Unclear wording on Battle spirit Shield changes

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · August 3

@ZOS_Kevin

Could you ask the team to clarify the patch note regarding shielding.

Battle Spirit
We have made some general adjustments to Battle Spirit, which are as follows:
Damage shield strength is now limited to 300% of Max Health when between the group sizes of 1 (solo) and 4.
Battle Spirit now reduces per group member beyond 4, reducing to 220% at 5 group members, and decreasing by an additional 20% per group member until 10 group members are reached (80% at 10), then reducing by 10% per group member between 11 and 12 (60% at 12 players).
These numbers are not final and we are expecting to adjust them based on feedback. Initially we are avoiding any penalty to small groups, and then ramping up a penalty that starts to further taper off as it reaches the group size limit.
Updated Battle Spirit and IC Battle Spirit tooltips to reflect these changes.

5 members - 220%
6 members - 200% ?
7 members - 180% ?
8 members - 160%
9 members - 140%
10 members - 120 % - But the patch note says 80% so which is it?

Also is this total strength across all shields or individual shields cast?
Does this apply to 'self shields' or just group shielding skills? For example: is a sorc with self shields now penalized for playing in a 12m pug zerg with friends?

To be clear - the issue is not with individual shield size but with group shielding skills (mostly scribing shields because they scale based on HP of the caster for some bizarre reason). It's really odd why targeted changes can't be made when the skills causing issues and the reason behind those issues is easy to determine. There's always some odd convoluted change made which impacts the casual player base in unintended ways.

Kickimanjaro · August 3

Based on the wording, it sounded like they intended the initial change to be:

1-4 = 300

5 = 220
6 = 200
7 = 180
8 = 160
9 = 140
10 = 120

11 = 110
12 = 100

But yeah, these are not the numbers given, and it's not up yet so I can't tell which is accurate to current state so clarification from devs would be greatly appreciated.

If the cap really is supposed to be 60% at 12 people, then a single Magma Shell is already over the cap lol.

React · August 3

At first glance, this doesn't seem impactful enough to make a real difference - especially for group sizes under 10. I think they're on the right track, but either the changes need to be MUCH harsher starting at 5 man groups, or they need to take actual steps to address the root causes of the issue.

A huge part of the issue is the maximum HP people are achieving these days, since shields were made to scale with max HP when it is higher than max magicka/stamina. HP is far easier to boost than max stam/mag, while "double dipping" by making you harder to kill. The most efficient healers/support builds are now people with 50-60k HP, who themselves are practically impossible to kill.

Take the picture above for example. This person has 61k HP, and a healthbar that is 100% covered by a shield. They were in an 8 man group. Nothing changes for this player after these changes are implemented, except that it is now slightly easier for their 6-8 man group to fight a 12 man group.

In general, HP scaling heals and shields should not exist in PVP. It is a terrible design philosophy that has been problematic every single time it is implemented anywhere. This is the number one thing I would suggest changing to help alleviate this issue - change every single HP scaling heal or shield to be max stat or WD/SD scaling.

Further though, maximum HP has gotten out of hand in general. Even most solo/small scale DD or "1vX" oriented players are sitting in the 35-42k HP range, with any group worth their salt having every single member between 40k-60k HP. This is just a force multiplier for every other layer of defense people are able to stack, because even if you break through their heals, shields, and sets - you've got a massive 40-60k HP cushion to get through before they actually die.

A cap of 35k HP through battlespirit would help alleviate this particular issue.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · August 3

React wrote: »

This is the number one thing I would suggest changing to help alleviate this issue - change every single HP scaling heal or shield to be max stat or WD/SD scaling.

I would go further and change heals and shields to scale off max stat only and damage abilities to scale off WD/SD only. This way DD's wouldn't be at the same power as a full healer.

The problem ZOS have is that they want shields to be impactful when cast by tanks in PVE which is why health scaling shields exist - The solution is to way more heavily impact this via Battle spirit for specifically 'multi target' shields.

TheAwesomeChimpanzee · August 3

Kickimanjaro wrote: »

Based on the wording, it sounded like they intended the initial change to be:

1-4 = 300

5 = 220
6 = 200
7 = 180
8 = 160
9 = 140
10 = 120

11 = 110
12 = 100

But yeah, these are not the numbers given, and it's not up yet so I can't tell which is accurate to current state so clarification from devs would be greatly appreciated.

If the cap really is supposed to be 60% at 12 people, then a single Magma Shell is already over the cap lol.

I’m pretty sure the wording indicates an additional breakpoint at 10 players, specifically intended to punish 10–12-player groups more heavily.

It says the cap decreases by 20% per additional member until 10 members are reached, with the cap explicitly stated to be 80% at 10, after which it decreases by another 10% per member until reaching 60% at 12. Based on the numbers actually written in the notes, the progression appears to be:

5 = 220%
6 = 200%
7 = 180%
8 = 160%
9 = 140%
10 = 80%
11 = 70%
12 = 60%

The sudden drop from 140% to 80% appears intentional, presumably to hit full-sized ball groups much harder. Clarification would still be appreciated, but 120% at 10 does not match the numbers stated in the patch notes.

That said, as I mentioned in the other thread, I believe the base shield cap should begin much lower at five members and then decrease linearly until 12. Six-player groups can abuse shield stacking extensively as well, and the current numbers leave them almost completely unaffected.

Theignson · August 3

300% of max health? This is absurdly high if it means these players who already have 45k hp will still have 135k shields. That is 3 complete heals!

ZOS needs to understand that 6 man groups are already virtually immortal due to group shields and cross healing.

Try limiting group shields to 50% of max health. That is still a respectable 22.5k.

And make shield size and heals based on max stat

Treeshka · August 3

I think they should make a hard cap of shields based on your max health. Regardless of your group size.

This percentage changing with every group member beyond four people is very hard to balance, almost impossible if you ask me. So maybe it is best if we treat everyone same here.

Kickimanjaro · August 7

Hey, so did they ever clarify this?

Major_Mangle · August 7

Shield size should just be capped to your max HP level, end of story (regardless of how many shields you have on you), but as React stated, the main issue in today´s PvP environment is how absurdly high you can stack HP with basically zero trade-offs (due to never-ending powercreep). Battle-spirit needs to include a harsh HP soft-cap where any extra HP above 30k HP loses significant value.

Edit: Max HP levels in PvP has been an issue for years, so it´s not a "new thing" that recently became an issue. It´s often been joked about how PCEU is the "tank-central" of eso, but it´s been that for a reason. When stacking HP has zero trade-offs on your offensive abilities, and sustain isn´t an issue (which is honestly the main culprit), then you can freely put 64 points into health without even reconsidering if it´s a good choice or not. Dial back on sustain across the bord and find solutions to reduce the max HP levels in PvP and we´ll have a much healthier PvP environment.