Update 29 Combat Preview

LadyHeloise · January 2021

Just wanted to say thanks for the detail about the thinking behind these changes. It helps people understand why things are happening and tthat's very useful.

ExistingRug61 · January 2021

MrZeDark wrote: »

The way I see all of this as a quick breakdown -

PvP Perspective: (DPS/Tank)

StamDPS does more dmg to Mag
MagDPS does more dmg to Tank
StamDPS does less dmg to Tank

So if each armor type wearing person gets a bonus vs another, then fair is fair. Please keep in mind, Heavy Armor is used by Tanks - Since D&D and MMO early life and so on.. So a DPS utilizing Heavy to be more Tanky, is in fact sacrificing DPS. That is completely acceptable and logical, it was never intended to be exploitable in PvP.

If though you have an issue with this, you have to ask yourself - Do these changes hurt me or was I relying on a crutch to get dmg done quickly, knowing it felt exploitative? You know... those giggles you got, when you DD down a player, in 1-2 abilities. All I really see, is it balancing it out in a way that suggests both StamDPS and MagDPS will be able to exchange the same blows now. Why did I not mention Tanks? Because again, you wear heavy - you expect to loose DPS, because its logical. But before I close out my simplified PVP break down, lets not forget.. Mag, you get more Pen than Stam natively - So they get a bonus to your Light Armor, you have had a bonus to their medium for a very long time. This does not mean Stam now reigns supreme, it means Mag needs to be more conscious of their own utility and support.

PvE Perspective: (DPS/Tank/Healer)

This will be quick - Rely on your healers. You know, those players you don't 'need' anymore because you do so much dmg you skip mechanics and and zerg zerg zerg. Maybe this extra dmg we will all take, will make us realize that healers are more than POA, RO, Olo, SPC, Combat Prayer. They are people that need to feel relied upon, that are keeping HoT uptimes so your cozy in your parse - that can burst heal when that mechanic you were too slow to roll dodge / block hits you. Maybe we need to take a little bit more dmg, to feel humbled that our healers are actually good healers and not just there to make your parse look good. Maybe through more dmg, you'll find ways to be more supportive yourself.

So everyone, step back and breath. Leave your bubble of solitude, and 'muh parse'. Think logically how these things would work in a broader 'game design' understanding. As from all they said last year, and bits they have said this year. This is really only the first in many changes to come - To make you realize, If you're in a group you play as one; Tanks, Healers, and DPS. Not just a Zerg.

As if you have been reading between the lines, the reign of maximizing your DPS to get through stuff faster and faster is starting to slow down. They have already mentioned (in the past 13 months) long term idea's of Nerfing your LW, Nerfing your Crit. Given this 'more' dmg taken within armor roles - as well as if you peered at those CP's (pause in youtube to see more). You will understand, that support concepts are getting rolled on out. Keep in mind, many of these idea's are 'long-term' as they are slow rolling you. They want you to get cozy with these little changes first, before the hammer comes. They want you to know what 'good tanking' and 'good healing' is - before they make you realize what 'good dps' actually will be.

Thanks!

The thing your first analysis is missing is that while mag dps deals more damage to tank, tank also deals more damage to mag dps if it is a stam tank.
So light armour only actually gets an advantage against a heavy armour spec if it is a mag heavy spec. Not to mention the differing base resistances from armour to start with.

But really, I dunno, until we can test these it’s a bit hard to gauge how strong each set is as it’s so many changes at once. And even when we can test, comparing defensive strength is a lot harder to do objectively rather than anecdotally as there isn’t a objective test for defence like dummy parsing for dps.

NewBlacksmurf · January 2021

GrimTheReaper45 wrote: »

I have concerns about both of the combat changes but mainly the armor.

In pve the roles are designed around gear weights, gear has effects based on weight, we have passives based on weight. Tanks have to wear heavy, mag has to wear light. I dont see how this changes anything besides forcing tanks to take more mag damage and light armor to take even more stam damage along with the increased damage the receive from lower resistances already.

In pvp there already exist a large performance difference between classes wearing light armor and stam heavy builds. Yes fighting eachother will result in them taking similar damage from this change but thats also on top of the decreased resistance of light in the first place.

