* The worst PVP Tank experience of ANY MMO by far I have played so far : TESO HA vs others *

EnOeZ · June 2023

I cannot stress enough how AWFUL pvp tanking is in terms of effeciency, pleasure AND design in my experience with TESO.
Awful is an understatement. Design of melee heavy armour is ATROCIOUS, completely not thought out, subpar to any other PVP tanking I ever had in a decade.
It is a completely disrespect of the heavy melee armour players. Let me explicitate:

Bonuses

Light has magicka regen, no lowered efficiency in PVP, all the contrary (bonus when capturing forts, etc)
Medium has stamina regen, no lowered efficiency in PVP, all the contrary (bonus when capturing forts, etc)
Heavy has health regen, f**** 50% lowered efficiency in PVP AND no bonus when capturing forts !!!!! What the hell ??? ... And our HA (Heavy Armour) passives, consitution, is also supposed to work with Health regen : we are f***** by that AWFUL design ZOS !!!!

Character set-up

Especially in certain PVP modes (most of them in reality), melee players have to: do some damage (at least some...) while:

Building regen while stamina regen is ZEROED while blocking, in ZOS stupid design (not the case in other PVP tanks I played)
Building defense of course, a lot of defense (which is understandable of course)
Building mobility (Maintaining pression on opponent, meaning sticking to him which requires mobility and counter mobility measures.)
Building some damage, since damage is ALSO needed to heal.... (well done ZOS....)

And we need ALL 4 of that !!!

Whereas

some classes just need to build just for 1 thing : damage, like gankers
some classes just have to focus on just 2 things magicka/stamina and damage like mage and archers archetypes, pool and regen like healers
We have at he minimum twice as much things to cover in our character designs !!!!

Play Style

Going in first in combat is really UNREWARDING since you get all the fire and really good PVP healers are both really rare (good ones) and few (few healers). Furthermore, in PVP modes with several flages, they just cannot be everywhere. meaning a lot of deaths and a lot of time NOT playing the game since you simply have to wait for the respawn cooldown. We feel helpless : get a stun, a root, a silence, radiant oppression, one, two three ultimates, cannot get to the guy radiant oppressing you since of course he is far and you are rooted, cannot move faster than your targets or aggressors because, well, you have to build for twice as much things already. Cannot burst someone out since well, ZOS design is subpar (worst mentioning the CP star "Riposte" 30% damage bonus after blocking with 5s cd which has the idea but in battlegrounds, CPs are disabled (of course...).

Playing "safer" is a possibility of course but we would just be better not making a PVP tank...
Ultimate generation starts with a light attack, so that buff uptime is much lesser than with a ranged weapon, penelazing EVEN MORE the playtyle.

Market study

In comparison, I played PVP front line heavy armor in those mainly:
World of warcraft when I used to play at the time had a passive "second souffle" (second wind ?) : by default (not on a set) where being stuck or slowed gave you health back.
Warhammer Online, can't remember the class (BlackGuard perhaps ?)had something that by default, a passive again (not on a set) gave you magicka resist and when stuck by magicka habilities you gain magicka back.
By design, those melees where scaling somehow with the beating they were taken, not in ESO
As a DK melee heavy, how the heck can't I have something that scales with my play style ?

What to do ?

Some ideas (any one or two of them)

Un-nerf health Regen in PVP
Tie Heavy Armor to Ultimate Regen, not health (since you nerfed it -50% in PVP some pathces ago)
Change constitution to work on hit, not on a fix base of every 4 sec. Just a proposal 25% chance on hit 108 both resources (I would add health to constitution).
Add Health to Constitution Passive
Add lessen Mara-like or lessen Hist-Sap-like (Second Wind in WOW) traits to Heavy armour
Make Armour types more significative like 1/2/4: meaning HA should be much more effective than the other twos, light and medium being able to be close to armor cap makes no sense to me and is simply BAD DESIGN.
Separate damage and healing !!! Building for damage should not improve healing at the same time (and vice versa).

