The lost arts DR and AC

[Drfirewater79]

Hey all

This topic is about the lack of understanding and focus on the two biggest factors in the early stages of this game that have seemed to gone astray and the reasons "I" believe they have gone away from this game.

AC - These builds used to be the big deal ... i remember when 50 ac was a great achievement ... now 50 ac is a joke ... might as well have 0 ac your gonna get hit every time anyway.

why is this? well if you think of it in player terms and apply it to mobs its easy to see why. At lvl 20 most of us are doing between +35 and +60 to hit depending on class race and attack boosts and buffs. add a potential of 20 to that and you see +55-80 is what mobs have a chance to hit you with. So even a 60 ac is not good enough cause you will be hit fairly frequently. On top of that AC means nothing against magic .. and the most damage delt by mobs on average is casters and clerics. This is why we always take out the casters and clerics first right?

how can this be fixed? Well it cant really ... multi classing and specific builds like high ac palidans monks and rangers make a AC fighter sound stupid ... with some people sitting at 80ish self buffed and breaking 90-100 fully raid buffed its impossible to help the other classes and pure builds to compete without taking these few and far between builds and making them invincible.

But they could make the 100 AC builds over kill by making AC matter again. If the easier obtainable AC was worth a licked cent then it wouldnt be so bad. if 60 ac ment you where avoiding 60% of your incoming hits that is a major factor again especially since most ac builds dont have super high hps.

I hope you guys can offer balanced options and changes that could be made to make AC better in this game below... but for now on to the next part of the topic

DR- These builds where the only reason to make a warforged ... between there high DR from racials high immunities ability to be healed by both arcane and divine magic and items like DoD which while hard to find offer a unspeakable advantage.

But like before with Dwarven barbarians (in the pre Epic SOS era) the new advent of Half orcs because of the slight dps advantage (and lets be honest its a slight advantage about 2-10 points max difference on crits) but only able to be healed by clerics and favored souls. So DR is pointless now on fleshies because high AP cost for very little bonus.
Everyone would rather have the dps then the DR so no one wants to put AP into DR because like AC its meaningless to the barbarian dispite the opinon of the guy healing him.

How do we fix this? My suggestion would be more high DR items ... make them raid items so they are rare but possible on 20th runs add them to raids like Titan where not only is it not run often anymore but its also not epic yet (which gives you an opening for making it even better with time) ... make it UMD 20 barbarian only and make it have a disadvantage like the DoD has ALSO i would suggest making it so that the raid DR breaker bonus does not stack with DoD and is not on a armor slot.
This way having both is no advantage but warforged characters could choose to put on the DR trinket instead of the DR armor and wear DT armor instead.

This way more barbarian tanks are allowed to play main tank without requiring there own personal healer.

again i hope you guys can give ideas on how both AC and DR can be brought back to popularity and save the clerics some mental anguish and make the game more fun for everyone.

[Philam]

My suggestion would be more high DR items ...

For example. Chains of Flame is one of the most annoying, long epic quests out there. The Epic Golden Grieves should be instead of DR/4 have a DR/ of 8 or even 10 and make them 30%striders. Just my 2 cents.

Ph

[Spoonwelder]

They could try an inverted scale....what I mean is every mob starts out with a 100% chance to hit you. Then AC reduces that chance by 1% for every point of AC.....obviously there would be other factors, CR vs. Player Level, other bonuses.

That way the mobs always have a chance to hit you but also always have a chance to miss regardless of AC level. There would be no Mendoza line of futility and therefore AC could always have an impact and thus be worth spending at least some time on it.

It drives me nuts to see the scores of Armored Bracers, protection items etc...and know that they are of absolutely no use except for 2-5% of the builds out there.

[Chai]

The range of useless AC is so large that the ratio of useless AC -vs- 20 points on the dice is exagerated. Turbine made their own bed in this a long time ago and continues to do so on a few different fronts.

8 AC bracers and 4 dodge ac dresses + insight bonus + monk wis bonus to AC for multiclass allows people clad in dresses with full on victorian undergarments to not only have MORE AC than warriors encased in full steel plate with a shield, but have more DPS than the same sword and board configuration AND keep their evasion, which is arguably the best damage mitigation device in the game. Pathetic.

More challenge = ramping up all numerical stats and calling it a day. Want more high end challenging content? Now loincloth clad ogres have 65 AC, 95 to-hit, and 4500 hp, and are immune to 80% of all spell options. Done.

Finding a way to address this now after years of neglect will be very tough. This needed to be addressed when the vale came out, which is when the gap of useless AC began to widen considerably.

Given current circumstances, how do you create a system where someone can build a "balanced" character (half investment in DPS and half into AC) where they dont get hit as often as someone min maxed for full on DPS, but get hit more than a full on tank with full on AC investment, but at the same time, the monks, exploiter rangers, and all other dress wearing AC builds arent OP, soloing high end content on a whim, and never getting hit?

I am picturing my kensai throwing on a shield (significant DPS reduction) to mitigate incomming damage in certain situations while still being **some DPS. Right now, the useless AC gap is too darn wide for this to happen. Going from 40 AC to 50 AC is zero net gain in high end content. (10 AC is a +5 tower shield with a ritual on it.)

I have seen a few interesting suggestions, but none so far that would solve the AC issue the way I feel it would need to be solved.

[Bicarbonate]

Hey all

This topic is about the lack of understanding and focus on the two biggest factors in the early stages of this game that have seemed to gone astray and the reasons "I" believe they have gone away from this game.

AC - These builds used to be the big deal ... i remember when 50 ac was a great achievement ... now 50 ac is a joke ... might as well have 0 ac your gonna get hit every time anyway.

why is this? well if you think of it in player terms and apply it to mobs its easy to see why. At lvl 20 most of us are doing between +35 and +60 to hit depending on class race and attack boosts and buffs. add a potential of 20 to that and you see +55-80 is what mobs have a chance to hit you with. So even a 60 ac is not good enough cause you will be hit fairly frequently. On top of that AC means nothing against magic .. and the most damage delt by mobs on average is casters and clerics. This is why we always take out the casters and clerics first right?

how can this be fixed? Well it cant really ... multi classing and specific builds like high ac palidans monks and rangers make a AC fighter sound stupid ... with some people sitting at 80ish self buffed and breaking 90-100 fully raid buffed its impossible to help the other classes and pure builds to compete without taking these few and far between builds and making them invincible.

But they could make the 100 AC builds over kill by making AC matter again. If the easier obtainable AC was worth a licked cent then it wouldnt be so bad. if 60 ac ment you where avoiding 60% of your incoming hits that is a major factor again especially since most ac builds dont have super high hps.

I hope you guys can offer balanced options and changes that could be made to make AC better in this game below... but for now on to the next part of the topic

DR- These builds where the only reason to make a warforged ... between there high DR from racials high immunities ability to be healed by both arcane and divine magic and items like DoD which while hard to find offer a unspeakable advantage.

But like before with Dwarven barbarians (in the pre Epic SOS era) the new advent of Half orcs because of the slight dps advantage (and lets be honest its a slight advantage about 2-10 points max difference on crits) but only able to be healed by clerics and favored souls. So DR is pointless now on fleshies because high AP cost for very little bonus.
Everyone would rather have the dps then the DR so no one wants to put AP into DR because like AC its meaningless to the barbarian dispite the opinon of the guy healing him.

How do we fix this? My suggestion would be more high DR items ... make them raid items so they are rare but possible on 20th runs add them to raids like Titan where not only is it not run often anymore but its also not epic yet (which gives you an opening for making it even better with time) ... make it UMD 20 barbarian only and make it have a disadvantage like the DoD has ALSO i would suggest making it so that the raid DR breaker bonus does not stack with DoD and is not on a armor slot.
This way having both is no advantage but warforged characters could choose to put on the DR trinket instead of the DR armor and wear DT armor instead.

This way more barbarian tanks are allowed to play main tank without requiring there own personal healer.

again i hope you guys can give ideas on how both AC and DR can be brought back to popularity and save the clerics some mental anguish and make the game more fun for everyone.

There should be more items with DR that stacks with racial/cclass DR. I cant tell; how disappointed I was to find that my warforged with DR6/Adamantine gets DR5/Magic from the bladesmark docent I had just collected the last sigil to repair. Sure A someone with very little dr orfleshy would think the DR5/Magic on the bladesmark armor (chain, plate?). Even the DR that I could eventually get from the stalwart defender gives - rathwer than /adamantine & with no way to switch the /adamantine to /- it will never stack :(. It's the sort of thing I've actually had players come talk to me about altering somehow in p&p and wonder how long it will take turbine to start keeping in mind more often when making stuff.

edit: yea I know bladesmark stuff isnt high level but I only recently came back after a 3 year hiatus from ddo & made a fighter to tool around with

[Chai]

They could try an inverted scale....what I mean is every mob starts out with a 100% chance to hit you. Then AC reduces that chance by 1% for every point of AC.....obviously there would be other factors, CR vs. Player Level, other bonuses.

That way the mobs always have a chance to hit you but also always have a chance to miss regardless of AC level. There would be no Mendoza line of futility and therefore AC could always have an impact and thus be worth spending at least some time on it.

It drives me nuts to see the scores of Armored Bracers, protection items etc...and know that they are of absolutely no use except for 2-5% of the builds out there.

Should I stock the store with more pitchforks for when the max DPS spreadsheet gamer crowd, who calculates their DPS based on their toon hitting every mob in the game on a nat 2 or better, riots furiously because their toon no longer hits everything on every swing sans nat 1? :p

[Drfirewater79]

There should be more items with DR that stacks with racial/cclass DR. I cant tell; how disappointed I was to find that my warforged with DR6/Adamantine gets DR5/Magic from the bladesmark docent I had just collected the last sigil to repair. Sure A someone with very little dr orfleshy would think the DR5/Magic on the bladesmark armor (chain, plate?). Even the DR that I could eventually get from the stalwart defender gives - rathwer than /adamantine & with no way to switch the /adamantine to /- it will never stack :(. It's the sort of thing I've actually had players come talk to me about altering somehow in p&p and wonder how long it will take turbine to start keeping in mind more often when making stuff.

edit: yea I know bladesmark stuff isnt high level but I only recently came back after a 3 year hiatus from ddo & made a fighter to tool around with

I have to agree.. .different types of DR should stack just like different bonuses do. Dr 1/- should stack with dr2/- should stack with dr 5/-
but it should also stack with dr adamantine 6 .. if they are using adamantine weapons the dr doesn exist .. but if they are not it should be additive. After all barbarians especially already lose a **** ton of hps from frenzy.

That is another big mistake too ... dr/- means its natrual DR nothing breaks it ... this means that frenzy damage should be reduced by that amount too.

[Drfirewater79]

Should I stock the store with more pitchforks for when the max DPS spreadsheet gamer crowd, who calculates their DPS based on their toon hitting every mob in the game on a nat 2 or better, riots furiously because their toon no longer hits everything on every swing sans nat 1? :p

Yeah inverted AC didnt work in second edition ... it wont work here. BUT making there level and class the basis for to hit would.

For instance a cr 32 mob ... should have base attack 32 + 5 for weapon + 20 sided dice + class bonus ... and 20 roll = automatic hit regardless. And then you could increase glancing blows range to glancing blows hit on any hit that would have been a confirmed crit for there weapon and class type.

so a cr 32 fighter should have 32+5 for weapon +20 for class bonus =57 to hit +20 sided dice roll. The remove stacking doge bonuses for balance. now if your ac is over 80 you will not get hit by cr 32 mobs (and your likely sacrificing ALOT of dps to get there) It will be much harder to get to 80ac if dodge doesnt stack.

and if they feel people are getting through quests too easy they can raise the CR on hard and elite and epic. Leaving normal the way it is. Maybe my math is still to easy buttonish ... but i am sure someone could come up with a formula based on this and the average **** ac and average uber ac before raid gear sans stacking dodge to figure out a fair mob to hit forumla vs player ac.

