Heavy Armor Is Dead, Long Live Medium Armor

Urzigurumash · March 2021

All good points @xaraan , thank you for the thorough explanation of your perspective. You must understand that a long-time Heavy D Swing spammer has a different perspective regarding overall balance. We've been good, we've been bad, and good again, and bad again, for a long time really, from Morrowind to Elsweyr, and now we're really, really good. So now that we're really good we're being told we never should have existed in the first place. When I first escaped Coldharbour I put on the nearest Heavy Armor, started spamming D Swing, and haven't stopped.

I remember when 2h was a "buff stick", HP Regen was a "garbage stat", and a D Swing spammer was the laughing stock of PvP. Accordingly they were all over-buffed relative to other things, so now that all of those things are meta, people are advocating that this playstyle be removed from the game. What era was it when MagSorcs in flat stat sets were the bottom of the pack? Like you said, balance. There might be some D Swingers who have asked for the deletion of the MagSorc, but it rarely comes with "wizards shouldn't even be doing damage".

Anyhow yes the number of people deriding someone using Damage Procs but themselves using Engine Guardian, the almost literal Training Wheels set, is pretty funny. Not that I personally blame them, wear whatever you need to win, but self-awareness and self-examination are conducive to meaningful discourse.

To be honest if all existing Heavy Sets which have a 2-4 bonus to either Stamina or Weapon Damage were converted to Medium, I would have less complaints about your proposal. It makes no sense that all of these sets would be viable if and only if Malacath were equipped.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

Regarding whether it should be necessary to wear Malacath to be able to do any real damage in Heavy: Some Khajiit out there might like Heavy too, and Advancing Yokeda should be an option in PvP. If there were a Heavy version of Crusader or Fiord's then maybe it would make sense that there are damage sets in this game that simply diminish the amount of damage you do and little else.

relentless_turnip · March 2021

... we are talking about balancing an mmo 😂 we are not talking about what is physically possible. Otherwise we may as well delete all magicka classes as magic isn't real...

Reading this baffles me 😂

What players are saying is that heavy over performs in PvP as you don't have to give up much damage to gain a lot of defence. PVE players are saying don't make it harder to tank by reducing heavy armor mitigation.

The solution is simple make heavy armor mitigate more from both types of damage with a damage penalty per piece so you greatly reduce your damage by equipping it. This is again not because you would in real life do less damage in heavy armor, but because we are talking about balance in a fantasy game. If you want to continue to do damage, but look like a knight that is what the outfit station is for👍

Urzigurumash · March 2021

So @relentless_turnip , would you say Heavy Armor is overperforming?

relentless_turnip · March 2021

Urzigurumash wrote: »

So @relentless_turnip , would you say Heavy Armor is overperforming?

@Urzigurumash On live yes, partly due to malacath. Saying that, it was an issue before malacath. On the PTS I would say it definetly overperforms, though I would predict that the meta will more likely be something like 4 heavy 3 medium as it puts you in a similar position to live, but with more damage.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

Thank you, I figured the statement in your signature "It is not over performing... you are under performing!" was a joke but I wasn't sure.

Would you say you believe the ability of a MagSorc to stack Harness Magicka and Empowered Ward does not also allow the Sorc to gain a substantial amount of defense without sacrificing commensurate offense? What about tri-pots/bi-stat immovables and Sugar Skulls / Clockwork Citrus / Takeaway Broth?

Urzigurumash · March 2021

Designating Heavy as "for tanks only" is the just the start. We need to look at self-heals, roll-dodging, damage shields, health potions, and health foods if we're going to properly address how all investments into defense must commensurately diminish offense.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

One easy and obvious solution is to add to all defensive buffs an equivalent Maim. I.e., Major Protection also carries -10% Damage Done, Major Evasion also carries -20% Damage Done, etc.

honey_badger82 · March 2021

Urzigurumash wrote: »

One easy and obvious solution is to add to all defensive buffs an equivalent Maim. I.e., Major Protection also carries -10% Damage Done, Major Evasion also carries -20% Damage Done, etc.

Should anything you have said here and above that ever take place I for sure would be done playing the game along with half the games playerbase. Major resolve and other buffs like protection are used by all roles, not just tanks. I mean there are entire sets that give major protection and other major/ minor buffs to the entire group once procced! What you suggest means that everytime a buff is given there would be some negative effect that would not just affect the tank but the whole groups damage output in a very bad way!
I mean what debuff would you suggest they add to Hurricane, a skill that every stamsorc DPS should be using? That gives you both a major and minor buff.

relentless_turnip · March 2021

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Thank you, I figured the statement in your signature "It is not over performing... you are under performing!" was a joke but I wasn't sure.

