Update 23 Second Look

[KookieKobold]

Heya folks!

We'll be updating Lamannia tomorrow Thursday the 28th!

This coming weekend we plan to hold some raiding events to get feedback on the U23 raid!

These events will happen between 8pm and 10pm on Friday the 29th and again between 11am and 1pm on Saturday the 30th.

During these events, Devs will be online to setup raid parties and run through the new raid!

Release notes and Known issues will be posted Thursday once we have updated the server.

See you online!


All times are eastern (GMT-4)

[Nayus]

Can I haz Vanguard tree?

[ReaperAlexEU]

can i haz MRR healing bug squash and vanguard tree?

hehe, crossing my fingers :)

[Enoach]

I look forward to the release notes and hoping to see the following...

MRR healing bug resolved
Vanguard Tree Preview

Maybe even some tweaks to the Master Blitz based on feedback and not theorycrafting

Oh yay and maybe having the key to the city work.

[Oxarhamar]

Loot revamp?

weapons introduced as mythic items.

[zerit2002]

I'm pretty eager to see vanguard as well :)

[UurlockYgmeov]

Heya folks!

We'll be updating Lamannia tomorrow Thursday the 28th!

This coming weekend we plan to hold some raiding events to get feedback on the U23 raid!

These events will happen between 8pm and 10pm on Friday the 29th and again between 11am and 1pm on Saturday the 30th.

During these events, Devs will be online to setup raid parties and run through the new raid!

Release notes and Known issues will be posted Thursday once we have updated the server.

See you online!


All times are eastern (GMT-4)

are we there yet? is it time yet? ;p

[Nayus]

Can I haz Vanguard tree?

can i haz MRR healing bug squash and vanguard tree?
and then...

I look forward to the release notes and hoping to see the following...
sigh... those hipsters.

[barecm]

Loot revamp?

weapons introduced as mythic items.

The weapons don't have to be mythic, they just have to be. Extremely disappointed at the decision not to include the weapons.

[ReaperAlexEU]

and then...

sigh... those hipsters.

hipsters? we're making it mainstream :p

[-Avalon-]

Can we haz an Epic Shroud of the Abbot (or something similar)?

Robed Palemasters need something better than Lvl 14 Shroud and Lvl 24 Epic Robe of Shadows (both of which fall woefully behind other items of 28th lvl... let alone 29 and 30 when they come out will probably not have a better version either. And the other items are not really focused on necromancy of any sort, or grant a Boon effect (and Light Wounds is not exactly keeping up with 28th lvl content either), and btw, I almost always play armored palemasters, so not asking for me all that much. Also, would be a good chance to add a docent form of the Shroud for the WF toons out there that play PMs, since the only way they can currently get a "Boon" docent is through Mabar (once a year)

[Oxarhamar]

The weapons don't have to be mythic, they just have to be. Extremely disappointed at the decision not to include the weapons.

Assuming the weapons were left out to try and leave some replay value in Thunderholme


Mythic items should have been the weapons from Orchard anyways.

As an alternative to Thunderforged but, with the rareity of mythics(unknown) Thunderforged would still be the measureable grind weapon.

That might have been interesting.

[TankerWade]

Can we have an all-Paladin run?

[XxJFGxX]

Hopefully Two weapon fighting will give melee power :)

[Nascoe]

Hopefully Two weapon fighting will give melee power :)

It seems this is not going to happen anytime soon - have a look at Sev and Cordovan on U23 in the wednesday stream they did yesterday (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434986-Streaming-DDO-Tell-us-about-it!/page11#post5415416)

- Melee Power will be toned down further for the next Lam run
- the plan is to have the raid available (hope they manage that)
- other bits and bobs

[ReaperAlexEU]

It seems this is not going to happen anytime soon - have a look at Sev and Cordovan on U23 in the wednesday stream they did yesterday (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434986-Streaming-DDO-Tell-us-about-it!/page11#post5415416)

- Melee Power will be toned down further for the next Lam run
- the plan is to have the raid available (hope they manage that)
- other bits and bobs

thanks for the link :)

edit:

vanguard and MRR healing bug are on their way this week (pending any last minute 'splosions of course!)

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

Loot revamp?

weapons introduced as mythic items.

I wish for a Epic Khopesh that can rival with the current weaponry... please?

Carry on.

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

Can we have an all-Paladin run?

I'm in.

[Jastarn]

Can we have an all-Paladin run?

yes. just yes.

[Rinveron]

are they wiping server again ?

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

KookieKobold,

can you guys please, not place a Lord of Blades, spamming over and over, in the Dojo?

That was probably funny the first 30 seconds or so...

Carry on.

[Stoner81]

Any sign of the new release notes?

Stoner81.

[barecm]

Assuming the weapons were left out to try and leave some replay value in Thunderholme

I don't think that is really an issue. The value of Greensteel is independent of similar lvl raid items, so TF should not be an issue either. My personal opinion is that it comes down to dev cycles, time and money, not replay value. TF has mods that are customizable and will not be found elsewhere so there should not be conflict with epic Abbot weapons. This is just a lame excuse in my opinion.

[Sokól]

Assuming the weapons were left out to try and leave some replay value in Thunderholme

I actually agree with this but a few niche weapons like Epic Unwavering Ardency might spice it up a little!

[MadCookieQueen]

3) Also on the preview, in comments, it said there would be no feat requirements for Overwhelming Crit. In the Release, it just says no Great Cleave. Is Cleave a prereq now?


Can someone answer this question...i'd really like to know so I can plan my u23 builds

[Wipey]

No, OC didn't have any Cleave prerequisites last week on Lama, only Improved Crit.
Current Lama build is not up yet.

[MadCookieQueen]

No, OC didn't have any Cleave prerequisites last week on Lama, only Improved Crit.
Current Lama build is not up yet.


Awesome! Thank you ^^

[Eth]

KookieKobold,

can you guys please, not place a Lord of Blades, spamming over and over, in the Dojo?

That was probably funny the first 30 seconds or so...

Carry on.

This please. The lag and noise in the dojo is unbearable. I only grab the stuff I need and leave it as quickly as possible.
Or make that 'funny' stuff exclusive to instance 2 or something.

[Rinveron]

what time is the server opening ?

[KookieKobold]

We're going through the process of updating the server now. I'll make a post once it's online.

[Rinveron]

We're going through the process of updating the server now. I'll make a post once it's online.
kk thanks :)

[Grailhawk]

We're going through the process of updating the server now. I'll make a post once it's online.

Nice! Do we get release notes?

[Bernaise]

We're going through the process of updating the server now. I'll make a post once it's online.

How much Coffee is needed to process the updating of the server? :D

[PsychoBlonde]

i actually agree with this but a few niche weapons like epic unwavering ardency might spice it up a little!

yes epic version of awesome fiery bow plz!!

[Rinveron]

How much Coffee is needed to process the updating of the server? :D

a lot I think :D

[KookieKobold]

Lamannia is updated and back online!

See you all there.

[Cordovan]

The Release Notes (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/438926-Lamannia-Release-Notes-(Last-Updated-8-28-14)) have now been updated.

[Delacroix21]

Ok honest feedback=


how does 6% damage (6 melee power) make GMoF, Fatesinger, Sentinel, and Primal Viable compared to Dreadnaught or Fury?



Also melee power went from viable to dead, I will go back to caster/ranged, was nice to dream. I am not going to take all that monster damage and still put out LESS damage then builds that can dance around while out of monster range.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

The Release Notes (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/438926-Lamannia-Release-Notes-(Last-Updated-8-28-14)) have now been updated.

Um... What's this about a harper tree?????? as neat as it seems, Something tells me it shouldn't be here... And where's vanguard?

[ArcaneArcher52689]

Ok honest feedback=


how does 6% damage (6 melee power) make GMoF, Fatesinger, Sentinel, and Primal Viable compared to Dreadnaught or Fury?



Also melee power went from viable to dead, I will go back to caster/ranged, was nice to dream. I am not going to take all that monster damage and still put out LESS damage then builds that can dance around while out of monster range.


Keep in mind that LD is losing a lot of Melee power from blitz, so if LD grants 50+3*6=68+3*8=92 melee power. of that 92 melee power, 48 of it will be available to those other destinies. Basically, the melee gap went from +250% blitz vs. non-blitz to about +50% blitz vs. non-blitz

[Lifespawn]

why is dc boosted less than the other melee destinies?

how the heck did we go from too much damage to not noticeable there is a middle ground here


Harper tree?

this will give every class the ability to just max int and con especially useful for int based classes now it's the best of all worlds and the harper tree gives more melee power than some epic destinies lol ***

[Wongar]

Um... What's this about a harper tree?????? as neat as it seems, Something tells me it shouldn't be here... And where's vanguard?

I had the same reaction - hope to get an answer.

[Delacroix21]

Keep in mind that LD is losing a lot of Melee power from blitz, so if LD grants 50+3*6=68+3*8=92 melee power. of that 92 melee power, 48 of it will be available to those other destinies. Basically, the melee gap went from +250% blitz vs. non-blitz to about +50% blitz vs. non-blitz

What am I "keeping in mind?".


The other destinies mentioned are practically worthless to melee as they offer no real dps increases (GMoF petal strikes dont scale, and have a VERY low save even with 80 wisdom). Fury archers, shiradi casters, shiradi shurkiens lost none of there power and they were the viable EE builds pre update 23. The ONLY viable melee builds pre update 23 were Blitzers, but those are dead now.


Not sure what i am supposed to "keeping in mind." Tell me this= What is my incentive to play a melee over ranged/caster with these changes aside from flavor?

[Delacroix21]

Eh, I still see no reason to roll a melee character for EE endgame.


Its just not worth it.

[Forul]

I really like how the developers designed the new enhancement tree! completely out of the blue! and with no player feedback!

[slarden]

There was an official topic discussion where Sev was considering a change to divine grace where the benefit would be limited based on the # of paladin levels.

Is this still on the table? I don't see it in the release notes unless I missed it.

[Pescha]

melee = dead

[Sylvurdragon]

Looks cool, but I have a legitimate question regarding this...posting in another thread...

[Bridge_Dweller]

I love the smell of nerf-tears in the afternoon.

Though MAYBE the MP might have been dialed-back a bit much, will have to test stuff to see.

[AlteredState]

Read release notes, did not see Shadowdancer in the melee power area outside a icon fix? Could someone tell me what it's bonuses are?

[LuKaSu]

I really like how the developers designed the new enhancement tree! completely out of the blue! and with no player feedback!

I'm not saying that I am their inspiration or anything, but about three months ago, I put together an idea for a Harper Iconic that shares a few interesting features. So it's not 100% without input from the playerbase.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/442963-New-Iconic-Half-Elf-Harper

Similar themes/ideas:
(Various from half elf, like the healing amp stuff, extra spell points, and stuff)
-- adding a selectable favored enemy
-- Freedom-themed SLA
-- Extending buffs (I had had a level increase for all non-offensive spells, but this is pretty much the same intent)

Obviously, I'm not trying to say that I started it or anything, but I feel that it was at least a contribution or an idea-spawning part.


All that being said, I'm intrigued by the concept of being able to piecemeal buy enhancement trees for whichever class you want. Definitely possible blanding of the class differences, but still some neat possibilities as well. I look forward to seeing if there might be more of these one-off trees coming down the line. Maybe having exclusions between the purchasable enhancement trees, in order to make sure they people don't completely abandon class trees to use the purchased ones.

[redoubt]

Read release notes, did not see Shadowdancer in the melee power area outside a icon fix? Could someone tell me what it's bonuses are?

Yes please. I thought there was some early talk that did mention shadowdancer getting some melee power. Was this idea scrapped, or was it just forgotten in the release notes?

[Nascoe]

Yes please. I thought there was some early talk that did mention shadowdancer getting some melee power. Was this idea scrapped, or was it just forgotten in the release notes?

Yes, Shadowdancer did get melee power

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/447705-Harper-tree-feedback?p=5416394&viewfull=1#post5416394 - as confirmed by Sev in other discussion topics -

[Lorianna]

The Harper Agent tree seems really, really powerful to me. Not just that it can give you a bunch of melee/ranged power, but +3 to all skills, +4 to all henchmen/summon/pet stats (combine that with augmented summons and the artificer/necro +6 to str/dex/con ones, and you're getting +14 to your pet's stats...will it make them viable in EE? Probably not, but it might help a bit), free eschew materials (trivial bonus for most people, but hey, more inventory slots because of no more spell comps! WHEE!), insightful attack/damage (eek, kind of makes the elven dex-to-damage ability pointless, doesn't it? just pump int instead and pick up insightful reflexes, and you get a ton of extra skill points to boot, and for like 6 points vs 19)...

Seems like a really potent tree. Almost too good in a lot of ways.

[Silverleafeon]

I really like how the developers designed the new enhancement tree! completely out of the blue! and with no player feedback!

I have been looking at it awhile now, please feedback now, its your moment to shine!

[Portalcat]

Negative energy healing for PMs is still reduced by MRR :(

[Monkey_Archer]

Negative energy healing for PMs is still reduced by MRR :(

lol. Expected however... Submit bug reports and pray :)

[9001]

I really like the idea of the Harper tree, always nice to see more enhancements and more of them would be nice to play around with, HOWEVER, I hope you don't put it out as is and listen to player feedback a bit.

If you do decide to add this (and maybe more in the future) I think there should be SOME restrictions on it. (it's really nice for the pure characters who might not have enough points of stuff they absolutely want to spend into)

[Oxarhamar]

I don't think that is really an issue. The value of Greensteel is independent of similar lvl raid items, so TF should not be an issue either. My personal opinion is that it comes down to dev cycles, time and money, not replay value. TF has mods that are customizable and will not be found elsewhere so there should not be conflict with epic Abbot weapons. This is just a lame excuse in my opinion.

the Devs. have said absolutely nothing (as far as I have seen) as to why they left out EVERY SINGLE WEAPON. This is the best guess we have.

I suggest making the Mythic and with truly Mythic effects.

Think ESOS but for level 28 better maybe than thunderforged but, with a unknown grind. Compared to Thunderforged customizability and measureable grind.

[ReaperAlexEU]

the Devs. have said absolutely nothing (as far as I have seen) as to why they left out EVERY SINGLE WEAPON. This is the best guess we have.

I suggest making the Mythic and with truly Mythic effects.

Think ESOS but for level 28 better maybe than thunderforged but, with a unknown grind. Compared to Thunderforged customizability and measureable grind.

they shelves the sentient weapon idea (the one that has it's own exp system) for later. maybe that is why they don;t want to introduce any new weapons as they will pick that idea up and flesh it out when they are ready for it?

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

Harper seems someone thought in a hurry, mixed stuff from half a dozen different trees, added melee power "'cause now we have to have melee power", and thought "There! It's done".
I can pin almost every enhancement to a class, so I guess Harper is the Half-Elf of Prestiges.
Minus the anime eyes.

Why do we need Harper tree? We have 80 AP to spend, which are usually already thin (I always multiclass, but even for pures, 1 race and 2 class trees is sometimes hard - which is understandable).

Suggestion: add 1 AP per epic level. That will be +10 when level caps at 30. Seems reasonable, I think.

Carry on.

[Gljosh]

The Harper Agent tree seems really, really powerful to me. Not just that it can give you a bunch of melee/ranged power, but +3 to all skills, +4 to all henchmen/summon/pet stats (combine that with augmented summons and the artificer/necro +6 to str/dex/con ones, and you're getting +14 to your pet's stats...will it make them viable in EE? Probably not, but it might help a bit), free eschew materials (trivial bonus for most people, but hey, more inventory slots because of no more spell comps! WHEE!), insightful attack/damage (eek, kind of makes the elven dex-to-damage ability pointless, doesn't it? just pump int instead and pick up insightful reflexes, and you get a ton of extra skill points to boot, and for like 6 points vs 19)...

Seems like a really potent tree. Almost too good in a lot of ways.

Or even a plus +20 if you have 3 druid past lives. I might be playing an arti again...

[BigErkyKid]

Using the libram of magic while in sacred stand does not work regardless of the armor you are wearing.

[BigErkyKid]

Regarding the PRR and MRR update, my greatest concern is that it is very low hanging fruit. Any build can easily achieve 50% mitigation. Thats around 100PRR. Passed that, there is no incentive to keep adding to it, except if it comes for free (which it does not, need to invest in the notoriously bad defender trees). The difference between 100 or 150 PRR is small (again, cake to get while blitzing) and it costs a lot of enhancement points. Yes, defender trees allow for some multiclassing now, but they remain meh trees even after this update. I would not recommend investing in them except for pure or mostly pure fighter or paladin builds.


Hence, this seems simply an udpate for builds that could not achieve good saves. Now you offer them this alternative. However, builds that were supposed to have an edge in defense do not gain in relative power from this update. On the contrary, other builds catch up with them in their only relative strenght while true heavy defense builds gain nothing.


Finally, given that any PRR has received a bump (any previous value now offers more mitigation), this could open the door for excellent pajama builds. Grabbing some monk stances, getting a PRR item and going earth stand can result in very powerful defenses. Who cares beyond 100PRR if you could be getting 50% physical mitigation on top of tons of dodge and shadow veil?


A paladin 14-6 monk centered and in cloth armor could end up being way more survivable than the pure paladin with points in the defender tree.
Given that such build is likely to have uber saves anyway, the lose of MRR means absolutely nothing.

To me, the obvious solution is to make PRR a non monotonic function. You could have first a part of increasing returns and then, beyond a given point, have decreasing returns. This would prevent the current perversion of the system.

[Free2Pay]

Just barely made it through Elite Enter the Kobold and but still made it nonetheless. But it was the tough with combination of fireshield, heal scrolls, renewal, cocoon and hire spamming heals, but in heavy armor so I'll give this heavy armor upgrade a PASS.

I just tried to repeat Elite Enter the Kobold today but this time I tried doing it both in Light Armor (Dragontouched armor, 38 reflex save with Evasion) and then with in Heavy armor with Light and Darkness shield (80 MRR). The experience was significantly different for different armors. Evasion is much much better. I didn't struggle much in Light Armor. But the moment I equipped heavy armor, I started having the difficulty I encountered during round 1. So 80 MRR is very much inferior to 38 reflex with evasion. MRR needs to x5 its current value if it is to match 38 reflex I suppose.

This was done on the same character with different gears. Remind me again why would I want to wear heavy armor??

[Maelodic]

Regarding the PRR and MRR update, my greatest concern is that it is very low hanging fruit. Any build can easily achieve 50% mitigation. Thats around 100PRR. Passed that, there is no incentive to keep adding to it, except if it comes for free (which it does not, need to invest in the notoriously bad defender trees). The difference between 100 or 150 PRR is small (again, cake to get while blitzing) and it costs a lot of enhancement points. Yes, defender trees allow for some multiclassing now, but they remain meh trees even after this update. I would not recommend investing in them except for pure or mostly pure fighter or paladin builds.


