if the person doesn't hit you for the shield amount you get free cost per damage reduction, now you get fourth cost per damage reduction; the nerf is overhitting yes, it should be at minimal half, I agree, but shields themselves aren't trash period.

It scales with resistances, they do more now than they use to

I tested on live and pts, that's why I added the fourth cost per damage reduction

Aedaryl wrote: »

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

I tested on live and pts, that's why I added the fourth cost per damage reduction

You are playing one of the easiest class to sustain, relying on healing passives, burst heal and huge hot, the shield is for you an additional defense, not your ONLY DEFENSE.

A sorc cannot sustain Hardened ward, his main defense tool and here is the problem.

surge passive crit heals, twilight super strong burst heal more than coag and affects another target, your shield protects your pet and scales higher than light armor skills before cap, and it gives you a mag recovery passive, I'm not sure I understand your argument here.

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

I tested on live and pts, that's why I added the fourth cost per damage reduction

You are playing one of the easiest class to sustain, relying on healing passives, burst heal and huge hot, the shield is for you an additional defense, not your ONLY DEFENSE.

A sorc cannot sustain Hardened ward, his main defense tool and here is the problem.

surge passive crit heals, twilight super strong burst heal more than coag and affects another target, your shield protects your pet and scales higher than light armor skills before cap, and it gives you a mag recovery passive, I'm not sure I understand your argument here.

If you truely think twilight heals more than coagulated blood after available class bonuses are applied you´re mistaken.
Also the twilight costs two slots for just healing and can die.
You should probably test both classes on pts before comparing the two - because on pts DK is miles ahead in the keeping itself alive department compared to sorc.

But otherwise you´re right - the problem about shields on pts is the cost not the size.

Shantu wrote: »

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the strength of shields themselves are not the problem. They never were. Shield STACKING is the real issue. Why ZOS continues to address the problem by nerfing shields to uselessness is anybody's guess. Use a little common sense here. Give players back a decent shield and just prevent stacking. Why is that so darn hard to comprehend?

Honestly yeah, shield stacking is annoying

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

I tested on live and pts, that's why I added the fourth cost per damage reduction

You are playing one of the easiest class to sustain, relying on healing passives, burst heal and huge hot, the shield is for you an additional defense, not your ONLY DEFENSE.

A sorc cannot sustain Hardened ward, his main defense tool and here is the problem.

surge passive crit heals, twilight super strong burst heal more than coag and affects another target, your shield protects your pet and scales higher than light armor skills before cap, and it gives you a mag recovery passive, I'm not sure I understand your argument here.

If you truely think twilight heals more than coagulated blood after available class bonuses are applied you´re mistaken.
Also the twilight costs two slots for just healing and can die.
You should probably test both classes on pts before comparing the two - because on pts DK is miles ahead in the keeping itself alive department compared to sorc.

But otherwise you´re right - the problem about shields on pts is the cost not the size.

You're detracting away from the problem at hand, you have plenty of survival abilities in your toolkit and shields are not negligible to say the least, my friend is a sorc and I asked her how she felt, she agrees with me, shields aren't even kind of trash.

What survivability options do i have as a sorc.

Twilight heal is not worth the slots anymore. It´s bol for 2 slots on a class with no healing synergies that also dies.
Surge is meh if you don´t have dots - ironically if you slot dots one of them makes surge obsolete.
Sorc has absolutely no healing modifier accessible in their toolkit on top.

What other class survivability does sorc have.

Did your friend test sorc shields on pts against competent players - because i´ll happily duel her and give her the chance to reevaluate that opinion.
I can comfortably say that i´ve tested the sorc defensive toolkit on pts and compared it to templar, nb and dk - and even magblade is slightly ahead (though that is purely because cloak hardcounters dots and pts is all dot). DK and templar play in a different league.

So far i only see people that didn´t actually play the class tell people that did it´s gonna be fine.

Derra wrote: »

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

Shields are OPAF, you aren't understanding their use if you think otherwise

Since you have it in your sig.

Would you please raise your arguments instead of raising shields are OPAF - adressing the concerns regarding shields i make in my lenghy post #7 in this topic?