[Bicarbonate]

Yeah inverted AC didnt work in second edition ... it wont work here. BUT making there level and class the basis for to hit would.

For instance a cr 32 mob ... should have base attack 32 + 5 for weapon + 20 sided dice + class bonus ... and 20 roll = automatic hit regardless. And then you could increase glancing blows range to glancing blows hit on any hit that would have been a confirmed crit for there weapon and class type.

It looks like you might bere confusing CR with leve, a cr 11 adult black dragon with19 HD that adds (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Improving_Creatures#Class_Levels) 12 levels of wizard is now cr 32but it only has BaB 19(adult black+4(wiz12)=23BaB with lots of hp ok ac flight& an array of nasty spells at it's disposal simply because 100+ac like we see in ddo falls apart in D&d with the same problems people have been saying the AC inflation in ddo. There is a reason why You get an apic attack bonus of +1 then epic save bonus of +1 every other level. a CR48 old prysmatic dragon, easily one of the most dangerous things in the epic level handbook has +73 tohit but still isn't hitting DDO's 100+AC level 20 tank even on a 20 the current system escalated into epic levels is only going to keep up if they add the equivalent of insane levels of salient divine cheese and/orepic spell abuse for perm buffs with huge bonus against dispel that would make people who seriously expect their dm to allow them to play punpun (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_(3.5e_Character_Build)) blush

[Paddycolver]

That is another big mistake too ... dr/- means its natrual DR nothing breaks it ... this means that frenzy damage should be reduced by that amount too.

This isnt strictly true, the rules of DR are it can be overcome by the / "X" bit but also by the thing that has the DR. For instance if a devil has DR5/ good it can be overcome by good but also by any other devil hiting them (with a natural attack). so since you are damaging yourself in frensy you overcome your own damage reduction.


back to the OP however, I dont think the "to-hit" of mobs can be reduced as this would mean anyone with +5 fullplate and a +5 towershield can become a tank. It would make raid/shroud items useless. however to balance the "skirt wearers" I tihnk monk wis bonus to AC should be removed if they are not using monk weapons, i.e. you either get your DPS from dual khopesh or you get your AC by using rubbish kamas.

DR fixing wise, my idea is to make DR level dependent like spell res. Drow get extra spell res per level, WF get extra DR per level.

[LordMond63]

I saw it suggested elsewhere that AC over a certain total should serve as DR, say on the ratio of every 5 AC above a certain point acts as DR 1/-. Not being as well-versed in the intracacies of the game as others, I'd love to see comments on the pros and cons of something like that.

I played a great deal of 2nd Edition and the problem wasn't in the inverted to hit system so much as it was the rampant tweaks that were made to the game, usually without regard to the unintended consequences.

Take for instance the Archer class. When using bows, the class had its own distances for short, medium and long ranges and not only suffered no to hit penalties for anything but their longest range table but actually got additional plusses to hit at short, medium and long. Add in strength bows which allowed the character to use his STR bonuses to hit and they had a THACO at a pretty low level of around 4. A melee class of the same level might need a 12 or even 14. True, the melee did more damage (usually), but he had a 60% to 70% chance of missing, whereas the Archer had a 20% chance. I'm (reasonably) sure that was not what the designers intended, but, if you implemented the rules as written (and I did without doing the math myself), that was the result, intended or not. So my response was to throw tougher and higher level mobs at my players in order to offer some level of challenge and to have more adventures indoors with extremely limited LoS so that, even if the Archer was able to get off a virtually guaranteed hit, it would be only one before the mob closed with the group rather than 4 or 5 if the encounter was outdoors.

Bottom line: can you count on Turbine to adequately test any changes so as to minimize the chance of unforeseen imbalances?

[NaturalHazard]

another ac thread................

[grodon9999]

another ac thread................

You'd think the Devs could take a hint?

[NaturalHazard]

You'd think the Devs could take a hint?

my thoughts exactly, oh well i suppose if they just ignore it, it will go away? :p

[LuckyLuke2]

I am picturing my kensai throwing on a shield (significant DPS reduction) to mitigate incomming damage in certain situations while still being **some DPS. Right now, the useless AC gap is too darn wide for this to happen. Going from 40 AC to 50 AC is zero net gain in high end content. (10 AC is a +5 tower shield with a ritual on it.)

Replace Kensai by Stalwart + evasion & umd rogue splash + TWF khopesh and all fighter damage boosts + ranger Tempest and you get quite a capable build. Well, I find 150-160 1-hander crits (MinII+Radiance) with the occasional vorpals and other specialty mob cleaners and a TWF selfbuffed AC of 57 quite decent (not including Madstone, SW stance or CE here). Add a haste, bard song, recitation, a ranger bark or the usual Madstone procs and you are frequently running around with a TWF AC of 67-68 (no epic gear included). Going from "DPS" to "Turtle" mode (Leviks+SW II stance+CE) will grant an additional AC boost of 12 (dropping Tempest TWF AC and shield spell). Epics excluded, that will be quite sufficient to tank most trash mobs and bosses (and you will be shield blocking as well in these cases).

Your Kensai's DPS will probably be higher, but that results in a "useless" AC or the inability to increase it high enough to be useful. But that is a build decision, nothing more imho. You just need to tinker a bit to make the right class matches.

[dunklezhan]

I wonder how all the top end DPS-hit-everything-on-a-2-and-hang-my-AC types would feel if the devs introduced some exploiter build mobs to fight...

[donfilibuster]

This is no wonder, but also not far fetched, it is merely a case of 'fighting with bigger sticks and stones'.
On a high magic campaign wearing non-magical armor amounts to bringing a knife to a gunfight.
But on these settings you also have better buffs and various armor options, which are missing in ddo but exist in the books.

One tought is that the problem with AC is the MMO mechanics that force you to have a tank in the party.
No fighter in d&d is forced to play tank, melees have a wider array of tactics just like clerics do a lot more than healing.

Giving classes more AC options will make building for AC worthwhile.
There's spells like 'greater mage armor' that exist for those settings that need high attacks and defenses.

You can't still alter the whole AC mechanic, it is one of your build options, but don't forget is also one of the monster's build options.
AC is needed to know how thick the beast's hide or scaly skin are, etc.
Say, if you change AC to DR then all the monsters will have to have DR as well and the problem will just get worse.

And mind the exagerated high attack bonuses have the big bulky beasts in mind, so the problem is not trivial.
Heroes with dragon killing weapons are obviously going to cut through orc armor with ease, so they will find their own buffs to counter.
Xendrik humanoids aren't your typical kobold, orc, goblinoid, they have class levels and a lot of hd increases up to paragon status.

This is not uncommon, the rules for this are on the book and in d&d a hero will always find its match.
As the old DMs saying goes, there's always an NPC that is stronger than you.

In summary, just bring up the new buffs to have balance.

[Orratti]

The easiest way to fix high lvl heavy/medium/light armor wearers AC would be to make high lvl armor with larger armor bonuses.

Passive Dr from spells and bard abilities (maybe) should stack with whatever natural dr a character already has.

At the point where these things are broken, which is beyond the vale, it actually kind of makes sense for them to become broken. Being hit 50% of the time in epics really doesn't make alot of sense. What is so epic about that. The same with many elites. 25% maybe at best with the best equipment in game.

It is true that ac is borked when someone who is wearing pajamas is able to get better protection than a person wearing fullplate. However they should both be getting hammered in epics and end game elites.

Saying over and over that ac is worthless doesn't make it true. If that were so why are there so many pajama wearing monk splashes running around anyway? They would be wasting their time too. 50 ac isn't very hard to get and works well through alot of material. If you want to grind for 70-100 go for it but there should never be a way to become nigh invunerable to damage in epics and end game elites. If you willing to grind for a chance to be missed 1 out of every 4 or 2 out of 5 hits then so be it. Players that are immune to monster's damage are as irritating a thought as monsters that are immune to player's damage.

These discussions usually come about from a player finding out that their favorite toy isn't working the same. I know because I've felt exactly the same way several times and so has everyone else.

[quityourjobs]

If that were so why are there so many pajama wearing monk splashes running around anyway?


50 ac isn't very hard to get and works well through alot of material.

I think you answered your own question.

[timetorun177]

I wonder how all the top end DPS-hit-everything-on-a-2-and-hang-my-AC types would feel if the devs introduced some exploiter build mobs to fight...

We'd do the same thing we did when Epics were released. Adapt and hit them on a 2.

[timetorun177]

They already made the Heavy Armor with more AC (Red Dragon Armor) and a Stalwart in Red Dragon can have a High AC while having High DPS unlike these pajama AC garbage builds. Learn game mechanics please. The issue is that if you lose 1% DPS for AC then you shouldn't have lost that DPS. Theres NO REASON to have AC.

[donfilibuster]

It is true that ac is borked when someone who is wearing pajamas is able to get better protection than a person wearing fullplate. However they should both be getting hammered in epics and end game elites.


Not true, the person wearing pajamas has both magical pajamas and dexterity or martial arts to defend.
Full plate is just one kind armor protection, but metal armor inherently limits your movements, so is not the best thing to have.

Metal armor was meant for common people to defend from common weapons, but not for a fantasy hero with supernatural reflexes.
Say, Conan the barbarian has as much chance against a dragon than a knight in full plate.
Magical armor don't help with this, at best can allow a small amount of dex.

The bigger problem of pajamas is not that plate should be stronger, but that they are ugly, all outfits look monkish.

[MrWizard]

I really like having a high ac toon.
I really like having high blocking DR.
I can only get 10 non blocking DR via stoneskin or just 6 due to enhancements, that is a bummer.

The grazing hits are the worst as they go up with difficulty yet your DR stays set to what works in casual.

AC is cool and most toons, raid buffed, if they worked at it, could be 55-75. This may seem useless but it really helps against ranged weapons tremendously (and that damage adds up, specially on the barb who pulled all the aggro with his conan yell charging in).

It seems as the game grows the devs have to make it challenging to the well thought out builds that are well geared and supplied. This does leave a wide gap between those and newer players not following a great build nor having the gear.

It seems like we are more and more coming to basically the same few build types per class with just some partial feat/enhance changes. Perhaps in the future more of the character generation will be streamlined to follow this train.

The multi class are neat, but again, unless you got a well thought out build and some gear, you will fall short as difficulty increases.

still cool though...ac and dr...like it a lot.

[pHo3nix]

The easiest way to fix high lvl heavy/medium/light armor wearers AC would be to make high lvl armor with larger armor bonuses.

Passive Dr from spells and bard abilities (maybe) should stack with whatever natural dr a character already has.

At the point where these things are broken, which is beyond the vale, it actually kind of makes sense for them to become broken. Being hit 50% of the time in epics really doesn't make alot of sense. What is so epic about that. The same with many elites. 25% maybe at best with the best equipment in game.

It is true that ac is borked when someone who is wearing pajamas is able to get better protection than a person wearing fullplate. However they should both be getting hammered in epics and end game elites.

Saying over and over that ac is worthless doesn't make it true. If that were so why are there so many pajama wearing monk splashes running around anyway? They would be wasting their time too. 50 ac isn't very hard to get and works well through alot of material. If you want to grind for 70-100 go for it but there should never be a way to become nigh invunerable to damage in epics and end game elites. If you willing to grind for a chance to be missed 1 out of every 4 or 2 out of 5 hits then so be it. Players that are immune to monster's damage are as irritating a thought as monsters that are immune to player's damage.

These discussions usually come about from a player finding out that their favorite toy isn't working the same. I know because I've felt exactly the same way several times and so has everyone else.

Grinding to be missed 1 out of every 4 hits doesn't seem a thing many people would do. If they change the game in this way AC will be more useless than it is now.
People that grind to obtain the highest AC should be hit only on a 20 in most content, otherwise why bother grinding?

