My only objection, and it's not a very strong one, is to this:

Increases your damage taken from “Martial” (Physical, Poison, Disease, and Bleed Damage) attacks by 1% per piece worn

since getting hit harder by "martial" attacks is intrinsic to walking around in the least protective armor already. And make up your minds if you're going to require magicka builds to fight in melee range or punish them for doing so, please. LA having anything to do with bash is puzzling, but... ok.

It's amusing they didn't even bother with a pro forma penalty for medium armor. All else looks good, I guess we'll see. Glad to see bonuses that come with penalties attached. Racials should come with one, too.

Heavy being weak to magical attacks is horrible for PvE, and medium not having any penalties just makes it overpowered.

People keep saying that medium doesn't have any penalties because its bonuses are worse, but I just don't see it. If you ignore light armor's strength against magical attacks (which is balanced by its weakness to martial attacks), I would rather have the medium bonuses than the light ones.

It's clear that part of what's going on is that ZOS is trying to break the pattern of light and medium being mag/stam mirrors of each other, but it just doesn't work when the entire rest of the game is balanced around that relationship.

Stahlor wrote: »

In pvp:
Light armour will get even more slaughtered in Elder Stamina Online. Not only will they receive more physical damage, they take even more when blocking.
Medium Armour will be king.

In pve: They are going to hit tanks even more. It will be a mess in some trials. On pts they already started tanking some content in light armour.

Is it because medium has no penalties? Also why light amour on tanks?

I think the heavy armor will become even stronger

The theory behind it all is solid.

in execution? Good grief, no. PVE Heavy Armor tanking does not need this hit, while Light Armor in PVP users have been given an advantage they'll never get to use because they'll be slaughtered just by looking at them funny. Light Armor already had ample disadvantages in PVP.

Fair would be if Medium armor did not get 5 benefits like light and heavy because it has no drawbacks. Its movement speed and aoe damage reduction should either get removed, or it deserves penalties too.

I am also under the impression that all medium armor benefits are entirely useful to the playstyle, where light and heavy both have benefits that actually have no use in combat. For example sneak speed and bash cost reduction for light armor and bash damage for heavy armor.

So in reality, light and heavy both have 3 real benefits while medium armor has at least 4, with no penalties.

I like the idea of armor having bonuses and penalties, I just don't agree with the specific ones they chose.

Heavy having movement penalties makes sense. Yeah, it's obnoxious that you can't sprint everywhere then, but it makes a lot of sense that if you're carting around an extra 100lb of armor, you probably can't run as fast or as long. I'll buy it. Even the dodge roll penalty I'll take, but I'd like them to nerf some mechanics that require dodge rolls like the constant barely telegraphed bleeds from the gryphons in vCR.

As for the damage, I think they're way off the mark. You shouldn't take more damage from being naked than you should from having something on - I think it's only the sash and gloves that have that issue (otherwise it's mitigated by the armor rating), so that should be a set point. After thinking about it with numbers instead of just odd percentages, I'll admit it makes sense - a robe gives [x] armor on live, where on PTS it'll give [x+y] against spells and [x-y] against stam. I can buy that. I don't mind that light should protect from mag attacks better than from physical, I just think medium should have been the opposing one there. Heavy should have gotten +defense for all attacks at the expense of mobility and damage.

As for the sneakiness, It's fine that heavy has a detection nerf and medium has a buff for stealth.

The other big issue here is that it doesn't really seem to be pointed in a certain direction. The current changes are really painful for PvE tanks, of which there is already a shortage in game, and it just makes it a much steeper learning curve for new players since they won't have the CP to mitigate the penalties. Conversely, since PvP is a heavy/stam meta, this current set of bonuses/penalties are only making heavy armor more necessary in PvP.