The two classes that have to rely on shields as their main defense (outside of healing ward discussion - which i still don´t believe to make it live) are bottom tier for magica specs alongside the classes that don´t get a decent class cc on pts.
That is somewhat telling about how "op" shields are on the pts imo.

ZOS this is what happens when you wrongfully undue a correct decision and try to appease the clearly overpowered class players by giving them more shield. It just make these people want even more. Sorc needs further nerfs and needs to stay nerfed bc they are too easy. Like my WW.

Derra wrote: »

Shantu wrote: »

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the strength of shields themselves are not the problem. They never were. Shield STACKING is the real issue. Why ZOS continues to address the problem by nerfing shields to uselessness is anybody's guess. Use a little common sense here. Give players back a decent shield and just prevent stacking. Why is that so darn hard to comprehend?

Ironically if zos just made an all shield cap of say 70% this would also fix the issues with stacking current pts healing ward - because you could no longer protect it without losing considerable strengh from it.

they don't even need to do that. just make Healing ward a minor ward and Hardened/dampened major wards so they don't stack. problem solved.

Derra wrote: »

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

Aedaryl wrote: »

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

I tested on live and pts, that's why I added the fourth cost per damage reduction

You are playing one of the easiest class to sustain, relying on healing passives, burst heal and huge hot, the shield is for you an additional defense, not your ONLY DEFENSE.

A sorc cannot sustain Hardened ward, his main defense tool and here is the problem.

surge passive crit heals, twilight super strong burst heal more than coag and affects another target, your shield protects your pet and scales higher than light armor skills before cap, and it gives you a mag recovery passive, I'm not sure I understand your argument here.

If you truely think twilight heals more than coagulated blood after available class bonuses are applied you´re mistaken.
Also the twilight costs two slots for just healing and can die.
You should probably test both classes on pts before comparing the two - because on pts DK is miles ahead in the keeping itself alive department compared to sorc.

But otherwise you´re right - the problem about shields on pts is the cost not the size.

You're detracting away from the problem at hand, you have plenty of survival abilities in your toolkit and shields are not negligible to say the least, my friend is a sorc and I asked her how she felt, she agrees with me, shields aren't even kind of trash.

What survivability options do i have as a sorc.

Twilight heal is not worth the slots anymore. It´s bol for 2 slots on a class with no healing synergies that also dies.
Surge is meh if you don´t have dots - ironically if you slot dots one of them makes surge obsolete.
Sorc has absolutely no healing modifier accessible in their toolkit on top.

What other class survivability does sorc have.

Did your friend test sorc shields on pts against competent players - because i´ll happily duel her and give her the chance to reevaluate that opinion.
I can comfortably say that i´ve tested the sorc defensive toolkit on pts and compared it to templar, nb and dk - and even magblade is slightly ahead (though that is purely because cloak hardcounters dots and pts is all dot). DK and templar play in a different league.

So far i only see people that didn´t actually play the class tell people that did it´s gonna be fine.

You can stack your shield, light armor, and healing ward.
Dark conversion does a great burst and gives you sustain and doesn't even pull from your main resource
Crystal frags heal you each tick
Encase will heal you and give you major vitality
Twilight is still viable it does 3k every second by just being near something and still a FULL BOL heal, not one full and one half
Surge is still worth it and there is soul trap and flame reach dots which hurt the same as degen and even if you have two major sorc buffs surge is still worth it and degen is still worth it or use structured if you don't want the sustain, that's ANOTHER heal
You can use mutagen, hell, you can even use vigor this patch.
You can do all this WHILE streaking away which absorbs a projectile.

What do you have in your toolkit ? You have the best shield in the game that gives you minor intellect and allows you to stack, if I'm okay with harness magicka or even dampen and you have a better shield, what are you doing wrong, I've ran DK without Coagulating and still did fine, shields are not trash, they are far from it.

bakermir wrote: »

Shields need a nerf. When you block cancel the animation you can cast 3 different shields and literally tank a zerg in any PvX without running out of magicka on some builds.

Enlight me with a build that spends 10k magicka in 3 seconds and dont run on magicka, that would be insightful.

Ive seen Cloak + dodge and it´s way cheaper than shield stacking. Specially considering most mag toons start stopping dodge after 2nd stun. If they block as you said, then after 1st one. Ive neer seen anyone in 1vX that standed without s&b, or dodging/cloacking.