Hence, this seems simply an udpate for builds that could not achieve good saves. Now you offer them this alternative. However, builds that were supposed to have an edge in defense do not gain in relative power from this update. On the contrary, other builds catch up with them in their only relative strenght while true heavy defense builds gain nothing.


Finally, given that any PRR has received a bump (any previous value now offers more mitigation), this could open the door for excellent pajama builds. Grabbing some monk stances, getting a PRR item and going earth stand can result in very powerful defenses. Who cares beyond 100PRR if you could be getting 50% physical mitigation on top of tons of dodge and shadow veil?


A paladin 14-6 monk centered and in cloth armor could end up being way more survivable than the pure paladin with points in the defender tree.
Given that such build is likely to have uber saves anyway, the lose of MRR means absolutely nothing.

To me, the obvious solution is to make PRR a non monotonic function. You could have first a part of increasing returns and then, beyond a given point, have decreasing returns. This would prevent the current perversion of the system.

Heavy armor with a high amount of DR and PRR ends up being really, really powerful.
On epic elites with a Guardian heavy shadowscale armor (30-60 DR) I ended up taking roughly 6-10 damage a shot from melees and a similarly small amount of damage from the mages. It felt like Godmode- I could easily solo most content in the game.
PRR was roughly 250- MRR was 130. That much reduction was ridiculous- though my damage wasn't fantastic I could still just prance through the quest.

[Free2Pay]

If I were to equipped the best gears, why wouldn't I be in god mode - PRR or no? Do anyone expect lesser? Which is why I refrained from equipping anything from the Dojo and instead just use what I currently have on my copied toon.

People are advocating that you must have the best gears to handle Epic Elite; People are also advocating for the best gears to only drop in Epic Elite. I guess these people has found the answer to the Chicken and Egg puzzle - which came first?

[BigErkyKid]

Heavy armor with a high amount of DR and PRR ends up being really, really powerful.
On epic elites with a Guardian heavy shadowscale armor (30-60 DR) I ended up taking roughly 6-10 damage a shot from melees and a similarly small amount of damage from the mages. It felt like Godmode- I could easily solo most content in the game.
PRR was roughly 250- MRR was 130. That much reduction was ridiculous- though my damage wasn't fantastic I could still just prance through the quest.

Ok, so the new PRR is 100/(100+PRR) . With 100 PRR, which I can easily get blitzing on a monk, I have 50% damage reduction. EDITED.

You tell me you had 250PRR< which equals 72% reduction. Which means you were in unyielding, severely gimping your DPS. Can you sluggishly go through the quests taking little damage and dealing little damage in slow motion progression? Apparently the new pass allows this. But I don't think that this invalidates my point. Go with me through the following numbers.

For anyone in LD, the numbers are around 170 PRR when wearing heavy armor, that is 63% reduction. Even being conservative in my monk PRR, thats only 13% ahead. While the monk has, without overthinking gear, 15-20% dodge. In addition to 25% incorporeality.

EDITED: the difference is the 30 epic damage reduction.

Overall he gets more mitigation than the melee, for sure (so/so difficult to check numbers with DR). So the current system has pushed monk splashes ahead in mitigation together with the rest, perhaps closing a bit the relative gap but I am not so sure.

In addition, if you can make a reflex save it will always be better than MRR. Always.

EDIT 2: Regardless of the monk splash example, my point is that nowadays ANY build can get PRR 100. And that beyond 100 the gain is small. So basically more tanky builds have received MRR whereas other builds can keep all the offense and it this.

[Vargouille]

Regarding the PRR and MRR update, my greatest concern is that it is very low hanging fruit. Any build can easily achieve 50% mitigation. Thats around 100PRR. Passed that, there is no incentive to keep adding to it, except if it comes for free (which it does not, need to invest in the notoriously bad defender trees). The difference between 100 or 150 PRR is small (again, cake to get while blitzing) and it costs a lot of enhancement points. Yes, defender trees allow for some multiclassing now, but they remain meh trees even after this update. I would not recommend investing in them except for pure or mostly pure fighter or paladin builds.

A clarifying example where something is dealing 200 damage before PRR:



0 PRR: 200 Damage
50 PRR: 133 Damage (+50 PRR: -33% damage)
100 PRR: 100 Damage (+50 PRR: -25% damage)
150 PRR: 80 Damage (+50 PRR: -20% damage)
200 PRR: 67 Damage (+50 PRR: -17% damage)

This is of course subjective, but if you think getting from 50->100 is worth the -25% reduction, it's hard to see why -20% for the next step is "no incentive". Yes, it's 5% worse, but does that mean 100 is the magic cutoff, and more is worthless?

We'd like to think this is more subjective for each player and each build, and while some characters may decide that getting another Sheltering item for some more PRR isn't worth it, other builds will (almost regardless of where they currently are on the PRR scale). At some point you may not want another -10% reduction, opting for +4 Strength instead (or any other possible benefit for a particular item slot / AP / Destiny choice), but that's going to be a very individualized choice. There's no magic amount of PRR that's right to scrabble to get and then the next point of PRR is far worse; that's inherent to the design of the system.

[Oxarhamar]

they shelves the sentient weapon idea (the one that has it's own exp system) for later. maybe that is why they don;t want to introduce any new weapons as they will pick that idea up and flesh it out when they are ready for it?

I'd still wager they did not bring any weapons in U23 because, they did not want to kill thunder forged .

[Xianio]

Was Vanguard cut for this patch? - found the answer, nvm

[PermaBanned]

I'd still wager they did not bring any weapons in U23 because, they did not want to kill thunder forged .Which is a sad sort of funny, because it wouldnt be an Epic Ardency or Devastation that kills Thunderforged - they'll do that on their own when they decide things like Mortal Fear are OP and nerf them like Nightmares ;)

[BigErkyKid]

A clarifying example where something is dealing 200 damage before PRR:



0 PRR: 200 Damage
50 PRR: 133 Damage (+50 PRR: -33% damage)
100 PRR: 100 Damage (+50 PRR: -25% damage)
150 PRR: 80 Damage (+50 PRR: -20% damage)
200 PRR: 67 Damage (+50 PRR: -17% damage)

This is of course subjective, but if you think getting from 50->100 is worth the -25% reduction, it's hard to see why -20% for the next step is "no incentive". Yes, it's 5% worse, but does that mean 100 is the magic cutoff any everything else is worthless?

We'd like to think this is more subjective for each player and each build, and while some characters may decide that getting another Sheltering item for some more PRR isn't worth it, other builds will (almost regardless of where they currently are on the PRR scale). At some point you may not want another -10% reduction, opting for +4 Strength instead (or any other possible benefit for a particular item slot / AP / Destiny choice), but that's going to be a very individualized choice. There's no magic amount of PRR that's right to scrabble to get and then the next point of PRR is far worse; that's inherent to the design of the system.

Thanks for the answer. I think I didn't explain what I meant clearly enough.

In this update you are planning on doing two things:

1. Giving armor more PRR.

2. Increasing the damage mitigation per PRR point.

My point is that doing 2. reduces the effectiviness of 1. in terms of getting armor closer to outfit builds.

To give some numbers:

Build A) Monk in earth stand with 100 PRR while blitzing.

Build B) Paladin with 170 PRR while blitzing.

Under the old PRR, build A) gets a reduction of 41% and build B) 53%. Build B gets 53/41 = 1.29 the mitigation of the monk.

Now build A) gets 50% while build B) gets 63%. Now build B gets 1.26 the mitigation of the monk.

So in relative terms, after your change, the monk is catching up in mitigation! This is something that you explicitely mentioned you wanted to address, but your changes actually achieved the opposite.

The one concern with these numbers is that heavy armors have in end game (cap) the option to get DR30. But this is independent of the PRR system, which is what you reformed, and additionally a concern that only appears at cap.

I hope now it is more clear what I meant.

Cheers

[poltt48]

A clarifying example where something is dealing 200 damage before PRR:



0 PRR: 200 Damage
50 PRR: 133 Damage (+50 PRR: -33% damage)
100 PRR: 100 Damage (+50 PRR: -25% damage)
150 PRR: 80 Damage (+50 PRR: -20% damage)
200 PRR: 67 Damage (+50 PRR: -17% damage)

This is of course subjective, but if you think getting from 50->100 is worth the -25% reduction, it's hard to see why -20% for the next step is "no incentive". Yes, it's 5% worse, but does that mean 100 is the magic cutoff, and more is worthless?

We'd like to think this is more subjective for each player and each build, and while some characters may decide that getting another Sheltering item for some more PRR isn't worth it, other builds will (almost regardless of where they currently are on the PRR scale). At some point you may not want another -10% reduction, opting for +4 Strength instead (or any other possible benefit for a particular item slot / AP / Destiny choice), but that's going to be a very individualized choice. There's no magic amount of PRR that's right to scrabble to get and then the next point of PRR is far worse; that's inherent to the design of the system.

Where are you getting these numbers from? I have 173 prr on my cleric on lamnia right now and only reduces damage 61%. On my pally he has 235 prr and only reducing damage by 69%.

[Chaimberland]

Heavy armor with a high amount of DR and PRR ends up being really, really powerful.
On epic elites with a Guardian heavy shadowscale armor (30-60 DR) I ended up taking roughly 6-10 damage a shot from melees and a similarly small amount of damage from the mages. It felt like Godmode- I could easily solo most content in the game.
PRR was roughly 250- MRR was 130. That much reduction was ridiculous- though my damage wasn't fantastic I could still just prance through the quest.

Just wondering how hard was it to get 250 PRR? I mean, would this be considered the norm at high levels or only if you built specifically for max PRR? I'm just kind of wondering what the percentage of people would actually have that high of a PRR. If you really have to build and invest to reach that number then I would think there would be a low amount of people actually obtaining 250 PRR so it really wouldn't be much of an issue. But if getting that 250 PRR was an easy thing to do then I could see a real problem.

[Maelodic]

Just wondering how hard was it to get 250 PRR? I mean, would this be considered the norm at high levels or only if you built specifically for max PRR? I'm just kind of wondering what the percentage of people would actually have that high of a PRR. If you really have to build and invest to reach that number then I would think there would be a low amount of people actually obtaining 250 PRR so it really wouldn't be much of an issue. But if getting that 250 PRR was an easy thing to do then I could see a real problem.

You basically just need a tower shield and the shield feats/LSM twist but uhh
Eth did an example of something less dedicated to defenses and got hit for a tad more but still was basically invulnerable as well using THF.

[Vargouille]

Where are you getting these numbers from? I have 173 prr on my cleric on lamnia right now and only reduces damage 61%. On my pally he has 235 prr and only reducing damage by 69%.
To clarify that chart, the -25% numbers are only relative to the previous line, not total. It shouldn't be summing up to a new total mitigation.

A simpler way to think of it is that every 100 PRR changes how much incoming damage is divided:

0 PRR => Divide by 1 (don't change it).
100 PRR: Divide by 2 (50% damage taken compared to 0)
200 PRR: Divide by 3 (33% damage taken compared to 0, or 67% reduced)
300 PRR: Divide by 4 (25% damage taken compared to 0, 75% reduced)

But going from 200->300 is reducing damage a lot more than 8% (If you were reducing 600->200 damage with 200 PRR, that 200 damage goes down to 150 damage for reaching 300 PRR -- or a 25% reduced damage for going from 200->300).

[Cetus]

To clarify that chart, the -25% numbers are only relative to the previous line, not total. It shouldn't be summing up to a new total mitigation.

A simpler way to think of it is that every 100 PRR changes how much incoming damage is divined.

0 PRR => Divide by 1 (don't change it).
100 PRR: Divide by 2 (50% damage taken compared to 0)
200 PRR: Divide by 3 (33% damage taken compared to 0, or 67% reduced)
300 PRR: Divide by 4 (25% damage taken compared to 0, 75% reduced)

But going from 200->300 is reducing damage a lot more than 8% (If you were reducing 600->200 with 200 PRR, that 200 damage goes down to 150 damage for getting 300 PRR -- or a 25% reduced damage for going from 200->300).

This is horrifying logic varg - this is a hell of a way to cover up the diminishing returns that actually exist.

So, if I have 200 PRR - I'll absorb 400 out of a 600 point attack.

If I have 300 PRR - I'll absorb 450 out of a 600 point attack.

I absorbed an additional 50 points of damage out of the original 600 point attack for moving up 100 PRR - 50/600 = 8%

Lets back up completely:

If i have 100 PRR - I'll cut 50% of the orignal 600 point hit = 300 damage

200 PRR = 66% cut, or a 16% bonus = 200 damage

300 PRR = 75% cut, or an 8% bonus = 150 damage

So for the first 3 blocks of 100 PRR, I'm reducing my incoming damage by 50%, then an additional 16%, then an additional 8% off the original hit. You can't just ratio the final result between two different PRRs like you did between 200 and 300 PRR and then say that the additional 100 PRR gives 25% reduction - this is so misleading.

[BigErkyKid]

You can't just ratio the final result between two different PRRs like you did between 200 and 300 PRR and then say that the additional 100 PRR gives 25% reduction - this is so misleading.

I don't think it matters much, at the end of the day we all know what the damage reduction gain is. I don't think players can get it wrong.

My point was that the way it has been implemented is against the original idea. By boosting so much PRR on the lower end, now the ratio of mitigation of a pajama build (or anyone putting on an armor) vs tanky builds is worse than it was before.

PS - Btw blitz is stacking when using robes. So I get over 100 PRR in blitz in my monk /paladin splash.

[maddmatt70]

This is horrifying logic varg - this is a hell of a way to cover up the diminishing returns that actually exist.

So, if I have 200 PRR - I'll absorb 400 out of a 600 point attack.

If I have 300 PRR - I'll absorb 450 out of a 600 point attack.

I absorbed an additional 50 points of damage out of the original 600 point attack for moving up 100 PRR - 50/600 = 8%

Lets back up completely:

If i have 100 PRR - I'll cut 50% of the orignal 600 point hit = 300 damage

200 PRR = 66% cut, or a 16% bonus = 200 damage

300 PRR = 75% cut, or an 8% bonus = 150 damage

So for the first 3 blocks of 100 PRR, I'm reducing my incoming damage by 50%, then an additional 16%, then an additional 8% off the original hit. You can't just ratio the final result between two different PRRs like you did between 200 and 300 PRR and then say that the additional 100 PRR gives 25% reduction - this is so misleading.

That is my take on PRR and MRR - really the whole thing thing favors non shield characters and even still non heavy armor wearers because you can still get a high MRR and PRR if you are wearing light or no armor or at least up to the point where diminishing returns take over. The devs should probably rethink their scale slightly on these.

[Vargouille]

I don't think it matters much, at the end of the day we all know what the damage reduction gain is. I don't think players can get it wrong.

My point was that the way it has been implemented is against the original idea. By boosting so much PRR on the lower end, now the ratio of mitigation of a pajama build (or anyone putting on an armor) vs tanky builds is worse than it was before.

This is perfectly useful and good feedback, btw.



So for the first 3 blocks of 100 PRR, I'm reducing my incoming damage by 50%, then an additional 16%, then an additional 8% off the original hit. You can't just ratio the final result between two different PRRs like you did between 200 and 300 PRR and then say that the additional 100 PRR gives 25% reduction - this is so misleading.

It's OK if you don't want to view it like this. But as a player who has 200 PRR, I want to know how much less damage I'll get by equipping items or pushing an ability button that gives +100 PRR. The damage number I see goes from 200 to 150. I don't really care about the original hit, I care what this item/ability is going to do for me.

You might not care about it, or call it misleading, but this is exactly how I view it as a player (both in DDO and other games that have had similar formulas). There's always disagreement about what's a better way to view things, but I'm not intentionally misleading anyone, and I'm explaining exactly what I'm saying. I respect you when you explain where your numbers come from! :)

Of course there's diminishing returns. My earlier post today in this thread shows exactly that, and we're not trying to hide that.

/backtolurkingandnotdiscussingthingslikeaplayer

[Cetus]

The damage number I see goes from 200 to 150. I don't really care about the original hit, I care what this item/ability is going to do for me.


/backtolurkingandnotdiscussingthingslikeaplayer

That's because your original, unmitigated number was 600.

What if you were going to get hit for 200? Then having 200 PRR makes you take 68 points of damage. Having 300 PRR makes you take 50 points of damage.

Now, do the same thing - take the difference 18 damage, and divide it by the 200 mitigated outcome - 68

18/68 = 26.5%

The number just changed. That's why I said it was misleading to say that "you mitigate 25% extra damage going from 200 ---> 300 PRR"

You got 25% for that particular example, for mine here we have 26.5%. In both cases, however, its an 8% difference from the original number.

[Desonde]

To clarify that chart, the -25% numbers are only relative to the previous line, not total. It shouldn't be summing up to a new total mitigation.

A simpler way to think of it is that every 100 PRR changes how much incoming damage is divided:

0 PRR => Divide by 1 (don't change it).
100 PRR: Divide by 2 (50% damage taken compared to 0)
200 PRR: Divide by 3 (33% damage taken compared to 0, or 67% reduced)
300 PRR: Divide by 4 (25% damage taken compared to 0, 75% reduced)

But going from 200->300 is reducing damage a lot more than 8% (If you were reducing 600->200 damage with 200 PRR, that 200 damage goes down to 150 damage for reaching 300 PRR -- or a 25% reduced damage for going from 200->300).

I have to agree with Cetus here, you are taking a single stage of the equation and trying to use it as an answer to a new question you pose afterwards;

200->300 =/= 0->300

Yes 0->300 = -75%, however 200->300 == 75-67 = 8.

Your example, though clever, is a complete misdirect and an example as to why math can be confusing;

0->200PRR == 600->200 = 66% reduction and 200->300PRR == 200->150 = 25% reduction
however that's also equal to:
0->200PRR == 600->200 = -400 damage == -2 dmg per PRR and 200->300PRR == 200->150 = -50 damage == -0.5 dmg per PRR

The later states that 200-300 returns 75% less than 0-200. Using exactly the same math, just completing the scientific experiment in the later.

[Thar]

This is perfectly useful and good feedback, btw.




It's OK if you don't want to view it like this. But as a player who has 200 PRR, I want to know how much less damage I'll get by equipping items or pushing an ability button that gives +100 PRR. The damage number I see goes from 200 to 150. I don't really care about the original hit, I care what this item/ability is going to do for me.