I just dont think this change really fits into how we build characters in eso.

I’d say it’s been glaringly obvious for years that PvE and PvP can’t mix but the devs are dead set on developing it their way regardless.

I’m not suggesting I have all the answers but I would go as far to say a large part of the existing and old group of customers would benefit from separating the two.

I’d imagine having one character who has for lack of a better term, a PvE mode and PvP mode. There are also major changes needed to how PvP content is accessed and PvE changes to Cyrodil, IC, etc. It just seems odd because we don’t really have world PvP and we shouldn’t ever.

HanzeeBokeem · January 2021

I would assume it will no longer be 1 CP point per level, something like 3 would make the new 3600 CP equivalent to being 1200 CP with the current system.

Noldornir · January 2021

MrZeDark wrote: »

You will understand, that support concepts are getting rolled on out. Keep in mind, many of these idea's are 'long-term' as they are slow rolling you. They want you to get cozy with these little changes first, before the hammer comes. They want you to know what 'good tanking' and 'good healing' is - before they make you realize what 'good dps' actually will be.

Thanks!

I'd like support roles to be 100% revisited TBH

I don't trust to hit a balance in this anytime soon tho, the light/medium/heavy armor feat only looks intresting on a pvp perspective to me where MAG>TANK>STAM>MAG pretty much a rock-paper-scissor game

KhajiitLivesMatter · January 2021

xgoku1 wrote: »

What about players already at max CP (810)? Will there be some form of CP normalization to fit the new higher cap of 3600? Or do we need to grind to 3600 from 810?

u can already grind to 3600 its the current max lvl but u just dont get advantages if u are over 810 atm

so i think u just stay at ur lvl and need to grind the rest

silver1surfer69 · January 2021

Looking foreward to it. Well done from my point of view so far! Please be extra carefull to get as much balance in as you can, so we (eg in pvp) do not end up all wearing the same type of armor cause it proved to be simply op... TY!

Firstmep · January 2021

MrZeDark wrote: »

The way I see all of this as a quick breakdown -

PvP Perspective: (DPS/Tank)

StamDPS does more dmg to Mag
MagDPS does more dmg to Tank
StamDPS does less dmg to Tank

So if each armor type wearing person gets a bonus vs another, then fair is fair. Please keep in mind, Heavy Armor is used by Tanks - Since D&D and MMO early life and so on.. So a DPS utilizing Heavy to be more Tanky, is in fact sacrificing DPS. That is completely acceptable and logical, it was never intended to be exploitable in PvP.

If though you have an issue with this, you have to ask yourself - Do these changes hurt me or was I relying on a crutch to get dmg done quickly, knowing it felt exploitative? You know... those giggles you got, when you DD down a player, in 1-2 abilities. All I really see, is it balancing it out in a way that suggests both StamDPS and MagDPS will be able to exchange the same blows now. Why did I not mention Tanks? Because again, you wear heavy - you expect to loose DPS, because its logical. But before I close out my simplified PVP break down, lets not forget.. Mag, you get more Pen than Stam natively - So they get a bonus to your Light Armor, you have had a bonus to their medium for a very long time. This does not mean Stam now reigns supreme, it means Mag needs to be more conscious of their own utility and support.

PvE Perspective: (DPS/Tank/Healer)

This will be quick - Rely on your healers. You know, those players you don't 'need' anymore because you do so much dmg you skip mechanics and and zerg zerg zerg. Maybe this extra dmg we will all take, will make us realize that healers are more than POA, RO, Olo, SPC, Combat Prayer. They are people that need to feel relied upon, that are keeping HoT uptimes so your cozy in your parse - that can burst heal when that mechanic you were too slow to roll dodge / block hits you. Maybe we need to take a little bit more dmg, to feel humbled that our healers are actually good healers and not just there to make your parse look good. Maybe through more dmg, you'll find ways to be more supportive yourself.

So everyone, step back and breath. Leave your bubble of solitude, and 'muh parse'. Think logically how these things would work in a broader 'game design' understanding. As from all they said last year, and bits they have said this year. This is really only the first in many changes to come - To make you realize, If you're in a group you play as one; Tanks, Healers, and DPS. Not just a Zerg.

