Armor cap need to be removed it's making heavy armor useless.

heilikin · April 2014

The statement is simple : Heavy armor is just useless.

Why?

Armor cap.

What is that?

Once you reach a certain level in armor your hit a cap and adding more armor is just fruitless. It doesn't protect you more.

Where is the problem?

Simply because with light armor (basic-green) around your level you already reach that armor cap. thus going over to medium or heavy armor is just useless. With a set of basic (white) heavy armor 2-3 level under your level you are already over that cap.

I have done a sword and shield heavy armor warrior, I thought that armor and shield would protect him nice but that's false I am no better protected than a mage in light armor. And that's completely stupid thank you Bethesda/zenimax.... you have made in your game heavy plate armor no more resistant than paper light one....

THAT NEEDS A REWORK! Remove the armor cap !

If I'm hiding between heavy steel plate and a big thick shield... I'm supposed to be more protected than a guy in pijama.... but on TESO it is not the case... because the armor cap is so low than the weakest armor set already make you hit it...

If done test, wearing a set basic set on level of light armor it brings me already to the cap and with that cap in take similar melee damage than when I was wearing a blue set of my level heavy armor and shield.... which gave me twice the number in armor rating... Just STUPID and making heavy armor useless...

a guy in pijama should just be torn apart by melee damage if not using magic to enhance it while a guy in heavy suit should barely be scratched... but that's not the case in teso...

Basically sword and shield + heavy armor : you just wasted your damage rate for no more protection than a guy chosing light armor and heavy damage....

Thank you Beth / zenimax...

caleb.badrulzamannrb18_ESO · April 2014

Don't you know those armors, heavy, light, medium all has different passives and bonuses based on each trees? Take it for that. Not the armor base. LOL. #YOUKNOWNOTHINGJOHNSNOW.

Andy22 · April 2014

heilikin wrote: »

The statement is simple : Heavy armor is just useless.

Why?

Armor cap.

What is that?

Once you reach a certain level in armor your hit a cap and adding more armor is just fruitless. It doesn't protect you more.

To clarify, there is a softcap and a hardcap to spell resistance and armor mitigation. The softcap is around 33% mitigation and happens if your stat starts showing orange values and the tooltip changes. The hardcap is 50% mitigation and is reached after adding much more to the stat only reached with skills.

The problem is to reach the hardcap u actually need much more armor than u can get by heavy armor and armor enchants alone. I need 7x heavy armor 3x superior armor enchants and 2 skills that add ~2000 armor to reach the hard cap.

Ofc trying to reach the absolute hardcap is silly if u check the math behind it. The spot that i can reach with skills + heavy armor and enchants is around 40-45% mitigation.

If the 10-15% more mitigation is worth the hassle is up to u, but keep in mind having 10-15% more "effective HP" without using a slot skill is not a bad option.

On a side-note from my point of view as a tank, spell resistant is much more important than armor, especially if u are a vampire tank. Thats because on hard trash pulls CC is what saves you not armor and most bosses have hard hitting "spell" attacks, while u can easily block/avoid the hard hitting physical attacks.

So in a way yes "Heavy armor" usefulness depends on how many free skill slots u want/can assign for defensive skills and what "5 piece" passive u like most.

Demosthenes86 · April 2014

This will require alot of research as I bet the developement team wants heavy armor users to eventually reach the hard cap for armor and spell resist. However not be able to out gear the need to utilize block/dodge and the use of potions. I hope they do their best to balance the system while keeping the need for tanks to still be skilled players.

The ultimate play style for me would be to tank while balancing survivability / stam / threat management (taunt mechanics) while still needing to use block and dodge to avoid burst damage attacks.

rdfarley89 · April 2014

I stopped getting this around level 25 with full heavy armor and all the passives available to me for increasing armor. Even when it was soft capped I didn't care because I had more armor than I needed and could faceroll shiz.

zgrssd · April 2014

If you barely hit overcharge (only when using skills/buffs or it drops if you remove one piece) then it just means you are good in that area.

The propable design goals was to avoid the "I just max out armor/shield chance/dodge chance and can tank" thing of other games. ESO tanking requries active use of Dodge, Block and Taunt.

There is also the passives (like the boost on healing received/HP-regen for Heavy armor and decresed block cost) wich screams for me "HEAVY ARMOR IS FOR TANKS" as much as any Skilltree can shout such game information.