You might not care about it, or call it misleading, but this is exactly how I view it as a player (both in DDO and other games that have had similar formulas). There's always disagreement about what's a better way to view things, but I'm not intentionally misleading anyone, and I'm explaining exactly what I'm saying. I respect you when you explain where your numbers come from! :)

Of course there's diminishing returns. My earlier post today in this thread shows exactly that, and we're not trying to hide that.

/backtolurkingandnotdiscussingthingslikeaplayer

The PRR decreasing returns is fine. The jump in protection is a little too much for heavy armor as you start getting into involunability mode. Heavy armor barb who blows up today like a roman candle, cake walks through ee with cocoon only. (yes i don't rage since i can't use cocoon while raging... 20 hp isn't worth it) So is damage ramped up so you need 4 people for EE like you should? then will non heavy armor explode like barbs do today at the slightest hit? the increase i think needs to be scaled back a little to about half what it is between today and lam.

[Dagolar]

This is horrifying logic varg - this is a hell of a way to cover up the diminishing returns that actually exist.
Basic Math: Now, Horrifying Logic.
:P


A big factor here seems to be a misunderstanding of how cumulative gains are appreciated.
As Varg said, you CAN view it differently, but in game design, in business, in economics, etc; that's typically how the numbers are perceived.

For example, Varg could be said to be saying "Okay, we've gained 25% more sales increase over the past month, as per the previous month."

You could counter with "But it's only 8% of the total from the first of the year!"

Varg is correct in saying that it's been a good month;
You're correct in saying that it's not a measurable affect upon the total gain.


To understand why Varg's view is superior, requires an understanding of relative realities:

In the base perspective, you want static gains that are comparable to previous ones.

Varg is indicating that the reality changes each time you calculate, however:

In other words, that 300PRR toon is going to take 75% of the damage of a 200PRR toon.
The 50PRR toon is going to take 75% of the damage of a 0PRR toon.
You're correct- you're spending twice the PRR to garner the same effect.

And that PRR comes more difficultly, requiring Tier 5 enhancements and rarer items.

So, is the extra effort worth it to you? Perhaps not.

But as Varg stated, to tanks, it would likely be worth it- they're still seeing an extra 25% reduction in damage (comparative to what they would take without the extra 100 PRR), which could be massive in boosting their survivability.

More importantly, your arguments are flawed-
While you're correct that the effort to gain begins to become more and more demanding, you're assuming that it needs to be different.

If there is a range where PRR seems more ideal to you, than simply hover within it.

Arguments to the contrary would be like saying "this +500 HP isn't worth it over this +400HP!"
You're probably right for most builds. But for the tank, it might be worth it.

:runs hand through hair:

Ah, that's the best I can offer.

In any case, suffice it to say the current system makes perfect sense from the perspective of most similar systems, and that there's no readily available method to adjust the system to what you desire of it.

And more importantly, suffice it to say that Varg is not intending any sort of deceit or confusion, he's just working with what is standard format in his field.
Accusing him of the contrary is ridiculous.

Good enough?

[BigErkyKid]

OK, so more regarding changes in general, now wrt to damage.

First, without getting into the paladin thing per se:

Blitzers
Nerf: Damage addition of blitz is heavily discounted (before it was x2.5 now it is x.5). Yes, I am aware that some of it is pilled within the destiny.
Buff: Easier to mantain, more powerful against bosses.

A pure paladin had in lama, fully stacked blitz, 112 melee power at level 28.

There are two DPS competitors for blitz:

Divine crusader: A pure paladin had in lama 60 melee power at level 28.
Fure of the wild: A pure paladin had in lama 62 melee power at level 28.

Overall we see a nerfed blitz with a catch up of other destinies.

But here is the major issue for me:

Before, blitz has seen as "fair" in terms of DPS wrt to casters and other powerful builds. Now, let's say that all the melee destinies are balanced, they are balanced at a lower power level. So overall, melee has received, IMO, a nerf in pure DPS.

The reason why people say it is a lot easier now to play melee, to the extend of making the game "trivial", is because their PRR has gone up a lot which means they in combat for longer - less back jumping for heals = more DPS.

That of course and running with holy sword. The first competence bonus that can be applied to any weapon, compared to the previous ones that targeted relatively weak weapons (light weapons, sticks, daggers).

For my taste, buff a bit more DPS, give more PRR for specialized tanks and less to the rest (non monotonic PRR curve).

[BigErkyKid]

Basic Math: Now, Horrifying Logic.
:P

Good enough?

There is no established way of looking at those numbers in economics, you just present them in the clearest possible way.

Unfortunately, there might be disagreement. In any case, for this particular example, it does not matter one bit. The numbers are VERY easy to read and one can judge by himself whether the extra damage reduction is worth it.

[FCofKhatovar]

OK, so more regarding changes in general, now wrt to damage.

First, without getting into the paladin thing per se:

Blitzers
Nerf: Damage addition of blitz is heavily discounted (before it was x2.5 now it is x.5). Yes, I am aware that some of it is pilled within the destiny.
Buff: Easier to mantain, more powerful against bosses.

A pure paladin had in lama, fully stacked blitz, 112 melee power at level 28.

There are two DPS competitors for blitz:

Divine crusader: A pure paladin had in lama 60 melee power at level 28.
Fure of the wild: A pure paladin had in lama 62 melee power at level 28.

Overall we see a nerfed blitz with a catch up of other destinies.

But here is the major issue for me:

Before, blitz has seen as "fair" in terms of DPS wrt to casters and other powerful builds. Now, let's say that all the melee destinies are balanced, they are balanced at a lower power level. So overall, melee has received, IMO, a nerf in pure DPS.

The reason why people say it is a lot easier now to play melee, to the extend of making the game "trivial", is because their PRR has gone up a lot which means they in combat for longer - less back jumping for heals = more DPS.

That of course and running with holy sword. The first competence bonus that can be applied to any weapon, compared to the previous ones that targeted relatively weak weapons (light weapons, sticks, daggers).

For my taste, buff a bit more DPS, give more PRR for specialized tanks and less to the rest (non monotonic PRR curve).

BigErkyKid could not have summed up my opinion on these changes in a more adequate way.

By trying to balance all melee builds, they have taken a Holy Sword to the legs of anyone trying to hit their opponents with a weapon. No build will keep up with the numbers the casters and archers are producing, therefore, all melee will be less welcome in groups for endgame content.

In addition, scaling melee power with level may help some builds, but, losing melee power on a build that was designed for Legendary Dreadnaught will be quite a detriment while trying to achieve the goal of many players these days, Epic Past Lives. Going back to 20 was already hurtful with a severe gap of decent gear at that level. Now, it shall be worse.

Epic Sadfaces.

[Vargouille]

This post is just to clarify a mathematical misconception and to try to make it clear how PRR works.


That's because your original, unmitigated number was 600.
The 600 doesn't matter. 6000, 200, or any other number, the result is the same.


What if you were going to get hit for 200? Then having 200 PRR makes you take 68 points of damage. Having 300 PRR makes you take 50 points of damage.

Now, do the same thing - take the difference 18 damage, and divide it by the 200 mitigated outcome - 68

18/68 = 26.5%

The number just changed. That's why I said it was misleading to say that "you mitigate 25% extra damage going from 200 ---> 300 PRR"

You got 25% for that particular example, for mine here we have 26.5%. In both cases, however, its an 8% difference from the original number.

It's not 68 damage, it's 67, rounded up from 66.666 (repeating).

AKA: 200 damage / 3 is the simple math for multiples of 100 PRR.
AKA: 200*(100/(100+200)), which is the same math that's actually being done by the code.
The general formula is to multiply the damage by (100 / (100 + PRR))


I'm not sure where the 68 comes from in the quoted example. If this was tested in game, it's possible there's a slight numerical bug or some strange floating point issue, but the basic formula doesn't result in 68 damage.

So, given that it's mathematically 66.666, with no meaningful rounding:
50 / 66.666 => 75% (or -25% damage for going from 200->300).

I'll concede the number does still change slightly when it's 67, but only due to rounding.

The -25% damage reduction is constant from 200 PRR -> 300 PRR, which is an important feature of the formula we chose. There's no change here, as your example shows, though exact number may look slightly off due to rounding. The proportional math is the same.

Here's a few different examples, ignoring rounding errors:


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 7634.0
100 3817.0 50%
200 2544.7 67%
300 1908.5 75%
400 1526.8 80%
500 1272.3 83%


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 1000.0
100 500.0 50%
200 333.3 67%
300 250.0 75%
400 200.0 80%
500 166.7 83%


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 42.0
100 21.0 50%
200 14.0 67%
300 10.5 75%
400 8.4 80%
500 7.0 83%


The percentage change based on PRR doesn't care how much the original damage was, except for small rounding errors. If you go from 200 PRR to 300 PRR, you are taking 25% less damage than before.

[Portalcat]

But as a player who has 200 PRR, I want to know how much less damage I'll get by equipping items or pushing an ability button that gives +100 PRR. The damage number I see goes from 200 to 150. I don't really care about the original hit, I care what this item/ability is going to do for me.

+1, and this is also how I look at the spellpower gains on casters, fwiw.


This is because I'm interested in the marginal value from adding more to a given stat when comparing it to some other option, and what I already have is the baseline for the sake of figuring that out.

[Monkey_Archer]

You might not care about it, or call it misleading, but this is exactly how I view it as a player (both in DDO and other games that have had similar formulas). There's always disagreement about what's a better way to view things, but I'm not intentionally misleading anyone, and I'm explaining exactly what I'm saying. I respect you when you explain where your numbers come from! :)

The way I like to view this, is the way I learned about it from that other game that happens to use the same formula :rolleyes:.

Think of it in terms of Effective HP, rather then damage mitigation.

If you have 1000 HP and 0 PRR, your effective HP is 1000 (you can take 1000 damage before dying)
If you have 100 PRR, your effective HP is now 2000.
If you have 200 PRR, your effective HP is now 3000.
etc...

Every point of PRR increases your effective HP by 1%. So it actually does not have diminishing returns at all, despite what looking at percentage mitigation will tell you.

[Vargouille]

The way I like to view this, is the way I learned about it from that other game that happens to use the same formula :rolleyes:.

Think of it in terms of Effective HP, rather then damage mitigation.

If you have 1000 HP and 0 PRR, your effective HP is 1000 (you can take 1000 damage before dying)
If you have 100 PRR, your effective HP is now 2000.
If you have 200 PRR, your effective HP is now 3000.
etc...

Every point of PRR increases your effective HP by 1%. So it actually does not have diminishing returns at all, despite what looking at percentage mitigation will tell you.

Yes, this is another great way to view this (and which also tends to cause some people mathematical headaches and cause arguments about the definition of "diminishing returns). In terms of "How many hits can I take?" there's no diminishing returns (though lots of fractions).

[Cetus]

Basic Math: Now, Horrifying Logic.
:P


A big factor here seems to be a misunderstanding of how cumulative gains are appreciated.
As Varg said, you CAN view it differently, but in game design, in business, in economics, etc; that's typically how the numbers are perceived.

This analogy doesn't work, we have different amounts of damage against which we weigh the usefulness of PRR investments DEPENDING on the PRR we already had, since the same amount of PRR at different points yields a different result.


For example, Varg could be said to be saying "Okay, we've gained 25% more sales increase over the past month, as per the previous month."

What did the company do throughout the month to warrant a 25% increase in sales? Does it even matter, since the central goal of the company is to just make more money? Are there alternate ways of making money that would've been more efficient? Does the rate at which money CAN be made vary independent of the companies efforts?

Also, the way you make your money doesn't get dictated by a hyperbolic formula that you know about from the beginning, which - if you graph it, reveals an obvious diminishing return the higher the variable in the equation becomes.

Simply, this is a really bad analogy.


You could counter with "But it's only 8% of the total from the first of the year!"

If I made a 100 sales last year, made 8 this month. Then yes, I made 8% of the total sales of last year.

If I made 6 sales last month, then I made (roughly) 25% more sales this month. This doesn't mean that my strategy this month is a 25% more effective strategy than last months, in an absolute sense. That would be misleading. However, this analogy fails rather rapidly after that - because I don't have a formula that dictates my gains.



Varg is correct in saying that it's been a good month;
You're correct in saying that it's not a measurable affect upon the total gain.

Nope, 300 gives 25% more damage reduction of the already reduced 200 PRR value.

Simply put - if I get hit for 200 damage normally, and at 200 PRR I take 68 damage, and at 200 PRR I take 50 damage. I invested a HUNDRED PRR to just shave off 18 points of damage when I get hit by a 200 point attack, yet that is a 26.5% reduction in damage!

Still don't see the problem with this reasoning? But then you write this...



To understand why Varg's view is superior, requires an understanding of relative realities:

Sorry, we'll just have to completely disagree. This is why you'll occasionally see people saying that "math" doesn't solve anything. Math solves countless things, poorly applied "math" doesn't. This is just my opinion, anyway.




Good enough?

Good enough for what? You're making it sound like I didn't understand the calculation.

[Qhualor]

This post is just to clarify a mathematical misconception and to try to make it clear how PRR works.


The 600 doesn't matter. 6000, 200, or any other number, the result is the same.



It's not 68 damage, it's 67, rounded up from 66.666 (repeating).

AKA: 200 damage / 3 is the simple math for multiples of 100 PRR.
AKA: 200*(100/(100+200)), which is the same math that's actually being done by the code.
The general formula is to multiply the damage by (100 / (100 + PRR))


I'm not sure where the 68 comes from in the quoted example. If this was tested in game, it's possible there's a slight numerical bug or some strange floating point issue, but the basic formula doesn't result in 68 damage.

So, given that it's mathematically 66.666, with no meaningful rounding:
50 / 66.666 => 75% (or -25% damage for going from 200->300).

I'll concede the number does still change slightly when it's 67, but only due to rounding.

The -25% damage reduction is constant from 200 PRR -> 300 PRR, which is an important feature of the formula we chose. There's no change here, as your example shows, though exact number may look slightly off due to rounding. The proportional math is the same.

Here's a few different examples, ignoring rounding errors:


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 7634.0
100 3817.0 50%
200 2544.7 67%
300 1908.5 75%
400 1526.8 80%
500 1272.3 83%


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 1000.0
100 500.0 50%
200 333.3 67%
300 250.0 75%
400 200.0 80%
500 166.7 83%


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 42.0
100 21.0 50%
200 14.0 67%
300 10.5 75%
400 8.4 80%
500 7.0 83%


The percentage change based on PRR doesn't care how much the original damage was, except for small rounding errors. If you go from 200 PRR to 300 PRR, you are taking 25% less damage than before.

im just going to point out that there are lots of players, including me, that look at formulas like this and have no clue what you are saying here even with all the explanations to go along with it. I think its important if you guys want players like me to understand formulas, how they work and how to figure out our personal builds PRR, damage or whatnot, no matter how simple they may seem to be to everyone else, that they need to come across as clearly as possible to understand. I personally have to go through lots of trial and error testing to figure out DDO math (hands on) to end up with the same result as what someone with knowledge can do on paper. not a lot of players who don't know math are willing to bother to go through the hassle of what I do and instead ask someone else who knows or thinks they know.

[FCofKhatovar]

Can we please stop arguing about the semantics of how the PRR was stated and focus on how TERRIBLE this new idea for blitz is?

I just popped on Lamma, stood in a room full of mobs, 10 or so, popped a blitz, killed everything...sounds good, right? 0 CHARGES. 0. 0? What's with this? Why can't I get a charge from killing TEN enemies?

And since i haven't effectively gained a blitz, yet, I don't know how terrible the reduction in damage will be when its fully stacked. 50...doesn't seem like anywhere close to the appropriate number for a 10 stack of a top tier Epic Moment.

But, seriously, someone needs to go through this with an extremely fine toothed comb, preferably someone that gets on and tries to maintain a blitz, and fix why the chance to gain a charge is so ridiculously minuscule.

More. Epic. Sadfaces.

[FestusHood]

This math discussion reminds me of a caster dc thread i read a long time ago. Two people were arguing over how much adding one dc to a spell affected it. One said that it was a 5% increase in success, the other said it was 25%. You can probably guess how the latter arguer arrived at that number. He was assuming you already had an 80% success rate, and going from 80% to 85% is a 25% increase in success rate.

[Cetus]

This post is just to clarify a mathematical misconception and to try to make it clear how PRR works.


The 600 doesn't matter. 6000, 200, or any other number, the result is the same.



It's not 68 damage, it's 67, rounded up from 66.666 (repeating).

AKA: 200 damage / 3 is the simple math for multiples of 100 PRR.
AKA: 200*(100/(100+200)), which is the same math that's actually being done by the code.
The general formula is to multiply the damage by (100 / (100 + PRR))


I'm not sure where the 68 comes from in the quoted example. If this was tested in game, it's possible there's a slight numerical bug or some strange floating point issue, but the basic formula doesn't result in 68 damage.

So, given that it's mathematically 66.666, with no meaningful rounding:
50 / 66.666 => 75% (or -25% damage for going from 200->300).

I'll concede the number does still change slightly when it's 67, but only due to rounding.

The -25% damage reduction is constant from 200 PRR -> 300 PRR, which is an important feature of the formula we chose. There's no change here, as your example shows, though exact number may look slightly off due to rounding. The proportional math is the same.

Here's a few different examples, ignoring rounding errors:


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 7634.0
100 3817.0 50%
200 2544.7 67%
300 1908.5 75%
400 1526.8 80%
500 1272.3 83%


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 1000.0
100 500.0 50%
200 333.3 67%
300 250.0 75%
400 200.0 80%
500 166.7 83%


PRR Damage % of previous line's damage
0 42.0
100 21.0 50%
200 14.0 67%
300 10.5 75%
400 8.4 80%
500 7.0 83%


The percentage change based on PRR doesn't care how much the original damage was, except for small rounding errors. If you go from 200 PRR to 300 PRR, you are taking 25% less damage than before.

The 68 came from my quick rounding - the game will round it to 67 or so:

A mob attacks me and does 200 damage when I have 0 PRR. 200 * (100/100 + 0) = 200 * 100/100 = 200 * 1 = 200 points of damage taken.

Now, I have 100 PRR

200 * (100/100+100) = 200*1/2 = 100 damage taken = 50% damage taken. 50% increase in mitigation from 0 PRR

Now, I have 200 PRR

200 * (100/100 + 200) = 200*1/3 = 200/3 = 66.66 damage taken, the game will round this to 67.

Now, I have 300 PRR

200 * (100/100+300) = 200/4 = 75% mitigation, 25% points of damage taken. I take 50 damage

The difference is 17 points of damage taken between 200 and 300 PRR. Take 17/67 = 25.37%

In your previous example - 66.66% of 600 = 399.96 - game will round this to 400.