In this game, I DO NOT FEEL being in Heavy Armour. More, my survivability feels better in the other two armours with more regen, more pressure on my opponent meaning less damage on me or access to roll-dodge spam with avoid so much damage. With the other two armours I can spam my abilities more, including healing, damage mitigating and mobility ones. While doing so in those armours I even improve my offensive playstyle at the same time.

No wonder, Tanks are hard to find since the enjoyment to play them (at least in ESO PVP is so damn low). In comparison when I play range, game is so damn easy. No melee PVP in ESO for ever ever, is that the answer ? What are your thoughts ?

...
I can't stress how many posts I made to change heavy armour since half a decade in vain. Hopeless.

GrimStyx · June 2023

EnOeZ wrote: »

I cannot stress enough how AWFUL pvp tanking is in terms of effeciency, pleasure AND design in my experience with TESO.
Awful is an understatement. Design of melee heavy armour is ATROCIOUS, completely not thought out, subpar to any other PVP tanking I ever had in a decade.
It is a completely disrespect of the heavy melee armour players. Let me explicitate:

Bonuses
Light has magicka regen, no lowered efficiency in PVP, all the contrary (bonus when capturing forts, etc)

Medium has stamina regen, no lowered efficiency in PVP, all the contrary (bonus when capturing forts, etc)

Heavy has health regen, f**** 50% lowered efficiency in PVP AND no bonus when capturing forts !!!!! What the hell ??? ... And our HA (Heavy Armour) passives, consitution, is also supposed to work with Health regen : we are f***** by that AWFUL design ZOS !!!!

Character set-up
Especially in certain PVP modes (most of them in reality), melee players have to: do some damage (at least some...) while:
Building regen while stamina regen is ZEROED while blocking, in ZOS stupid design (not the case in other PVP tanks I played)

Building defense of course, a lot of defense (which is understandable of course)

Building mobility (Maintaining pression on opponent, meaning sticking to him which requires mobility and counter mobility measures.)

Building some damage, since damage is ALSO needed to heal.... (well done ZOS....)

And we need ALL 4 of that !!!

Whereas
some classes just need to build just for 1 thing : damage, like gankers

some classes just have to focus on just 2 things magicka/stamina and damage like mage and archers archetypes, pool and regen like healers

We have at he minimum twice as much things to cover in our character designs !!!!

Play Style
Going in first in combat is really UNREWARDING since you get all the fire and really good PVP healers are both really rare (good ones) and few (few healers). Furthermore, in PVP modes with several flages, they just cannot be everywhere. meaning a lot of deaths and a lot of time NOT playing the game since you simply have to wait for the respawn cooldown. We feel helpless : get a stun, a root, a silence, radiant oppression, one, two three ultimates, cannot get to the guy radiant oppressing you since of course he is far and you are rooted, cannot move faster than your targets or aggressors because, well, you have to build for twice as much things already. Cannot burst someone out since well, ZOS design is subpar (worst mentioning the CP star "Riposte" 30% damage bonus after blocking with 5s cd which has the idea but in battlegrounds, CPs are disabled (of course...).

Playing "safer" is a possibility of course but we would just be better not making a PVP tank...
Ultimate generation starts with a light attack, so that buff uptime is much lesser than with a ranged weapon, penelazing EVEN MORE the playtyle.

Market study
In comparison, I played PVP front line heavy armor in those mainly:
World of warcraft when I used to play at the time had a passive "second souffle" (second wind ?) : by default (not on a set) where being stuck or slowed gave you health back.
Warhammer Online, can't remember the class (BlackGuard perhaps ?)had something that by default, a passive again (not on a set) gave you magicka resist and when stuck by magicka habilities you gain magicka back.
By design, those melees where scaling somehow with the beating they were taken, not in ESO
As a DK melee heavy, how the heck can't I have something that scales with my play style ?

What to do ?
Some ideas (any one or two of them)
Un-nerf health Regen in PVP

Tie Heavy Armor to Ultimate Regen, not health (since you nerfed it -50% in PVP some pathces ago)

Change constitution to work on hit, not on a fix base of every 4 sec. Just a proposal 25% chance on hit 108 both resources (I would add health to constitution).