[katana_one]

Just something that came to mind while reading the first page. Probably not a solution in and of itself, but maybe the seed of an idea. Maybe someone's already thought of this. I dunno. For what it's worth, I have not played any end-game content or Epics, so I don't have any first-hand experience with the problem.

What if, instead of boosting the to-hits of the monsters, they had let them score automatic hits on a wider numerical range? The to-hits stay reasonable, so that 'normal' builds still have relevant AC, and the super-high AC only gets hit on a narrow range of numbers on the die? For example, normally, the super-high AC build can only be hit on a natural 20. Let the monsters hit on a natural 19-20. Or a 17-20, or whatever is appropriate. Now, these auto-hits don't necessarily mean a chance for a crit (but they can), just a chance to hit those super-high ACs without making them irrelevant.

Ok. Tear my suggestion apart. :)

[Orratti]

I really like having a high ac toon.
I really like having high blocking DR.
I can only get 10 non blocking DR via stoneskin or just 6 due to enhancements, that is a bummer.

The grazing hits are the worst as they go up with difficulty yet your DR stays set to what works in casual.

AC is cool and most toons, raid buffed, if they worked at it, could be 55-75. This may seem useless but it really helps against ranged weapons tremendously (and that damage adds up, specially on the barb who pulled all the aggro with his conan yell charging in).

It seems as the game grows the devs have to make it challenging to the well thought out builds that are well geared and supplied. This does leave a wide gap between those and newer players not following a great build nor having the gear.

It seems like we are more and more coming to basically the same few build types per class with just some partial feat/enhance changes. Perhaps in the future more of the character generation will be streamlined to follow this train.

The multi class are neat, but again, unless you got a well thought out build and some gear, you will fall short as difficulty increases.

still cool though...ac and dr...like it a lot.

If you're running a barb you can get 8 constant passive dr at lvl 20. Your full 6 from barb lvls and 2 from enhancements. If they changed just the stoneskin spell to stack with all passive dr that would kick you to 18. I'm not saying they should I'm just saying if they did.


Grinding to be missed 1 out of every 4 hits doesn't seem a thing many people would do. If they change the game in this way AC will be more useless than it is now.
People that grind to obtain the highest AC should be hit only on a 20 in most content, otherwise why bother grinding?

Being missed 1 out of every 4 hits was in reference to epics and end game elite runs, not most content. If for example your enemy hit you for 100-200 damage on every swing getting missed 1 out of 4 or 2 out of 5 swings starts looking alot better. If you only get hit on a 20 at level appropriate quests that sounds broken to me unless all you enemies have vorpals and dispell deathward.

[Orratti]

They already made the Heavy Armor with more AC (Red Dragon Armor) and a Stalwart in Red Dragon can have a High AC while having High DPS unlike these pajama AC garbage builds. Learn game mechanics please. The issue is that if you lose 1% DPS for AC then you shouldn't have lost that DPS. Theres NO REASON to have AC.

I understand the game mechanics well. I am, however, not a library of loot statistics. Red dragon armor applying a higher armor bonus in order to help boost the ac of a heavy tank sounds brilliant. It smacks of something I might have even suggested for an armor fix were anyone to ask. The rest of the statement I assume is pointed towards the op.

[eonfreon]

Grinding to be missed 1 out of every 4 hits doesn't seem a thing many people would do. If they change the game in this way AC will be more useless than it is now.
People that grind to obtain the highest AC should be hit only on a 20 in most content, otherwise why bother grinding?

I don't know? Why bother grinding? Isn't "grinding" just playing the game? Running quests and getting loot.

Sure, you can target specific quests for specific items, but there is more to the game then that. At least for me there is. And at this point there are several different ways to get the stacking bonuses. It's a matter of making it all fit on your build with gear slots. What can you use, when, what wil you give up for it. The Chattering Ring is no longer the only source of +3 Dodge.

If people base their enitire concept on one aspect of the game, then yes they will be "grinding" for a long time. Especially if they find most of their enjoyment from having all of the best items in one aprticular area.

I have a diversified build. I can switch from DPS to AC to DR pretty quickly. It's not hard. Most anyone can do it with the slightest bit of thought. The fact that Epics invalidates my AC and DR to mst extent does not mean that AC and DR are broken. Even in full-DPS, don't care about AC-mode, there are several Guards I use to help lower the damage. Radiance being a good example. When they are blinded they have an extra chance to miss. Plus, if you move you'll see they have a hard time finding you. It's great seeing blinded archers firing the opposite direction as you.

The problem most people have is thinking of AC as Armor Class, when it really should have been called Avoidance Chance. There are a lot of ways to avoid and mitigate damage in this game besides AC.

As for "grinding" for specific items. That's on the player. There's no need to pigeon-hole themselves into looking for improving only one aspect of their build. There's plenty of loot to be had that works well with many characters. Besides, the grind will never end. As soon as there is new content there will be new items to "grind" for. As soon as there is high content, there will be enemies that the Devs will want to have put a hurting on our characters.

Some people may want to achieve that can only be hit on a 20 ability, but I doubt the Devs want it to be prevalent. I don't think they even want a 50% to be prevalent. But they've given us plenty of tools to deal with the "situations". It's not their fault that players generally fixate on only a few ways.

[eonfreon]

Just something that came to mind while reading the first page. Probably not a solution in and of itself, but maybe the seed of an idea. Maybe someone's already thought of this. I dunno. For what it's worth, I have not played any end-game content or Epics, so I don't have any first-hand experience with the problem.

What if, instead of boosting the to-hits of the monsters, they had let them score automatic hits on a wider numerical range? The to-hits stay reasonable, so that 'normal' builds still have relevant AC, and the super-high AC only gets hit on a narrow range of numbers on the die? For example, normally, the super-high AC build can only be hit on a natural 20. Let the monsters hit on a natural 19-20. Or a 17-20, or whatever is appropriate. Now, these auto-hits don't necessarily mean a chance for a crit (but they can), just a chance to hit those super-high ACs without making them irrelevant.

Ok. Tear my suggestion apart. :)

Already exists for the most part. It's called Grazing Hits. I don't have the AC to test it, but I'm betting on Epics Grazing Hits are nothing to laugh off.

[LuckyLuke2]

They already made the Heavy Armor with more AC (Red Dragon Armor) and a Stalwart in Red Dragon can have a High AC while having High DPS unlike these pajama AC garbage builds. Learn game mechanics please. The issue is that if you lose 1% DPS for AC then you shouldn't have lost that DPS. Theres NO REASON to have AC.

There is no reason to expect healers to consume sp pods or stacks of scrolls either ... :). Running quests/raids on a healer build sure grants you a 6th sense for identifying those builds that are focussed on dps and nothing else.

[Beethoven]

I don't know, but think a lot fo the HP issue on mobs has to do with powerbloat. Granted, back during the mod 6 days Greensteel was sort of overpowered and in some ways still is. However, with new updates being added, new gear needs to be added to provide a long time motivation to run those quest. Attractive gear includes better dps weapons and I am not surprised five years into the game we reached a level of doing ridiculous levels.

It's not only melee DPs either. Spell damage is equally potent (just not as sustainable). So, what's the solution? Offensive capabilities on mobs really only do so much if the mob dies within a couple seconds. Making an AI more I than A is easier said then done. There is simply a limit and Turbine has not managed to cross it (neither has Nasa, the military or car manufacturers for that matter).

Similarly there are numerous reasons why AC is often considered less useful. For one because of DDO's interactive combat engine. You can mitigate a lot of damage simply by knowing how to move and how to take advantage of the environment. So right here you have the first problem. Why make huge sacrifices for a high AC when you can reach similar (but not quite as good) results by "tactical" play?

AC would become far more useful if mobs targeting you irregardless of your positioning, movement or obstacles - solely based on if you are in range. The downside is it would remove a part of DDO that makes the game so appealing to many.

Second, we have +7 stat boost items with a +3 exceptional and up to a +4 inherent (Tome) bonus for both Wisdom and Dexterity, and +8 armor boost on one side. We have an enhancement bonus of +6 for armor and shields on the other side. I am leaving Dodge and Insight bonuses out of it since they stack with both. It's pretty obvious though why unarmored pulls ahead (particularly monk splashes).

A +6 Heavy Armor is simply not that much better than +8 Armor Bracers to make up for a +13 Dex, +13 Wisdom and that's not even counting monk stances and feats.
The same can be said about shields, especially when considering the availability of Shield wands and/or Tempest Deflection bonus.

The latter could be helped by implementing better armor into the game and could (or could have been) addressed by implementing a Shield crafting that results in similar quality shields like we have with weapon crafting.

I also find that several Enhancement lines could use some improvement, particularly:

* Armored Agility: in my opinion should be changed to reducing Armor Penalty and increasing Max. Dexterity Bonus by 2 points per level; basically merging Armored Agility and Armor Mastery and increasing its usefulness some.
* Armor Mastery could be changed to increase AC bonus of Heavy Armor (or Heavy and Medium Armor) by 2 points per level (for a max of +8)

[grodon9999]

[QUOTE=Beethoven;3567258

* Armored Agility: in my opinion should be changed to reducing Armor Penalty and increasing Max. Dexterity Bonus by 2 points per level; basically merging Armored Agility and Armor Mastery and increasing its usefulness some.
* Armor Mastery could be changed to increase AC bonus of Heavy Armor (or Heavy and Medium Armor) by 2 points per level (for a max of +8)[/QUOTE]


That'd be nice, and the AP cost should be significantly lowered.

[Chai]

Yeah inverted AC didnt work in second edition ... it wont work here. BUT making there level and class the basis for to hit would.

For instance a cr 32 mob ... should have base attack 32 + 5 for weapon + 20 sided dice + class bonus ... and 20 roll = automatic hit regardless. And then you could increase glancing blows range to glancing blows hit on any hit that would have been a confirmed crit for there weapon and class type.

so a cr 32 fighter should have 32+5 for weapon +20 for class bonus =57 to hit +20 sided dice roll. The remove stacking doge bonuses for balance. now if your ac is over 80 you will not get hit by cr 32 mobs (and your likely sacrificing ALOT of dps to get there) It will be much harder to get to 80ac if dodge doesnt stack.

and if they feel people are getting through quests too easy they can raise the CR on hard and elite and epic. Leaving normal the way it is. Maybe my math is still to easy buttonish ... but i am sure someone could come up with a formula based on this and the average **** ac and average uber ac before raid gear sans stacking dodge to figure out a fair mob to hit forumla vs player ac.

/sigh - if only this was the way it actually worked. Loin cloth clad ogres would not have 60+ AC as well as being immune to 80% of all the stuff you can do to them. The to-hit bonus is arbitrary, and is a number that reflects only what the person writing the code typed in.

I think you would have to add the str mod in to the attack roll as well, but I get the idea. Its like the mob gets a character sheet just like we do and has a CALCULATED to hit bonus based on its attributes, etc. rather than an arbitrary number that is set so high that someone cant get un-hittable AC in epics.

The issue here is how much would a monk or exploiter sacrifice to get that AC? If this was a game where warriors encased in plate carrying a shield as big as they are had the highest AC, I would agree, because they sacrifice the most damage potential to get AC. A major error was made putting +8 bracers into the schlub loot pool that anyone can pull, and adding all kinds of AC that doesnt require damage sacrifice, because its the dress wearers who have the most AC, while sacrificing less damage potential than someone who has to carry a shield does, AND STILL they get to keep their evasion, arguably one of the top damage mitigators point for point in the game.

