My mitigation VS their... whatever THAT was

HerMajesty · August 2023

Hey all. A brief Imperial City story and question, bear with me.

So there I was, my Nord tank (pve generally, but pvp adapted) with ~37K armor (because penetration is a thing), flare slotted on both bars (so 6K more armor, right?) and a (puny, but still) damage shield up. CPs in 6% DD mitigation as well. So, all in all, I was feeling pretty good about myself, dropping from that tower in the Arena district. I happened to land on a hostile NBs head, so I though "Okay, let's Tango".

Then I get Merciless Resolve'd for 20+K damage, though block. Even Almalexia had no time to Mercy Pity me, as the encounter took less than the heal from the set. But that's beside the point.

Now, I'm a big girl, I can deal with losing a fight (if we can generously call the 2-3 seconds this took a "fight"), and the NB in question had some serious moves. I'd just like to understand the math behind this, as - to my mind - I had layers of mitigation (gankphobia, due to having played a ganker for a while, before coming to despise the playstyle), and it didn't seem to matter at all. I have no illusions of killing a 3000CP player (whom my hubby calls "sweaters", but I myself try not to

), but I can usually stalemate or at least go head-to-head for a while.

In my mind, at least, I should be halving all incoming damage, before block. Even if I dropped block, which I don't think I did, but devil's advocating here - did I get hit for 50 thousand damage from a 1K cost ability?

Necrotech_Master · August 2023

major and minor breach is -9000 armor

so if your at 37k armor, if they had major and minor breach on you that would bring you down to approx 28k armor

they could have been running 10k pen base + potentially another 10-12k pen from balorgh, so they could have made your armor effectively 8k if they had 20k pen + major and minor breach on you

that would put your armor mitigation at almost nothing (maybe around 10-15% mitigation from armor at that point)

other mitigations, such as blocking, major and minor protection, undeath, are not additive and subject to diminishing returns

theres a huge amount of variables involved with calculating the dmg something would have in a pvp scenario to know how much dmg you would get for something

HerMajesty · August 2023

Fair enough, thanks. Pretty sure Balorgh wasn't a thing, but the rest adds up.

Why would blocking yield diminishing results, though? Isn't it DamageShield ->Resistance ->Block? As in, whetever's left after mitigation is fully subject to being reduced by blocking?

Erm, I've been away from ESO for a while, granted, so I may be off on things.

HerMajesty · August 2023

Oh, and isn't the Flare 10% non-penetrable?

Necrotech_Master · August 2023

i think the order is armor resistance (between 0-50%), then block, then other mitigations such as major and minor protection, or gear which has lines to get dmg reduction against players

its diminishing returns only because the mitigation amounts are not added together

so for example a 10k dmg hit

if you were at max armor, would reduce that to 5000

50% from blocking would reduce that to 2500

10% major protection from flare would reduce that to 2250

so on so forth (further mitigations would do less and less)

so its really hard to bring incoming dmg under about 80-85% of the original dmg value

dmg shields are kind of weird, because most resistances and mitigations do not apply to dmg hitting the dmg shield, only a few cases such as undeath work on the dmg applied to the shield

so if you were shielded, everything hitting the shield would not be mitigated by your resists, but it might slightly reduce the dmg that did need to be resisted though

theres a lot of factors that go into influencing how much dmg the enemy attack would do too, their weapon dmg, crit, crit dmg, penetration, and other factors such as bloodthirsty on jewelry, dmg buffs from gear (balorgh or others)

one of the reasons i mentioned there are a lot of variables involved, if they hit you at a point while you were heavily debuffed, and they were heavily buffed, they could have hit you with high dmg burst hit like that

edit: spelling

Necrotech_Master · August 2023

HerMajesty wrote: »

Oh, and isn't the Flare 10% non-penetrable?

major and minor protection do have some counters in the form of debuffs

major vulnerability is the counter to major protection (though this one is harder to source and unlikely you were hit with this)

minor protection is countered by minor vulnerability, which a NB could easily apply

the vulnerabilities make you take 5% (for minor) and 10% (for major) increased dmg taken

so if they hit you with minor vulnerability, your major protection from flare would only be doing 5% mitigation effectively

CameraBeardThePirate · August 2023

HerMajesty wrote: »

Fair enough, thanks. Pretty sure Balorgh wasn't a thing, but the rest adds up.