Add Health to Constitution Passive

Add lessen Mara-like or lessen Hist-Sap-like (Second Wind in WOW) traits to Heavy armour

Make Armour types more significative like 1/2/4: meaning HA should be much more effective than the other twos, light and medium being able to be close to armor cap makes no sense to me and is simply BAD DESIGN.

Separate damage and healing !!! Building for damage should not improve healing at the same time (and vice versa).

In this game, I DO NOT FEEL being in Heavy Armour. More, my survivability feels better in the other two armours with more regen, more pressure on my opponent meaning less damage on me or access to roll-dodge spam with avoid so much damage. With the other two armours I can spam my abilities more, including healing, damage mitigating and mobility ones. While doing so in those armours I even improve my offensive playstyle at the same time.

No wonder, Tanks are hard to find since the enjoyment to play them (at least in ESO PVP is so damn low). In comparison when I play range, game is so damn easy. No melee PVP in ESO for ever ever, is that the answer ? What are your thoughts ?

...
I can't stress how many posts I made to change heavy armour since half a decade in vain. Hopeless.

you just don’t know how to build, believe me, real tanks in this game are just unkillable beast, a tank can easily kill dd in light, and dd in light is unlikely to kill a tank in heavy armor, besides there are a lot of broken builds, for example, like in dk , you can just take a set to accumulate ult points when you are attacked, and then discharge the ult of corrosion, and annihilate all life under the influence of mechanical acurity

Amottica · June 2023

GrimStyx wrote: »

EnOeZ wrote: »

I cannot stress enough how AWFUL pvp tanking is in terms of effeciency, pleasure AND design in my experience with TESO.
Awful is an understatement. Design of melee heavy armour is ATROCIOUS, completely not thought out, subpar to any other PVP tanking I ever had in a decade.
It is a completely disrespect of the heavy melee armour players. Let me explicitate:

Bonuses
Light has magicka regen, no lowered efficiency in PVP, all the contrary (bonus when capturing forts, etc)

Medium has stamina regen, no lowered efficiency in PVP, all the contrary (bonus when capturing forts, etc)

Heavy has health regen, f**** 50% lowered efficiency in PVP AND no bonus when capturing forts !!!!! What the hell ??? ... And our HA (Heavy Armour) passives, consitution, is also supposed to work with Health regen : we are f***** by that AWFUL design ZOS !!!!

Character set-up
Especially in certain PVP modes (most of them in reality), melee players have to: do some damage (at least some...) while:
Building regen while stamina regen is ZEROED while blocking, in ZOS stupid design (not the case in other PVP tanks I played)

Building defense of course, a lot of defense (which is understandable of course)

Building mobility (Maintaining pression on opponent, meaning sticking to him which requires mobility and counter mobility measures.)

Building some damage, since damage is ALSO needed to heal.... (well done ZOS....)

And we need ALL 4 of that !!!

Whereas
some classes just need to build just for 1 thing : damage, like gankers

some classes just have to focus on just 2 things magicka/stamina and damage like mage and archers archetypes, pool and regen like healers

We have at he minimum twice as much things to cover in our character designs !!!!

Play Style
Going in first in combat is really UNREWARDING since you get all the fire and really good PVP healers are both really rare (good ones) and few (few healers). Furthermore, in PVP modes with several flages, they just cannot be everywhere. meaning a lot of deaths and a lot of time NOT playing the game since you simply have to wait for the respawn cooldown. We feel helpless : get a stun, a root, a silence, radiant oppression, one, two three ultimates, cannot get to the guy radiant oppressing you since of course he is far and you are rooted, cannot move faster than your targets or aggressors because, well, you have to build for twice as much things already. Cannot burst someone out since well, ZOS design is subpar (worst mentioning the CP star "Riposte" 30% damage bonus after blocking with 5s cd which has the idea but in battlegrounds, CPs are disabled (of course...).

Playing "safer" is a possibility of course but we would just be better not making a PVP tank...
Ultimate generation starts with a light attack, so that buff uptime is much lesser than with a ranged weapon, penelazing EVEN MORE the playtyle.