Because of this, I think there needs to be a swing in the DR direction as well. Monk has DR 10/epic which is good, but I think a true TANK should be able to mitigate ALOT more damage with DR. Right now this is the case for mobs swinging from the front only when blocking for the tank, where the monk has 10/epic for all mobs unless they have the "epic" quality in their descriptor. There were optional rules for different types of armor having different types of DR in previous editions of DnD - perhaps we need to start looking at those here in DDO and scaling them to fit this game - perhaps only for armor with "adamantine" or similar qualities. 3 DR is great at lower levels, but almost not noticable at higher levels. Maybe institute some type of multiplier for the item level so the DR number scales to meet the content that character will be running at the armors min level. A min level 18 adamantine full plate would have more DR than a min level 10 adamantine full plate, even though both could be +5 for AC purposes.

[grodon9999]

/sigh - if only this was the way it actually worked. Loin cloth clad ogres would not have 60+ AC as well as being immune to 80% of all the stuff you can do to them. The to-hit bonus is arbitrary, and is a number that reflects only what the person writing the code typed in.

I think you would have to add the str mod in to the attack roll as well, but I get the idea. Its like the mob gets a character sheet just like we do and has a CALCULATED to hit bonus based on its attributes, etc. rather than an arbitrary number that is set so high that someone cant get un-hittable AC in epics.

The issue here is how much would a monk or exploiter sacrifice to get that AC? If this was a game where warriors encased in plate carrying a shield as big as they are had the highest AC, I would agree, because they sacrifice the most damage potential to get AC. A major error was made putting +8 bracers into the schlub loot pool that anyone can pull, and adding all kinds of AC that doesnt require damage sacrifice, because its the dress wearers who have the most AC, while sacrificing less damage potential than someone who has to carry a shield does, AND STILL they get to keep their evasion, arguably one of the top damage mitigators point for point in the game.

Because of this, I think there needs to be a swing in the DR direction as well. Monk has DR 10/epic which is good, but I think a true TANK should be able to mitigate ALOT more damage with DR. Right now this is the case for mobs swinging from the front only when blocking for the tank, where the monk has 10/epic for all mobs unless they have the "epic" quality in their descriptor. There were optional rules for different types of armor having different types of DR in previous editions of DnD - perhaps we need to start looking at those here in DDO and scaling them to fit this game - perhaps only for armor with "adamantine" or similar qualities. 3 DR is great at lower levels, but almost not noticable at higher levels. Maybe institute some type of multiplier for the item level so the DR number scales to meet the content that character will be running at the armors min level. A min level 18 adamantine full plate would have more DR than a min level 10 adamantine full plate, even though both could be +5 for AC purposes.

WHich is why I don't think grazing-hits are as horrible of a concept as many others do. Give armor some static DR at all times (and lower the price and increase the effectiveness of a Enhancements to boost your DEX bonus). A "graze" should cut my monkey-splashed ranger whereas a guy encased in metal shouldn't even get tickled.

[Sholia]

The range of useless AC is so large that the ratio of useless AC -vs- 20 points on the dice is exagerated. Turbine made their own bed in this a long time ago and continues to do so on a few different fronts.

8 AC bracers and 4 dodge ac dresses + insight bonus + monk wis bonus to AC for multiclass allows people clad in dresses with full on victorian undergarments to not only have MORE AC than warriors encased in full steel plate with a shield, but have more DPS than the same sword and board configuration AND keep their evasion, which is arguably the best damage mitigation device in the game. Pathetic.

More challenge = ramping up all numerical stats and calling it a day. Want more high end challenging content? Now loincloth clad ogres have 65 AC, 95 to-hit, and 4500 hp, and are immune to 80% of all spell options. Done.

Finding a way to address this now after years of neglect will be very tough. This needed to be addressed when the vale came out, which is when the gap of useless AC began to widen considerably.

Given current circumstances, how do you create a system where someone can build a "balanced" character (half investment in DPS and half into AC) where they dont get hit as often as someone min maxed for full on DPS, but get hit more than a full on tank with full on AC investment, but at the same time, the monks, exploiter rangers, and all other dress wearing AC builds arent OP, soloing high end content on a whim, and never getting hit?

I am picturing my kensai throwing on a shield (significant DPS reduction) to mitigate incomming damage in certain situations while still being **some DPS. Right now, the useless AC gap is too darn wide for this to happen. Going from 40 AC to 50 AC is zero net gain in high end content. (10 AC is a +5 tower shield with a ritual on it.)

I have seen a few interesting suggestions, but none so far that would solve the AC issue the way I feel it would need to be solved.

This system can't be fixed because it's flawed at a fundamental level. The concept of Armor Class was something that worked fine back in the days of Basic D&D because it was a simple mechanic for a simple system. As the D&D system grew in complexity, AC hardly budged (aside from reversing direction - remember when a negative AC was desirable?). So now we have DDO pushing the game further and the limitations of AC are all too clear.

Why does a high DEX, high WIS Monk have a better armor class than a Fighter encased in magically forged full plate? Because AC in both cases addresses damage *avoidance*, and really, it's only the Monk who should be avoiding it. The Fighter should be absorbing it through damage reduction provided by her armor.

Heavy plate should in no way allow you to simply avoid missiles, or hammer blows, or sword slashes. You can barely move in it so how can you just avoid this stuff? Armor should be designed to take those blows, but slough off much of it, maybe all of it, through reduction. High DEX characters would go the opposite direction, light or no armor so as not to hinder their movement, and rely on avoiding damage altogether. But when they get hit, they get hit for full unless they have some other means of reducing damage. Suddenly having a good DEX for a Wizard might actually help you avoid getting hit.

And there can be a big grey area where a character can balance avoiding with reducing by using medium armor, target shields, decent but not exceptional DEX, etc. This would allow people to make a character viable by having a mixture of the two types of damage mitigation, without having to commit fully in one direction or another.

The problem though is the D&D rules. AC is based on a system that's what -- 40 years old? More? It's just not translating well into an MMO so you end up with AC, the cornerstone of the original combat system, being all but useless in this game. The other problem is that you can't change it without making massive changes all across the game, and likely having to turf the D20 system altogether. That wouldn't really be D&D anymore though. But it would be a better combat system.

So for the time being, we'll just have to get used to fighters and barbarians wearing dresses instead of heavy leather and metal. It makes no sense but neither does the DDO armor system.

[Drfirewater79]

It looks like you might bere confusing CR with leve, a cr 11 adult black dragon with19 HD that adds (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Improving_Creatures#Class_Levels) 12 levels of wizard is now cr 32but it only has BaB 19(adult black+4(wiz12)=23BaB with lots of hp ok ac flight& an array of nasty spells at it's disposal simply because 100+ac like we see in ddo falls apart in D&d with the same problems people have been saying the AC inflation in ddo. There is a reason why You get an apic attack bonus of +1 then epic save bonus of +1 every other level. a CR48 old prysmatic dragon, easily one of the most dangerous things in the epic level handbook has +73 tohit but still isn't hitting DDO's 100+AC level 20 tank even on a 20 the current system escalated into epic levels is only going to keep up if they add the equivalent of insane levels of salient divine cheese and/orepic spell abuse for perm buffs with huge bonus against dispel that would make people who seriously expect their dm to allow them to play punpun (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_(3.5e_Character_Build)) blush

To be honest i wasnt thinking straight just using it as an example. Also we dont see 100+ AC in DDO cept under the most amazing gear stacked multiclass crazy builds. Take away monk wis bonus when not centered and take away stacking dodge and people will be lucky to see 80. This is my point ... to make AC worth a lick in the game they need to work out to hit vs highest possible ac without killing people with average ac. So you lower the highest possible ac by dropping exploits (not all exploits are negative but using the system against itself is still exploiting the development weakness).

They need to start thinking about it from a STANDARD perspective rather then elitist perspective. Same with UMD and DR and and and .. they always base it on what the super elitist who has 100 epic raids under his belt can do and now what the average hardcore (let alone casual) can do. I play almost 35 hours a week i love ac builds .. .and my highest ac build right now can barely hit mid 80's fully buffed (monk) but after experiencing that i am seriously considering exploiter builds simply because they are massively OP. Take away stacking dodge ... take away monk wis bonus when wielding khopeshes and they get knocked back down a peg to not quite so OP.

[grodon9999]

. . .I play almost 35 hours a week i love ac builds .. .and my highest ac build right now can barely hit mid 80's fully buffed (monk) but after experiencing that i am seriously considering exploiter builds simply because they are massively OP. Take away stacking dodge ... take away monk wis bonus when wielding khopeshes and they get knocked back down a peg to not quite so OP.

How are they "massivley over-powered" compared to a pure monk? Considering all the stuff a well-build monk brings to the table, particularly a light-monk, what makes them over-powered?

Sorry for going off-topic but I'm curious.

[Drfirewater79]

DR fixing wise, my idea is to make DR level dependent like spell res. Drow get extra spell res per level, WF get extra DR per level.

How is that a FIX when i said quite clearly that the major problem was that NON WARFORGED barbarians have no DR? Warforged have to much DR as is because of racials and DOD.

If they made DOD a trinket rather then a docent then yes i agree warforged should get the same DR treatment that DROW got for SR. But until there is a high dr proc item for fleashies its pointless to boost Warforged dr especially since its already exploited on warforged sorcs who are tanking and soloing VOD because of it.

[Drfirewater79]

I don't know? Why bother grinding? Isn't "grinding" just playing the game? Running quests and getting loot..

No Grinding is running the same content continuously and NOT getting the loot. You dont continue to grind after you got your loot.
This is why people hate grinding ... repeat a quest 4 5 times not so bad ... repeat a quest 150 times and see nothing for it ... ****es you off. (Eye of titan on hard i am talking to you, dont think i forgot about you epic bargain of blood i still want that seal)

I have been playing since just after launch. Have done hundreds of Dragon raids .. only seen an SOS in a chest 2 times in nearly 5 years. I have seen chattering ring only 3 times in that same time ... before 20th runs raids where the only major grind. Now raids are less grindy then epics and standard named loot. The grind is stupid. Then you grind all that stuff out and your AC is still all but meaningless unless you run quests on normal.

[grodon9999]

. . .Then you grind all that stuff out and your AC is still all but meaningless unless you run quests on normal.

I'm sorry but that isn't true. AC can be viable up to Elite Amrath. No you can't make yourself invulnerable but it can definitely mitigate some damage.

[Drfirewater79]

How are they "massivley over-powered" compared to a pure monk? Considering all the stuff a well-build monk brings to the table, particularly a light-monk, what makes them over-powered?

Sorry for going off-topic but I'm curious.

150 plus on a crit while maintaining a sell buffed 80 ac umd in the 40s. Self heals better then a monk ac just as good if not better and does as much if not more damage then a kensai fighter.
Yeah its not overpowered at all. Oh yeah ... before i forget ... evasion.

The only advantage an AC monk has is stunning fist ... an AC monk is not putting out even a quarter of the damage of a exploiter or a monster build and sitting at about the same AC with less umd. If they are pure. (i have a umd light monk AC build ... highest sell buffed i have ever been was 77 with yugoloth pots but not turbine pots and i am lucky to see 100 points of damage on a crit and that only happens on smite or when they are auto crit with earth combo.

[Drfirewater79]

I'm sorry but that isn't true. AC can be viable up to Elite Amrath. No you can't make yourself invulnerable but it can definitely mitigate some damage.

Your talking to someone who solos amarath every day .... AC means absolutely nothing on elite. I can umd heal scrolls at 80% ... and solo hard with very little worry (alot of skill but very little worry) on a monk who maintains a 74 ac self buffed. I get hit EVERY TIME on elite. Shoot i get hit nearly every time on hard ... if not for heal scrolls and fast running speed i would be toast in there even on hard.

[grodon9999]

150 plus on a crit while maintaining a sell buffed 80 ac umd in the 40s. Self heals better then a monk ac just as good if not better and does as much if not more damage then a kensai fighter.
Yeah its not overpowered at all. Oh yeah ... before i forget ... evasion.