As if you have been reading between the lines, the reign of maximizing your DPS to get through stuff faster and faster is starting to slow down. They have already mentioned (in the past 13 months) long term idea's of Nerfing your LW, Nerfing your Crit. Given this 'more' dmg taken within armor roles - as well as if you peered at those CP's (pause in youtube to see more). You will understand, that support concepts are getting rolled on out. Keep in mind, many of these idea's are 'long-term' as they are slow rolling you. They want you to get cozy with these little changes first, before the hammer comes. They want you to know what 'good tanking' and 'good healing' is - before they make you realize what 'good dps' actually will be.

Thanks!

PvP is not just about dmg, survival is also very important, and due to procsets, you can put out as much dmg in heavy as you can in medium or light.
This isn't going to change, but the massive dmg reduction heavy gets for free is going to push it even further ahead of the other 2 especially light armor.

UntouchableHunter · January 2021

Armor changes really make sense. Good job.

GrimTheReaper45 · January 2021

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Can you please explain more about the armor changes?

How are we going to choose armor when the game is built around certain builds using specific armor. For example mag drop sets all come in light and light passives are tailored to mag with the desirable passives and skill requiring 5pc's. The way it was explained seems very counter to whats already in game.

Why doesnt medium have its own draw backs?

Rehdaun · January 2021

Who else thinks the champion bar will be great for PC players where they can use an addon to quickly change what they have slotted while totally screwing over us console players? We've already seen it with gear, forcing us console plebs to run only a single set throughout the while dungeon/trial in most situations.

Firstmep · January 2021

Rehdaun wrote: »

Who else thinks the champion bar will be great for PC players where they can use an addon to quickly change what they have slotted while totally screwing over us console players? We've already seen it with gear, forcing us console plebs to run only a single set throughout the while dungeon/trial in most situations.

Probably the first that popped into my mind when I saw the bar yeah.
And this is coming from a pc player.
Just another reason to have multiple load outs as a base game option.
Essentially a built in build creator.

Aratrontelvanni · January 2021

I really, really do not like the changes to armor. We have so much choice in the game already, and we're going to be getting more with the CP updates. This doesn't even actually seem like a reasonable choice to me, as a PvE player. I suppose it forces you to think when choosing which type of dps to use, but tanks have to use heavy, healers basically have to use light. And even in the case of dps, I don't want to have to choose which of my dps to use for specific content, I want the choice to be within the playstyle of the character I've created to play as. Like someone else said, this is really just extra debuffs in a meaninglessly rock-paper-scissors-y sort of way. I hope the devs either reconsider the debuffs or reconsider shipping armor changes at all. It's one thing to pick an armor set like New Moon Acolyte that has a debuff, it's another thing to be forced to pick up debuffs no matter what you do.

SOLDIER_1stClass · January 2021

Dracane wrote: »

SOLDIER_1stClass wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

SOLDIER_1stClass wrote: »

Azorean wrote: »

From the stream, Medium Armor doesn't seem to have any penalties. Any reason for that?

We do, its called roll increase. Its literally our only defensive capability and their is an increase tax after each use.

I've heard of this one. It's the same one Light and Heavy users also have, while having a significantly smaller stam pool to pull it from. Let's also not forget that roll cost is already considerably lower for MA than the other two, as well.

If there are to be line item buffs and debuffs for one armor type, there should be one for all armor types.

Medium shouldn't automatically get a pass.

Incorrect, as light armor has damage shield s and on demand heals that greatly allow it to survive far greater than any medium build.

Additionally, Heavy vs medium damage out put currently is negligible while their survivability is drastically different with heavy coming out way on top.

Light armor builds have access to a much broader range of abilities and support including more aoe options which rain supreme in both pvp and pve.

Stam medium builds are pretty much nonexistent in pve endgame content whete magicka rules the content with its damage coupled with its array of support abilities and synergies.

And in pvp heavy is king 👑 plain and simple.

The last thing medium needs is a nerf of any kind.

Did you really just say light armor can survive far better than medium/stam builds?