Market study
In comparison, I played PVP front line heavy armor in those mainly:
World of warcraft when I used to play at the time had a passive "second souffle" (second wind ?) : by default (not on a set) where being stuck or slowed gave you health back.
Warhammer Online, can't remember the class (BlackGuard perhaps ?)had something that by default, a passive again (not on a set) gave you magicka resist and when stuck by magicka habilities you gain magicka back.
By design, those melees where scaling somehow with the beating they were taken, not in ESO
As a DK melee heavy, how the heck can't I have something that scales with my play style ?

What to do ?
Some ideas (any one or two of them)
Un-nerf health Regen in PVP

Tie Heavy Armor to Ultimate Regen, not health (since you nerfed it -50% in PVP some pathces ago)

Change constitution to work on hit, not on a fix base of every 4 sec. Just a proposal 25% chance on hit 108 both resources (I would add health to constitution).

Add Health to Constitution Passive

Add lessen Mara-like or lessen Hist-Sap-like (Second Wind in WOW) traits to Heavy armour

Make Armour types more significative like 1/2/4: meaning HA should be much more effective than the other twos, light and medium being able to be close to armor cap makes no sense to me and is simply BAD DESIGN.

Separate damage and healing !!! Building for damage should not improve healing at the same time (and vice versa).

In this game, I DO NOT FEEL being in Heavy Armour. More, my survivability feels better in the other two armours with more regen, more pressure on my opponent meaning less damage on me or access to roll-dodge spam with avoid so much damage. With the other two armours I can spam my abilities more, including healing, damage mitigating and mobility ones. While doing so in those armours I even improve my offensive playstyle at the same time.

No wonder, Tanks are hard to find since the enjoyment to play them (at least in ESO PVP is so damn low). In comparison when I play range, game is so damn easy. No melee PVP in ESO for ever ever, is that the answer ? What are your thoughts ?

...
I can't stress how many posts I made to change heavy armour since half a decade in vain. Hopeless.

you just don’t know how to build, believe me, real tanks in this game are just unkillable beast, a tank can easily kill dd in light, and dd in light is unlikely to kill a tank in heavy armor, besides there are a lot of broken builds, for example, like in dk , you can just take a set to accumulate ult points when you are attacked, and then discharge the ult of corrosion, and annihilate all life under the influence of mechanical acurity

This is spot on. Every aspect.

EnOeZ · June 2023

You miss the point.
Of course there are some builds, with right gear, mythics and all that can allow you to do that.
BUT you can do it better, have better survivibilty using something else thant HA.

Average or above average players are better of not going the PVP tanking route.
Exceptional players with gear can play what they want.

EnOeZ · June 2023

It is still bad design, unenjoyable and not well thought out.
Look at cyro : everyone is ranged.
When you are fighting for a keep, melees have nothing to do (apart from sieging which is boring).
Give melees sometingh to do, like intervene to prevent damage while "blocking" a friendly, something.
Fun is not part of melee HA PVP in TESO.

Reverb · June 2023

EnOeZ wrote: »

It is still bad design, unenjoyable and not well thought out.
Look at cyro : everyone is ranged.
When you are fighting for a keep, melees have nothing to do (apart from sieging which is boring).
Give melees sometingh to do, like intervene to prevent damage while "blocking" a friendly, something.
Fun is not part of melee HA PVP in TESO.

Are you sure you’re not playing a different game?

Urzigurumash · June 2023

EnOeZ wrote: »

Give melees sometingh to do, like intervene to prevent damage while "blocking" a friendly, something.

Blocking a friendly is difficult in this game because people can easily just go around you. Even if they don't, generally a tank stacking health only delays the inevitable. For the most part the most effective way to defend an ally is to run the Guard skill, which still works quite well. Other than that, for a period of time Thews of the Harbinger was strong enough that you could actually block for an ally - since quite a bit of players spammed AoE Direct Damage, so long as you were within the same AoE range as your ally the enemies would end up killing themselves. But many players hated these Harbinger tanks (best on Necro, aka HarbiCro) - because then Single Target DoTs, the best way to deal with the tanks, were underpowered after their nerf at Dragonhold, and because many wanted to keep on spamming AoE Direct Damage unimpeded - so the set got nerfed and has mostly returned to its former irrelevance.