75% of 600 = 150, game keeps it as 450

So, 150/200 = 25% exactly

So, without rounding - you'd be right, but the game does round. With fractions, it doesn't depend on the incoming damage - you're right. But the game doesn't deal with fractions, so you cannot express the ratio as a blanket 25% - this is a technicality, of course - but my point was this:

You are still using an already reduced number - the 67 damage at 200 PRR, and taking the further reduced 300 PRR outcome, and expressing it as a fraction of the 200 PRR outcome - so you get the 25% improvement.

My overarching point remains - saying that 300 PRR gives you 25% extra mitigation versus 200 PRR is still misleading. It gives you 8% more mitigation, as shown between the rounded 67% and the 75% off the original value. Period.

[FestusHood]

Can we please stop arguing about the semantics of how the PRR was stated and focus on how TERRIBLE this new idea for blitz is?

I just popped on Lamma, stood in a room full of mobs, 10 or so, popped a blitz, killed everything...sounds good, right? 0 CHARGES. 0. 0? What's with this? Why can't I get a charge from killing TEN enemies?

And since i haven't effectively gained a blitz, yet, I don't know how terrible the reduction in damage will be when its fully stacked. 50...doesn't seem like anywhere close to the appropriate number for a 10 stack of a top tier Epic Moment.

But, seriously, someone needs to go through this with an extremely fine toothed comb, preferably someone that gets on and tries to maintain a blitz, and fix why the chance to gain a charge is so ridiculously minuscule.

More. Epic. Sadfaces.

In all seriousness, do you see how silly the argument that you are too powerful to become more powerful sounds? It's hard for me to believe with the current melee power numbers that you can't find anything that lives long enough to gain any blitz stacks, but if that's the case then the entire system is still horribly broken.

You are saying in epic elite with no blitz stacks at all you can't find anything that can survive more than ten hits? Are you really doing more than 1k damage per hit with no blitz? I don't believe you.

[FCofKhatovar]

In all seriousness, do you see how silly the argument that you are too powerful to become more powerful sounds? It's hard for me to believe with the current melee power numbers that you can't find anything that lives long enough to gain any blitz stacks, but if that's the case then the entire system is still horribly broken.

You are saying in epic elite with no blitz stacks at all you can't find anything that can survive more than ten hits? Are you really doing more than 1k damage per hit with no blitz? I don't believe you.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I wasn't paying attention to how much damage I was doing per swing, but, yes, everything was dead before I gained one charge.

When I went for my second attempt, 5 minutes later, I zerged thru to get around 25 mobs to surround me. Threw a bunch of cleaves, lay wastes, momentum swings, stunning blows, etc. I gained four charges. By the time I ran to the next room full I was at two, threw some attacks in the group, made it to six. Kept zerging as hard as I could to try to reach the mini-boss at the middle of the quest. only there was I able to get my stack to 8... Kept zerging to the end fight. Kill all the trash and the semi-boss, wind up with 7 stacks for the main boss. Start on him, work it up to a ten stack. At this point, im doing ~1200-1500 on big crits, 200-300 on hits. WITH A TEN STACK. My build is not tweaked out with all the best of the best, but, with an 80str and power of the forge going, with a ten stack of blitz, these numbers are absolutely abominable.

If the goal of changing blitz was to keep people in a party competitive but still be able to hold their blitz, e.g. not stacking on kills, this was a complete and utter fail.

Must zerg to keep it alive, things dont live long enough to stack.

[FCofKhatovar]

In all seriousness, do you see how silly the argument that you are too powerful to become more powerful sounds?

This is another example of how things can be looked at from different points of view. If you want to argue semantics, please continue.

[BigErkyKid]

Now, I have 200 PRR

200 * (100/100 + 200) = 200*1/3 = 200/3 = 66.66 damage taken, the game will round this to 67.

Now, I have 300 PRR

200 * (100/100+300) = 200/4 = 75% mitigation, 25% points of damage taken. I take 50 damage

.

If we really must discuss this, which is self explanatory and incredibly obvious, the best way to look at it is to ask how many DAMAGE points I mitigate with an extra PRR.

Or if we can just compare these two options, 200 mitigation give me (200-67)/200 = 0.65 damage mitigation per 1 PRR.

And the second option, 300 PRR gives me (200-50)/300 = 0.5 damage mitigation per 1 PRR.

It is obvious there are decreasing returns to PRR. It follows from the mathematical definition of "decreasing returns" which just means that the second derivative of the PRR function is negative. Damage mitigation is a concave function in PRR.

There is no need to discuss over these details. Any player can look at a table and see:

Oh look, going from 200 to 300 PRR makes me take this % of extra mitigation. Is it worth it?

The discussion is whether the proposed change is working as intended and to that I have to give a very firm NO.

[poltt48]

Just wondering how hard was it to get 250 PRR? I mean, would this be considered the norm at high levels or only if you built specifically for max PRR? I'm just kind of wondering what the percentage of people would actually have that high of a PRR. If you really have to build and invest to reach that number then I would think there would be a low amount of people actually obtaining 250 PRR so it really wouldn't be much of an issue. But if getting that 250 PRR was an easy thing to do then I could see a real problem.

With tank getting 250 prr I not the hard on all you really need is the bracers and the 5 insightful prr ring and rest is feats, enhancements, and ED.

[BigErkyKid]

Did some more testing. On a bard splash (12 bard, 6 fighter, 2 rogue) I can get to 140 PRR (possibly more) while blitzing.

At the same time, I would have 40 MRR (reduction of around 30%?) and over 20% dodge.

This together with evasion and quick high saves (without optimizing, around 60).

This is on whether now heavy armor will catch up with other styles.

Right now I'd say no.

[The_Human_Cypher]

Three attempts on Epic Normal for the new Epic Abbot raid ('Mark of Death') with Kookie and three wipes with a full raid party. The raid may be overpowered at this point but a challenge for the veteran players would be a good thing.

[Throwdown]

Devs you're doing PRR backwards.

More PRR should have increasing returns, while lower amounts should be LESS effective.

This incentivizes people to really invest it in to be invincible. It also means you can't rely on it in pajamas, which is part of the point of this exercise.

[Zasral]

Ok so I will be lr'ing my paladin into a Harper intelligence based paladin, and taking none of kotc. Drop extend cause I get it for ap now and take insightful reflexes instead. The Harper tree should have been the new kotc tree except exchange the int hit/damage to charisma lol.

[MangLord]

I really like the Harper tree, but I'm generally stretched pretty thin in enhancement trees as it is. Not that I don't like it, but is it really necessary? More often than not, I have no problem capping out my favorite tree and dipping into the racial and low hanging fruit in a second class tree. I tend to pick races that synergize well with the class (dwarf fighter, elf ranger, drow pale master), so the racial tree usually has a lot to offer, and I'll usually put about 20pts into it, mostly racial weapon bonuses.

Right now I'm playing an Elf 16cleric/4fighter, and Warpriest is a pretty heavy investment. Looking at bard, Swashbuckler also seems to be a heavy investment. That's good, because it means the tree has a lot of great stuff, but I already feel like I need more AP without the addition of Harper. I understand that I don't need to invest in the Harper tree at all, but I hate being torn between 2-3 great choices and agonizing over it until I weigh all the options and then second and third guess myself. It's nice to have more options, but I feel like I need another 10AP as it is.

My plan for Bard life is a drow rogue2/bard18 going with Swashbuckler and racial rapier/short sword bonuses. I'd thought to focus on Dex for damage, reflex saves, etc, with a lighter investment in INT and CHA, but if i can do INT for damage much cheaper and earlier, then it seems like a no brainer to dump DEX and use INT. Unfortunately, now i have to think about another feat in a feat starved build, assuming i want empower heal, quicken, insightful reflexes and all three SWF enhancements. Arrrgh!

I'd like to see att/dam options other than INT. Given the nature of the Harpers organization, Dex and Cha options don't seem out of line. The classes that will benefit most from Harpers enhancements don't have a lot of breathing room as far as feats go, (bards especially) so adding Insightful Reflexes to a rogue's must have feat list is going to make me lose out on something I already need for a tricky class to build correctly, IMO. Cha for attack/damage would greatly help Paladin, as well.

[???]

I know that it is somewhat useless, but how about fixing DDO User Manual in the test folder? It is still in the 10-level era.

[BigErkyKid]

OK, took the time to crunch some DPS numbers to go beyond impressions.

First let me briefly clarify what I am doing. This is simply a pure raw DPS test, no other considerations are taken. I do not want to mix equipment much into the numbers too much, as it can greatly vary. What I will do is to get a multiplier to your base damage (that includes equipment, enhancements and what not) and compare those multipliers across destinies.

To see how this works. Suppose I am peasant with a weapon that has a crit profile x2. This is just to see how I do it, so forget about destinies real classes and real weapons. My damage will be:

BASE*1 will happen 19/20 times and BASE*2 for 1/20 times. This can be rewriten as BASE* (1*(19/20)+2*(1/20)). Or in another words, my damage will be whatever I can stack in my BASE*1.05.

This exercise will assume a paladin with holy sword, full line of SWF, overwhelming critical, IC:slash, critical multiplier from LD and doublestrike from DC.

The old system

DC (including fully stacked doublestrike): BASE*2.53
LD (including fully stacked blitz): BASE*5.25

In other words, under the other system, blitz was roughly double the damage of DC.

The new system

DC (including fully stacked doublestrike): BASE*4.3516
LD (including fully stacked blitz): BASE*4.662

So LD is only slightly ahead in terms of damage multiplier.

However, even the best raw power destiny is .88 of the old blitz

There are two CRUCIAL issues: 1) since you can take more hits because of the extreme change in PRR, you don't need to back out to heal as frequently and 2) the new paladin holy sword is UBER

Let's examine the PRR side a bit more. Take for instance an old build, say the dwarven parody that had ~100 PRR. Before it mitigated around 40%, now out of the box it mitigates 50% and in blitz around 60%. This means roughly speaking means it can stay 20% more in combat.

Just for the sake of the example, look at the dwarven parody (without double strikes, don't use this numbers to compare to the paladin):

Old system

Damage multiplier in fully stacked blitz: 4.275

New system

Damage multiplier in fully stacked blitz: 4.028
Combat time adjusted damage multiplier: 4.028*1.2= 4.83

So the the dwarven parody sees a 13% increase in melee power.

The final issue is power creep. Some people are saying that overall melee is a lot easier. They are right! Let's take the top DPS option that the game now provides. This is probably a paladin with a khopesh. This build is a significant power increase over previous possibilities. I will compare a dwarven parody with double strikes included in the old system to a paladin in the new system. Perhaps that dwarf was not the peak in power, but surely was close to it. Feel free to provide the numbers for another build. I am aware this is not exactly the same exercise I did before with the paladin since that was not available pre changes.

Old system top: Dwarven parody (35% double strike)

Damage multiplier in fully stacked blitz: 5.77
Combat time adjustment: assume 100PRR as a base, which provided 40% mitigation.

New system top: paladin with khopesh (30% double strike)

Damage multiplier in fully stacked blitz: 5.78

Blitzed PRR 170: provides 63% mitigation. This is 23% more than the parody before, meaning 23% more time of combat time.

Combat time adjusted damage multiplier: 5.78*1.2= 6.936

So 6.936/5.78=1.2. So top melees builds are now 20% more powerful than before in terms of adjusted raw power.

Conclusions

1. DC is now very close in raw DPS to LD.

2. There is a massive buff to damage mitigation.

3. Paladins are incredibly powerful this update. This is because previous competence bonus were limited to weak weapons, but holy sword can take the best one.

4. Damage mitigation adjusted numbers are what provide a feeling of generalized increased power.

5. There is significant power creep. The top melee build is now 20% more powerful than the previous one. In addition, there is a feeling of more power because melee combat is much more forgiving.

Remarks

Careful bringing down melee power even more. Melees are fighting alonside with very high burst damage builds, even if they are more survivable than others (PRR changes) if melee power keeps diminishing they won't be able to contribute because their relative DPS will be too low. If mobs are dead, it does not matter if you are very survivable.

[Portalcat]

Devs you're doing PRR backwards.

More PRR should have increasing returns, while lower amounts should be LESS effective.

This incentivizes people to really invest it in to be invincible. It also means you can't rely on it in pajamas, which is part of the point of this exercise.

PRR has always had diminishing returns.

[Nagantor]

Diminishing returns are fine for PRR, yes. Current system has drawbacks for sure.

Problem 1: You have a fast decrease in the effective use. Main goal is already achieved when damage is reduced enough to prevent instant death from heavy hitters and you get enough time to heal when fighting groups of trash (without doing nothing but healing). Everything beyond is far less important.
Optimally we'd start with low gain, reach the important treshhold with moderate effort and then it starts to diminish like now.

Problem 2: It's far too easy to reach the sweet spot with Robe/Light Armor. Did you consider adding another scaling factor depending on armor type? Applied to the current formula we'd end with "damage * 100 / (100 + PRR) * modifier". Modifier could be 0.50/0.75/1.0/1.25 for cloth/light/medium/heavy and the cap values for PRR/MRR adjusted. (Values are for the principle, actual implementation would require some testing for good values.)
I'm aware that sheltering items for example will then give less if they don't have a good armor to work upon but that's fine with me. Without (strong) armor it's very hard to get into highly effective amounts. Still possible, but you need a definite effort while heavy armor starts at a noticeable effect by itself. If you want to stay mobile, make use of it and evade by feat or plain movement, stay out of the thick combat... and don't consider yourself a tank.

Death of cloth/caster tanks is nothing I'd mind to see. Those character types have different roles in my eyes. Monks might stay the exception having some tricks allowing them to tank without armor - requiring some feat or ability which should require Monk 12 (or higher) in my opinion. A real Monk special, not a splash feat.

[zerit2002]

Can we please stop arguing about the semantics of how the PRR was stated and focus on how TERRIBLE this new idea for blitz is?

I just popped on Lamma, stood in a room full of mobs, 10 or so, popped a blitz, killed everything...sounds good, right? 0 CHARGES. 0. 0? What's with this? Why can't I get a charge from killing TEN enemies?

And since i haven't effectively gained a blitz, yet, I don't know how terrible the reduction in damage will be when its fully stacked. 50...doesn't seem like anywhere close to the appropriate number for a 10 stack of a top tier Epic Moment.

But, seriously, someone needs to go through this with an extremely fine toothed comb, preferably someone that gets on and tries to maintain a blitz, and fix why the chance to gain a charge is so ridiculously minuscule.

More. Epic. Sadfaces.


No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I wasn't paying attention to how much damage I was doing per swing, but, yes, everything was dead before I gained one charge.

When I went for my second attempt, 5 minutes later, I zerged thru to get around 25 mobs to surround me. Threw a bunch of cleaves, lay wastes, momentum swings, stunning blows, etc. I gained four charges. By the time I ran to the next room full I was at two, threw some attacks in the group, made it to six. Kept zerging as hard as I could to try to reach the mini-boss at the middle of the quest. only there was I able to get my stack to 8... Kept zerging to the end fight. Kill all the trash and the semi-boss, wind up with 7 stacks for the main boss. Start on him, work it up to a ten stack. At this point, im doing ~1200-1500 on big crits, 200-300 on hits. WITH A TEN STACK. My build is not tweaked out with all the best of the best, but, with an 80str and power of the forge going, with a ten stack of blitz, these numbers are absolutely abominable.

If the goal of changing blitz was to keep people in a party competitive but still be able to hold their blitz, e.g. not stacking on kills, this was a complete and utter fail.

Must zerg to keep it alive, things dont live long enough to stack.

Hey devs! Give this man some attention!
He is absolutely right!

In the present implementation of blitz charges are too hard to get and too easy to lose, even SOLO, with full control over the quest.
Trying to keep blitz up in a group like this would be a nightmare. Things are gona die long b4 we get charges.

And yeah, the dmg increase for a 10 stack is too low.

[XodousRoC]

Can we please stop arguing about the semantics of how the PRR was stated and focus on how TERRIBLE this new idea for blitz is?

I just popped on Lamma, stood in a room full of mobs, 10 or so, popped a blitz, killed everything...sounds good, right? 0 CHARGES. 0. 0? What's with this? Why can't I get a charge from killing TEN enemies?

And since i haven't effectively gained a blitz, yet, I don't know how terrible the reduction in damage will be when its fully stacked. 50...doesn't seem like anywhere close to the appropriate number for a 10 stack of a top tier Epic Moment.

But, seriously, someone needs to go through this with an extremely fine toothed comb, preferably someone that gets on and tries to maintain a blitz, and fix why the chance to gain a charge is so ridiculously minuscule.

More. Epic. Sadfaces.

LD also does NOT (for those that weren't aware) play nicely with the new KoTC cleaves either. They don't qualify u for Momentum swing, which is a non-starter. The stated goal was to help a feat starved class by implementing enhancements to replace the cleave/gr cleave feats (with whom the enhancements share cooldowns). Testing on Lammy shows the enhancements do NOT qualify as prereqs for momentum swing. For all those (including myself) who've been asking, "Yes, but do the enhancements play nice with LD?", the answer was silence. Now I answer it, the answer means they've not saved me any feats at all.

Even. More. Epic. Sadfaces.

[Oliphant]

Will the PRR and MRR changes affect enemies' abilities?

[Altrelo]

I LR'ed my Halfling Assassin rogue in order to better make use of Harper Agent PrE. I found that my base damage in Legendary with 10 stacks of Blitz was about ~30 while my SA damage didn't that much of an increase, ~2-6. While I did more damage on rolls of 19-20 in Legendary, the utility that Shadowdancer has makes it so that I won't switch my Assassin to Legendary, even though what stopped me was the tactical feat charge up. Turbine has at least succeed in keeping the other destinies competitive, for these builds at least.

Though Dex will only be raised to 17, it means that Assassins can no longer take Improved SA. Shadowdancer could also boost rogue levels for our abilities, spending half of my points in Intelligence upgrades to even have a viable Assassinate DC preposterous. I can't even make use of all the utility abilities that Shadowdancer has, because I don't have the points for it. Getting Steakthy for the +6 DC to Assassinate, getting Lithe to tier and getting Shadow Form takes up all of 12 extra points. Without Lithe, I can't make use of the extra dodge I'll get for my Shadow Charges that won't be used due to not having an ability that can use them after I use Shadow Form.

[Silverleafeon]

Will the PRR and MRR changes affect enemies' abilities?

No, monsters are custom made.

[Severlin]

If we are looking at PRR, dissecting the raw numbers and calling them "diminishing returns" is misleading.

