My Thoughts on the Damage Shield Changes
2,049 views · Published 20 September 2018 · 17:04 · Indexed 8 November 2026
Channel: t3hasiangod · 2018 · Gaming
I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring and voice my opinions on the various changes ZOS has made to damage shields in the Murkmire PTS. Overall, these changes are definitely bad for both PvP and PvE. For the PvE-ers, this is going to significantly affect the casual and mid-tier players the hardest, as you will not longer be able to reliably use your shields to avoid unavoidable or significant damage. This will make it more difficult for progression groups to clear harder content, while not changing too much for already seasoned groups that know mechanics and attack timings fairly well. On the other hand, having your resistances impact your shields is a nice buff, essentially giving you an additional x amount of health. That being said, the cast time for the shields really hurts the casual and progression guilds and overall decreases magicka DPS survivability. As for PvP, this is definitely not the right way to counter shield stackers. As far as I am aware, there are a good number of viable strategies to combat shield stacking, so it wasn't even a huge issue to begin with. But now, the LA shield and sorc shields can be interrupted while casting, decreasing overall survivability and the window of burst opportunity. It also decreases survivability for sorcs and other LA magicka DPS in PvP. The fact that Healing Ward is still an instant cast means that these changes actually aren't all that bad, but it also forces magicka DPS to back bar a resto staff to get a reliable shield. This may reduce overall burst potential for some builds. There are far better ways to fix the issue of shield stacking that doesn't involve adding in a cast time. You can increase the cost of shield abilities if you have a shield already up. You can make it so your second shield "wipes" the first. Introducing a cast time to shields is overall a bad impact on the game, creating an artificial gap for PvE players to get to higher level content and forcing PvP players into an unfavorable situation no matter what option they choose.