For quite some time on this forum "To wear Heavy Armor is a sin and Tanks must be punished for this sin" was a popular mantra on this forum. I wrote volumes against this but it was, for a time, quite the "moral panic" on this forum and resulted in the Heavy Armor penalties we have today and the overpowered state of Medium Armor.

There's been no small amount of confusion on this forum - as there is in your post - as to what exactly a "Tank" means in PvP. Just using Heavy Armor and SnB? Or trying to play in a Defensive but not Healer capacity?

As to the first sort of "Tank", also known on this forum as a "Tanklet", Melee DKs wearing several pieces of Heavy Armor have been dominating PvP for about 2 years now, before that it was Melee Templars - both specs often characterized by blockcasting heals in SnB. Ice Staff has replaced SnB, and SnB probably shouldn't've had its offensive skills nerfed so hard as they were a few years back, but overall, the "Tanklet" playstyle isn't just alive and well, it's been the most effective and most popular playstyle for years now.

As to the second kind of Tank, aka a "True Tank", besides my first paragraph, earlier in this game CC Tanks were powerful when there wasn't so much CC Immunity, Sorc Negate Tanks have always been extremely powerful, and while Defile Tanks had their day some time ago, overall a Buff+Debuff Tank just doesn't have quite the impact in PvP that it does in PvE. I think it's reasonable to say Buff+Debuff is the essence of Tanking in ESO, and some recent sets have probably made this a more effective role than it's been in years past but there's some room for improvement.

You're not wrong about general comparisons between Armor Weights: the nerf to HP Regen came around about the same time as the Armor Penalties and Hybridization, and as a result, Medium Armor is in a somewhat overpowered state, comparatively.

Whether this needs any attention for the sake of the Tanklet playstyle is questionable, as a long and proud Tanklet I don't think it does, I still think as I have for years that True Tanks could use something better to do than run the Guard skill - accordingly I advocated for buffs to Harbinger before it received them (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/492314/thews-of-the-harbinger-needs-a-buff), and I think Curse of Doylemish should scale off Max HP or Resistances (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/613707/curse-of-doylemish-should-have-health-or-resistance-scaling), and maybe Vykosa could use a buff. (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590101/add-a-0-to-vykosas-tooltip-for-pvp)

Amottica · June 2023

EnOeZ wrote: »

You miss the point.
Of course there are some builds, with right gear, mythics and all that can allow you to do that.
BUT you can do it better, have better survivibilty using something else thant HA.

Average or above average players are better of not going the PVP tanking route.
Exceptional players with gear can play what they want.

Are you saying you have a better PvP tank build than the ones being used and that it does not use HA?

EnOeZ wrote: »

It is still bad design, unenjoyable and not well thought out.
Look at cyro : everyone is ranged.
When you are fighting for a keep, melees have nothing to do (apart from sieging which is boring).
Give melees sometingh to do, like intervene to prevent damage while "blocking" a friendly, something.
Fun is not part of melee HA PVP in TESO.

and that is what LOS is for. There are a lot of LOS opportunities in ESO. Lots of players have a lot of fun playing tanky builds.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2023

You can quite literally be unkillable in Heavy Armor in PvP with the right sets and skills, so I have to agree with others on the point that if you're not feeling tanky enough in Heavy Armor it is likely user error.

Urzigurumash · June 2023

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

You can quite literally be unkillable in Heavy Armor in PvP with the right sets and skills, so I have to agree with others on the point that if you're not feeling tanky enough in Heavy Armor it is likely user error.

Then I think you and others are missing OP's point.

You're talking about a "True Tank", seems like OP's talking about a "Tanklet", aka a Melee Warrior / Knight / etc.

And they're quite right, these days as a Melee Warrior - all other things being equal - no considerable advantage in survivability is conferred by wearing more Heavy than Medium. Really, more Medium than Heavy seems better most of the time.

But that's not a problem in itself, in fact that's the dream the masses on this forum clamored about for years - not a problem unless, as I've always said - this would underpower Archers. It makes no sense - none whatsoever in any conceivable way - that Warriors and Archers would wear the same weight of armor.