Why would blocking yield diminishing results, though? Isn't it DamageShield ->Resistance ->Block? As in, whetever's left after mitigation is fully subject to being reduced by blocking?

Erm, I've been away from ESO for a while, granted, so I may be off on things.

Just commenting in the hopes that I clear up something for someone, but shields have gone through a lot of changes throughout the years.

Damage shields do account for resistance, but ignore block mitigation. They are affected by all other forms of mitigation.

edward_frigidhands · August 2023

Most people in PvP run almost 20k penetration, so your 37000 armor was likely more like 17000. Additionally, if your tank relies on self heals as part of your survivability toolkit then he may have had the ability to shut that down.

You can currently reach up to 59% healing reduction in PvP.

You could try using a block build but then there is always a possibility you may run into this:

https://eso-sets.com/set/shell-splitter

I hope this helps.

Major_Toughness · August 2023

Where is the screenshot, or video? Any proof what so ever?

edward_frigidhands · August 2023

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Where is the screenshot, or video? Any proof what so ever?

I am not sure why you're using language like "proof". This isn't a trial or a court of law. She just wants help assessing why this happened, and yes a screenshot would help with that.

But a call for "proof" is a bit on the strong side for this discussion don't you think?

WoppaBoem · August 2023

You probably got feared lost block got bursted. The best tankyniss in pvp is movement, yes block but more importantly active healing over time. I see many pve orientated players think resistances will save them but it does not.

Amerises · August 2023

WoppaBoem wrote: »

You probably got feared lost block got bursted. The best tankyniss in pvp is movement, yes block but more importantly active healing over time. I see many pve orientated players think resistances will save them but it does not.

This was my thought, you were feared or stunned. I run 23k pen and war maiden on my NB with out including debuffs. Also, there’s a CP that increases damage against damage shields, so that could have even made their first hit not only be a crit, but also increases damage even.

If you’re worried about getting bursted, crit resist will be a life saver. As a gank-blade, crit resist, high health, AND passive heals (vigor, rune, etc.) will stop me every time. Not to mention sea serpents is really good for absorbing my first hit.

Good luck!

Theignson · August 2023

The spectral bow is stupidly overpowered (along with several other NB skills). For nothing but a few light/heavy attacks, they get FREE 300-400 extra weapon damage, then hit with a 20k hit that hits MUCH harder than most ULTIMATES. There is no sense trying to figure out the math since it ignores resists as far as I can tell. To add insult to injury, Merciless resolve (IF you had survived) also gives a FREE 10k heal to the NB!

LOL. They hit you with a 20k bow and with the 10k heal and a single healthy offering they are back up to their normal 35k. NB are thus super tanky in addition to doing huge damage.

PLUS ZOS BUFFED the ability EVEN MORE this patch-- you don't have to activate it, it is always up , AND it is active on both bars.

They also BUFFED the strongest offensive/defensive skill in the game, cloak-- it wasnt good enough so they gave it FREE major sorcery on BOTH BARS.

This is why everyone should be playing NB right now, obviously ZOS favors the class.

SkaraMinoc · August 2023

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

You could try using a block build but then there is always a possibility you may run into this:

https://eso-sets.com/set/shell-splitter

I hope this helps.

That set is useless even against Permablock builds. Nobody runs it except for the 4 pc bonus.

Major_Toughness · August 2023

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Where is the screenshot, or video? Any proof what so ever?

I am not sure why you're using language like "proof". This isn't a trial or a court of law. She just wants help assessing why this happened, and yes a screenshot would help with that.

But a call for "proof" is a bit on the strong side for this discussion don't you think?

There is nothing to discuss as no one can see what actually happened.

You do not get hit for 20k through block, that is a fact. So it clearly didn't happen how OP said.

So there are two options, they are greatly exaggerating the damage of a single ability and took several instances of damage, or they weren't blocking - even then it's unlikely to get hit by 20k bow proc especially if you have buffs up and the type of build they are saying.

So no one in this thread can actually help them. We have to guess what happened, and what, try to give advice which may potentially harm their gameplay rather than improve because we suggest the wrong thing?