Plain and simple, if medium armor gets no penalties, it also does not need even more bonuses.
I want to properly explain why stamina outperforms magicka stat wise when looking at their entire arsenal. I just might when I get angry enough during the PTS.

Yes, because I literally can in light and heavy easily.

Between my mag Sorc, Necro, DK and Temp who all rock light in pvp. They can easily out heal majority of the damage comings in

Definitely no issue surviving in heavy armor and heals when I switch out to heavy either.

You know when things get sweaty is when my stam medium toons jump into the fray.

Medium has rolls thats it which is useless with how op and prevalent aoe is. No real heal.

On paper medium looks stacked, it did before this. However there is a difference between practicality and numbers. If medium was truly op you'd see them running endgame content, prevalent in pvp but you don't.

Medium armor at this point is for RPers and those niche players who refuse to give up on it.

Because medium armor as it stands is horrible. You definitely can't compete in endgame. And in pvp doing well takes excruciating more effort than light or heavy users.

Ohh and 2hand as a whole needs a nerf period. It performs massively better than any other weapon skill line. Dizzy and executioner overperform plain and simple.

Snipe is literally all bow has, it just needs its damage slightly scaled back .

forzajuve212 · January 2021

SOLDIER_1stClass wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

SOLDIER_1stClass wrote: »

Azorean wrote: »

From the stream, Medium Armor doesn't seem to have any penalties. Any reason for that?

We do, its called roll increase. Its literally our only defensive capability and their is an increase tax after each use.

I've heard of this one. It's the same one Light and Heavy users also have, while having a significantly smaller stam pool to pull it from. Let's also not forget that roll cost is already considerably lower for MA than the other two, as well.

If there are to be line item buffs and debuffs for one armor type, there should be one for all armor types.

Medium shouldn't automatically get a pass.

Incorrect, as light armor has damage shield s and on demand heals that greatly allow it to survive far greater than any medium build.

Additionally, Heavy vs medium damage out put currently is negligible while their survivability is drastically different with heavy coming out way on top.

Light armor builds have access to a much broader range of abilities and support including more aoe options which rain supreme in both pvp and pve.

Stam medium builds are pretty much nonexistent in pve endgame content whete magicka rules the content with its damage coupled with its array of support abilities and synergies.

And in pvp heavy is king 👑 plain and simple.

The last thing medium needs is a nerf of any kind.

Dodge roll and movement speed provide infinitely superior mitigation and survivability to a light armor user with "shields" and healing. You cannot die if you cannot be targeted.

Slyclone · January 2021

I think the devs know what they're doing.

As for no new systems, it starts in 2021. Most of the stuff releasing this year was being worked on prior to the letter in December.

So please.... read slowly.

ZOS_GinaBruno · January 2021

Hey all, just wanted to give you a heads up that Brian just posted an addendum at the bottom of the original post to explain the CP cap and how it affects DPS and power. Hope this helps clear up any questions or concerns!

Suddwrath · January 2021

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to give you a heads up that Brian just posted an addendum at the bottom of the original post to explain the CP cap and how it affects DPS and power. Hope this helps clear up any questions or concerns!

The addendum has only reinforced concerns, if anything.

GrimTheReaper45 · January 2021

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to give you a heads up that Brian just posted an addendum at the bottom of the original post to explain the CP cap and how it affects DPS and power. Hope this helps clear up any questions or concerns!

Will the armor weight changes make more sense when we see the patch notes? I understand the champion point changes but the armor one im have trouble understanding.

GrimTheReaper45 · January 2021

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

GrimTheReaper45 wrote: »

I have concerns about both of the combat changes but mainly the armor.

In pve the roles are designed around gear weights, gear has effects based on weight, we have passives based on weight. Tanks have to wear heavy, mag has to wear light. I dont see how this changes anything besides forcing tanks to take more mag damage and light armor to take even more stam damage along with the increased damage the receive from lower resistances already.

In pvp there already exist a large performance difference between classes wearing light armor and stam heavy builds. Yes fighting eachother will result in them taking similar damage from this change but thats also on top of the decreased resistance of light in the first place.

I just dont think this change really fits into how we build characters in eso.