And finally if you reach into overcharge maybe it is just time to focus on other, non capped stuff?
If you hit stam/magica reg overcharge, take jewelry with reduced stam/magica cost instead. If you hit armor overcharge, take stuff like Impenetrable (less Crit damage) or elemental resistancs instead. Think of heavy armor as freeing up resources for tanking related stuff other then "armor rating". You already have good armor without buffs, that means you can focus on the other stuff making you harder to kill.

Overcharge is a wall. It also has a bunch of doors to get past that wall. If you hit the wall, stop trying to run it down. The wall will win.
Take a step back and look at the doors. Use one or multiple of them and the wall is not an issue anymore.

akneth · April 2014

I waer 7 Pieces(blue/Epic) of Vet.5 Medium Armor and have ~1250 Armor.
Thats far away from Armor Softcap(~1750) 4 my Level(V6).
If i waer 7 Pieces Light Armor,i have only ~900.

skarvika · April 2014

Seconded.

Catches_the_Sun · April 2014

akneth wrote: »

I waer 7 Pieces(blue/Epic) of Vet.5 Medium Armor and have ~1250 Armor.
Thats far away from Armor Softcap(~1750) 4 my Level(V6).
If i waer 7 Pieces Light Armor,i have only ~900.

What he said. There is no way you're approaching soft cap with light armor. I am level 46, with Heavy Armor at level 50, and all passives. I wear 5 heavy / 2 light and haven't seen the soft cap in 35 levels or so.

Drachenfier · April 2014

I wear 7 heavy at level 37...if I put one piece of cloth on (which i do sometimes wear a robe for the magicka boost) I'm no longer at the cap.

skarvika · April 2014

Keep in mind guys, he's talking about people like myself who wear all heavy...which should be doable without being hindered. Not people who mix gear types. I'm specifically specced for wearing a complete heavy set.

Niminion · April 2014

This premise is wrong, you don't soft cap in light armor at high levels and being well overcharged in heavy armor is GOOD that is your GOAL it DOES increase your protection.

The first point of armor after hitting the soft cap is the worst but continuing to Stack armor makes every point better and better until you hit 50% hard cap.

Say you have 33% reduction and 2k health giving you 2985 effective health a 49% increase.

Increasing that to 50% increases your effective health to 4000 a 100% increase.

If 1500 gets you to 33% and after that armor gained is halved that next 17% would still take ~1500 to reach 50%, but you are still gaining effective health at the nearly the same rate per armor point!

Don't be scared of the orange numbers!

zgrssd · April 2014

skarvika wrote: »

Keep in mind guys, he's talking about people like myself who wear all heavy...which should be doable without being hindered. Not people who mix gear types. I'm specifically specced for wearing a complete heavy set.

Then you have the best armor protection the game allows with all-heavy set (and propably shield).
You still have significantly more then anyone with Light or Medium armor and buffs. You still have more then those people who mix some light/medium for thier bonus.
It's not broken in any way. It is doing exactly what it should do - providing you the best armor possible. That some of the points are wasted does not change that Heavy Armor > Medium Armor > Light Armor as far as durability goes.

Lynx7386 · April 2014

Personally I like it the way it is. The idea that the armor softcap can be reached by any armor type means that you pick your armor for the passive bonuses it gives, rather than for the armor value. I like to tank in medium armor because it boosts my stamina regen, reduces dodge cost, and increases crit chance. I'm sure a magicka based tank would like to be able to tank in light armor just fine.

That freedom of choice is what we enjoy about this game. Heavy armor gives you bonuses to healing received, health regeneration, weapon damage, and reduced block cost. Those are the reasons you wear it, not for the armor value.

Malediktus · April 2014

I think they should remove the overcharged crap completly

Still_Mind · April 2014

My main problem with heavy armour is not heavy armour not providing enough mitigation stats, but rather passives being very, *very* meh (or at least, very narrowly PvE tanking specialized - and, what's ironic, Medium is still superior for this purpose due to cheaper dodge).

Of the more prominent bonuses, Light provides substantial spell cost decrease and resistance-piercing. Medium provides a lot of weapon critical. Reduced Roll costs are also very sweet.

Heavy provides... reduced block costs. That's pretty much the strongest bonus I see there, correct me if I'm wrong. As it stands now, in my opinion, the only reason to keep using heavy armour is because of its aesthetics - given the alternatives.

zgrssd · April 2014

Still_Mind wrote: »

Heavy provides... reduced block costs. That's pretty much the strongest bonus I see there, correct me if I'm wrong. As it stands now, in my opinion, the only reason to keep using heavy armour is because of its aesthetics - given the alternatives.