Sorry if proof is a bit "strong" for you.

FirmamentOfStars · August 2023

Major_Toughness wrote: »

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Where is the screenshot, or video? Any proof what so ever?

I am not sure why you're using language like "proof". This isn't a trial or a court of law. She just wants help assessing why this happened, and yes a screenshot would help with that.

But a call for "proof" is a bit on the strong side for this discussion don't you think?

There is nothing to discuss as no one can see what actually happened.

You do not get hit for 20k through block, that is a fact. So it clearly didn't happen how OP said.

So there are two options, they are greatly exaggerating the damage of a single ability and took several instances of damage, or they weren't blocking - even then it's unlikely to get hit by 20k bow proc especially if you have buffs up and the type of build they are saying.

So no one in this thread can actually help them. We have to guess what happened, and what, try to give advice which may potentially harm their gameplay rather than improve because we suggest the wrong thing?

Sorry if proof is a bit "strong" for you.

Its pretty easy to help her. She definitely did not block, it would not make any sense mathematically. Also she jumped down to a district too which might have caused the block drop. Or she got stunned.
Anyway a 20k bow proc against a PvE tank is non-surprising. Nbs have a unique 20% damage taken debuff with incap and minor vulnerability via elemental susceptibility or their gap closer. As a PvE tank she does not have any critical resistance but the base, so easely a 20k bow crit could have happened even without incap or vulnerability after being penetrated.

So short and easy answer: she didnt block and got hit by a fairly normal spectral bow being totally defenseless without crit resistance and normal resistance mostly reduced.

HerMajesty · August 2023

Okay, I didn't mean for this to become a whole thing, guys ^^ I'm not trying to get that NB arrested, they won a 1-on-1 fight, fair play to them, I'm just wondering, that's all.

Here's a recap, to the best of my memory:

1. I jump down (yes, fall damage) and break the NBs stealth.
2. I take a DizzySwing at them, because hey, maybe they're as surprised as I am.
3. They are not, they lol and roll (okay, pure conjecture, I have no proof they lol'ed

)
4. I CritRush to close the gap.
5. They Cloak. I miss.
6. I Flare at the spot.
7. They're no longer at the spot.
8. I block, because I'll get hit.
9. Things happen and I go SPLAT.

Was it a tactical masterstroke, probably not

Could I have gotten feared, possible, didn't register that animation - to my mind I was still bracing, but you guys make a good point. Who knows. I actually yelped out loud, so I went to check that I didn't wake the baby, so screenshots were far from my mind.

Thanks for the insights, guess I was never that good a ganker myself back when I played, so maybe nothing extraordinary happened and this is so regular it's actually mundane

Cheers!

Major_Toughness · August 2023

A lot of the big insane damage numbers people recall are usually on the killing blow. And there is a theory that Battle Spirit does not apply to overkill damage.

I will admit I haven't tested this, even though you easily could by dueling with a friend, but I know from personal experience that MOST of the time I get a big bow proc as a NB, it is the killing blow and overkill damage.

On PC the CMX add-on does not track overkill damage. It someone has 2k HP and I hit them with a 10k bow proc it will show as it did 2k damage.

A lot of the time I see a bow proc in the range of 20k, I check CMX after the fight and max is like 15k. The 20k hit when they were low health. I have no execute modifiers so my damage doesn't increase against low health, but you almost always see the biggest numbers when it is an overkill killing blow.

TechMaybeHic · August 2023

Any impen gear, or crit resist CP?. A lot of nbs stack crit mods high as they can force crits

Kaysha · August 2023

let´s assume this all happened very quick and the server did not have enough time to register your block?
then you´re sitting stunned with little resist and little crit resist (PvE equipped) facing a crit buffed opponent with +20% damage. Without the fall damage you would have had time to break free and heal. but with fall damage?

StarOfElyon · August 2023

Don't bother trying to make sense of PvP. It's just madness. Nothing makes sense. That's why Sheogorath is in Cyrodiil.

FirmamentOfStars · August 2023

StarOfElyon wrote: »

Don't bother trying to make sense of PvP. It's just madness. Nothing makes sense. That's why Sheogorath is in Cyrodiil.

Well unless the problem is bad server performance, pretty much everything is very easy explainable.