Not disputing any of that, but the damage is really only decent against the 4 favored enemies. Anyone else it's slightly better than a battle-cleric. if anyone actually know how to calc monk DPS we'd see if the difference is really that big.

Evasion < Improved Evasion

UMD is nice, what's stopping a monk from taking a rogue level? Oh that's right, your capstone isn't useless! :)



The only advantage an AC monk has is stunning fist ... an AC monk is not putting out even a quarter of the damage of a exploiter or a monster build and sitting at about the same AC with less umd. If they are pure. (i have a umd light monk AC build ... highest sell buffed i have ever been was 77 with yugoloth pots but not turbine pots and i am lucky to see 100 points of damage on a crit and that only happens on smite or when they are auto crit with earth combo.

Between stunning fist, that hoodukan thingy (ranged-stun, forget what it's called) jade strike, tomb of jade, etc . . . a light monk brings way more to the table. A group's DPS will go up significantly more if a good light monk joins it than if my Exploiter does.

[Drfirewater79]

I understand the game mechanics well. I am, however, not a library of loot statistics. Red dragon armor applying a higher armor bonus in order to help boost the ac of a heavy tank sounds brilliant. It smacks of something I might have even suggested for an armor fix were anyone to ask. The rest of the statement I assume is pointed towards the op.

Making epic collectable armor (like red dragon scale) was the dumbest thing they did .. they should have added red dragon scales to regular runs and not made the bloody armor so stupidly overpowered.

Epic loot needs to be changed too .. its another topic but they need to start putting in epic 20th run tables for raids. Cause its stupid when you go through 20 epic dragons and never see an sos or a epic dragon helm ... but then every elitist and his mother has a set on each of there characters. Bloody annoying ... especially since puging Von 6 epic is almost 100% chance of faliure.

[grodon9999]

Your talking to someone who solos amarath every day .... AC means absolutely nothing on elite. I can umd heal scrolls at 80% ... and solo hard with very little worry (alot of skill but very little worry) on a monk who maintains a 74 ac self buffed. I get hit EVERY TIME on elite. Shoot i get hit nearly every time on hard ... if not for heal scrolls and fast running speed i would be toast in there even on hard.

Okay, YOUR AC might not matter on Elite. Doesn't mean AC doesn't matter on elite. I've solo'd Sins on Elite and my AC got me missed more than I got hit. It kept me alive. Sure, I used displacement, blur, self-healing, etc . . . but my AC is a huge part of being able to pull this off as I got missed more than hit.

I also grinding the hell out of the game to get there. Multiple epic items, chattering ring, uses of +3 tomes on a 32-point build, etc . . .

If you were in a group with a bard and a Devine caster you can add 6 to that AC. 80 will get you missed a lot. I don't think a toon not being able to solo Amrath elite with a 74 AC means "AC doesn't work on Elite."

[Drfirewater79]

Between stunning fist, that hoodukan thingy (ranged-stun, forget what it's called) jade strike, tomb of jade, etc . . . a light monk brings way more to the table. A group's DPS will go up significantly more if a good light monk joins it than if my Exploiter does.

Light monks suck. .... all there abilities are based entirely on "TAINTED" creatures which limits them increadibly .. .and dispite the assumption that there 10% damage amp power actually works on purple names ... they save it 80% of the time .. .how do i know this ... my dc is 40 and every time i use it i hit [z] to see if it worked on him and in 28 shrouds since changing back to light monk i have seen it work maybe 1 time ... never seen it work on TOD horrath seems to have to high a save ... never seen it work in VOD sully seems to shrug off 40 DCs. Saw it work one time in epic dragon but it didnt go off ever again in the 8 other runs i did since.

If you want dps on a monk your not an AC bulid. Your a str dark monk ... 38 sneak damage with a 40 str 32 con 500 hps no ac at all but doing 70 points physical and 140+ on crits.

But ac builds are useless dps unless they are rangers tempest exploiters ... they do far faster attacks then monks do sorry to say. I hate it too... trust me as a monk enthusiast its my biggest hate in this game. But monks are not the answer to AC and DPS for pure monks. Not since the TOD nerf.

[grodon9999]

Light monks suck. .... all there abilities are based entirely on "TAINTED" creatures which limits them increadibly .. .and dispite the assumption that there 10% damage amp power actually works on purple names ... they save it 80% of the time .. .how do i know this ... my dc is 40 and every time i use it i hit [z] to see if it worked on him and in 28 shrouds since changing back to light monk i have seen it work maybe 1 time ... never seen it work on TOD horrath seems to have to high a save ... never seen it work in VOD sully seems to shrug off 40 DCs. Saw it work one time in epic dragon but it didnt go off ever again in the 8 other runs i did since.

I respectfully disagree with you on this point. Granted I don't have a monk above level 4, I'm going off of what I observer other monks doing in the parties I'm in. In epics, standard, whatever content the light-monks I roll with always add more to the group than the dark.



If you want dps on a monk your not an AC bulid. Your a str dark monk ... 38 sneak damage with a 40 str 32 con 500 hps no ac at all but doing 70 points physical and 140+ on crits.


I get what your saying now, you can't do good DPS and good AC on a monk at the same time.



But ac builds are useless dps unless they are rangers tempest exploiters ... they do far faster attacks then monks do sorry to say. I hate it too... trust me as a monk enthusiast its my biggest hate in this game. But monks are not the answer to AC and DPS for pure monks. Not since the TOD nerf.

My Monster kills my ranger against most opponents (as s kensai) and would have the same AC with equal gear.

[Drfirewater79]

Okay, YOUR AC might not matter on Elite. Doesn't mean AC doesn't matter on elite. I've solo'd Sins on Elite and my AC got me missed more than I got hit. It kept me alive. Sure, I used displacement, blur, self-healing, etc . . . but my AC is a huge part of being able to pull this off as I got missed more than hit.

I also grinding the hell out of the game to get there. Multiple epic items, chattering ring, uses of +3 tomes on a 32-point build, etc . . .

If you were in a group with a bard and a Devine caster you can add 6 to that AC. 80 will get you missed a lot. I don't think a toon not being able to solo Amrath elite with a 74 AC means "AC doesn't work on Elite."

i am a 32 point build AC monk. I have +8 armor bracers chattering ring ... +4 insite on DT epic cloak of midnight 38 dex 32 wis ... umd 38 ... use blur wands ... displacement doesnt last long enough on scrolls ... but if you think your ac means anything then you have no clue what blur and displacement do for you. Its not your ac that is helping you get missed on elite .. ts the 50% miss chance from displacement that is saving your butt.

AC is meaning less because Orthons have the worst to hit out of all devils in amarath and they hit me constantly. Again if your talking fully buffed ... ranger bark cleric buffs bard ac song etc .. sure i can hit almost 90. With a few alterations and sacrificing some UMD i might even break 90. But that is far from self buffed.

Also if your getting clerical buffs it means your soloing it on a cleric or favored soul .... so running away from stuff and throwing blade barriers is not a test of ac ... being a melee monk standing toe to toe with mobs is. There isnt much if anything i can do to increase my ac more then 2 points as far as i know. Not even epic items.
Self buffed 74 with no yugoloth pots and no turbine pots and no collectable pots ... is pretty much the highest you can get on a monk again give or take 2 points.

i would love to see you melee elite amrarth .... it doesnt hapeen with high ac ... cause high ac doesn't matter there... running away from mobs helps more then AC.

[Drall.]

It seems to me that the answer to make shield and armor more significant is to add feats, enhancements and items that raise DR and magic resistance. As someone posted earlier in the thread, the principle of armor and shield is not to avoid geting hit but rather being able to take the hit and move on.

I would go along that thinking with things like:

- Add CON bonus as DR
- Stacking DR armor and shields
- Additional stacking DR linked to armor and shield feats and enhacements
- Stacking magic resistance armor and shields
- Additional stacking magic resistance linked to armor and shield feats and enhacements
- More items with specific resistances
- Feat line that add AC as magic resistance bonus

I would not do all of these, but the point I am trying to make is to make armor and shield relevant, not AC per say.

[MrWizard]

Your talking to someone who solos amarath every day .... AC means absolutely nothing on elite. I can umd heal scrolls at 80% ... and solo hard with very little worry (alot of skill but very little worry) on a monk who maintains a 74 ac self buffed. I get hit EVERY TIME on elite. Shoot i get hit nearly every time on hard ... if not for heal scrolls and fast running speed i would be toast in there even on hard.

i find elite amrath is pretty bad with the elite grazing hits...the real issue is a red named or more than 3 mobs..then my ac starts not working as well...

one on one...pshaw

[Drfirewater79]

I respectfully disagree with you on this point. Granted I don't have a monk above level 4, I'm going off of what I observer other monks doing in the parties I'm in. In epics, standard, whatever content the light-monks I roll with always add more to the group than the dark.


I get what your saying now, you can't do good DPS and good AC on a monk at the same time.


My Monster kills my ranger against most opponents (as s kensai) and would have the same AC with equal gear.

1) Cause your playing with crappy dark monks then... cause light monks suck in epics in comparison. The problem is because AC is so **** in this game especially in epics ... most monks are going STR build when dark monks and not AC builds. TOD nerf made it even less popular to be an AC dark monk.
A light monk only has 1 bonus for epics and that is the ranged stun. Dark monks dont have a ranged stun but there melee stuff if there an AC build can break 40 pretty easy and do between 250 and 650 per tick if using dark combos... water dark water is a paralizing combo that lasts a long time .. .more then enough time to stun them as well.

DPS wise ... dark monks do almost twice as much damage as light monks ... this is why light monks get all the little cool toys while dark monks keep getting nerfed.

2) You can if your a dark monk and the mob isnt immune to TOD... but yeah ... that is the whole point of the argument... because AC means so little everyone is going with no ac heavy dps builds ... unless they go exploiter which is heavy gear grind then OP.

IF ac ment more in this game it would be balanced out more .. ac builds and dps builds for melees. Instead everyone is going dps builds now cause there is no point in ac especially if you like to do epics and harder difficulty quests. But a full frenzied barb is doing 500-700 points of damage per crit (19-20 .. other crits around 300) without an ESOS (so far highest with a min II is 564 highest with a Epic antique greataxe is 636 and i am not using yugoloth or cookies) So why have ac ... if you can kill the mobs faster and take less hits over time ... if the cleric is good you can take that mob out in a fraction of the time and take less over all damage dispite the fact that you are taking more from frenzy.

I say this as someone with a half orc barbarian and a halfling ac monk both pure builds.

3) This is the problem ... multiclass builds are killing the AC field and doing heavy dps... meanwhile pure ac builds are struggling to get decent ac and doing **** dps ... when your looking for heavy dps your looking for a barbarian ... not a monk .. not a palidan... it might be wrong to think that way .. but its a matter of fact in this game ... at least on sarlona.

[grodon9999]

i am a 32 point build AC monk. I have +8 armor bracers chattering ring ... +4 insite on DT epic cloak of midnight 38 dex 32 wis ... umd 38 ... use blur wands ... displacement doesnt last long enough on scrolls ... but if you think your ac means anything then you have no clue what blur and displacement do for you. Its not your ac that is helping you get missed on elite .. ts the 50% miss chance from displacement that is saving your butt.

AC is meaning less because Orthons have the worst to hit out of all devils in amarath and they hit me constantly. Again if your talking fully buffed ... ranger bark cleric buffs bard ac song etc .. sure i can hit almost 90. With a few alterations and sacrificing some UMD i might even break 90. But that is far from self buffed.

Also if your getting clerical buffs it means your soloing it on a cleric or favored soul .... so running away from stuff and throwing blade barriers is not a test of ac ... being a melee monk standing toe to toe with mobs is. There isnt much if anything i can do to increase my ac more then 2 points as far as i know. Not even epic items.
Self buffed 74 with no yugoloth pots and no turbine pots and no collectable pots ... is pretty much the highest you can get on a monk again give or take 2 points.

i would love to see you melee elite amrarth .... it doesnt hapeen with high ac ... cause high ac doesn't matter there... running away from mobs helps more then AC.