If they wanted to break the PvP heavy meta without affecting PvE tanks, heavy should instead get a damage nerf, a crit resist nerf, a stam penalty for bunny hopping, or a nerf to breaking CC. It shouldn't have a buff for being CC immune at all since most people walk around Cyrodiil immune to CC from immo pots or breaking free. This will just make PvP more tanky without changing the meta. If they also want to promote other armor weights, light could get other bonuses like a buff to damage shields or enchants to help more people want to run magic in PvP (and therefore use magic damage against the heavy armored people)

If I made the bonuses, here's what I'd do:

• Light Bonus: + mag resist, + shield strength, + armor enchant strength,
• Light Penalty: - phys resist, + block cost, - dmg blocked
• Med Bonus: + phys resist, - sneak/sprint/break free/roll cost, + sprint speed, - fall dmg
• Med Penalty: - mag resist
• Heavy Bonus: - block cost, + dmg blocked, + resist when not moving
• Heavy Penalty: + sneak/sprint/break free/roll cost, - sprint speed, + stam cost for jump, + fall dmg, -dmg done,

Yeah, I'm sure there's more, but this seems like a start - a lot of the med bonuses and heavy penalties here are basically movement flavor. Basically, I'd envision light armor as your wizard robes so they're good with magic... but it's just cloth so nothing against physical stuff. Medium is the slippery rogue armor so it's focus is mobility, and heavy's the one for being a brick wall on the battlefield. I also don't think heavy needs a '+ all resist' since that's baked into the armor rating so they could just boost the rating for that. I like the idea of a resistance bonus when not moving though to really drive home the tanking.

Basically, I think a 7 heavy tank should be able to stand up to [insert trial boss here] without flinching, but really can't do much other than hold up a shield. I know people disagree with nerfing movement speed for tanks, but as a tank I wouldn't mind. In a dungeon, I agree that people should wait for the tank to come in in heavy, not that heavy should get a speed boost since people can't be bothered to wait. I know in real life, I'd rather not engage an enemy if I knew a shield wall was on its way. And let's face it: you pull it, you tank it. If a heavy is in PvP, they should be a glacier going across the battlefield and hit like a wet noodle - if one ends up being a scroll runner, they wouldn't really die unless they were zerged, but it'd take a few hours for them to hoof it through enemy territory. I'd like the see the medium be more like what the current heavy is in PvP - jumpy, slippery, but they should go down a lot easier than your standard juggernauts. And light should stay back to avoid getting their clothes torn being in the fray, but they've got more magicka and enchantments to deal with.

And in terms of the rock-paper-scissors they're looking for, that would mean that each of the three actually has strengths against the other two - heavy can't really catch up to the jumpy medium or faraway light, but it can stand up to their attacks for a while while they just waste resources. Medium can dodge attacks from the others, but it's easy to tire out against heavy and they can get extra damage from mages. Light has the range advantage and has mag and shields for days, but can be stomped flat if they get caught.

Heavy Armor will be the king of PvP.
Its very strong bonus and negligible penalty.

Dracane wrote: »

Fair would be if Medium armor did not get 5 benefits like light and heavy because it has no drawbacks. Its movement speed and aoe damage reduction should either get removed, or it deserves penalties too.

I am also under the impression that all medium armor benefits are entirely useful to the playstyle, where light and heavy both have benefits that actually have no use in combat. For example sneak speed and bash cost reduction for light armor and bash damage for heavy armor.

So in reality, light and heavy both have 3 real benefits while medium armor has at least 4, with no penalties.

Bash cost reduction in tanks would give tanks option not to slot destro staff to proc off balance...or better yet give them something for off balance

I would consider adjusting the movement buff under CC immunity by 3% up from 2%.

they are not fair at all because magicka toons gets tweaks to be more stamina friendly through cost reduction of all generic stamina skills which dont require any slot to be used, i'm obvisouly talking about block, sprint, rolldodge and breakfree while stamina toons is just left aside with their magicka issues which requires to slot a skill and on top of that they are getting scrwed by having all them base generic skills to be more expensive.

the heavy armor part will maybe annoy pve tanks but not pvp dudes.