Would you say you believe the ability of a MagSorc to stack Harness Magicka and Empowered Ward does not also allow the Sorc to gain a substantial amount of defense without sacrificing commensurate offense? What about tri-pots/bi-stat immovables and Sugar Skulls / Clockwork Citrus / Takeaway Broth?

The tagline in my name is a quote. Someone said whilst defending leap in a nerf thread and I found it very funny. Same as the "bug" quote. Someone said about harrowstorm when it released.

Those shield last 6 seconds, maintaining those doesn't give the sorc much time to do anything else. If you lock them down while they have been on their front bar for more than 5 secs you will kill them. They also need 50k magicka to make their shields decent, which doesn't leave much room for other stats. Like stamina to break free, roll dodge etc...

What's wrong with Tri pots? Immovable pots are fine when they aren't being used to exploit, like with grabbing relics etc... I don't understand your point I'm afraid. You are listing foods now... There are a lot of foods to choose from the gold obviously being most stat dense.

I appreciate you being a reasonable.person to discuss things with though 👍

Urzigurumash · March 2021

@honey_badger82 If you read through this entire thread you'd see I was being facetious.

@relentless_turnip Follow the logic here:

You want to deal damage, wear Medium and Light, not Heavy - that's for tanks.

You want to deal damage, drink Weapon and Spell Power Pots, not Tripots, not immovables - those are for tanks.

You want to deal damage, eat Ghastly Eye Bowl and Lavafoot, not Sugar Skulls - that's for tanks.

You want to deal damage, slot damage dealing skills, not heals, not purges - those are for tanks.

But yes thank you I appreciate you engaging me on this matter. For years so many have scoffed about "well nobody in Heavy should be doing damage anyhow", and I reject this idea, so here I am.

And @xaraan , sorry man, but I'm not sure the PvE community gets off the hook here for these new armor passives. I've heard for years "you're not even a halfway decent tank unless you can survive all content in Alkosh, anything which helps you do the job of tanking is purely for noobs". That may be true and all, but here we are, increased roll-dodge costs in Heavy and Weapon Damage scaling for Alkosh.

honey_badger82 · March 2021

@Urzigurumash tracking now. The whole nerf the damage while wearing heavy armor is absurd. Heavy armor gives no buffs to it. Real world, game world, fantasy world it just doesnt make sense and doing so will absolutely balance nothing, especially in PvE and will counter ZoS on the play as you like tagline. I got that should be taken within reason but currently I am able to do so, add damage nerfs to heavy armor and i couldn't for sure. These changes seem to be to encourage looking at different and unique builds, add a damage nerf to heavy armor then that once again narrows the field.

My Imperial DK tank when I had him set to be tanky McTanky could not kill a fly as it was his damage output was so low. Buffed it was like 2.2k on his character sheet. Should you be last alive in a vet dungeon and the final boss has like 60k health left... no way I would be killing it before running out of resources.
Insert my Imperial hybrid templar tank... 5 med armor 2 heavy and I have 30k resists on my tank bar when in my rune and 27k on my dps bar. I absolutely need the 2 heavy pieces for the extra armor, incoming heal increase, extra HP and the RSS restore with constitution passive while blocking. On my DPS bar unbuffed I have 3.1k damage on my character sheet. I have completed several vet DLC dungeons with this tank and have saved the day more times than I can count. The dps rotation is super simple and should I be last on a near dead final boss on vet I can indeed clear it. I cleared scalecaller peak last alive on vet when she had over 200k health left with this tank.

With the new changes I am as of now unsure if he will perform the same, worse or better. Already wearing the 2 heavy pieces I need even more with nerf 6.3.4 I take on a 6% increase to roll dodge and 2 pieces of armor must be reinforced and one sturdy. Add a damage nerf of 6-8% as suggested here... well at that point he I would be forced to be a tank or dps only in group content. No more playing the way I wish and still being effective. As it is with CP 2.0 you may only kit out for 1 mode (tank/healer/dps) unless you want to be further gimped.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

Yeah @honey_badger82 , I don't know about other players, but playing on StamDK, a naturally low crit class, what Heavy brings is additional Healing Received, the Constitution passive, and the buff to HP Regen, what Medium brings is increased sprint speed, lower roll-dodge costs, reduced skill costs, and the buff to Stam Regen. These differences were difficult to equalize between the armor weights. The Damage vs Mitigation trade-off for most of my builds was trading off 500 weapon damage after buffs for 5k resistances after buffs. From this perspective there was essentially no difference in damage or mitigation for a Nord in Medium or an Orc in Heavy. Choosing the Lady sign over the Warrior, slotting 5 defensive skills or 2, etc, all in the same realm as 5 medium vs 5 heavy.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

I like to play in Heavy often with the Warrior or Lover, no more than 3 defensive skills slotted, and sometimes on Bosmer too. And there's people playing a Breton in Light with Protective jewels or the Lady sign, Clockwork Citrus, a full defensive backbar, chugging tripots and spamming damage shields telling me that "heavy is for tanks". Yeah ok.