Didn't post a video but here's a screenshot. http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=292387

Displacement scrolls do work, pop one before running into a few mobs, they should be dead before it wears off. In the case of the Bearded devil in the dinning room I would fight him until the displacement wore off, bunny-hop while I healed and popped another displacement, then went back to fighting.

I was wearing . . .

Head Epic Helm of the Mroranon (+1 DEX)
Neck Tempest necklace
Belt Epic Belt of the Mroranon (+1 STR)
Armor Icy Rainments
Ring 1 Tempest +2 DEX
Ring 2 Chattering
Boots Striding
Bracers Epic Scorched (+6 CHR)
Cloak Epic Mabar/Mineral II
Gloves Epic Spectral (GFL)
Goggles Air Guard

My stats were:
S 38
D 34
C 26
I 16
W 26
C 12

My AC was:

10 Base
1 Dodge
1 TWD
4 Icy Raiments Dodge
1 Alchemical Dodge
7 Wisdom
11 Dexterity
3 Chattering ring
4 Insight (Shroud Crafted)
4 Protection
5 Barkskin
8 Armor Bracers
4 Tempest III
1 Haste
2 Recitation (Wand)
2 Yugo (DEX and Wisdom)
5 Airship
2 Mabar Cloak
3 FE

78 - power-attack AC. I got missed a more than I get hit

Maybe I'm making your case about exploiters, but at the same time I'm making the case that AC that works in Amrath elite IS achievable. It's a long, tortuous, painful grind but it can be done.

[eonfreon]

Your talking to someone who solos amarath every day .... AC means absolutely nothing on elite. I can umd heal scrolls at 80% ... and solo hard with very little worry (alot of skill but very little worry) on a monk who maintains a 74 ac self buffed. I get hit EVERY TIME on elite. Shoot i get hit nearly every time on hard ... if not for heal scrolls and fast running speed i would be toast in there even on hard.

You are not getting hit on every swing. However, you are going in solo. Being the only one the Mobs are attacking means a lot more swings at you. Plus they are flanking you, attacking from behind, etc.

Try not to run into the middle of a large group. It's a quest designed for a group. Your AC would be fine in a group setting. When you're being mobbed by the Mobs, yeah you're going to take a lot of damage. If nothing else, Grazing Hits will start to stack up.

With tactical play even my 60-70 AC is useful in Amrath Elite. As MrWizard says, one-on-one it's not even close to a problem.

[grodon9999]

3) This is the problem ... multiclass builds are killing the AC field and doing heavy dps... meanwhile pure ac builds are struggling to get decent ac and doing **** dps ... when your looking for heavy dps your looking for a barbarian ... not a monk .. not a palidan... it might be wrong to think that way .. but its a matter of fact in this game ... at least on sarlona.

You might be right about the monks I was playing with, I have no idea. I don't know the class well enough to have an informed opinion other that what I observe.

Regarding DPS-classes . . . when I'm looking for heavy DPS I know that gear/palyer > class but it's a lot harder to foul up a barbarian which is why they generally they don't get discriminated against. Did an EChrono Monday night without one fighter or barbarian in it, went smooth as silk.

[Drfirewater79]

It seems to me that the answer to make shield and armor more significant is to add feats, enhancements and items that raise DR and magic resistance. As someone posted earlier in the thread, the principle of armor and shield is not to avoid geting hit but rather being able to take the hit and move on.

I would go along that thinking with things like:

- Add CON bonus as DR
- Stacking DR armor and shields
- Additional stacking DR linked to armor and shield feats and enhacements
- Stacking magic resistance armor and shields
- Additional stacking magic resistance linked to armor and shield feats and enhacements
- More items with specific resistances
- Feat line that add AC as magic resistance bonus

I would not do all of these, but the point I am trying to make is to make armor and shield relevant, not AC per say.

I like all those ideas actually ... Con bonus to DR especially.... i think that might be the solution to DR .. and it would be a fair one to stack DR the same way AC stacks ... different types stack different sources stack. Then add feats to allow it to work against magic ... so for AC or DR it would act like SR with the resist magic feat (making the name up so if it exists sorry)

I hope someone is reading this thread from the DEV team because i think that CON to DR thing could be the answer to the DR problems making barbarians less of a drain on clerics. After all the game is suppost to be fun for everyone right ... why is it that the game seems to be making clerics dislike healing so much.

[pHo3nix]

I don't know? Why bother grinding? Isn't "grinding" just playing the game? Running quests and getting loot.

Sure, you can target specific quests for specific items, but there is more to the game then that. At least for me there is. And at this point there are several different ways to get the stacking bonuses. It's a matter of making it all fit on your build with gear slots. What can you use, when, what wil you give up for it. The Chattering Ring is no longer the only source of +3 Dodge.

If people base their enitire concept on one aspect of the game, then yes they will be "grinding" for a long time. Especially if they find most of their enjoyment from having all of the best items in one aprticular area.

I have a diversified build. I can switch from DPS to AC to DR pretty quickly. It's not hard. Most anyone can do it with the slightest bit of thought. The fact that Epics invalidates my AC and DR to mst extent does not mean that AC and DR are broken. Even in full-DPS, don't care about AC-mode, there are several Guards I use to help lower the damage. Radiance being a good example. When they are blinded they have an extra chance to miss. Plus, if you move you'll see they have a hard time finding you. It's great seeing blinded archers firing the opposite direction as you.

The problem most people have is thinking of AC as Armor Class, when it really should have been called Avoidance Chance. There are a lot of ways to avoid and mitigate damage in this game besides AC.

As for "grinding" for specific items. That's on the player. There's no need to pigeon-hole themselves into looking for improving only one aspect of their build. There's plenty of loot to be had that works well with many characters. Besides, the grind will never end. As soon as there is new content there will be new items to "grind" for. As soon as there is high content, there will be enemies that the Devs will want to have put a hurting on our characters.

Some people may want to achieve that can only be hit on a 20 ability, but I doubt the Devs want it to be prevalent. I don't think they even want a 50% to be prevalent. But they've given us plenty of tools to deal with the "situations". It's not their fault that players generally fixate on only a few ways.

What i meant was: if one has to grind for months to get the best AC sacrificing dps, it has to be more useful than a simple displacement or radiance guard :)

And anyway i got no high AC toons, i prefer quicken heal/reconstruct and guards, at least they work everywhere just fine ;)

[Drfirewater79]

Didn't post a video but here's a screenshot. http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=292387

Displacement scrolls do work, pop one before running into a few mobs, they should be dead before it wears off. In the case of the Bearded devil in the dinning room I would fight him until the displacement wore off, bunny-hop while I healed and popped another displacement, then went back to fighting.

I was wearing . . .

Head Epic Helm of the Mroranon (+1 DEX)
Neck Tempest necklace
Belt Epic Belt of the Mroranon (+1 STR)
Armor Icy Rainments
Ring 1 Tempest +2 DEX
Ring 2 Chattering
Boots Striding
Bracers Epic Scorched (+6 CHR)
Cloak Epic Mabar/Mineral II
Gloves Epic Spectral (GFL)
Goggles Air Guard

My stats were:
S 38
D 34
C 26
I 16
W 26
C 12

My AC was:

10 Base
1 Dodge
1 TWD
4 Icy Raiments Dodge
1 Alchemical Dodge
7 Wisdom
11 Dexterity
3 Chattering ring
4 Insight (Shroud Crafted)
4 Protection
5 Barkskin
8 Armor Bracers
4 Tempest III
1 Haste
2 Recitation (Wand)
2 Yugo (DEX and Wisdom)
5 Airship
2 Mabar Cloak
3 FE

78 - power-attack AC. I got missed a more than I get hit

Maybe I'm making your case about exploiters, but at the same time I'm making the case that AC that works in Amrath elite IS achievable. It's a long, tortuous, painful grind but it can be done.

Yeah your making my case exactly about exploiters... but not about Ac at all. The only reason your able to do it s because of the exploiter advantages .. tempest and much higher dps. Also TWD only works while blocking or so the feat discription says. Rangers also get TWO major bonuses that Monks dont .... being able to dps without TOD rings (thus being able to wear chattering ring all the time) ... and being able to get decent ac with Icy Raments... on a monk icy raiments suck hard... cause no intelligent monk is making shroud weapons so insite 4 with resistance 5 exceptional wis 1 armor ritual DT does far more to ac ... especially if your wearing a Min II item.

Also your wearing epic gear (other then mabar which is easy to get) which means you grind far more then i or are far more lucky ... i have two of three parts of nearly every set and only have 1 epic item on all my characters ... 1 epic antique greataxe. Dispite months of grinding which i have just recently given up on personally. When i get home and have time i will post the pic of my stats at there highest fully buffed and then another of me self buffed. You also didnt add 2 for shield wand.

[grodon9999]

Yeah your making my case exactly about exploiters... but not about Ac at all. The only reason your able to do it s because of the exploiter advantages .. tempest and much higher dps. Also TWD only works while blocking or so the feat discription says. Rangers also get TWO major bonuses that Monks dont .... being able to dps without TOD rings (thus being able to wear chattering ring all the time) ... and being able to get decent ac with Icy Raments... on a monk icy raiments suck hard... cause no intelligent monk is making shroud weapons so insite 4 with resistance 5 exceptional wis 1 armor ritual DT does far more to ac ... especially if your wearing a Min II item.

Also your wearing epic gear (other then mabar which is easy to get) which means you grind far more then i or are far more lucky ... i have two of three parts of nearly every set and only have 1 epic item on all my characters ... 1 epic antique greataxe. Dispite months of grinding which i have just recently given up on personally. When i get home and have time i will post the pic of my stats at there highest fully buffed and then another of me self buffed. You also didnt add 2 for shield wand.

Shield wand doesn't help a Tempest III. But yeah.

My DPS takes a huge hit in AC mode, my Ravager set isn't equipped. That's more than a monky will lose not having a shocking-burst ring loaded.

Funny thing is for a guy who thinks epics is the stupidest thing ever designed in gaming, I sure do a lot of them. *** else is there to do at cap?

[chrichton]

. . .

I also find that several Enhancement lines could use some improvement, particularly:

* Armored Agility: in my opinion should be changed to reducing Armor Penalty and increasing Max. Dexterity Bonus by 2 points per level; basically merging Armored Agility and Armor Mastery and increasing its usefulness some.
* Armor Mastery could be changed to increase AC bonus of Heavy Armor (or Heavy and Medium Armor) by 2 points per level (for a max of +8)
Excellent suggestions!

Devs! Oh developers!! are you reading this?

[chrichton]

It seems to me that the answer to make shield and armor more significant is to add feats, enhancements and items that raise DR and magic resistance. As someone posted earlier in the thread, the principle of armor and shield is not to avoid geting hit but rather being able to take the hit and move on.

I would go along that thinking with things like:

- Add CON bonus as DR
- Stacking DR armor and shields
- Additional stacking DR linked to armor and shield feats and enhacements
- Stacking magic resistance armor and shields
- Additional stacking magic resistance linked to armor and shield feats and enhacements
- More items with specific resistances
- Feat line that add AC as magic resistance bonus

I would not do all of these, but the point I am trying to make is to make armor and shield relevant, not AC per say.
More good ideas.

[chrichton]

Another idea is to provide elemental DR along with the regular DR (if I understand what DR applies to). Or at least provide some sort of enhancement to expand DR into elemental DR.

Actually - can anyone who knows more than I do verify for me that DR does not apply to elemental/spell damage? (I should know this, but am drawing a blank right now . . .)