I’d say it’s been glaringly obvious for years that PvE and PvP can’t mix but the devs are dead set on developing it their way regardless.

I’m not suggesting I have all the answers but I would go as far to say a large part of the existing and old group of customers would benefit from separating the two.

I’d imagine having one character who has for lack of a better term, a PvE mode and PvP mode. There are also major changes needed to how PvP content is accessed and PvE changes to Cyrodil, IC, etc. It just seems odd because we don’t really have world PvP and we shouldn’t ever.

I dont really see the benefit in pvp either tbh. Players have been asking for changes but they have been asking for light/medium buff and nerf to heavy damage

jaws343 · January 2021

Suddwrath wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to give you a heads up that Brian just posted an addendum at the bottom of the original post to explain the CP cap and how it affects DPS and power. Hope this helps clear up any questions or concerns!

The addendum has only reinforced concerns, if anything.

I think it makes it pretty clear that around CP 900 your power is mostly the same as it is now, with a few things that have shifted that will require some theory crafting. And most of the stuff beyond that is more of the fluff perks to pick from and less the combat effectiveness stuff that we work with now.

After reading that, and at 1400+ CP, I would expect extremely little, if any, change in my DPS on live now.

Luke_Flamesword · January 2021

For players who are in the higher end of the CP scale (900+) that participate in the most challenging and demanding encounters, you will still be able to beat those encounters. Where you’ll see a difference is a shift in favoring survivability over DPS at that point. This is due to several factors we’ve already noted regarding social pressure to “catch up” in CP, bypassing or otherwise ignoring content mechanics, and reducing the gap between high-CP vs. low-CP players. Internally, we’ve tested many, many encounters with CP 2.0 and all of them were still very possible to beat. It may not be as fast at first with CP 2.0, but as new strategies develop and builds evolve with this system in mind, we are confident that players will find new and diverse builds that allow them to master current and future content.

Well, that sounds like a nerf

dcmgti · January 2021

So....ZOS is nerfing my vet trial tanks even more? Good times.

Merlin13KAGL · January 2021

SOLDIER_1stClass wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

SOLDIER_1stClass wrote: »

Azorean wrote: »

From the stream, Medium Armor doesn't seem to have any penalties. Any reason for that?

We do, its called roll increase. Its literally our only defensive capability and their is an increase tax after each use.

I've heard of this one. It's the same one Light and Heavy users also have, while having a significantly smaller stam pool to pull it from. Let's also not forget that roll cost is already considerably lower for MA than the other two, as well.

If there are to be line item buffs and debuffs for one armor type, there should be one for all armor types.

Medium shouldn't automatically get a pass.

Incorrect, as light armor has damage shield s and on demand heals that greatly allow it to survive far greater than any medium build.

Additionally, Heavy vs medium damage out put currently is negligible while their survivability is drastically different with heavy coming out way on top.

Light armor builds have access to a much broader range of abilities and support including more aoe options which rain supreme in both pvp and pve.

Stam medium builds are pretty much nonexistent in pve endgame content whete magicka rules the content with its damage coupled with its array of support abilities and synergies.

And in pvp heavy is king 👑 plain and simple.

The last thing medium needs is a nerf of any kind.

@SOLDIER_1stClass , you're confusing armor weight with mag/stam build decisions. There is literally only one skill difference between one armor class to another. The same abilities and support options are available on either version.

You can dodge and still do damage independently - no shared GCD for dodge rolls and skills. The shields, and the burst heal on demand (which also has requirements and are often class based, so available to any armor type) take the place of a damage ability, unlike Vigor's fire and forget.

There are plenty of bleeds and poisons that also shut all those things down quickly, often used by stam builds.

AoE and 'support abilities' - specify? Mag doesn't use caltrops. Mag doesn't use Endless Hail. Mag doesn't use the melee splash damage available on several weapon options. Show me the heal equivalent of Rally, the built in shield equivalent of Brawler? Heck, show me a single second weapon damage line for Mag? How about gap closers? Mag also won't hit the raw WD stats stam will, nor will it have remotely the same movement speed by default. There are stamina morphs of just about every class skill available vs what there once was. Here's the kicker: None of these things are tied to armor weight, either way.

