Hey everyone . Been doing some testing and ran one of the new dungeons with a DK tank in PTS today . Nerfs to PvE Tank sustain is quite high sadly . I am hoping this thread will help you understand what is going on and/or find a way around it .
BLOCK COST
Base block cost reduced to 1730 from 2160 .
Live patch block cost calculation :
Block Cost = (( 2160 * (1-Shadow Ward) (1-Sturdy) (1-Fortress)) - Shield-Play) * (1-Defensive Posture)
Lowest possible block cost for this formula is 88 .
And here is the new one =
Block Cost = (( 1730 - Shield-Play ) * (1-Shadow Ward) (1-Sturdy) ( 1-Fortress)) * (1-Defensive Posture)
Lowest possible block cost for this formula is 336 .
Now , the important part is , how effective Shield-Play is .
Let's do two different setups . First one with 3 Shield-Play enchants , second one with none .
First setup has 336 block cost while the second one has 520 . Looking at the difference , Shield-Play enchants doesn't seem to be as effective as before . 3 enchants give you a block cost reduction of 184 , which was 609 before the nerf . This brings up the question . Shield-Play enchants are worth it or not ?
I think the answer lies in what kind of fight you will be tanking in . For example , while tanking axes , Shield-Play enchants will win without a doubt while Magicka Recovery enchants perform better in fights where you don't block as much . I would say Stamina Cost Reduction could be useful as well but they get their share from diminishing returns too and there isn't really a lot of skills that cost stamina except Pierce Armor and Heroic Slash . To sum it up , I think we have to keep different jewelries with different enchants on them , for different fights .
While running one of the new dungeons , I tried 3 Magicka Recovery glyphs on jewelry . My build was Ebon/Alkosh/Lord Warden , 8 Sturdy , all tri-stat enchants as an Imperial . Classic trials tank build in other words . I was running Lord Mundus and Equilibrium . Being honest with you , I had issues whenever I permablocked . I had to drop my block and throw some heavy attacks time to time . You actually can keep permablocking with just Equilibrium and Igneous Shield spam , especially with the help of potions and Battle Roar passive , it is quite easy as long as you have a decent healer . Still , this doesn't matter because you will have to support your team with usage of other skills , costing time and resources .
SYNERGIES AND ALKOSH
Another nerf we need to talk about is Orb and Spear synergy . The cooldown increased to 30 seconds from 20 seconds . This is a straight nerf to Alkosh and sustain . I don't know why this happened , even though ZOS says it's because they are not triggering the Global Cooldown anymore . I don't see it being a good reason for such a strong nerf like this .
There are some more nerfs to Alkosh wearing tanks and Stamina DDs . Such as ;
Blood Funnel and Blood Feast (Blood Altar & morphs) : Increased the radius of the prompt to 28 meters.
Radiate (Inner Fire & morphs) : The prompt is now only visible to allies positioned further than 18 meters away from the taunted enemy.
Spawn Broodlings, Black Widows, and Arachnophobia (Trapping Webs & morphs) : The prompt is now only visible to allies positioned further than 18 meters away from the webbed enemy.
With these changes , I don't see Alkosh being as good as before even though you could use it on both tanks and still get high uptime . Only synergies you will be using are Conduit and Orbs/Shards as a tank , which makes Alkosh uptime really low when solo and worse compared to current live version .
With the new CP increase , DDs will get less and less benefits from damage oriented CPs . I think it is time for DDs to cover the lack of penetration with the extra CP and let tanks use some other support set .
It almost looks like ZOS wants to make Alkosh useless (both for tanks and melee DDs) but it is such a good set , I hope ZOS will revent some of these changes so we can keep using it more effectively .
OFF BALANCE AND LIGHTNING STAFF
Another important change is about Off Balance . I know a lot of tanks use Lightning Staff on their back bar for better Crusher uptime and some help with Off Balance . With the new block cost changes and Off Balance changes , I think Lightning Staff is not useful anymore . During my testing runs , I used a Frost Staff without the Tri-Focus passive . If you take that passive , your Magicka will be RIP while on back bar . It is really , really bad . I do not recommend it to anyone . Just don't take the passive and try to stay as low amount time as possible on your back bar .
I think keeping a Destro Staff on back bar is still a very good strat for better Crusher uptime , whether it be Frost , Lightning or Flame . Frost preferred obviously .
CLASS DIFFERENCE
Another issue I would like to talk about is the difference between classes . Dragonknights and Wardens are far better at sustaining without dropping block in live server . This gap between classes will grow a lot more , forcing other classes to drop block and heavy attack far more often , making them much harder to play , especially if we consider the lag and required reaction time for veteran trials . I do not like this one bit . There needs to be some changes . Obviously , you could drop block and heavy attack whenever it is necessary but it will be necessary to do that quite often , especially for certain classes . This means , less care about group support and boring gameplay . Making it harder to sustain on tanks do not make the game more fun . Next patch is so harsh on tanks that we will have to stop debuffing to heavy attack because we actually can consume more than 2k stamina in 2 seconds , even with the lowest block cost setup .
FINAL WORDS
It almost looks like to me that ZOS wants tanks to drop support sets and wear sets that will give them self-sustain , tankiness etc. Tanking is and always been a support role in this game and should stay that way . These changes will make quite a lot of PvE tanks to stop playing their tank and play some other role . No offense to PvP players but these changes are hilarious just because some players fails to kill a tank in Cyrodiil . I think a lot of people on forums read that one thread where some guy kills 10 high-rank players (all of them had cost increase poisons) on his own as a permablock DK . What a joke ... Well guess what , there are already too few tanks in PvE and these changes will make some of them quit their role . I remember in Morrowind where ZOS introduced all the sustain nerfs and almost half of my raiding group quit the game because how boring it was to play . Now the same thing is happening to this small PvE tanking community that makes me wonder how many will continue . I know that this is only the first week of PTS and there will be changes but for now , this is what I think . I am hoping for better changes coming in the next several weeks .
Thanks for reading ,
Liofa