[Paddycolver]

How is that a FIX when i said quite clearly that the major problem was that NON WARFORGED barbarians have no DR? Warforged have to much DR as is because of racials and DOD.

If they made DOD a trinket rather then a docent then yes i agree warforged should get the same DR treatment that DROW got for SR. But until there is a high dr proc item for fleashies its pointless to boost Warforged dr especially since its already exploited on warforged sorcs who are tanking and soloing VOD because of it.

How is a WF sorcerer better DR wise than any other sorcerer. They can self cast stone skin with quicken which is more than you can get from the racial enhancements and I am pretty sure they dont stack. i think the reason they are soloign so well is they can self heal.

Docent of defiance gives you DR/20 yes, but you are also crippled which means you cant run away and heal. in my opinion DoD is much better for WF tanks.

however saying that I do agree that barbarians DR should be more level dependent also, i should have mentioned that in my original post. I am thinking the next barbarian PrC will be along those lines.

[Drfirewater79]

Shield wand doesn't help a Tempest III. But yeah.

My DPS takes a huge hit in AC mode, my Ravager set isn't equipped. That's more than a monky will lose not having a shocking-burst ring loaded.

Funny thing is for a guy who thinks epics is the stupidest thing ever designed in gaming, I sure do a lot of them. *** else is there to do at cap?

Yeah i agree with you .. i hate epics ... but lately there has been more helping buddies TR (which i think is much stupider then epics ... never needed to TR to beat end game before it was invented dont need it now just like guild buffs)

There are some i dont mind .. none of them are in the dragon series though (still only a seal and scroll away from my own helm of moranan but would rather get the shard for my chimaras crown) It seems more and more though that epics are being done in guild groups... so if your guild aint doing them your not gonna find a group easy... then again maybe its just when i am actually looking at lfms there are none .. and i hate to lead so its my own fault.

[Drfirewater79]

How is a WF sorcerer better DR wise than any other sorcerer. They can self cast stone skin with quicken which is more than you can get from the racial enhancements and I am pretty sure they dont stack. i think the reason they are soloign so well is they can self heal.

Docent of defiance gives you DR/20 yes, but you are also crippled which means you cant run away and heal. in my opinion DoD is much better for WF tanks.

however saying that I do agree that barbarians DR should be more level dependent also, i should have mentioned that in my original post. I am thinking the next barbarian PrC will be along those lines.

Warforged have natrual DR enahncements ... they have natrually better DR then any other caster before stone skin. With stone skin they have a breakable dr/adamantine ... as warforged they have a non breakable dr (aka DR/-_
A good Warforged caster doesnt need to run away ... especially since a non warforged wizard in pale master mode doesnt need to run away period usually. I do Eye of the titan on hard with my pale master and barely move.

The problem with a PRE pushing DR is no one will take it ... the reason people take frenzi dispite all its down sides is because the higher the dps the faster the completion and in many cases in this game especially raids .. the longer it takes the higher chance of failure.

No one will take a DR PRE unless it makes them litterally invincible. Its my whole argument no one cares about high AC because it takes away from DPS and isnt as useful as it should be at end game. Same with DR ... no one specs DR no one takes DR clickies because its not part of the frenzi line and frenzi is where the DPS is.

Ravenger might work if its a dps boost while focusing on DR ... but something tells me they wont give you super high DR and super high dps ... dispite the fact that its the most important factors for a hate tank.

[Drfirewater79]

Another idea is to provide elemental DR along with the regular DR (if I understand what DR applies to). Or at least provide some sort of enhancement to expand DR into elemental DR.

Actually - can anyone who knows more than I do verify for me that DR does not apply to elemental/spell damage? (I should know this, but am drawing a blank right now . . .)

Elemental DR is resistance ... it already exists in game .. you can get up to 30 from spells and have it increased if your the right class or build type. Monkey Monks can get up to 8 natural elemental resistance which stacks with resistance spells.

But getting more elemental resistance isnt the problem its physical damage that is the problem with no ac characters.

[Drfirewater79]

Originally Posted by Beethoven View Post
. . .

I also find that several Enhancement lines could use some improvement, particularly:

* Armored Agility: in my opinion should be changed to reducing Armor Penalty and increasing Max. Dexterity Bonus by 2 points per level; basically merging Armored Agility and Armor Mastery and increasing its usefulness some.
* Armor Mastery could be changed to increase AC bonus of Heavy Armor (or Heavy and Medium Armor) by 2 points per level (for a max of +8)


Excellent suggestions!

Devs! Oh developers!! are you reading this?

God i hope so .. cause his suggestion is great ... especially if it applied to dwarven armor mastery as well ... it would bring back the AC dwarven palidan and make dwarven defender fighters alot of fun too.

[Xanshae]

8 AC bracers and 4 dodge ac dresses + insight bonus + monk wis bonus to AC for multiclass allows people clad in dresses with full on victorian undergarments to not only have MORE AC than warriors encased in full steel plate with a shield, but have more DPS than the same sword and board configuration AND keep their evasion, which is arguably the best damage mitigation device in the game. Pathetic.

Seems to me that some poeple here doesnt understand the concept of Armor Class. Armor Class is not something that prevents you being hit, it is simplified thing which represent you not being HURT, which is a very different thing.

Those garment/dress wearing fellows out there who get high AC, simply AVOID hits by dodging, moving what ever and those who wear armor and shields simply carry so much iron, that weapons of a eager foe doenst find their flesh.

damage reduction is an aspect that allows you to bear those devastating hits and lower the damage you take, by huge muscles, stonelike skin or warforged iron "flesh". Barbarians DR represents that overwhelming adrenaline rage that makes you ignore the wounds you might get for the time being.


Still i share opinions with most of you, that AC in this game is somewhat broken and needs some kind of revamping, but before you mock different kind of means to avoid getting hurt (ie. dodge like monks vs. full bodyarmor fighter) you need to understand the differences between them, even thou it doesnt really matter in the end whether you wear armor or dress when you have 50 AC.

Somekind of change in this would be if they add some DR to all armors, leaving out robes and outfits. Then those armors would represent better the way they allow you to avoid getting hurt.

Just my 2 cents

[chrichton]

Elemental DR is resistance ... it already exists in game .. you can get up to 30 from spells and have it increased if your the right class or build type. Monkey Monks can get up to 8 natural elemental resistance which stacks with resistance spells.

But getting more elemental resistance isnt the problem its physical damage that is the problem with no ac characters.
Yes - I know about elemental resistance - just wanted confirmation about DR.
Thx.

[Feithlin]

One of the biggest problems of AC comes from AD&D (pnp). In most RPG, armors gives the equivalent of DR. Each armor type should grant some basic DR. Then, there should be 2 kind of hits: one that hits the target but on which DR is applied, and one that is good enough to ignore the DR (usually a critic in most RPG). That wouldn't too hard to implement, but would break completely with DD3.5 rules, and I'm not sure DDO developers have this possibility (even if many things are already very different from pnp, the basics are still here).

[Drfirewater79]

Xanshae

I agree .. especially about the ac thing as i am a monk man myself ... big fan of dex ac builds.

But also agree with the idea that ALL armor should have DR ..
but more so stick to my guns that DoD being a warforged only thing is the biggest problem ... there should be downsides to getting super high dr like DoD and that is why it has a slowed effect ... but it shouldnt be warforged only .. they already get far to many bonuses and if built right warforged already without the DOD have a very nice DR. The problem is time and place ... in this time and place .. .warforged are not the hot item they once where and barbarians arent the only tanks ... and sure as hell warforged arent the only tanks. Its time for a DoD trinket or breast plate to come out. Something to help the guys with no evasion and no ac from taking full damage EVERY swing.

[Drfirewater79]

One of the biggest problems of AC comes from AD&D (pnp). In most RPG, armors gives the equivalent of DR. Each armor type should grant some basic DR. Then, there should be 2 kind of hits: one that hits the target but on which DR is applied, and one that is good enough to ignore the DR (usually a critic in most RPG). That wouldn't too hard to implement, but would break completely with DD3.5 rules, and I'm not sure DDO developers have this possibility (even if many things are already very different from pnp, the basics are still here).

Yeah but they have said before some things just dont work in video games like they do in PnP .. this is why AC and DR are such a big issue ... they dont work right now the way they should in comparison to PnP... if it means making special rules to match up the FLAVOR of Pnp with DDO ... then step outside the 3.5 and get it done.

Spells per day doesnt work so they gave us mana ... so its time for more to be done ... that is why i really like the idea of con bonus to DR ... it makes sense stat wise it makes sense in every way cept 3.5 ruleset. Its time to step outside the box ... and balance this game properly ... something that should have been done 4 years ago.

[donfilibuster]

This system can't be fixed because it's flawed at a fundamental level. The concept of Armor Class was something that worked fine back in the days of Basic D&D because it was a simple mechanic for a simple system. As the D&D system grew in complexity, AC hardly budged (aside from reversing direction - remember when a negative AC was desirable?). So now we have DDO pushing the game further and the limitations of AC are all too clear.


The system is not wrong, in settings where you are hit hard you just have better buffs to compensate, these are the things we need and they are on the books already.

We are all just rooting for plate when it's like taking a knife to a gunfight, metal armor has clearly no advantage over martial training.
It is meant to protect soldiers that can't defend otherwise, but we still frown that pajamas are better than armor 'because it makes no sense'.
It's just different, like crossbows to longbows, some are trained, some are not, and customization is the name of the game.

But to big damage bigger buffs, spells like 'greater mage armor' completely override full plate.
Yet there's always options,there's extreme plate and extreme shields in the dwarven sourcebooks.
Dwarves excel at metal armor because they have little dex.


One of the biggest problems of AC comes from AD&D (pnp). In most RPG, armors gives the equivalent of DR. Each armor type should grant some basic DR. Then, there should be 2 kind of hits: one that hits the target but on which DR is applied, and one that is good enough to ignore the DR (usually a critic in most RPG). That wouldn't too hard to implement, but would break completely with DD3.5 rules, and I'm not sure DDO developers have this possibility (even if many things are already very different from pnp, the basics are still here).

Not being like videogames is a strong point, not a weakness.
we have two build options between ac and dr, if you make one into another you lose that variety.
d&d is a campaign kit and we have a high magic game yet we lack defenses in many classes and only a tank build can work, that's what needs change, not the system.

[Paddycolver]

Warforged have natrual DR enahncements ... they have natrually better DR then any other caster before stone skin. With stone skin they have a breakable dr/adamantine ... as warforged they have a non breakable dr (aka DR/-_
A good Warforged caster doesnt need to run away ... especially since a non warforged wizard in pale master mode doesnt need to run away period usually. I do Eye of the titan on hard with my pale master and barely move.

The problem with a PRE pushing DR is no one will take it ... the reason people take frenzi dispite all its down sides is because the higher the dps the faster the completion and in many cases in this game especially raids .. the longer it takes the higher chance of failure.

No one will take a DR PRE unless it makes them litterally invincible. Its my whole argument no one cares about high AC because it takes away from DPS and isnt as useful as it should be at end game. Same with DR ... no one specs DR no one takes DR clickies because its not part of the frenzi line and frenzi is where the DPS is.


The warforged DR is /adamantine just like stoneskin. its only barabarians and defender PrC's that give DR/-

I'm not sure about the plaemaster thing as I have never played one, but i'm not a very good caster anyway so I probably couldn't get it to work :)

As for people not taking a DR PrC i'm not sure I agree with you, as for that argument to hold no one would take the sword and board defender PrC's as this is low DPS, but i know of quite a few people that have. I also know of a few people that are WF barbarians with as high DR as they can get with as many guard items as possible, i think if a PrC gave them say a further +10 DR they would snap it up


on a seperate note I like the idea of increasing armour mastery!! either making it +2 or making it +DR

[Dolphious]

Seems like there are three different problems that are getting meshed together regarding AC:

1. The range of useful AC is small creating an "all or nothing" approach to AC builds.

2. A few specific builds can obtain vastly higher AC than anyone else making "nothing" the required choice for most characters even if they would be willing to sacrifice damage (or other areas).