Show me the LA version of Tzogvin, Relequen, Berserking Warrior? It took almost 7 years to get the LA version of VO.

Finally, Heavy having a third more AC than medium vs double the AC of Light is a completely separate issue. It's the proc meta in PvP that's making HA king, not the HA itself.

A quick Google search will show you Medium builds that are well within the range of their LA equivalents. The gap is not what you would have us believe.

Every armor type should have benefits and drawbacks.

guarstompemoji · January 2021

Zos,

I appreciate the time and attention spent towards the new CP system, in making it more flexible going forward, and towards the categories making more sense. I remember as a new player, being quite goggly-eyed at parsing the new information.

As for: "We’re adding this secondary level of armor mechanics..."

From a UI/UX perspective, please reconsider reworking these so that they fit into the core armor passives. Then, all of the information is listed in one place. Not doing so--the separate tool tips, hovering here, then here, then here, then trying to figure out the bonuses/passives in your head or on a napkin--makes the game unapproachable.

It helps kill a new audience, and alienates several older ones.

Addressing the UI/UX is one of the chief things ESO needs. This comes with it being an older game with many, many features. How do you introduce those features to new players? How do you teach them/encourage them to pick up on and use game mechanics?

This "extra layer" is a UI/UX/learning curve nightmare.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · January 2021

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Looking forward to testing the changes, will reserve judgement until i get a chance to test it but the the UI looked really nice.
It's really nice to see changes like this in the announcements (I wish you had included them in the main announcement)

Also it would have been great to know that this is where the majority of the teams time is being sunk into, as you said during the stream this has been ongoing for 2 years. During which time we've been asking for multiple changes and features and not really having much communication as to what else has been going on instead of them. I understand about not promising deliveries etc but I think a 'goals' or 'ongoing work' type post would be sufficient.

I'd also still like to see a PVP development team separate from just 'combat' (and some content developed there).

Thanks for your work so far

SOLDIER_1stClass · January 2021

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

SOLDIER_1stClass wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

SOLDIER_1stClass wrote: »

Azorean wrote: »

From the stream, Medium Armor doesn't seem to have any penalties. Any reason for that?

We do, its called roll increase. Its literally our only defensive capability and their is an increase tax after each use.

I've heard of this one. It's the same one Light and Heavy users also have, while having a significantly smaller stam pool to pull it from. Let's also not forget that roll cost is already considerably lower for MA than the other two, as well.

If there are to be line item buffs and debuffs for one armor type, there should be one for all armor types.

Medium shouldn't automatically get a pass.

Incorrect, as light armor has damage shield s and on demand heals that greatly allow it to survive far greater than any medium build.

Additionally, Heavy vs medium damage out put currently is negligible while their survivability is drastically different with heavy coming out way on top.

Light armor builds have access to a much broader range of abilities and support including more aoe options which rain supreme in both pvp and pve.

Stam medium builds are pretty much nonexistent in pve endgame content whete magicka rules the content with its damage coupled with its array of support abilities and synergies.

And in pvp heavy is king 👑 plain and simple.

The last thing medium needs is a nerf of any kind.

@SOLDIER_1stClass , you're confusing armor weight with mag/stam build decisions. There is literally only one skill difference between one armor class to another. The same abilities and support options are available on either version.

You can dodge and still do damage independently - no shared GCD for dodge rolls and skills. The shields, and the burst heal on demand (which also has requirements and are often class based, so available to any armor type) take the place of a damage ability, unlike Vigor's fire and forget.

There are plenty of bleeds and poisons that also shut all those things down quickly, often used by stam builds.

AoE and 'support abilities' - specify? Mag doesn't use caltrops. Mag doesn't use Endless Hail. Mag doesn't use the melee splash damage available on several weapon options. Show me the heal equivalent of Rally, the built in shield equivalent of Brawler? Heck, show me a single second weapon damage line for Mag? How about gap closers? Mag also won't hit the raw WD stats stam will, nor will it have remotely the same movement speed by default. There are stamina morphs of just about every class skill available vs what there once was. Here's the kicker: None of these things are tied to armor weight, either way.