This was more of an issue when we were still stuck with the 5 slot paradigm. That being gone, I do think we're left with Archers in a somewhat underpowered state, just look how unpopular the spec is generally and has been for the last few years, excepting a few cheese stacks here and there. OP sees it differently, and that might just be due to playing in different scenes, maybe their server / time / mode has lots of players that are skilled in the few good Archer specs. Mine isn't, I play an Archer maybe 1/3 of the time and rarely see others. So I don't think the lack of penalties for Medium is a tremendous problem as it relates to Heavy, only a slight problem, but I think it is rather an issue for Light. I don't know why somebody would slot mostly Light other than for the Crit Chance (which of course has to do with the overabundance of sustain as we all know).

There's no doubt, wearing 2 Selfish Tank sets confers excellent survivability. So there's no problem there either. There is, in my view, potentially a problem if Heavy passives / base resistances alone don't confer sufficient survivability for a True Tank to actually Tank - i.e. buff/debuff/cc - rather than just hold block in 2 selfish sets. On that matter I have little opinion or insight at the moment but I'm about to find out in the months to come.

Short of it is, and divorced from particulars I think everyone will agree - it's time to take another look at the Damage Taken penalties on Light and Heavy. Are they still needed at all?

tsaescishoeshiner · June 2023

There isn't really such a thing in PvP as tanking in ESO. Surviving in PvP generally also means dealing enough damage that your opponent can't only be aggressive. If you just become a damage sponge, they'll just go all out.

Plus, heavy armor is the meta for PvP. Some of the passives and maluses aren't great, but you also just get armor, which is pretty needed.

LittlePinkDot · June 2023

EnOeZ wrote: »

You miss the point.
Of course there are some builds, with right gear, mythics and all that can allow you to do that.
BUT you can do it better, have better survivibilty using something else thant HA.

Average or above average players are better of not going the PVP tanking route.
Exceptional players with gear can play what they want.

I don't think any type of armour fixes a bad build.

Why use only 1 armour type?
I usually do a mix medium and heavy armour types. Only would use light for a crit build.
You only need to wear 5 pieces of 1 type if you're planing on using that armours active skill.
If you want the undaunted mettle passive you have to wear all 3 armour types.

If you can't catch anybody, you probably need a gap closer skill.
Swift trait jewelry helps too.
And getting major expedition from somewhere. Like Race Against Time in the Psijic skill tree, it also gives immunity to snares and immobilizations for a short time.
Mobility can be used by anyone in any armour.

Having a stun to use on enemies helps too.

Zodiarkslayer · June 2023

When you ask an anthropologist: "Why is mankind the dominant race on earth?", they will usually explain you how it is not just man's intelligence, but the ability to adopt to every kind of environment.

Then again, they probably don't play ESO much...

Amottica · August 2023

EnOeZ wrote: »

You miss the point.
Of course there are some builds, with right gear, mythics and all that can allow you to do that.
BUT you can do it better, have better survivibilty using something else thant HA.

Average or above average players are better of not going the PVP tanking route.
Exceptional players with gear can play what they want.

We do not miss the point. PvP effectiveness is about two things. First is player skill. Without that, the gear means a lot less. The second is about the overall build which includes everything we put into the character build. We must build to be as effective as possible with what we have.

That exceptional player will do better in average gear than the average or above-average player. Ofc, having better tools improves the build. The more serious we are about player leads to being more serious about getting the tools (skill lines and armor) to improve our builds.

JerBearESO · August 2023

Perma block PvP tanks are horribly unkillable.... It's incredibly troll. Just look into how one is built, that will change your mind fast

BXR_Lonestar · August 2023

JerBearESO wrote: »

Perma block PvP tanks are horribly unkillable.... It's incredibly troll. Just look into how one is built, that will change your mind fast

Those walking parse dummies always make me laugh

Marcus684 · August 2023

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

JerBearESO wrote: »

Perma block PvP tanks are horribly unkillable.... It's incredibly troll. Just look into how one is built, that will change your mind fast

Those walking parse dummies always make me laugh

I let my fire lancer do the laughing for me.

*** The worst PVP Tank experience of ANY MMO by far I have played so far : TESO HA vs others ***

* The worst PVP Tank experience of ANY MMO by far I have played so far : TESO HA vs others *