JobooAGS · March 2021

So what is your solution to encourage more people to wear light and medium without artificially slapping on a damage nerf to heavy?

Urzigurumash · March 2021

Mine? I think the meta for stam will naturally shift to 4 heavy / 3 medium like Turnip said here, and in BGs the increased costs to roll-dodge and sprint are going to be a real pain when we play Crazy King after Crazy King, but my main proposed change is that all Status Effects ignore all mitigation, as the low percentile chance for the application of a Status Effect represents a "saving throw" for your defenses to prevent affliction with the status. Once you're Poisoned, Chilled, Diseased, etc., your mitigation does nothing - rewarding damage over defense.

I also think Baseline Crit Damage should be elevated by like 10% or so, and PvE bosses given some Impen, to help accentuate the rewards for running Medium or Light. I'm sure there's some issue with this idea but I'm not sure what it is.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

Or, maybe as alternative to buffing Crit Damage, replacing Minor Maim on Chilled with Minor Brittle, and Minor Brittle on Frost Heavies with Major Brittle.

Things like that. Buffs, not nerfs.

honey_badger82 · March 2021

JobooAGS wrote: »

So what is your solution to encourage more people to wear light and medium without artificially slapping on a damage nerf to heavy?

The heavy over med or light is strictly a PvP issue so it should be solved with battle spirit if anything.
Other than that I would suggest not decreasing malcaths damage buff but making it not buff proc sets and kill crit healing on top of already killing crit damage. There are already sets that do not get buffed by your damage modifier anyway. Winters respite and aegis caller are two good examples. Nothing buffs the heal or damage of those sets or at least it doesnt show in the tooltip if anything does.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

I also have an issue with the assumption that if we nerf damage output in Heavy by 30%, everybody will go replace all their Heavy pieces with Medium/Light, rather than just running around with 30% less damage, thus extending TTK much more than reducing it.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

Or you know, about the Constitution passive - I don't know that it's a good idea, but maybe it's time to do away with the Stam Regen being disabled during blocking and roll-dodging? HP Regen isn't, so there were two things subtly and indirectly elevating Heavy over Medium - you have better sustain while blocking with Constitution than Stam Regen, and blocking and roll-dodging don't disable the regen which is buffed by Heavy. Of course this was added to prevent perma-blocking and perma-roll-dodging, so it would need something else to work.

On that note I figure an underappreciated change is the removal of the 5k health from Battlespirit, which inequitably benefits Heavy.

Avalon · March 2021

Probably just my opinion, alone, but...

Why not just make all sets drop in all weights? We already have the ability to wear 3 jewelry and use up weapon spots to equip sets not in 'our' weight class, so... why not just finish that, and give players true diversity? That IS what the devs have been saying is the reason for the changes to weapon skills/passives, racials, etc... right? Why not just go the whole route, and with the armor changes, make it truly the player's choice on everything, not just be pigeoned into wearing specific sets because they need to fill out with appropriate armor weights.

Again... might just be my opinion, alone. But, I would think others might feel the same.

xaraan · March 2021

Urzigurumash wrote: »

And @xaraan , sorry man, but I'm not sure the PvE community gets off the hook here for these new armor passives. I've heard for years "you're not even a halfway decent tank unless you can survive all content in Alkosh, anything which helps you do the job of tanking is purely for noobs". That may be true and all, but here we are, increased roll-dodge costs in Heavy and Weapon Damage scaling for Alkosh.

People say a lot of stuff in the game/forums, doesn't make it so.

I've tanked all the content in the game in vet HMs and no, you can't survive every situation in medium. I'm sure the job could be done to an extent if your team is solid, but not in the same worry free way. And alkosh isn't even used anymore, at least on our team we don't need the pen, so even when it was removed from tanking b/c of damage scaling it had little effect on our runs. And many go-to sets in the game are now in heavy.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

xaraan wrote: »

I've tanked all the content in the game in vet HMs and no, you can't survive every situation in medium.