In terms of functionality, we look at survivability as "time until dead" or, more accurately, time until I have to interrupt my DPS and use resources to heal. This is important because, barring random factors, if your survival time > your kill time then you win. More accurately for DDO, the less resources you have to use per unit of time, the more likely you will reach the next rest shrine alive. If you look at its effect on time until heal, PRR gives linear returns.

As an example, lets say I have 1200 hit points and decide that I always have to heal when I hit 200. That means I have 1000 hit points to chew through before I have to both interrupt my DPS and use resources to recover health.

If incoming damage is 100 DPS, I think it's easy to see that with no mitigation I will have to heal in 10 seconds.

Now let's look at how PRR affects that time until heal:

At 0 PRR I can fight for 10 seconds before I need a heal.
At 100 PRR I can fight for 20 seconds before I need a heal.
At 200 PRR I can fight for 30 seconds before I need a heal.
At 300 PRR I can fight for 40 seconds before I need a heal.

The pattern follows a linear progression; assuming constant damage each 100 PRR increases my time until heal by 10 seconds.


Now, the issue I have with the language being thrown around in this thread that describes PRR as diminishing returns is that it examines the raw mitigation numbers, but it doesn't take into account that fact that as PRR increases there is less incoming damage to mitigate. This exagerrates the effect of each PRR point, which leads to a linear progression of survival time.

It's survival time we examine when looking at this mitigation.

As for whether "PJ" builds can leverage too much PRR, it was a concern when we increased the PRR formula and also removed the PRR limit on no armor and light armor builds. I also wonder if that's more of an issue with Earth stance than the current system on Lamannia. When I get in next week we will look at the numbers.

Sev~

[Ganak]

As an example, lets say I have 1200 hit points and decide that I always have to heal when I hit 200. That means I have 1000 hit points to chew through before I have to both interrupt my DPS and use resources to recover health.

I suggest that a different logic be considered.

1.) If you are at 200 HP and have agro in EE, you are dead.

2.) More importantly, how do you recover the HP, and how fast?

Sure I can try a pure 20 fighter or barb and start chugging pots for a few minutes to get back up, but be left behind.

[Severlin]

I suggest that a different logic be considered.

1.) If you are at 200 HP and have agro in EE, you are dead.

2.) More importantly, how do you recover the HP, and how fast?

Sure I can try a pure 20 fighter or barb and start chugging pots for a few minutes to get back up, but be left behind.

This is actually the same logic. If you are chugging potions, and you have a finite number of potions, then time until you must heal is extremely important and probably the most useful way to looking at PRR. The longer you can go without a heal, and further those potions will take you and the less DPS you will lose by chugging.

The actual numbers can vary, but the math is the same. You could change the hit points to 1600 and the healing threshold to 600, or 1800 and 1000, or any numbers really and the technique of measuring time until a heal still works.

Sev~

[Qhualor]

If we are looking at PRR, dissecting the raw numbers and calling them "diminishing returns" is misleading.

In terms of functionality, we look at survivability as "time until dead" or, more accurately, time until I have to interrupt my DPS and use resources to heal. This is important because, barring random factors, if your survival time > your kill time then you win. More accurately for DDO, the less resources you have to use per unit of time, the more likely you will reach the next rest shrine alive. If you look at its effect on time until heal, PRR gives linear returns.

As an example, lets say I have 1200 hit points and decide that I always have to heal when I hit 200. That means I have 1000 hit points to chew through before I have to both interrupt my DPS and use resources to recover health.

If incoming damage is 100 DPS, I think it's easy to see that with no mitigation I will have to heal in 10 seconds.

Now let's look at how PRR affects that time until heal:

At 0 PRR I can fight for 10 seconds before I need a heal.
At 100 PRR I can fight for 20 seconds before I need a heal.
At 200 PRR I can fight for 30 seconds before I need a heal.
At 300 PRR I can fight for 40 seconds before I need a heal.

The pattern follows a linear progression; assuming constant damage each 100 PRR increases my time until heal by 10 seconds.


Now, the issue I have with the language being thrown around in this thread that describes PRR as diminishing returns is that it examines the raw mitigation numbers, but it doesn't take into account that fact that as PRR increases there is less incoming damage to mitigate. This exagerrates the effect of each PRR point, which leads to a linear progression of survival time.

It's survival time we examine when looking at this mitigation.

As for whether "PJ" builds can leverage too much PRR, it was a concern when we increased the PRR formula and also removed the PRR limit on no armor and light armor builds. I also wonder if that's more of an issue with Earth stance than the current system on Lamannia. When I get in next week we will look at the numbers.

Sev~

thank you for explaining this so someone like me who doesn't understand DDO math very well actually can understand how this works. im also glad to see some of you guys jumping into threads to correct us when forumites explain things incorrectly.

[Douglas21]

If Exalted Cleave and Avenging Cleave are intended to save feats for Paladins in general, there's still more that needs to be done with them.

For Legendary Dreadnought Paladins: Exalted Cleave needs to satisfy the prereq of Momentum Swing. Both enhancements also need to have a chance of resetting Momentum Swing's cooldown, just as the feats do (don't know if this part works already).

For Paladins with Great Cleave and a non-KotC tier 5 enhancement: either a) Avenging Cleave needs to be tier 4, or b) Exalted Cleave needs to satisfy the prereq for Great Cleave. The first option would imo be the much better solution, and likely also much easier to implement, considering how the enhancement reset and/or feat prereq mechanisms would have to be altered to allow for a feat depending on an enhancement. As is, a Paladin who wants both cleaves and also Sacred Defender tier 5 (or anything tier 5 other than KotC) saves no feats at all with this, and I imagine that description matches quite a lot of Paladins.

[BigErkyKid]

If we are looking at PRR, dissecting the raw numbers and calling them "diminishing returns" is misleading.
In terms of functionality, we look at survivability as "time until dead" or, more accurately, time until I have to interrupt my DPS and use resources to heal.
...
If you look at its effect on time until heal, PRR gives linear returns.
...
At 100 PRR I can fight for 20 seconds before I need a heal.
...
At 200 PRR I can fight for 30 seconds before I need a heal.
...
The pattern follows a linear progression; assuming constant damage each 100 PRR increases my time until heal by 10 seconds.
...
Sev~

Sorry Sev, but you are wrong on this one.

See my final post on this : EDITED


As for whether "PJ" builds can leverage too much PRR, it was a concern when we increased the PRR formula and also removed the PRR limit on no armor and light armor builds. I also wonder if that's more of an issue with Earth stance than the current system on Lamannia. When I get in next week we will look at the numbers.
Sev~

Again, I think you are overlooking stuff. It is not strictly monks. On the contrary, the issue arises specially and more annoyingly in builds that use light armor.

Take for instance the swashbuckler splash with fighter and rogue (12 bard, 6 fighter, 2 rogue). With shield mastery feats (which add offense and defense), legendary shield mastery and a PRR item (say the guardian's ring) I can reach passed 100 PRR. In blitz, that was putting me around 140PRR (vs 170PRR of the paladins I have seen).

Since PRR has dimishing returns, the extra PRR of the paladin gives you less bang for your buck. But furthermore, the bard will have a lot of dodge and evasion, making him almost as effective at mitigating the hits that land but overall having a huge advantage at mitigating damage. He won't get hit as often, which is the BEST damage mitigation.

[Douglas21]

Sorry Sev, but you are wrong on this one.

To see why, observe that 100 PRR buys me 20 seconds whereas 200 PRR buys me 30. If the function was linear, 200PRR would buy me 40 seconds, not 30.

In other words, doubling the PRR does not double the time without healing! This is because it has diminishing returns.

So that is why the early levels of PRR are more valuable than the later ones. I may invest into building an uber tank with 200PRR, but that won't make me twice as effective at damage mitigation as someone with simply 100PRR.
The linear relationship is for PRR and extra time without healing. With a linear relationship by your interpretation, 0 PRR would mean the character falls over and dies instantly because, I don't know, a stiff breeze came by.


Again, I think you are overlooking stuff. It is not strictly monks. On the contrary, the issue arises specially and more annoyingly in builds that use light armor.

Take for instance the swashbuckler splash with fighter and rogue (12 bard, 6 fighter, 2 rogue). With shield mastery feats (which add offense and defense), legendary shield mastery and a PRR item (say the guardian's ring) I can reach passed 100 PRR. In blitz, that was putting me around 140PRR (vs 170PRR of the paladins I have seen).

Since PRR has dimishing returns, the extra PRR of the paladin gives you less bang for your buck. But furthermore, the bard will have a lot of dodge and evasion, making him almost as effective at mitigating the hits that land but overall having a huge advantage at mitigating damage. He won't get hit as often, which is the BEST damage mitigation.
Yes, PRR has diminishing returns, but I think you and all the other people complaining about it here are grossly exaggerating how quickly the returns diminish.

Let's say you have a build with 30% dodge and 100 PRR. How much PRR is needed to have equal average damage mitigation with no dodge? Well, the 70% non-dodged attacks are doing 50% damage, for total damage taken of 35%, or 65% damage mitigation. PRR hits 65% mitigation at 185. Ignoring stance because your fighter has it too, a Sacred Defender Paladin can get 20 PRR from core abilities, 25 from Harbored By Light, 10 from a heavier shield, 10 more from Improved Shield Mastery for a heavier shield, 20 from heavier armor, and around 15 from the difference in BAB-based PRR for heavier armor and more BAB. That adds up to 100 more PRR, and hey look that's more than needed to match. That's also assuming the Paladin has 0 dodge, when he should really be able to at least reach 5% easily. I'll spare you the calculations, but with 5% dodge only 171 PRR is needed to reach 65% mitigation.

[BigErkyKid]

The linear relationship is for PRR and extra time without healing. With a linear relationship by your interpretation, 0 PRR would mean the character falls over and dies instantly because, I don't know, a stiff breeze came by.


Yes, PRR has diminishing returns, but I think you and all the other people complaining about it here are grossly exaggerating how quickly the returns diminish.

Let's say you have a build with 30% dodge and 100 PRR. How much PRR is needed to have equal average damage mitigation with no dodge? Well, the 70% non-dodged attacks are doing 50% damage, for total damage taken of 35%, or 65% damage mitigation. PRR hits 65% mitigation at 185. Ignoring stance because your fighter has it too, a Sacred Defender Paladin can get 20 PRR from core abilities, 25 from Harbored By Light, 10 from a heavier shield, 10 more from Improved Shield Mastery for a heavier shield, 20 from heavier armor, and around 15 from the difference in BAB-based PRR for heavier armor and more BAB. That adds up to 100 more PRR, and hey look that's more than needed to match. That's also assuming the Paladin has 0 dodge, when he should really be able to at least reach 5% easily. I'll spare you the calculations, but with 5% dodge only 171 PRR is needed to reach 65% mitigation.

First of all, PRR has diminishing returns for all it matters. The rest is jibber jabber. --- EDITED: My presentation was bad, writing another post on it.


Second, you made an incredibly faulty comparison using a paladin S&B to compare to swashbuckler. It is apples and oranges.The relevant comparison is between to top DPS builds: a SWF or THF paladin vs a swashbuckler in blitz.

The swashbuckler gets around 140 PRR (I have seen those numbers, it is not theorycrafting) with blitz, legendary shield mastery, a PRR item, a buckler and shield mastery feats. The paladin without shield gets around 170 PRR. Those are again real numbers based on my experience and videos of Eth.

Let's assume 30% dodge for the swash and 5% for the paladin. How much damage do they take in 10 seconds by a mob hitting for 100 per second?

Paladin: 100*0.95*0.37 times 10 seconds = 350 points

Swashbuckler: 100*.7*0.41 times 10 seconds = 287 points

The paladin takes 22% more damage than the swashbuckler!

Heavy armor folks take more damage than their light /cloth armor competitors, by a large margin. This has NOT changed.


And we are only looking at physical damage. The swash gets EVASION with high reflex and in addition some MRR. He blows the paladin out of the quest in overall damage mitigation by an obscene margin. And that's not even discussing the fact that the swash has self casted displacement. Any person without displacement clickies is better off by playing a swashbuckler than a paladin with absolute certainty.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

To clarify that chart, the -25% numbers are only relative to the previous line, not total. It shouldn't be summing up to a new total mitigation.

...50% damage taken compared to...
...33% damage taken compared to...
...25% damage taken compared to...

But going from 200->300 is reducing damage a lot more than 8%

key words you used: *compared to*
key words you did not use: *bottom line*

will 300 prr be more effective compared to 200 prr? yes. by 25%? could say that.
bottom line? you will only take 8% less damage. i dont give a **** about comparisons, i give a **** about the bottom line. because thats what is actually going to affect in game decisions and play.


It's OK if you don't want to view it like this. But as a player who has 200 PRR, I want to know how much less damage I'll get by equipping items or pushing an ability button that gives +100 PRR. The damage number I see goes from 200 to 150. I don't really care about the original hit, I care what this item/ability is going to do for me.

You might not care about it, or call it misleading, but this is exactly how I view it as a player (both in DDO and other games that have had similar formulas). There's always disagreement about what's a better way to view things, but I'm not intentionally misleading anyone, and I'm explaining exactly what I'm saying. I respect you when you explain where your numbers come from! :)

Of course there's diminishing returns. My earlier post today in this thread shows exactly that, and we're not trying to hide that.

you are ignoring how much more actual damage is reduced by increasing your prr from 200 to 300. 300 does not reduce total damage taken by 25% compared to 200. how much enemies hit you for is not a relative thing. seeing your defenses in a relative manner seems like a bad habit.


If we are looking at PRR, dissecting the raw numbers and calling them "diminishing returns" is misleading.

Now, the issue I have with the language being thrown around in this thread that describes PRR as diminishing returns is that it examines the raw mitigation numbers, but it doesn't take into account that fact that as PRR increases there is less incoming damage to mitigate. This exagerrates the effect of each PRR point, which leads to a linear progression of survival time.

It's survival time we examine when looking at this mitigation.

As for whether "PJ" builds can leverage too much PRR, it was a concern when we increased the PRR formula and also removed the PRR limit on no armor and light armor builds. I also wonder if that's more of an issue with Earth stance than the current system on Lamannia. When I get in next week we will look at the numbers.

Sev~

varg just admitted that "of course theres diminishing returns." you guys need to get on the same page about who is misleading whom about what.

if you have removed the prr limit on lighter armor classes, i think that is a mistake. at least at the present time when the fact that medium and heavy armors are uncapped doesnt allow them to get a meaningful amount more than the light armor cap. and after all i thought the point of this update was to balance heavy armor physical defense against monk physical defense? why hamstring your own effort? is it your intent that monks continue to be able to achieve equal to or greater physical defenses than heavy armor builds? 100 prr is 40% damage reduction regardless of the maximum achievable prr. that seems like a generous spot for someone wearing no armor.

earth stance is not the problem all by itself. however if you want to *balance* it, i think it would be a good idea to move its extra 19-20 multiplier to fire stance. so that fire stance will actually be useful for something and earth will not be the clear cut best stance.


Sorry Sev, but you are wrong on this one.

To see why, observe that 100 PRR buys me 20 seconds whereas 200 PRR buys me 30. If the function was linear, 200PRR would buy me 40 seconds, not 30.

In other words, doubling the PRR does not double the time without healing! This is because it has diminishing returns.

i think you are comparing a % based perspective to an unrelated integer based perspective. doubling prr may not double time until dead or time until needing to heal, but imagining it on a graph in my head i think it would be linear.

if you were to do the same graph but change integers to the appropriate %s, then i think the line would change and reflect those diminishing returns. you should do some graphs to see if what im saying is right (and yes i mean graphs, so simple folk like me can go "aaaaaahhh" and understand easily). i am not tech or math savvy enough, or interested enough, to do it.

[Throwdown]

thank you for explaining this so someone like me who doesn't understand DDO math very well actually can understand how this works. im also glad to see some of you guys jumping into threads to correct us when forumites explain things incorrectly.

No one explained anything incorrectly. Sev simply elucidated how he looks at PRR in the context of play. It doesn't mean he's right, or anyone else is wrong. It's just the logic for his decision making. As he said, now we look at the numbers in practice.

You shouldn't be so hostile to everyone who isn't a dev. It's extremely polarizing, and also extremely obvious.

[BigErkyKid]

i think you are comparing a % based perspective to an unrelated integer based perspective. doubling prr may not double time until dead or time until needing to heal, but imagining it on a graph in my head i think it would be linear.

if you were to do the same graph but change integers to the appropriate %s, then i think the line would change and reflect those diminishing returns. you should do some graphs to see if what im saying is right (and yes i mean graphs, so simple fold like me can go "aaaaaahhh" and understand easily). i am not tech or math savvy enough, or interested enough, to do it.

No, no. Don't be confused by presentations and what not.

To know if it has diminishing returns or not (it does!) you need to ask the following simple question:

If I double PRR, do I take half as much damage? The answer is no, you take more than half the damage.

That is why builds that can grab easy PRR are not much behind builds that can get into their ~150. Factoring in that heavy armor prevents dodge, their are actually behind in damage mitigation. If you are interested in the details go through my previous post.

Please do not get scared by the maths of the issue, because they are VERY simple. It is pure counting beans.

At the end of the day, when deciding to take an enhancement or bring a shield or what not, people will always look at how many extra damage reduction they will get out of it. The answer, unfortunately, is that the higher their PRR is, the less they will benefit from extra PRR.


I think the paladin is a perfect example. I will now illustrate it with somehow realistic numbers.

Look at the following decisions. Suppose you are a paladin (perhaps splashed monk for evasion and stands) and you have 4 options.

1) No heavy armor, just stances and items for around 70PRR
2) No points in defender trees, at around 120PRR (assume 120).
3) No shield and defender, at around ~170-180PRR (assume 170).
4) Shield, ~200-230 PRR (assume 230).

Suppose I took option 1 to start with and I am considering options 2 and 3. What I care about is how much I gain in damage reduction to compare to other possibilities for my enhancement points (opportunity cost). So let's compute it.

1) 42% damage reduction
2) 55% damage reduction
3) 63% damage reduction
4) 69% damage reduction

Moving up in the options is granting me every time 50 extra PRR, but it is clear that this not maps in the same amount of extra damage reduction every time. The gains are:

From 1 to 2: 13% extra damage reduction.
From 2 to 3: 8% extra damage reduction.
From 3 to 4: 6% extra damage reduction.


EDITED = WRONG

[BigErkyKid]

No one explained anything incorrectly. Sev simply elucidated how he looks at PRR in the context of play. It doesn't mean he's right, or anyone else is wrong. It's just the logic for his decision making. As he said, now we look at the numbers in practice.

You shouldn't be so hostile to everyone who isn't a dev. It's extremely polarizing, and also extremely obvious.