Show me the LA version of Tzogvin, Relequen, Berserking Warrior? It took almost 7 years to get the LA version of VO.

Finally, Heavy having a third more AC than medium vs double the AC of Light is a completely separate issue. It's the proc meta in PvP that's making HA king, not the HA itself.

A quick Google search will show you Medium builds that are well within the range of their LA equivalents. The gap is not what you would have us believe.

Every armor type should have benefits and drawbacks.

Lmao, bleeds and poisons are useless in pvp outside of proc sets like smite and terror which ARE needed to make them remotely viable on their own they are nothing.

They do nowhere near enough damage to be viable in pve.

Tz, rele, berserking exist and still stams aren't viable. Those sets ARE needed for medium stam to be a maybe thought.

The fact that LA users don't have access to similar and are still top of the pve endgame alone shows the disparity between the two.

Fact is Light Armor reigns supreme in pve End content has super AoE in PvE and PvP.

Endless Hail is a joke and useless without Maelstrom bow.

Medium stam builds NEED certain weapons and armor to be viable for survivability and damage.

LA doesn't period.

And even before the proc changes in greymoor, HA reigned supreme in pvp.

The burst damage just isn't there in medium armor to be meaningful enough to run it.

The damage output in pvp between HA and MA is negligible at best, while their survivability is drastically different.

If bleeds and poisons were worth it you would see a plethora of build running them but you don't. The only reason poison arrow is even ran is because of the Masters bow otherwise it is useless.
And bleeds lmao are worse than poison.

Nothing you mentioned was valid because if it was we wouldn't be seeing the lack of medium viability like we currently are.

Dusk_Coven · January 2021

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Champion System

As mentioned earlier, the current Champion System relies on passive abilities and this was largely due to the technology that was available at the time. On the backend, the game will perform a check on most passive abilities each time you perform an action, whether that be drinking a potion, dodge rolling, or using an ability on your hotbar. The game must also constantly check passive abilities for the right thing at the right time. For example, a Champion ability such as Bastion requires the game to check if a damage shield was cast on every action your character does. Multiply that by the 30-40 passives you have on your character, and the result is a system that puts unnecessary stress on the server.

So you're concerned about too many checks?
But you let players exploit block by spamming it as often as they like, for dubious reasons. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/514544/game-breaking-issue-spamming-block-can-now-disconnect-you-from-the-server/p1

Animation cancelling (including light attack weaving and block cancelling and bash cancelling and mashing the block button instead of holding down block, etcetera) in ESO is clearly the worst thought out "feature" that has ever been "embraced" and ESO has paid for it over and over again in constant re-coding.
Instead of doing the right thing and coding out the nonsensical exploit, ESO continues to support it and be crippled by it.

That's justice right there.

kanczuzn_ESO · January 2021

The armor changes seemed very obviously favored for Medium armor. (There's your tl/dr right there)

Even if we approach it from the standpoint that Light and Heavy "cancel" each other we can see a breakdown. Let's completely, for the moment, disregard the fact that I've never heard a single person care about bash damage, and even just look at that.

Light Armor? Decrease by 1%.
Heavy Armor? Increase by 3%

Why? If they're supposed to be "opposites" then do it. But the truth is that it seems less like a balanced scale. So right there, we know that this system is not meant as an opposites, but instead is meant to be an overall "balancing act" where things should balance out amongst themselves. So instead, how about just looking at net positives and negatives?

Light Armor has 5 pluses, 3 minuses. 2 Net.
Medium Armor has 5 pluses. 5 Net.
Heavy has 4 pluses, 4 minuses. 0 Net.

So, heavy armor lets you mitigate more damage, you already had to sacrifice DPS for it, and you're taking the most negatives? For... what exactly? Increasing bash damage? Reducing damage by CC immune? Because a 7% boost to by damage block is not going to outweigh that 21% increase to dodge roll. Tanks already suffer from resource management, and now you're making it worse? Let's just look at a standard set. 5h/1m/1l.