Health Regen is not that wild, but helps playing solo.
The healing recieved buff is propably more interesting then the Block reduction.
You should also not ignore that heavy armor passive is one of 3 Skill that can boost your spell resistance. Aside from the armor, racial passives and active, there is no way to boost spell resistance (it only grows by 20 per level).

Anastasia · April 2014

zgrssd wrote: »

If you ...
The probable design goals was to avoid the "I just max out armor/shield chance/dodge chance and can tank" thing of other games.

ESO tanking AND dpsing AND utility builds require

active use of ****Dodge, Block and Taunt****...

Used some creative editing here zgrssd. Take no offense please as your post was awesome.

I just get annoyed at the large number of players who are ignoring, avoiding, trying to figure out anyway NOT to use Dodge, Block, Interrupt and/or Taunt.

Few come out and say it - but all ya gotta do is watch single fighters as you are personally out questing or dungeoning, whether its in groups or out...you literally only see a few percent of the player population utilizing these mechanics. And I've heard people discussing it -- 'Aw, not going to mess with that, got my other skills to worry about plus it TAKES UP TOO MUCH OF MY STAM." Not kidding here.

I do not/cannot comprehend why -- going into a new game, wouldn't you spend time concentrating on what will make you most efficient or most successful/otherwise known as having the most fun, by learning and using that games fighting mechanics????????????????????????

Thanks for your helpful post zgrssd. Maybe someone will start an information campaign re using TESO's game mechanics rather than old, tired, lazy ones from other mmo's which provide a different path than the one here in Tamriel.

Good journeys!

Still_Mind · April 2014

zgrssd wrote: »

Still_Mind wrote: »

Heavy provides... reduced block costs. That's pretty much the strongest bonus I see there, correct me if I'm wrong. As it stands now, in my opinion, the only reason to keep using heavy armour is because of its aesthetics - given the alternatives.

Health Regen is not that wild, but helps playing solo.
The healing recieved buff is propably more interesting then the Block reduction.
You should also not ignore that heavy armor passive is one of 3 Skill that can boost your spell resistance. Aside from the armor, racial passives and active, there is no way to boost spell resistance (it only grows by 20 per level).

Health regen is meh. Incoming healing increase - perhaps. As far as spell resistance goes, Light armour also offers spell resistance, as well as DK and Templar class skills, as well as Breton racial. It's also pretty feasible to have swappable jewellery to resist particular elements for specific encounters (resistance to a specific element is pretty easy to hardcap, even with zero spell resistance from armour and talents).

Andy22 · April 2014

zgrssd wrote: »

Aside from the armor, racial passives and active, there is no way to boost spell resistance (it only grows by 20 per level).

What? There are so many different ways to boost spell resistance and armor its crazy. Thats the main reason that aside from the heavy armor passives, u don't really care about heavy armor stats itself.

Thats also the reason why anyone who states that a tank need heavy armor for its stats is bad at math, u want heavy armor for the passives nothing more.

This actually shows how lazy ESO was designed from a item/stats perspective. I have no clue who came up with "brilliant" idea that equipping 2 rings equals equipping a full set of heavy armor, way to go devs!

At least this allows anyone to reach soft cap in a blink and even hard cap is easy depending on slots and class.

Still_Mind · April 2014

Andy22 wrote: »

zgrssd wrote: »

Aside from the armor, racial passives and active, there is no way to boost spell resistance (it only grows by 20 per level).

Thats the main reason that aside from the heavy armor passives, u don't really care about heavy armor stats itself.

That's precisely what I'm talking about. Heavy armour passives are, at the very best, meh, even in the narrow, narrow niche they seem to be positioned.

Demosthenes86 · April 2014

"zgrssd wrote: »

Health Regen is not that wild, but helps playing solo.
The healing recieved buff is propably more interesting then the Block reduction.
You should also not ignore that heavy armor passive is one of 3 Skill that can boost your spell resistance. Aside from the armor, racial passives and active, there is no way to boost spell resistance (it only grows by 20 per level).

I would not write off Health Regen just yet. It may not count much in fights yet but there are enough healing abilities in the game that boost Health Regen that I can see the dev team making it a high efficiency HOT. Such as Radiant Aura and Sanguine Altar.