We did not get it incorrectly. He looks at it in a particular way and he has all the legitimacy to do that. But PRR has diminishing returns (regardless of what anyone says, it is a mathematical fact) and this is something that creates problems in the context of getting balance between PJ and armor. This what we are discussing.

[Qhualor]

No one explained anything incorrectly. Sev simply elucidated how he looks at PRR in the context of play. It doesn't mean he's right, or anyone else is wrong. It's just the logic for his decision making. As he said, now we look at the numbers in practice.

You shouldn't be so hostile to everyone who isn't a dev. It's extremely polarizing, and also extremely obvious.

feeling guilty? HAHAHA!

[Battlehawke]

This is actually the same logic. If you are chugging potions, and you have a finite number of potions, then time until you must heal is extremely important and probably the most useful way to looking at PRR. The longer you can go without a heal, and further those potions will take you and the less DPS you will lose by chugging.

The actual numbers can vary, but the math is the same. You could change the hit points to 1600 and the healing threshold to 600, or 1800 and 1000, or any numbers really and the technique of measuring time until a heal still works.

Sev~

...well said

[Throwdown]

We did not get it incorrectly.
Why did you just copy and paste my first sentence? Because you love it so much?



He looks at it in a particular way and he has all the legitimacy to do that. But PRR has diminishing returns (regardless of what anyone says, it is a mathematical fact) and this is something that creates problems in the context of getting balance between PJ and armor. This what we are discussing.

Yes I know. I was the one in this thread that said I think more PRR should become MORE useful, to mitigate problems with light/no armor and PRR being very useful at low scores/values.

You either completely misread the thing you quoted that I wrote, or you're drunk.

[Throwdown]

feeling guilty? HAHAHA!

About what? The devs are still dancing around an issue that they are misrepresenting, which is that PRR has diminishing returns. That doesn't make Sev wrong in looking at PRR from a "time to heal" context. But it doesn't mean PRR does not give diminishing returns which it does.

You're still just sort of trolling though.

[BigErkyKid]

Why did you just copy and paste my first sentence? Because you love it so much?



Yes I know. I was the one in this thread that said I think more PRR should become MORE useful, to mitigate problems with light/no armor and PRR being very useful at low scores/values.

You either completely misread the thing you quoted that I wrote, or you're drunk.

No, I just quoted you because I agreed with you and to further expand on it. But hey I guess it is never too early for some good old aggressive forumite. Do you come in a kinder version?

[Qhualor]

About what? The devs are still dancing around an issue that they are misrepresenting, which is that PRR has diminishing returns. That doesn't make Sev wrong in looking at PRR from a "time to heal" context. But it doesn't mean PRR does not give diminishing returns which it does.

You're still just sort of trolling though.

I said something positive to Sev and thanked him for explaining something so that I could understand it. people explain things incorrectly all the time on the forums. not everyone is 100% correct all the time. its just funny you quote me and tell me to not be so hostile to people. im not hostile to anyone unless they are hostile to me first hence the response to you.

you are trolling me for no good reason.

[Krelar]

Now Sev is saying that this corresponds to non decreasing gains in survivability, but this is wrong as I explained earlier, using his example:

100 PRR grants you 20 seconds of combat, but 200 PRR does not grant you double this time, rather, it grants you an additional 10 seconds. If I want to double my combat time, that is, reach 40 seconds, I need 300PRR. This is to double my combat time I need to triple my PRR.

Why should going from 100 to 200 double your combat time?

I think you are missing the base case here. What is your combat time with 0 PRR?

In Sev's example, if we go with his assertion that PRR is supposed to be linear, he is assuming that the base combat time is about 10 seconds.

Increasing to 100 PRR doubles this value to 20 seconds.

Increasing to 200 PRR triples this value to 30 seconds.

This is a linear progression. You gan 10 seconds for every 100 PRR.


What you seem to want is an exponential progression where the value gets multiplied by two for every 100 PRR.



Note I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with the current implementation but your example is flawed.

Personally I think that the new formula maybe making it even easier for unarmored builds to get a high enough damage reduction to not care about armor.

[BigErkyKid]

Why should going from 100 to 200 double your combat time?

I think you are missing the base case here. What is your combat time with 0 PRR?

In Sev's example, if we go with his assertion that PRR is supposed to be linear, he is assuming that the base combat time is about 10 seconds.

Increasing to 100 PRR doubles this value to 20 seconds.

Increasing to 200 PRR triples this value to 30 seconds.

This is a linear progression. You gan 10 seconds for every 100 PRR.


What you seem to want is an exponential progression where the value gets multiplied by two for every 100 PRR.



Note I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with the current implementation but your example is flawed.

Personally I think that the new formula maybe making it even easier for unarmored builds to get a high enough damage reduction to not care about armor.

Absolutely right, the example is bad in an embarassing way. My apologies there! Working on a better presentation.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

No, no. Don't be confused by presentations and what not.

To know if it has diminishing returns or not (it does!) you need to ask the following simple question:

If I double PRR, do I take half as much damage? The answer is no, you take more than half the damage.

That is why builds that can grab easy PRR are not much behind builds that can get into their ~150. Factoring in that heavy armor prevents dodge, their are actually behind in damage mitigation. If you are interested in the details go through my previous post.

Please do not get scared by the maths of the issue, because they are VERY simple. It is pure counting beans.

At the end of the day, when deciding to take an enhancement or bring a shield or what not, people will always look at how many extra damage reduction they will get out of it. The answer, unfortunately, is that the higher their PRR is, the less they will benefit from extra PRR.


I think the paladin is a perfect example. I will now illustrate it with somehow realistic numbers.

Look at the following decisions. Suppose you are a paladin (perhaps splashed monk for evasion and stands) and you have 4 options.

1) No heavy armor, just stances and items for around 70PRR
2) No points in defender trees, at around 120PRR (assume 120).
3) No shield and defender, at around ~170-180PRR (assume 170).
4) Shield, ~200-230 PRR (assume 230).

Suppose I took option 1 to start with and I am considering options 2 and 3. What I care about is how much I gain in damage reduction to compare to other possibilities for my enhancement points (opportunity cost). So let's compute it.

1) 42% damage reduction
2) 55% damage reduction
3) 63% damage reduction
4) 69% damage reduction

Moving up in the options is granting me every time 50 extra PRR, but it is clear that this not maps in the same amount of extra damage reduction every time. The gains are:

From 1 to 2: 13% extra damage reduction.
From 2 to 3: 8% extra damage reduction.
From 3 to 4: 6% extra damage reduction.

Now Sev is saying that this corresponds to non decreasing gains in survivability, but this is wrong as I explained earlier, using his example:

100 PRR grants you 20 seconds of combat, but 200 PRR does not grant you double this time, rather, it grants you an additional 10 seconds. If I want to double my combat time, that is, reach 40 seconds, I need 300PRR. This is to double my combat time I need to triple my PRR.

im not confused about the issue, i was frankly suggesting you do a chart for your sake to help illustrate that in sevs examples prr does have a linear progression.

i know prr has diminishing returns in terms of total damage mitigated, duuuuhhh...

on the other hand how you can call +100 prr = +10 seconds of combat time non linear is beyond me, and makes me doubt any numbers you post if you cant grasp a pretty simple concept.


http://www.chartgo.com/get.do?id=2bce2ce218

i hope this link demonstrates (and works, im tech deficient) that despite whether or not the numbers work out this way in reality, the example has a linear progression. the only thing you can dispute here is that it wont work this way in practice, which will require play testing to determine. i hope at least that you were saying the progression wont work in practice because of x, y, z. if so you did not communicate that effectively. if thats not what you were saying..../smh.

also what krelar said. i find it shocking you cant tell the difference between a linear and exponential progression.

1 2 3 4 5. linear.
1 2 4 8 16. exponential.

[Zerkul]

Why Sentinel, Fatesinger, Primal Avatar gets more Melee Power than Drednought, Fury and Divine Crusader?

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Why Sentinel, Fatesinger, Primal Avatar gets more Melee Power than Drednought, Fury and Divine Crusader?

they are under performing destinies.

[Zerkul]

they are under performing destinies.
Sounds to me a cheap solution like it was for SWF double strength bonus that got just removed.

[FCofKhatovar]

are we still arguing semantics of phrasing and POV when looking at PRR?

WOW.

More. Of. The. Most. Epic. Sadfaces.

Please folks, we know how the PRR system works. We all see it a particular way.

THE NEW WAY IS STILL BETTER THAN THE OLD.

How bout how the best destiny for any melee is going to be near useless?

[FCofKhatovar]

Sounds to me a cheap solution like it was for SWF double strength bonus that got just removed.

I couldn't agree more with this.

Tho, I do have to give them credit for the work they are doing to improve this system.

I don't want people to misunderstand what I've been trying to say here...I DO think LD was overpowered. I DO think it needs a reduction.

I just think that reduction needs to be less severe. ~60% as powerful as it was before with a more easily sustained blitz.

This calculation should NOT take into consideration how much longer a player can stay alive and in DPS mode, as EVERY build is getting this very same increase in survivability.

[EDIT]: It also shouldn't take into consideration any melee power gained outside the destiny when comparing the numbers to what blitz was, as, all other builds are also getting these increases.

[BigErkyKid]

PRR has diminishing returns: two examples

Take Sev's example. A mob hits you for 100 DPS, you have 1000HP

Now suppose for whatever reason devs gave away a cosmetic item that granted 50 PRR.

In this case, you can fight for 15 seconds before healing.

Now you ask yourself the following question, by how much would I have to increase my PRR to double my combat time?

That is, I want to be able to fight 30 seconds before healing.

The answer is that you would need a total PRR of 200.

To double your current combat time you have needed to get 4 times your current PRR.

Let's bring a comparison between two builds.

Now suppose you are comparing two builds. Build A has 100 PRR and build B has 200PRR.

That is, build B has double the amount of PRR than build B. However, build B only has 1.5 more combat time than build A.

Now as it has been pointed out the crucial issue here is that it is easy for certain builds to reach high values of PRR but heavy armor wearers do not have much more PRR.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Sounds to me a cheap solution like it was for SWF double strength bonus that got just removed.

i dont think giving those destinies a small amount more melee power is going to make a single bit of difference in how people view those destinies.

[BigErkyKid]

i dont think giving those destinies a small amount more melee power is going to make a single bit of difference in how people view those destinies.

Right on. They are too far behind with out without the buff. It will help those who insist in playing them in terms of their power vs content, though.

[-Avalon-]

PRR:
The issues I have noticed, as have others, is that it gives very strong power to low PRR builds while not favoring higher PRR-Based builds enough... After thinking about this, it came to me that the devs continue to attempt to push a somewhat bad formula that heavily benefits those with lower PRR's, instead of trying methods that give proper amounts to people.

The qualities PRR Formula needs to have:

1- Small % for lower PRR builds
2- Extreme Diminishing Returns at extremely high amounts (I believe around 350-400 is extreme, but given that I have not seen the current PRR handouts on Lamannia, that could be smaller, or larger... what is considered extremely high but reachable?)
3- Last, enough gain for those in the 'bubble' region between low PRR and extreme PRR, to entice people to get more of it.

Those qualities are almost the exact definition of an "S" curve, or Sigmoidal Function. I played around with some different equations, and finally made one that if you plug it into any graphing calculator will give you a decent setup where you get the following approximations:

PRR : % Protection
0 : 0
100 : 10
200 : 30
300 : 70
400 : 90
500 : 90
and so on...

Now, I am not saying use this particular formula, but if tweaked, could give exactly what people are looking for, which is a low % for those who are not interested in building PRR (Pajama Builds, Casters, etc), giving an upper boundary that makes the Dev's happy, and a fast climb rate that makes every PRR-point between 150 and 350 worth getting.

By the way, the formula I used (it may look tricky, but it works imo, cannot type it perfectly in basic text editors either, so will use ^ to denote an exponent)

90/(1+80e^(-1/50x))^(9/10)

The e is euler's number and there really is not a good way to substitute it from what I have found/seen in my experience, despite that it is considered rough equivalent to 2.7 (etc)... the 90 at the beginning gives the upper boundary of 90% also... now, I have never taken calculus or any higher math courses, so there may be ways to simplify that equation as well... but, to give an S shaped curve that fits what is needed for PRR/MRR to work properly, you need something like this I believe.

[Miightyy]

The PPR logic(formula) for the update 23 is good, thank you for looking into it and improving it. Just wish composite plating would get some more attention, maybe some PPR as well. Even if PPR can't be added, maybe something else can.

***A little off topic but still, maybe you guys can come up with a way for us melee to protect ourselves from those TR'd Magic missles and Force Missles that casters like to use in pvp...jeweled cloak with 25 charges goes down to 8 after being hit with "1" spell... how is that fair? A sorcerer per say clicks the spell once and it takes a chunk of my jeweled cloak charges ... I thought it was suppose to absorb spells (1 to 1)... Please guys, make it fair for pvp, do something about it or fix/change the wording on Jeweled Cloak, or come up with some way for us to be able to obtain protection from those TR'd missles.

[Pescha]

I don't care about prr BUFF Masters blitz.

[Chi_Ryu]

Now you ask yourself the following question, by how much would I have to increase my PRR to double my combat time?

That is, I want to be able to fight 30 seconds before healing.

The answer is that you would need a total PRR of 200.

I am not sure why you keep flogging this argument. In absolute terms of raw damage prevented, PRR is diminishing - no-one has disagreed so far. However, Sev's point is that in terms of extension to combat time it is linear - and this is indeed the case.

Your base starting point is 10 seconds combat time.
PRR 100 makes this 20 seconds.
PRR 200 makes this 30 seconds.

How much theoretical PRR would you need for 1 minute? I can tell you at a glance it is 500.
45 seconds? PRR350.
16.4 seconds? PRR 64.
60 minutes? PRR 35,900.

The relationship - in that respect - is entirely linear:
PRR needed to fight until time t = (t - 10) x 10.

That you cannot directly compare PRR raw values for different characters (as in your example #2) to make easy comparisons does not make the relationship non-linear.

[Blackheartox]

Sidetracking a bit from whole thread.

Sev, could you add to barb cores, like the lv 18 one or similiar a ability to negate silver flame potion debuffs and to be able to stack more then only 10 at once.

I think this would solve many issues regarding melle incoming damage since the ones left most behind are barbs since they really are the least survivable melle atm.

Also anoither question, why were silver flame pots made in the first place with the debuff option? Could you not like remake them since we are far beyond the point where they could be considerd overpowerd when taking into account ammounts of selfhealing most builds get from spells/innate abilities/slas

(since talk was about prr/ time needed to heal, why dont you simply add something like a cast limiter to silver pots, example after drinking silver flame potion you become silenced for 30 seconds unable to cast spells, while removing the debuff part --- just a simple suggestion that would be simpler to implement then whole tree remake or some new numbers to confuse players even more, also why no prr/mrr/mell power/ranged power potions in store or in game , there are many ideas you could use to earn money/help community)

[lyrecono]

i took some time to build a pure fighter tank
prr:
with a tower shield it has a 251 prr (71,5% damage reduced)
same set up but without shield: 200 prr (66,7% damage reduced)
mrr:
with a tower shield it has a 120 mrr (54,5% damage reduced)
same set up but without shield: 105 mrr (51,2% damage reduced)
a quick calculation tells me that it should reduce damage by 71% (100/100+240) mrrX2 due to towershield. the character sheet doesn't display it or the mechanic doesn't work yet?

both instances i spend 2 feats on shield mastery and i had twisted in leg. shield mastery.
only gear from the new update, the pdk shield and a Thunderholme weapon was used.
using a citw weaponset and having epic/iconic pastives would make this case even worse.
reaching these numbers was easy and i bet others can easely top that

if these prr changes were meant to help "sword and board tanks", why do i only reduce melee damage by 5%?
doesn't that defeat the purpose?
why wouldn't i opt for single weapon fighting feats and equip a shield only when getting into trouble during a raid?

[Douglas21]

if these prr changes were meant to help "sword and board tanks", why do i only reduce melee damage by 5%?
doesn't that defeat the purpose?
Let's try showing why that logic is wrong by taking it to the obvious extreme. By your logic, if the shield increased your damage mitigation from 66.7% to 100%, it would "only reduce damage by 33%". This hardly seems an appropriate description for a difference that makes you absolutely invincible.

The damage you take with the shield is about 85% of the damage you take without the shield. The shield thus offers a 15% relative improvement.


mrr:
with a tower shield it has a 120 mrr (54,5% damage reduced)
same set up but without shield: 105 mrr (51,2% damage reduced)
This, on the other hand is a rather tiny difference. There are a huge number of things that add only to PRR - various feats, destiny abilities, maybe some non-defender enhancements. It was my impression that different values for PRR and MRR were being reserved for future development, with everything supposed to count to both on initial release. Was that incorrect?


a quick calculation tells me that it should reduce damage by 71% (100/100+240) mrrX2 due to towershield. the character sheet doesn't display it or the mechanic doesn't work yet?
The shield doubles MRR only against evasionable attacks, not for everything. The character sheet shows general purpose works-against-everything MRR. To see the shield doubling effect, you'll need to go in a quest or brawling pit and get hit.

[Nascoe]

Right on. They are too far behind with out without the buff. It will help those who insist in playing them in terms of their power vs content, though.

Yeah, it helps them not feel as a horrible choice for melee. Also should make it a bit less painfull to get karma in off destinies to get from one to another sphere.

[Nascoe]

i took some time to build a pure fighter tank
prr:
with a tower shield it has a 251 prr (71,5% damage reduced)
same set up but without shield: 200 prr (66,7% damage reduced)
mrr:
with a tower shield it has a 120 mrr (54,5% damage reduced)
same set up but without shield: 105 mrr (51,2% damage reduced)
a quick calculation tells me that it should reduce damage by 71% (100/100+240) mrrX2 due to towershield. the character sheet doesn't display it or the mechanic doesn't work yet?

both instances i spend 2 feats on shield mastery and i had twisted in leg. shield mastery.
only gear from the new update, the pdk shield and a Thunderholme weapon was used.
using a citw weaponset and having epic/iconic pastives would make this case even worse.
reaching these numbers was easy and i bet others can easely top that

if these prr changes were meant to help "sword and board tanks", why do i only reduce melee damage by 5%?
doesn't that defeat the purpose?
why wouldn't i opt for single weapon fighting feats and equip a shield only when getting into trouble during a raid?

I think its the character sheet not correctly displaying (several other people remarked it was off), but I hope the devs look at that to make sure its working as intended and fix what is shown

[BigErkyKid]

I am not sure why you keep flogging this argument. In absolute terms of raw damage prevented, PRR is diminishing - no-one has disagreed so far. However, Sev's point is that in terms of extension to combat time it is linear - and this is indeed the case.