3. Most DPSs don't give a rat's arce about defense because they aren't the ones doing the healing

re 1. PnP solved this issue with iterative attacks and scaling power attack (and CE). I understand that there are good reasons why those solutions don't work in DDO's real time combat, but it shows that creative minds can solve the problem in a simple and elegant manner. I don't have a specific plan, but it would be unfortunate if DDO coped out by creating balance with a complex computer based solution that would be inaccessible to all but the most wonky gamers.

re 2. This one shouldn't be too hard to balance. Attributes in DDO have inflated more than most other AC sources (Armor, deflection, etc) so builds that get AC from stats (dex, wis) have increased in comparative effectiveness. Since stat deflation is all but impossible, other AC sources (particularly base armor bonus and max dex) need better boosts. Improving armor mastery enhancements would be a great start.

re 3. To some extent this is of course unsolvable, people are going to care about filling their party role exceptionally more than they are going to care about making someone else's easier. That said, healing is probably too easy and too cheap in DDO. If spells like heal and mass heal where more expensive (in terms of sp, or scroll cost/availably) parties would care more about reducing damage taken.

[KristovK]

Warforged have natrual DR enahncements ... they have natrually better DR then any other caster before stone skin. With stone skin they have a breakable dr/adamantine ... as warforged they have a non breakable dr (aka DR/-_
A good Warforged caster doesnt need to run away ... especially since a non warforged wizard in pale master mode doesnt need to run away period usually. I do Eye of the titan on hard with my pale master and barely move.

The problem with a PRE pushing DR is no one will take it ... the reason people take frenzi dispite all its down sides is because the higher the dps the faster the completion and in many cases in this game especially raids .. the longer it takes the higher chance of failure.

No one will take a DR PRE unless it makes them litterally invincible. Its my whole argument no one cares about high AC because it takes away from DPS and isnt as useful as it should be at end game. Same with DR ... no one specs DR no one takes DR clickies because its not part of the frenzi line and frenzi is where the DPS is.

Ravenger might work if its a dps boost while focusing on DR ... but something tells me they wont give you super high DR and super high dps ... dispite the fact that its the most important factors for a hate tank.

Forged do NOT get automatic DR, it's not part of the racial perks. You have to spend FEATS or burn up AP to get that DR/Addy. Hey..fleshbags get that by just picking up some Addy armor! Docents don't come in Addy though, so in order to get the same DR any fleshbag can get with some cheap armor, Forged have to burn a Feat(if that's possible for the class, can't take the Addy Body Feat on Monks or Barbarians, ruins the class abilities, and the huge AF hit for Wiz/Sorcs/Bards makes it pretty silly to take the feat on them..won't touch on WASTING precious AP for some piddly DR on a caster either..or any other class).

As to the entire AC is useless, DR needs to be factored in more thing..yeah...

We brought this up years ago when the cap was 10 and people were hitting 50 ACs. It was totally nuts that a 10th level character had a 50 AC! We're talking near Epic if not Epic level AC here, not something we should have been hitting at 10th level with MUCH less powerful gear then we have NOW. And it's just gotten worse as time has gone on.

The only real fix would be to change how the entire game works, make it work like the actual PnP system, where a 50 AC is something that's found on high dex builds at near Epic/Epic levels, not a SD Fighter with a 12 Dex at 10th level. Of course, that would mean the massive stat bonuses given by race/class would be dropped, and so on, making the game more like the actual PnP game it's based on. SOME of us would welcome that, we've been asking for it since the beta many years ago. It ain't gonna happen though, so..

DDO is what it is, it's a little late in the life of the game to be undoing what was set at the beginning of the game. And DrFire...using your solo runs on an end game dungeon designed for a party of capped characters...bad choice there. And if it's a Light Monk, Dex build, who's having so many problems..you DO realize you've got a nice AC bonus vs everything and anything in Amrath right? Comes with the PrE, my own Light Monk is over 60 AC unbuffed facing those same mobs thanks to that. I tool around those areas without much thought to danger when I solo, hard to hit, DR/10 Epic, self healing abilities, stuns, long range stuns, insta-death touch, jade tomb, jade strikes..really, it's a Light Monk's Disneyland. Now, doing the dungeons on Elite solo..no thanks, Elite means there's no scaling, mobs are all boosted to stupidly high numbers, they get bonuses to everything just from the enviroment on top of that...yeah...BAD choice of why things need to be changed.

[NaturalHazard]

would more effective, improved AC and dr and people paying attention to these things and getting them into their stlye of play mean less mem pots sold in the store?

[ycy1975]

again i hope you guys can give ideas on how both AC and DR can be brought back to popularity and save the clerics some mental anguish and make the game more fun for everyone.

Well, if AC and DR can come back to play then my 6 healing characters will come back to fill up those LFMs for healers. or I will sit there and watch them suffer.

Just can't afford those healing costs.

[Daggertooth]

1) Cause your playing with crappy dark monks then... cause light monks suck in epics in comparison.

Your delusional. The utilities of a well played shintao monk are much more needed in epic than the added dps of the dark monk. Even if your dark monk is doing double the damage of my light monk, it doesnt matter because any clown can hit an auto crit mob and more dps doesnt make a difference.

What does make a difference is the light monk who is putting things into auto crit every 3 seconds so that the gimpy melee's can actually hit it.

The only exception to this is when your running with a Mass Hold baby sitter providing day care for a group of melee's who have no business even doing epic in the first place. And in that case what does it matter if the gimps take 1- 1.5 seconds less to kill a mob?

Edit: I am just going to say this: My light monk is constantly juggling the two stunning abilities as well as the jade tome strike (and the dismissal's etc for elementals) for things that are constantly breaking free in epics and would otherwise be doing a **** load of damage to the group. Half the things I stun I have to leave there while the rest of the group mindlessly beats on the last mob. I am not sure how you can compare this role to another mindless beater even if they are doing the most damage in the group. The only exception to this is when you're running with a spell pot guzzling baby sitter who is basically 90% of the groups reason for even being alive in the first place.



TOD nerf made it even less popular to be an AC dark monk.

Nerf? My Arch mage can do 2-3 THOUSAND force damage which is basically untyped to everything aside from the occasional caster with nightshield, every 6 seconds, for 12 spell points. Touch of Death is chump change and any clown can equip a pair of picks and hit an auto crit mob. Touch of Death is a cool ability especially when you can get it to trigger a few times but its still pretty much chump change and more dps is not needed in epics in as much as skilled players who can keep the situation under control when the baby sitter is doing other things.





my responses in grey

[NaturalHazard]

another ac thread................

lol someone has a big issue with that statement!!! :P grow some!!! :D

[Targoth1]

Yeah but they have said before some things just dont work in video games like they do in PnP .. this is why AC and DR are such a big issue ... they dont work right now the way they should in comparison to PnP... if it means making special rules to match up the FLAVOR of Pnp with DDO ... then step outside the 3.5 and get it done.

Spells per day doesnt work so they gave us mana ... so its time for more to be done ... that is why i really like the idea of con bonus to DR ... it makes sense stat wise it makes sense in every way cept 3.5 ruleset. Its time to step outside the box ... and balance this game properly ... something that should have been done 4 years ago.

The mana thing was not such a huge step. Most of the campaigns I was involved in in PnP used a spell point system.

You are right about the need to completely revamp the AC and DR systems though. The current system is beyond broken. A linear to hit progression with only a twenty range that is meaningful cannot function in a game where character AC routinely varies by more than 60+ points among characters in the same group.

At the same time even the DR10 granted by stoneskin is of very little value in the current game. I won't talk about epic mobs, I don't run epic content, but I will talk about recently release content. Specifically, the orc beserkers in the invasion series. Even on normal these mobs are hitting for 50+ non-crit. At this point a stoneskin spell is only a 20% mitigation, short duration, and requires a component with a non-trivial cost for non-twinks. The damage output rapidly scales upwards as difficulty rating increases, reducing the effectiveness of DR even further.

In any other MMO I have ever played, 20% mitigation is laughable for anyone save a caster. For anyone intending to tank, its not a meaningful value, your better served by simply picking up more hp and bringing an extra healer. This should be changed. A tank (meaning heavy armor) should be able to mitigate a substantial portion of incoming damage, putting him on par with the survivability of a dress wearing monk without the damage spikes.

As for the min/max DPS freaks whose spreadsheets calculate everything as hitting on a 2+.......I'd just as soon throw several expansions of content at them where they only hit for on a 10+, unless specced specifically for accuracy. This does not mean simply improving to-hit by adding strength (str should have never added to accuracy to begin with), it means spending feats and enhancement points, possibly even turning off power attack for the duration of the fight. Beyond that, any changes that correct the ac issues for players should have a similar impact on player ability to hit mobs.

[Paddycolver]

Forged do NOT get automatic DR, it's not part of the racial perks. You have to spend FEATS or burn up AP to get that DR/Addy. Hey..fleshbags get that by just picking up some Addy armor! Docents don't come in Addy though, so in order to get the same DR any fleshbag can get with some cheap armor, Forged have to burn a Feat(if that's possible for the class, can't take the Addy Body Feat on Monks or Barbarians, ruins the class abilities, and the huge AF hit for Wiz/Sorcs/Bards makes it pretty silly to take the feat on them..won't touch on WASTING precious AP for some piddly DR on a caster either..or any other class).

As to the entire AC is useless, DR needs to be factored in more thing..yeah...

We brought this up years ago when the cap was 10 and people were hitting 50 ACs. It was totally nuts that a 10th level character had a 50 AC! We're talking near Epic if not Epic level AC here, not something we should have been hitting at 10th level with MUCH less powerful gear then we have NOW. And it's just gotten worse as time has gone on.

The only real fix would be to change how the entire game works, make it work like the actual PnP system, where a 50 AC is something that's found on high dex builds at near Epic/Epic levels, not a SD Fighter with a 12 Dex at 10th level. Of course, that would mean the massive stat bonuses given by race/class would be dropped, and so on, making the game more like the actual PnP game it's based on. SOME of us would welcome that, we've been asking for it since the beta many years ago. It ain't gonna happen though, so..

DDO is what it is, it's a little late in the life of the game to be undoing what was set at the beginning of the game. And DrFire...using your solo runs on an end game dungeon designed for a party of capped characters...bad choice there. And if it's a Light Monk, Dex build, who's having so many problems..you DO realize you've got a nice AC bonus vs everything and anything in Amrath right? Comes with the PrE, my own Light Monk is over 60 AC unbuffed facing those same mobs thanks to that. I tool around those areas without much thought to danger when I solo, hard to hit, DR/10 Epic, self healing abilities, stuns, long range stuns, insta-death touch, jade tomb, jade strikes..really, it's a Light Monk's Disneyland. Now, doing the dungeons on Elite solo..no thanks, Elite means there's no scaling, mobs are all boosted to stupidly high numbers, they get bonuses to everything just from the enviroment on top of that...yeah...BAD choice of why things need to be changed.

I like this, argument makes sense!

[pHo3nix]

How is a WF sorcerer better DR wise than any other sorcerer. They can self cast stone skin with quicken which is more than you can get from the racial enhancements and I am pretty sure they dont stack. i think the reason they are soloign so well is they can self heal.

Docent of defiance gives you DR/20 yes, but you are also crippled which means you cant run away and heal. in my opinion DoD is much better for WF tanks.


You haven't a wf sorcerer with DoD right? There's no need to run away once DoD procs, just stay there and nuke/quicken reconstruct yourself till all the mobs are dead. But yes, WF sorcerers are no better DR wise than other sorcerers, until they got DoD :)