Increase damage done with bash by 14%
Reduce damage taken while immune to CC by 10%
Increase damage Blocked by 5%
Reduce cost of Break Free by 5%
Increase Movement Speed while sneaking by 5%
Reduce Cost of Sneak by 5%
Reduce damage taken from Physical by 4%
Reduce Cost of Bash by 3%
Reduce Damage taken from AoE by 2% for 2 seconds after Dodging
Increase Movement speed by 2% while cc-immune
Reduce Cost of Sprint by 1%

Increase the size of your detection area while sneaking by 50%
Increase cost of Dodge by 12%
Reduce Movement Speed bonus of Sprint by 5%
Increase damage taken from Magicka by 4%

So, a solid bump to uhh... bash damage? And otherwise, not really a huge impact on the positives. But you increase the cost of your dodge by 12% and sneaking is right out for PvP.

By contrast, let's look at a 5m/1h/1l (not uncommon, but also not necessarily required either)

Reduce damage taken from AoE by 10% for 2 secs after dodging
Increase movement speed by 10% while CC immune
Reduce Cost of Sneak by 15%
Reduce cost of Block by 12%
Reduce the Cost of Break Free by 5%
Increase Movement Speed while sneaking by 5%
Reduce Cost of Sprint by 5%
Reduce the Cost of Bash by 3%
Increase damage done with Bash by 2%
Reduce your damage taken while immune to CC by 2%
Increase the amount of damage blocked by 1%

Increase the size of your Detection Area while sneaking by 10%
Reduce Movement Speed bonus of sprint by 1%

So... You can dodge, block, sneak, and break free better than someone in Heavy armor, whenever you do you take less AoE damage (armor value aside) and you get all these bonuses for a 1% decrease in movement speed and a 10% increase in your detection area (something that's manageable).

Anyone else see how this heavily favors Medium armor?

If these are meant to be balanced, then at the very least we should see the same net number of positives and negatives, as the armor can otherwise be seen as relatively balanced due to the very nature of the "invested" bonuses. If the goal is to better the armor, then look at modifying the invested bonuses, adding passive non-invested bonuses alters the armor at a base level, much in the same way as modifying the armor values to start with. As such, it needs to be balanced amongst itself, giving Medium Armor a clear 5 net, and Heavy a 0 net sets a very obvious favor away from Heavy Armor. Not to mention, the penalties have a serious impact on Heavy Armor wearers in PvP and PvE, by contrast the negatives by light armor are.... less so.

If the mage has to block a physical attack, a 4 or 7% increase to that damage will not be a deal breaker, nor will the cost of block (which is stamina, a stat that isn't important for a magicka user), and the damage done by Bash is a joke penalty.

The Tank in heavy armor won't care too much about the Magicka increase, though it sucks because we already have to take the brunt of the damage and anything that increases that damage is a blow. The movement speed... meh. The Cost to dodge? Dear god that hurts. And that increase to the size of detection area is pretty insane and silly. I mean, it's very "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" or "Robin Hood Men in Tights" stereotype of clanking all over the place, and silly from that respect, but it'll definitely hurt in PvP when you're trying to avoid getting ganked by a group.

Medium armor? Here you go. Have a bunch of bonuses.

Constructively I would say that Medium needs 3 penalties, one of which needs to be fluff -- a la "decrease damage with bash". Maybe make Light's decrease 3% and make Medium 1%. Then tack in two more that hurt, but aren't death. Something like: Increasing the cost of Break Free by 3%, Decrease Damage done with bash by 1% (Up Light's to 3%0, and Increasing the Damage taken while CC'ed by 2%.

Heavy Armor needs to have one of those fluff positives removed, I would personally get rid of the Bash damage one, and then ADD 2 more good increases given. Something like... Reducing the cost of break free and reducing the cost of Blocking. And then removing one of the fluff Negatives, personally I'd ditch that Detection Area one.

Doing that would set the armor a bit more on par with each other, giving a total of 2 net bonuses for each, 1 Fluff positive, 1 Fluff negative, 4 bonuses that seem interesting, and 2 negatives that make people grumble.

Fennwitty · January 2021

I think this is an editing issue:

The capability to control which stars you slot at any given time is the main aspect that governs vertical progression.

Instead of "vertical" I think the word "horizontal" was intended. Apologies if this was already pointed out.