Your base starting point is 10 seconds combat time.
PRR 100 makes this 20 seconds.
PRR 200 makes this 30 seconds.

How much theoretical PRR would you need for 1 minute? I can tell you at a glance it is 500.
45 seconds? PRR350.
16.4 seconds? PRR 64.
60 minutes? PRR 35,900.

The relationship - in that respect - is entirely linear:
PRR needed to fight until time t = (t - 10) x 10.

That you cannot directly compare PRR raw values for different characters (as in your example #2) to make easy comparisons does not make the relationship non-linear.

It is not linear, it has never been and it will never be, regardless of whether I can represent it in a different way so that it looks like it. I would not be too quick at calling my numbers invalid or at doubting my ability to "grasp simple concepts". I might be rather absent minded and clumpsy, but I do work with mathematical models professionally.

This is why it looks like it is linear.

The basic unflawed reasoning is the following:

Fact:

If I decrease incoming damage by 10%, my combat time increases by 10%. Hence, since the damage reductions of PRR are decreasing, the increases in combat time must also be decreasing.

And exactly this is what is happening. The percentual increase of combat time is diminishing as I increase PRR, but in absolute terms it is not. This is why you keep seeing +10 seconds, but 10 extra seconds are not the same when I have 10 seconds of combat time or when I already have 30 seconds.That is why when I talk about "doubling" PRR it shows diminishing returns, but when I talk about absolute time in increase on its own it does not.

Example:

Take the example with PRR 100. This has a damage taken of 50%, meaning that my combat time doubles from no PRR. From 10 to 20 seconds.

Now increasing PRR to 200 places you at 33% damage taken, which is 50/33= 1.5 times better. This means that my combat time will be 1.5 the one for PRR 100. And it is: 30/20=1.5

Now going to PRR 300 places you at 25% damage taken. Compared to PRR 200, this is 33/25=1.32 times better. And combat time increases by 1.32 times the one of PRR 200. That is, 40/30.

So to sum it up, the first 100 PRR multiplied my combat time by 2, the next 100 PRR by 1.5 and the third 100 PRR by 1.32. Each additional 100 PRR has brought diminishing returns in combat time.

Now one could wonder, why does it matter? If every 100 PRR brings 10 seconds, then it means that the first 100PRR as as valuable as any extra 100 PRR. Is this true? If I have 10 seconds of combat time, an additional 10 seconds seem pretty handy. But when I already have say 50 seconds, do 10 seconds more look as appealing?


The issue with the current proposal


For the current proposal, because they bumped the value in damage reduction per PRR point, together with increasing the amount each armor gives, it means that light armor / pajamas are reaching high values of PRR. The difference between my DPS toons bard and paladin in lama is around 30-40 PRR. Hence, as my bard already reaches around 140 PRR, in terms of actual combat time benefits there isn't much of a difference (remember that PRR has diminishing returns).

Once we factor in dodge, my bard is actually better at damage reduction as I have demonstrated in this post:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/447627-Update-23-Second-Look?p=5418759&viewfull=1#post5418759
(https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/447627-Update-23-Second-Look?p=5418759&viewfull=1#post5418759)

Not to mention that evasion, when combined with high reflexes, is always better than MRR.

In another post I showed how actually PJ are even better nowadays with respect to heavy armor even in terms of just pRR.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/447627-Update-23-Second-Look?p=5417341&viewfull=1#post5417341
(https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/447627-Update-23-Second-Look?p=5417341&viewfull=1#post5417341)

The reason is exposed in the post above.

A simple way to change this would be to make damage taken non monotonic in PRR. At first, PRR could provide increasing returns. Then, to avoid it getting out of hand, it could provide decreasing returns after a certain treshold. This would give an edge to heavy armor.

[Chi_Ryu]

However, Sev's point is that in terms of extension to combat time it is linear - and this is indeed the case.

It is not linear, it has never been and it will never be

I don't think there is anywhere further we can go with this debate then.


I do work with mathematical models professionally.

That's nice for you, but irrelevant.


Not to mention that evasion, when combined with high reflexes, is always better than MRR.

In another post I showed how actually PJ are even better nowadays

This wasn't what I was arguing. You have good points here, but need to stop telling people that things they are saying are wrong when they are not, and when you are repeatedly proving something entirely different .

(Also, and this is rather off topic but just to be pedantic, a decrease in damage received by 10% leads to an increase in time-to-death of 10/9ths - i.e. 11.1%)

[BigErkyKid]

The extension in combat time is linear

So? Why do I care about the extension and not the actual gains in relation to previous thresholds?

If I offer a rich man 10 bucks for a job he will laugh at me. If I offer him 10% of his wealth, he might do it.

The same applies here. 10 seconds of extra combat time are not the same when I had originally 10 seconds or when I have 40 seconds.

The reason why we engaged in this debate to start with is because Sev claimed that the diminishing returns of PRR did not matter because it did not offer diminishing returns in combat time.Then he offered his example. However, as logic dictates, if PRR has dimishing returns in damage mitigation, it must have dimishing returns in combat time. And it does, as I have shown you in my previous example.

As other people have already said before me, trying to present PRR in a way that hides this decreasing returns is misleading.

Why is it misleading? Because one of the big issues is that some non heavy armor builds are reaching high levels of PRR. Between high levels of PRR the difference in damage mitigation is less important. And in order to create big differences between heavy armor and light armor in terms of actual mitigation you need to pump up your PRR a lot. Because the opportunity cost of PRR is increasing while the help it provides has diminishing returns this means that it is "unfair" for heavy armor.

So this is why I insisted so much on this issue. I honestly don't care much otherwise regarding the way you want to present PRR. It is what it is.

[Zerkul]

I couldn't agree more with this.

Tho, I do have to give them credit for the work they are doing to improve this system...I think devs are doing great job so far, though tests are not finished yet and this new update is not ready yet. Though the way seems to be right.

[Ausdoerrt]

This is actually the same logic. If you are chugging potions, and you have a finite number of potions, then time until you must heal is extremely important and probably the most useful way to looking at PRR. The longer you can go without a heal, and further those potions will take you and the less DPS you will lose by chugging.

The actual numbers can vary, but the math is the same. You could change the hit points to 1600 and the healing threshold to 600, or 1800 and 1000, or any numbers really and the technique of measuring time until a heal still works.

Sev~
So how about we get some cure crit/heal potions? :)

[lyrecono]

Let's try showing why that logic is wrong by taking it to the obvious extreme. By your logic, if the shield increased your damage mitigation from 66.7% to 100%, it would "only reduce damage by 33%". This hardly seems an appropriate description for a difference that makes you absolutely invincible.

The damage you take with the shield is about 85% of the damage you take without the shield. The shield thus offers a 15% relative improvement.


This, on the other hand is a rather tiny difference. There are a huge number of things that add only to PRR - various feats, destiny abilities, maybe some non-defender enhancements. It was my impression that different values for PRR and MRR were being reserved for future development, with everything supposed to count to both on initial release. Was that incorrect?


The shield doubles MRR only against evasionable attacks, not for everything. The character sheet shows general purpose works-against-everything MRR. To see the shield doubling effect, you'll need to go in a quest or brawling pit and get hit.

what i was trying to say that the added bonus of having a shield is too little, and this is with 2 feats and a twist slot to boost it, for an attempt to boost plate and shield wearing toons (usually but not exlusively fighters, paladins and clerics) it seems more beneficial to say, a barbarian who sprang for a few levels of fighter.
15 % is weak and a fighter is still better of with swf.
or tr-ing into a functional class.

either the prr curve doesn't work for all the sources they put in or they don't want us to wear shields

[Throwdown]

No, I just quoted you because I agreed with you and to further expand on it. But hey I guess it is never too early for some good old aggressive forumite. Do you come in a kinder version?

I was just really confused by your response.

[Rull]

Even in math, there is no clear definition of linearity.

A linear function f(x) is a function that satisfies the following two properties:

Additivity: f(x + y) = f(x) + f(y).
Homogeneity of degree 1: f(?x) = ?f(x) for all ?

In thay case, f(x)=2x+1 is clearly not linear.
f(4+5) = f(9) = 19 while f(4) + f(5) = 9 + 11 = 20

but... in the same page it is stated (both quotes from Wikipedia):


A linear equation is one of the forms:
f(x) = m x + b

...
[because a] graph of a function of that form is a line.
Obviously, f(x) = 2x + 1 does satisfy this.

So in this case, you are both right and both wrong and even in this pretty simpel situation, math + language = fail.

[Rull]

However, if you would change the prr formula to be 100/PRR and you give every character 100 PRR at level 1 (just like you give them 10 AC)..... then you have something truly linear no matter how you look at it!
It's not just semantics, most people will intuitively know what increasing their PRR from 100 to 110 does, and everyone will know what increasing it from 300 to 310 does.
I mean, dividing by 1.10 instead of 1.00 and 3.10 instead of 3.00 is not so hard
And suddenly neither is it surprising that it would increase your time-till-heal from 10 to 11 seconds and from 30 to 31 respectively.

And if you do the same for spellpower I can stop reading "231 positive spellpower" as "331% healing thingy". It messes with my head.
Although this would make the game more dull, so I guess don't do this as people don't seem to have trouble with it.
But PRR has a division instead, so giving us a number that is closer related to what mathematically happens would be an option you should consider.

[bloodnose13]

So how about we get some cure crit/heal potions? :)

problem is that potions are still closer to pnp hitpoint values than what is in ddo, so i think that best way to make potions to be worth something is to make them scale with character or character level and constitution modifier, that way higher hp value chars would get bit more healing than those with lower hp.

getting a cure crit potion will change nearly nothing becouse self healing will still be useing a lot of potions to heal up to full with todays standard hp values.

it could be balanced with raising cooldown a bit, or makeing rule that the more powerfull the potion the longer its cooldown.

[Krelar]

Even in math, there is no clear definition of linearity.


I'm not sure what article you're looking at because the one I look at on linearity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linearity)doesn't use the exact words you say you quoted. It also has additional remarks around the similar quotes that are kind of important.

[Rull]

I'm not sure what article you're looking at because the one I look at on linearity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linearity)doesn't use the exact words you say you quoted. It also has additional remarks around the similar quotes that are kind of important.

I disagree that they are relevant in this case. Like the restriction to real numbers and such. The point is this ambiguity leads to unsolvable discussions about linear or diminishing returns.

[BigErkyKid]

Even in math, there is no clear definition of linearity.


In thay case, f(x)=2x+1 is clearly not linear.
f(4+5) = f(9) = 19 while f(4) + f(5) = 9 + 11 = 20

but... in the same page it is stated (both quotes from Wikipedia):


Obviously, f(x) = 2x + 1 does satisfy this.

So in this case, you are both right and both wrong and even in this pretty simpel situation, math + language = fail.

It depends on what you are talking about. Wikipedia is your friend. In our case, there is no ambiguity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_function

Regarding what function to use, remember that it probably has to keep in mind all the items and enhancements that provide PRR already in the game.

If it was for me, I would set 150PRR at around 40-50 % and then introduce increasing returns before that and decreasing returns afterwards

For instance, you could do it in the following way:


Step 1. Set a treshold PRR such that increasing returns stop and you move to decreasing returns: for instance, 150 PRR with damage taken of 40%.
Step 2. Choose a rate at which you want damage reduction to increase (and conversely, decrease) before and after the treshold. Say that before it is to the power of 1.25 and afterwards to the power of .75

Step 3. Solve for the values such that both function intersect at 150PRR = 40% damage taken.


You could use the functions: (PRR/a)^(1.25) and (PRR/b)^(0.75).

Now you need to solve for a and b such that both give 40 at 150. In the case of the first, it is a=7.84 something. In the second 1.09 something.

[Rull]

It depends on what you are talking about. Wikipedia is your friend. In our case, there is no ambiguity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_function

Regarding what function to use, remember that it probably has to keep in mind all the items and enhancements that provide PRR already in the game.

If it was for me, I would set 150PRR at around 40-50 % and then introduce increasing returns before that and decreasing returns afterwards

For instance, you could do it in the following way:


Step 1. Set a treshold PRR such that increasing returns stop and you move to decreasing returns: for instance, 150 PRR with damage taken of 40%.
Step 2. Choose a rate at which you want damage reduction to increase (and conversely, decrease) before and after the treshold. Say that before it is to the power of 1.25 and afterwards to the power of .75

Step 3. Solve for the values such that both function intersect at 150PRR = 40% damage taken.


You could use the functions: (PRR/a)^(1.25) and (PRR/b)^(0.75).

Now you need to solve for a and b such that both give 40 at 150. In the case of the first, it is a=7.84 something. In the second 1.09 something.

I wholeheartedly disagree with changing the PRR function in such a way.
For game balance I think the function is very good. Whether you call it linear or diminishing is up to the definition you adhere.

The only thing missing is feedback. Like I said the function is not intuitive and it is lacking visuals as well.
If something hits you for 400 damage and you only take 150 because of PRR but only '150' is shown, you don't feel like getting your money's worth.

[BigErkyKid]

I wholeheartedly disagree with changing the PRR function in such a way.
For game balance I think the function is very good. Whether you call it linear or diminishing is up to the definition you adhere.

The only thing missing is feedback. Like I said the function is not intuitive and it is lacking visuals as well.
If something hits you for 400 damage and you only take 150 because of PRR but only '150' is shown, you don't feel like getting your money's worth.

I guess we have very different definitions of balance.

For me balance is NOT that people in light armor have almost the same damage reduction of heavy armor together with the advantage of dodge and evasion.

PS - And btw, people are getting to high damage reduction, specially the FOTM paladin. It becomes too easy.

[Lifespawn]

it either needs to scale slower or robes capped at 75prr light capped at 125-150 med capped at 170 -200 and heavy no cap something like that

[Vargouille]

Our goal is getting players to understand how PRR works and what they'll see in game. Here's what we want to avoid, as an example: If players believe they take 8% less damage for going from 200->300 PRR, they'd quite possibly expect the 100 damage (at 200 PRR) to turn into 92 damage, which is strictly false and potentially misleading to players. They're going to take 75 damage, not 92, which is a large and meaningful difference in understanding how the game works.

It's not important to prove who is right or what the definition of diminishing returns is. Rather, it's important to clarify to players what they are going to see in game and make sure as many players understand as possible. It's still worth explaining PRR in terms of "hits before you die" or "time to death" or "effective hit points", and other explanations, because different players understand one explanation better than other explanations.

At this point, it's clear we don't need to worry whether or not many of the posters here in this thread understand PRR (or what words they want to call things), as you've demonstrated mastery of the subject. We do still need to worry about some other players understanding it or not. Not every player necessarily needs the exact same level of understanding, or even the same perspective.


The only thing missing is feedback. Like I said the function is not intuitive and it is lacking visuals as well.
If something hits you for 400 damage and you only take 150 because of PRR but only '150' is shown, you don't feel like getting your money's worth.
Better feedback is something we can always look into. We probably don't want to show damage avoided as yet another floating number, though.


More PRR should have increasing returns, while lower amounts should be LESS effective.

This incentivizes people to really invest it in to be invincible. It also means you can't rely on it in pajamas, which is part of the point of this exercise.

We don't want a PRR system where characters have to be all-in or might as well give up on PRR completely. That mostly creates sometimes 90% of players don't care about, but we have to keep balancing around and making items and abilities (etc.) for instead of things that 90% of players want, and gets in the way. This is especially true for newer players or players who don't want to do all the math (and we care about all those players), and PRR should work for them. Getting more makes you take less damage, and it shouldn't be (almost) useless for players who don't have "enough".

This isn't to say that making things for 10% of the players is inherently bad, but a basic defensive stat should not necessarily be one of them. I personally think making things that 10% of players really love is wonderful, as long as we make sure to spread the love around so that every player can find something they think is really great. This is especially true for things like character build choices, because you only need enough wonderful build options for yourself; it's basically OK if each player dislikes playing 90% of the builds if there are enough builds they do love, especially if each player likes a different 10% of the character builds. This is also a major reason balance matters, because if you feel the build you love just plays "worse" than other builds, that's a sad and not-fun thing, regardless of why. (This isn't necessarily as true for some other things, such as quests, since we expect/hope most of the players can happily play most of the quests.)



Take Sev's example. A mob hits you for 100 DPS, you have 1000HP. Now suppose for whatever reason devs gave away a cosmetic item that granted 50 PRR. In this case, you can fight for 15 seconds before healing.

Now you ask yourself the following question, by how much would I have to increase my PRR to double my combat time? That is, I want to be able to fight 30 seconds before healing. The answer is that you would need a total PRR of 200.

To double your current combat time you have needed to get 4 times your current PRR. It's useful to point out this statement is not an inherent part of PRR. If instead you have 200 PRR (200 PRR => means it takes x3 as much time to die compared to 0 PRR), you need to reach 500 PRR to double your time to die (500 PRR => x6 multiplier for how long you live), or x2.5 more PRR, not x4 times as much. If you have 1500 PRR (x16 multiplier), you need 3100 PRR to double the time to die (x32 multiplier), which is barely more than x2, not x4. The reason the quoted example works is because it happened to pick 50 PRR for the example, but the strong statement isn't a feature built-in to PRR, and potentially confusing for people trying to understand how PRR works in general.

To double the benefit of PRR in terms of "How long will I live?", you only need to go from 50 PRR to 100: 50 PRR provides +5 seconds of life (when 0 PRR means you live 10 seconds). 100 PRR provides +10 seconds of life compared to 0, or double the benefit. This math is useful because it's simple and works across all PRR values, as it's an inherent feature of the PRR system. No matter how much PRR you have, doubling the PRR you have doubles the "benefit", if the benefit you care about is "How much longer will I live, compared to 0 PRR?"

We realize some players may not always care about that as the "benefit" or prefer to think about it in other ways, but some players will understand better this way, so it's worth saying.



Now suppose you are comparing two builds. Build A has 100 PRR and build B has 200PRR. That is, build B has double the amount of PRR than build B. However, build B only has 1.5 more combat time than build A.

Now as it has been pointed out the crucial issue here is that it is easy for certain builds to reach high values of PRR but heavy armor wearers do not have much more PRR.

This final point is useful feedback. If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!

The exact numbers are dependent on many other values in the game, so getting +5 seconds may or may not make the difference for any particular character. It depends on if that means Cocoon keeps you alive, which depends on exactly how much you are getting hit for, as well as your overall total health and other healing sources and your class and destiny and items, etc. This is why we seek as many different playtesting results from Lamannia as we can get (and we appreciate videos from those who want to go that extra step).

[Pescha]

It depends on what you are talking about. Wikipedia is your friend. In our case, there is no ambiguity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_function

Regarding what function to use, remember that it probably has to keep in mind all the items and enhancements that provide PRR already in the game.