Radiant Aura boosts Health and Stam regen by 80% and Sanguine Altar boosts
health regen by 40% with an option to channel a heal. Both are very mana efficient (especially Radiant Aura due to the Stam regen bonus) and are more powerful the more Health Regen the tank and party members have.

I have a feeling these kind of synergies will be required to place a really good time in the 12 man dungeon. If you can max out healing and mana efficiency between the tank and healers you may be able to drop a healer and pick up a dps making the run that much faster.

rhubbert_ESO · May 2014

I love heavy armor and have had a lot of success with it. I play a sorceror tank (Vr1 right now), so when I hit Thundering Presence coupled with my blue or purple heavy armor pieces I am almost hard-capped.

Master_Quack14b14_ESO · May 2014

I will say that the soft caps for many attributes are far too low for what they should be and make the game feel really clunky, especially HP regen.

If someone wants to build their toon around having the highest HP/Armor/Regen and invest all the points into that, why not let them??? They will be deficient in other areas that will force them to round out their stats later on anyways...

arnaldomoraleseb17_ESO · May 2014

Agreed, heavy armor is totaly useless right now. I can't understand why Zenimax is waiting to buff it. All people wear light armor right now and this should change.

"play like you want" xDDDDDDD ye, sure.

Mephos · May 2014

wow, how you guys don´t understand how it was planned out. if you lift the caps then dodgin and blocking will no longer make any sense at all. additional to that the game is not balanced that players can be super tanky because everyone can heal themselfs (resto staff, class skills etc.)

the 50% dmg mitigation and the caps are made that you learn and use the game mechanics of blocking, dodgin. they reduce incoming dmg by the amount that you would like to have as "passiv armor mitigration"..

if they really raise the caps and allow a higher mitigation than 50% this game will just get screwed over by the fact that you could build immortal characters (dmg mitigation + self heal)

arnaldomoraleseb17_ESO · May 2014

Mephos wrote: »

wow, how you guys don´t understand how it was planned out. if you lift the caps then dodgin and blocking will no longer make any sense at all. additional to that the game is not balanced that players can be super tanky because everyone can heal themselfs (resto staff, class skills etc.)

the 50% dmg mitigation and the caps are made that you learn and use the game mechanics of blocking, dodgin. they reduce incoming dmg by the amount that you would like to have as "passiv armor mitigration"..

if they really raise the caps and allow a higher mitigation than 50% this game will just get screwed over by the fact that you could build immortal characters (dmg mitigation + self heal)

Yes, I can understand the CAPs. What I can't understand is why heavy armor passives are so bad if I don't receive a sustanciable better resistance. If you make a comparison between heavy armor and light armor passives you will know what I mean.

indytims_ESO · May 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Personally I like it the way it is. The idea that the armor softcap can be reached by any armor type means that you pick your armor for the passive bonuses it gives, rather than for the armor value.

To me, this makes different armor types pointless.

ESO could simply call all armor 'armor', and just have different set bonuses.

Armor is meant to absorb damage, deflect it, and protect its wearer. So far from what I've experienced playing different classes with different armor set-ups, there really feels like there is little difference between heavy armor and light when it comes to mitigation. Of course, I could be doing it 'wrong'. Having the set bonuses be different is a cool idea, but it shouldn't be the -only- difference between the armor types (along with cosmetic differences too, of course).

Heavy armor should be able to absorb/deflect a HECK of a lot more than cloth - not just a fraction. If we're the same level and your cloth guy has 28% mitigation, and my plate guy has 30% for example, and all of our armor is the same quality... to me, that says something is very wrong with the system.

Wifeaggro13 · May 2014

The problem is in the passives.

Wifeaggro13 · May 2014

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

The problem is in the passives.

Heavy and medium have no where near the return or benefits light has. And just about every class can buff them selves to armor cap or aquire said buff from guilds.
Health regen is miniscule and stamina regen is just as bad compared to light armor. as well as stamina being spent on other things besides the weapon skills

arnaldomoraleseb17_ESO · May 2014

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

The problem is in the passives.

Heavy and medium have no where near the return or benefits light has. And just about every class can buff them selves to armor cap or aquire said buff from guilds.
Health regen is miniscule and stamina regen is just as bad compared to light armor. as well as stamina being spent on other things besides the weapon skills

Agreed.

Passives skills are totally unbalanced. -21% spell cost and +42% spell resist penetration is simply too good.