I meant less about wearing Medium when tanking, and just wearing Alkosh, i.e. not wearing a set which gives defensive buffs. Now if you want to run Alkosh on a tank, you have to run 3x Infused Damage glyphs (or 3x Bloodthirsty with whatever glyphs if that works?), losing the ability to run Mag Regen glyphs, or Bracing glyphs, etc., which will be even more desired with the increased roll-dodge costs, etc.

That's great if beginner tanks are no longer commanded to go farm Alkosh before they can even think about calling themselves a tank, and it's great you can reach the Pen Cap easily without it now, I assume on account of Minor Breach on Pierce Armor and the now unique Breach potions? I had thought they should really change Tremorscale to also give Spell Pen.

I've wondered what the devs thought about the long-standing idea that there were only 2 tanking sets, Ebon and Alkosh, all of the rest aren't even worth looking at and if you bring them to a group we'll kick you, and whether this was related to the low popularity of tanking, because if you wanted to just play a PvE Tank, you didn't get to participate in any of the theorycrafting, testing, experimentation, none of that, it was just go farm Alkosh and Ebon and then wait for us to be ready once we're done with all our cool theorycrafting and testing.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

So, it wouldn't shock me if tanking has been deliberately made harder so that there is more interest in some of the many defensive heavy sets which haven't seen much use or farming, and for tanks to have more slack with what they wear for more groups, perhaps generating more interest in PvE Tanking altogether. I don't know that these nerfs to heavy sustain are entirely caused by PvP. I understand there is a much broader array of viable tank sets now, and I was pleased when pieces of Battalion Defender started selling. When that set came out I was sure it was better than Ebon for many less experienced groups in 4 man, but it seems like it took a year or two for the idea to catch on.

Urzigurumash · March 2021

In other words, the nerf to Heavy sustain and the change to Alkosh changes the paradigm from "you're not a good tank unless you're wearing Alkosh" to "only a good tank can wear Alkosh". An unmitigated loss for those already doing the hardest content in Alkosh, obviously, but anyhow just something to think about before you rest assured "if only the Heavy DD were deleted from PvP, tanks in PvE would suffer no nerfs".

BlueRaven · March 2021

relentless_turnip wrote: »

... we are talking about balancing an mmo 😂 we are not talking about what is physically possible. Otherwise we may as well delete all magicka classes as magic isn't real...

Reading this baffles me 😂

What players are saying is that heavy over performs in PvP as you don't have to give up much damage to gain a lot of defence. PVE players are saying don't make it harder to tank by reducing heavy armor mitigation.

The solution is simple make heavy armor mitigate more from both types of damage with a damage penalty per piece so you greatly reduce your damage by equipping it. This is again not because you would in real life do less damage in heavy armor, but because we are talking about balance in a fantasy game. If you want to continue to do damage, but look like a knight that is what the outfit station is for👍

Why do pve tanks need to be punished for what is happening in cyrodiil? Just put a battle spirit penalty on it and call it a day.
We already have a tanking shortage in pve, making tanks do less damage just will make it worse.
Heavy armor dps needs a buff not a nerf.

manny254 · March 2021

BlueRaven wrote: »

relentless_turnip wrote: »

... we are talking about balancing an mmo 😂 we are not talking about what is physically possible. Otherwise we may as well delete all magicka classes as magic isn't real...

Reading this baffles me 😂

What players are saying is that heavy over performs in PvP as you don't have to give up much damage to gain a lot of defence. PVE players are saying don't make it harder to tank by reducing heavy armor mitigation.

The solution is simple make heavy armor mitigate more from both types of damage with a damage penalty per piece so you greatly reduce your damage by equipping it. This is again not because you would in real life do less damage in heavy armor, but because we are talking about balance in a fantasy game. If you want to continue to do damage, but look like a knight that is what the outfit station is for👍

Why do pve tanks need to be punished for what is happening in cyrodiil? Just put a battle spirit penalty on it and call it a day.
We already have a tanking shortage in pve, making tanks do less damage just will make it worse.
Heavy armor dps needs a buff not a nerf.

If you are trying to do PVE dps in heavy, you are in the wrong build.

If you are tanking in PVE, you "do damage" by enabling your group to do more damage. Either from buffs/debuffs, or positioning targets well.

Scardan · March 2021

BlueRaven wrote: »

ThreeFacedLiar wrote: »

Sangwyne wrote: »

relentless_turnip wrote: »

Irfind wrote: »

Scolopendra wrote: »

Are we really allowed to play any content we want with any kind of character? Because right now, it really doesn't feel that way.

You can play it with any character just not with any armor... so you need a sneak armor - medium.

People take this "play as you want" statement too far IMO. Of course you can't play a sneeky tank 😂 the build diversity in this game is actually incredible, but they have to balance it to some degree... You also can't tank a trial in a dress...

There's a massive difference between trying to tank a trial, which is 12 man content and requires certain setups to perform effectively, and sneaking, a core mechanic that is featured prominently in two entire skill lines as well as several zones in the base game. There are multiple quests, such as the Morag Tong and story quests in Vvardenfell, that require infiltrating areas with guards. Heavy armor users have no choice but to simply respec or wear different armor in order to play through the base game; 70% increased detection radius is just ridiculous. And my complaint regarding the changes should probably have considered how Light armor was also ran over by a bus; they take increased physical damage on top of their other drawbacks, while also having the least armor in the game. The nerfs to Heavy and Light armor go beyond simple balance changes and actually impact the fluidity and enjoyment of the game; reduced movement speed, increased detection radius, etc, all these are relatively inconsequential in terms of balancing Heavy for PvP but make actually wearing it feel miserable.

You know, that's still doesn't make sense to play through content that involves sneaking, with heavy armor.

It is a fantasy game, taking real world considerations into account is nice up to a point. But if an armor type is hindering basic questing, that is a problem.

Even fantasy should have a degree of realism. And it is in all fantasy games, basic laws of physics for example. There is no "muffle" spell from Skyrim, so it is not logical to sneak in heavy armor and not being noticed. It looks not immersive.

relentless_turnip · March 2021

BlueRaven wrote: »

relentless_turnip wrote: »

... we are talking about balancing an mmo 😂 we are not talking about what is physically possible. Otherwise we may as well delete all magicka classes as magic isn't real...

Reading this baffles me 😂

What players are saying is that heavy over performs in PvP as you don't have to give up much damage to gain a lot of defence. PVE players are saying don't make it harder to tank by reducing heavy armor mitigation.

The solution is simple make heavy armor mitigate more from both types of damage with a damage penalty per piece so you greatly reduce your damage by equipping it. This is again not because you would in real life do less damage in heavy armor, but because we are talking about balance in a fantasy game. If you want to continue to do damage, but look like a knight that is what the outfit station is for👍

Why do pve tanks need to be punished for what is happening in cyrodiil? Just put a battle spirit penalty on it and call it a day.
We already have a tanking shortage in pve, making tanks do less damage just will make it worse.
Heavy armor dps needs a buff not a nerf.

So you are one of the few tanks who are happy to receive more damage next patch from magic based attacks? I was suggesting heavy has more mitigation and less damage. Taking more damage was the pve complaint with the armor changes. Heavy armor doing too much damage whilst having high mitigation was the PvP complaint... The solution seems pretty clear to me...

BlueRaven · March 2021

relentless_turnip wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

relentless_turnip wrote: »

... we are talking about balancing an mmo 😂 we are not talking about what is physically possible. Otherwise we may as well delete all magicka classes as magic isn't real...

Reading this baffles me 😂

What players are saying is that heavy over performs in PvP as you don't have to give up much damage to gain a lot of defence. PVE players are saying don't make it harder to tank by reducing heavy armor mitigation.

The solution is simple make heavy armor mitigate more from both types of damage with a damage penalty per piece so you greatly reduce your damage by equipping it. This is again not because you would in real life do less damage in heavy armor, but because we are talking about balance in a fantasy game. If you want to continue to do damage, but look like a knight that is what the outfit station is for👍

Why do pve tanks need to be punished for what is happening in cyrodiil? Just put a battle spirit penalty on it and call it a day.
We already have a tanking shortage in pve, making tanks do less damage just will make it worse.
Heavy armor dps needs a buff not a nerf.

So you are one of the few tanks who are happy to receive more damage next patch from magic based attacks? I was suggesting heavy has more mitigation and less damage. Taking more damage was the pve complaint with the armor changes. Heavy armor doing too much damage whilst having high mitigation was the PvP complaint... The solution seems pretty clear to me...

No it is all awful. All of it. Tanks don’t need to take more damage, nor do they need to do less dps.
Tanks in pve are hurting. Few want to play one, and making life more difficult for them will not spawn more of them.

Here is a tip for pvp. If heavy armor is so great for pvp, then WEAR HEAVY ARMOR. Tanks in pve don’t have a choice, you have to wear heavy. Pvp can do anything they want, so wear heavy armor already if it’s so great.

Heavy armor is better then light and medium in pvp? So what?
Is arming a weapon better then having no weapon in pvp? Do we need to nerf all weapons for pve because unarmed is underperforming in pvp? Just adjust your build and go.

Apparently it’s ok to suggest to tanks that they need to carry around 2-4 types of gear to do things in pve. But asking pvpers to adapt the one armor they wear is out of bounds.