If it was for me, I would set 150PRR at around 40-50 % and then introduce increasing returns before that and decreasing returns afterwards

For instance, you could do it in the following way:


Step 1. Set a treshold PRR such that increasing returns stop and you move to decreasing returns: for instance, 150 PRR with damage taken of 40%.
Step 2. Choose a rate at which you want damage reduction to increase (and conversely, decrease) before and after the treshold. Say that before it is to the power of 1.25 and afterwards to the power of .75

Step 3. Solve for the values such that both function intersect at 150PRR = 40% damage taken.


You could use the functions: (PRR/a)^(1.25) and (PRR/b)^(0.75).

Now you need to solve for a and b such that both give 40 at 150. In the case of the first, it is a=7.84 something. In the second 1.09 something.

You gotta be joking, on lammanie those who are wearing heavy armor are mitigating way more incoming dmg than you think i have seen 0 dmg taken on ee difficulty this needs to be addressed for sure, on the other hand someone who is running around with outfits will take the same dmg as on live so it is basically heavy armor > pajama which makes your whole suggestion absurdly hilarious !

[Nayus]

You gotta be joking, on lammanie those who are wearing heavy armor are mitigating way more incoming dmg than you think i have seen 0 dmg taken on ee difficulty this needs to be addressed for sure, on the other hand someone who is running around with outfits will take the same dmg as on live so it is basically heavy armor > pajama which makes your whole suggestion absurdly hilarious !
EDIT: nvm nvm, ignore my post

[Lifespawn]

You gotta be joking, on lammanie those who are wearing heavy armor are mitigating way more incoming dmg than you think i have seen 0 dmg taken on ee difficulty this needs to be addressed for sure, on the other hand someone who is running around with outfits will take the same dmg as on live so it is basically heavy armor > pajama which makes your whole suggestion absurdly hilarious !


your posts convince me more and more that you have no idea what you are talking about

[Pescha]

your posts convince me more and more that you have no idea what you are talking about

You can't face the truth.

ps. i know what i am talking about see his statement where it reads : Now suppose you are comparing two builds. Build A has 100 PRR and build B has 200PRR. That is, build B has double the amount of PRR than build B. However, build B only has 1.5 more combat time than build A.

Now as it has been pointed out the crucial issue here is that it is easy for certain builds to reach high values of PRR but heavy armor wearers do not have much more PRR.

And thats just wrong, they have much more prr right now on lammania and it does absorb much more damage (even reducing it to zero occasionally, even on EE difficulty) than for someone who is running around in pajamas evading traps/incoming spells with little prr.

[Qhualor]

if heavy armor wearers are taking 0 damage on EE than do what the devs want us to do. that would be clearly not right and screenshots or videos would help a lot. its one thing to say you saw someone wearing heavy armor and taking 0 damage, its another to show proof. any videos ive watched i am not seeing anyone take little to no damage, but than again, ive only watched players trying to round up mobs for blitz.

[Pescha]

According to Eth :

Haven't read the thread completely, just want to leave my own impressions here.

Played around with a THF pure pally build in LD and DC.
I usually take EE Breaking the ranks of kind of a benchmark to test stuff on lammania.

Never before did I have such an easy time in there. First round - archer gnolls hit me for 0 damage (I wasn't even blocking) - on EE.
Giant round was super easy. On every other build I had to back off a lot to heal up and tackle giants 1 on 1 a bit, back off again etc.

On the pally? Roflstomp leftclick surrounded by 15 EE giants, healing every now and again, not even close to being in danger.

And with that defense you can still put out serious DPS. Completion time was a bit over 13 minutes and I wasn't even serious about completing it as fast as possible.

Overall I think those pally builds as they are now would take away to much of the risk that is in EE. It's to hard to die really and they make it simply to easy.
The damage mitigation is so huge that there's nothing that I could not outheal with ease.
Add the absurdely high damage output and you have a build that overshadows every other build.

I did test other builds on the current lammania release (TWF pure ranger, Int based and my current build from live servers 15ranger/4pally/1fighter) and they simply are lightyears behind that pally.

and yes i believe him i have seen many other reports about taking little to no dmg on EE.

[Mryal]

You can't face the truth.

ps. i know what i am talking about see his statement where it reads : Now suppose you are comparing two builds. Build A has 100 PRR and build B has 200PRR. That is, build B has double the amount of PRR than build B. However, build B only has 1.5 more combat time than build A.

Now as it has been pointed out the crucial issue here is that it is easy for certain builds to reach high values of PRR but heavy armor wearers do not have much more PRR.

And thats just wrong, they have much more prr right now on lammania and it does absorb much more damage (even reducing it to zero occasionally, even on EE difficulty) than for someone who is running around in pajamas evading traps/incoming spells with little prr.

When i ran EE's on lamania i reached those exact results he is describing.A group of mobs couldnt even bring me to half hp as a heavy armor character.As a light armor TWF ranger the exact same group of mobs demolished me in 2 seconds.That beign said a regular monk should have less PRR than a light armor ranger, specialy after the new changes.The prr/mrr on heavy armor felt god mode like, even on the new orchard EEs.Heavy armor + stances is giving too much,without sacrificing DPS.

[gwonbush]

If somebody is taking 0 damage from any attack, it isn't PRR that is causing it, but DR. Since DR is applied before PRR, this means that they would have taken 0 damage from that attack no matter their PRR.

In fact, PRR can't reduce meaningful damage to 0 at all. As it reduces the damage you take by a percentage, the only way you would take 0 damage is if it rounds down below 1. To reduce a 100 damage hit that low would require more than ten thousand PRR.

[Pescha]

If somebody is taking 0 damage from any attack, it isn't PRR that is causing it, but DR. Since DR is applied before PRR, this means that they would have taken 0 damage from that attack no matter their PRR.

In fact, PRR can't reduce meaningful damage to 0 at all. As it reduces the damage you take by a percentage, the only way you would take 0 damage is if it rounds down below 1. To reduce a 100 damage hit that low would require more than ten thousand PRR.

Near zero is still zero because you wouldn't feel a thing.

[Lifespawn]

You can't face the truth.

ps. i know what i am talking about see his statement where it reads : Now suppose you are comparing two builds. Build A has 100 PRR and build B has 200PRR. That is, build B has double the amount of PRR than build B. However, build B only has 1.5 more combat time than build A.

Now as it has been pointed out the crucial issue here is that it is easy for certain builds to reach high values of PRR but heavy armor wearers do not have much more PRR.

And thats just wrong, they have much more prr right now on lammania and it does absorb much more damage (even reducing it to zero occasionally, even on EE difficulty) than for someone who is running around in pajamas evading traps/incoming spells with little prr.


if the combat of a is 20 seconds 10 more seconds is a lot more time in the battle between healing or backing away

damage can never be zero from prr as dr hits then prr even 10 damage would still give you damage and 200 damage would still be noticeable

all that needs some tweaking is the numbers maybe 100 prr for only 30% mitigation or something If 200 is easily reachable

[Pescha]

if the combat of a is 20 seconds 10 more seconds is a lot more time in the battle between healing or backing away

damage can never be zero from prr as dr hits then prr even 10 damage would still give you damage and 200 damage would still be noticeable

all that needs some tweaking is the numbers maybe 100 prr for only 30% mitigation or something If 200 is easily reachable

Near zero is still zero if it is not noticeable in my opinion and thats not only me who is saying that.

[Thar]

This final point is useful feedback. If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!

The exact numbers are dependent on many other values in the game, so getting +5 seconds may or may not make the difference for any particular character. It depends on if that means Cocoon keeps you alive, which depends on exactly how much you are getting hit for, as well as your overall total health and other healing sources and your class and destiny and items, etc. This is why we seek as many different playtesting results from Lamannia as we can get (and we appreciate videos from those who want to go that extra step).

Light armor (not monks) are not too survivable. They get torn up in combat faster than cheese in a grater. Their only saving grace is evasion to limit the big spell damage hit. A small boost in prr is not saving them. They can't get AC high enough to be viable in EE for all but light armor tanks who barely do so (by barely i mean 70% miss chance at level). Rangers are at a big disadvantage melee'ing since tempest doesn't give enough AC/prr and no shield means they can't get benefits.

Too much is oh evasion is too uber... Those people mean improved evasion if they know it or not. Normal evasion requires max dex bonus + feats + enhancements/aug to get the best reflex save. Most other characters dont have a save in the 60s or know why you would want or need that.

Evasion is nice but it doesn't help you kill something. light armor melee still have to go up and hit something. that's where they don't do well and take the beating.

Heavy armor seemed fine on Lam, maybe too fine and needed some scaling back but it really was more on the overall boost to dps that caused stuff dieing too fast., but that's for you Dev's to decide if i run in EH or EE how fast do i drop without a heal. what damage are you shooting for being able to take per min.

[droid327]

We don't want a PRR system where characters have to be all-in or might as well give up on PRR completely.

...

If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!


I think, ideally, you'd have some dual-ended system where a little bit of PRR gives you a bit of defense, then there's a "plateau" of limited returns, before it accelerates again at the uppermost end to better reward heavy investment.

The problem is that the first maybe 25-35% of mitigation from PRR is too-low-hanging fruit. Everyone can get it for very low opportunity cost, which means they're not giving up Evasion or Dodge cap and they can run a class with Displacement (ie with ASF concerns), etc. Conversely, if you give up Evasion and Dodge and ASF and all that for full-on heavy armor and put all your eggs in the PRR/MRR basket, you're probably not gaining as much as you gave up compared to those builds.

Maybe heavy armor just needs to have the MDBs relaxed a little, so that its not such a dichotomy between high-Dodge, medium-PRR builds and low-Dodge, high-PRR builds? Or have more MDB bonuses added into Heavy Armor Tank-type enhancement trees? Not saying Heavies should hit 25 Dodge...but it probably needs to be more than 6.

The most EE-survivable build I played on Lama this cycle (which included heavy armor Paladins specced T5 in Sac Def) was my Swash Skirmisher. Full Dodge, Displacement, 10% Incorp and 40something% mitigation from PRR. Position management was the most important factor in mitigating damage after that...fight while slowly walking backwards so only 1-2 mobs can stay in melee range. She could hold her own against a full wave of Yuan-ti in EE DDtW. The paladin would quickly get overwhelmed by 4+ mobs in EE.

[Rull]

Our goal is getting players to understand how PRR works

If that is your goal, then you should really go with the 100 base + additional PRR (and make the formula 100/PRR. the only difference is your character sheet displays the '100 +' in the '100 / (100 + PRR)' formula)

Sev's example then becomes:
At 100 PRR (naked) I can fight for 10 seconds before I need a heal.
At 200 PRR I can fight for 20 seconds before I need a heal.
At 300 PRR I can fight for 30 seconds before I need a heal.
At 400 PRR I can fight for 40 seconds before I need a heal.


It's useful to point out this statement is not an inherent part of PRR. If instead you have 200 PRR (200 PRR => means it takes x3 time to die compared to 0 PRR), you need to reach 500 PRR to double your time to die (500 PRR => x6 multiplier for how long you live), or x2.5 more PRR, not x4 times as much. If you have 1500 PRR (x16 multiplier), you need 3100 PRR to double the time to die (x32 multiplier), which is barely more than x2, not x4. The reason the quoted example works is because it happened to pick 50 PRR for the example, but the strong statement isn't a feature built-in to PRR, and potentially confusing for people trying to understand how PRR works in general.

This disparity dissolves completely then, 50 PRR from an item means 150 PRR total so still 15 second time-to-heal, and you need another 150 (double) to double that to 30 seconds.

[Seljuck]

Actual prr values and curve have to be toned down, especially for heavy armored characters. How it is possible for pure fighter w/o shield to reach 60% + dmg absorption? Without too much investment in defense pure fighter run through EE like in EH on live. With this values ee for heavy armored characters can't offer any challenge.

Don't get me wrong please, I like idea of boosting melee survivability but it have to be done with caution. Right now we change one extreme (melee that die after 1-3 s of face to face fighting with single mob on ee) for another (same mob almost can't even scratch you).

[BigErkyKid]

We don't want a PRR system where characters have to be all-in or might as well give up on PRR completely. That mostly creates sometimes 90% of players don't care about, but we have to keep balancing around and making items and abilities (etc.) for instead of things that 90% of players want, and gets in the way. This is especially true for newer players or players who don't want to do all the math (and we care about all those players), and PRR should work for them. Getting more makes you take less damage, and it shouldn't be (almost) useless for players who don't have "enough".


This final point is useful feedback. If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!

The exact numbers are dependent on many other values in the game, so getting +5 seconds may or may not make the difference for any particular character. It depends on if that means Cocoon keeps you alive, which depends on exactly how much you are getting hit for, as well as your overall total health and other healing sources and your class and destiny and items, etc. This is why we seek as many different playtesting results from Lamannia as we can get (and we appreciate videos from those who want to go that extra step).

Alright, so moving on from the discussion on how to read PRR. My bad if I got caught on it.

First of all, just as a reminder for the discussion, the current change to PRR has done two things:

A. Increase the PRR given by armor.

B. Increase the amount of damage reduction per point of PRR (e.g. before at 100 PRR you took ~60% of damage and now you take 50%).

This has resulted in a buff to the survivability of all the builds that had PRR.

There are two concerns resulting from this:

1. The reduction in damage taken might be too high for a large number of builds (specially self healing), bringing the feeling that there is no "real danger of death".

2. That the pass has benefited more light armor / PJ than heavy armor, or at least has not brought an edge to heavy armor over light in terms of physical damage mitigation.


Now, on the first point:

PRR seems indeed very low hanging. For instance, the shadow plate armor alone, without enhancements boosting it, or any sort of additional item (or PL) is giving my paladin in Lama 75 PRR. This is a 42% damage reduction. Dragonhide armor is giving 29 PRR or 22% damage reduction. This means that a lot of builds can reach around 100PRR with a heavy armor and a PRR item (for instance, guardian's ring), which is a very minimal investment.

For pure paladins (currently perceived as the best melee build all around), sacred defense already boosts this to 100PRR and with an item and blitz I move up to 160. This is 56% less physical damage on a THF full DPS build. And we are talking about a first life character, PLs and what not can pile it up. Cetus has a video on his BF with 200PRR (33% damage taken) while on full DPS mode.

The bottom line is that the change in survivability for a lot of builds is quite dramatic. It has boosted their capacity to stay in combat by a lot. This has been enough to compensate for the damage reduction of blitz and people are finishing quests slightly faster than before. However, in this new context, the boost to damage reduction has decreased the feeling of danger since now heals are quite capable of keeping up with incoming damage without having to back jump too much. Before, in EE, most characters spent their time running around like headless chicken. A few mistakes or unlucky double strikes and you were out. I do not feel the same now.

The second point:

Arguably, the objective of the pass was to make heavy armor competitive. This is where I think that change B has sabotaged your efforts. On my multilife character copied to lama, pure paladin in blitz had ~170 PRR whereas my bard had ~140 PRR. A monk paladin splash was also over 100PRR while blitzing.

Early levels of PRR are easy too reach on certain builds (monk and swash splashes) while keeping evasion and dodge. Since the additional damage reduction of PRR is diminishing, this means that in physical damage reduction those builds are not very far. For instance, for the example of the paladin vs the bard, I have computed here the overall damage taken over time and the bard beats the paladin by 20%.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/447627-Update-23-Second-Look?p=5418759&viewfull=1#post5418759

This advantage of light armor / PJ over heavy armor is even bigger once you compare to other builds without access to defender trees.

For the sake of giving an example, using my numbers in the thread linked, in order for the paladin to have the same damage taken as the bard, it would have to get 233PRR. We all know that reaching very high levels of PRR means using a shield and probably going Unyielding, so the bottom line is that heavy armor builds (even those with easy access to PRR like the paladin) remain behind in terms of being able to take punishment. Specially if they want to remain competitive in terms of DPS.

Whether this is wrong or not is of course a design decision. How do you picture dodge characters? And heavy armor? Personally, what makes sense is that dodgers have better to be missed chance, but heavy armor has better capacity to take the damage that actually hits. At the very least, both type of builds should have equivalent (in expectation) damage taken. But this of course my not be the design goal of the devs.

[BigErkyKid]

PS - Something that I think could work is to abandon the pretention of having PRR in a formula.

Set the values of damage reduction that you want at certain PRR tresholds and then "connect the dots" for the PRR in between.

This allows you a lot more flexibility to accomplish your different goals (early PRR mattering, but crazy damage reduction not reached to soon, etc.)

I guess the devs already have in mind the sources of PRR. For instance, a pure caster is most likely getting at most 1 item and 1 enhancement, for a total of around 30-50 PRR. A heavy armored lad can get easily 100PRR. A more specialized defensive class goes up to 130-150 PRR. etc.

The other option is to bring back the hard caps to PRR.

[Scrabbler]

U23 Second Look Feedback Summary

I didn't play the first Lamannia u23 test, but I did some of the second one. Of system changes that were noticeable, they were almost all bad. Players have way too much defense, and also do too much damage, especially Paladins. The overall game challenge was already too low, meaning not only the chance for a player to win or lose a fight, but also the experience of winning it (the number of milliseconds of attacking before each monster dies, how long I can survive AFK mid-battle, what percentage of monsters can be a threat, etc).

It's baffling why they decided to take gameplay that was already "too soft" and make it globally softer. All I can figure is that a handful of specific combinations of character features were overpowered so they could do Epic Elite pretty easily, and instead of fixing the outliers they decided to boost all players in that direction, without noticing what it does to the rest of the game. Epic Elite was never supposed to be manageable, not for characters below level 35+. It existed as a "safety valve" so that players who happened to be too strong would have someplace to test their prowess, not something that everyone's entitled to beat.

If it were up to me, I would honestly cancel adding MMR, the new PPR formula, Paladin buffs, most of the defender tree. Since it's not, I'll probably quit for 6 months and then peek at how things have gone in u24.

[Scrabbler]

Hirelings
Hirelings now will very frequently turn off Stand Your Ground mode and start following you again. This is separate from a previous behavior, where they would walk a small distance away from the assigned point but remain in the mode in that area.


The hireling AI customization reveals some weird things, like the Bard15 hireling having a Raise Dead effect that I've never seen him use (and which is not a Bard spell).


There seems to be no way to click on the AI customization icons to cast the spell now, or to drag it to a hotbar. I know that's intentional, but it'd be more logical to have those features before getting into toggling automatic effects.


I did not try an Artificer to see if AI customization will allow you to turn off fire breath attacks. It would be quite a nice improvement if it does, because the fire breath is essentially like the dog activating crowd control on its own DPS.


The monsters found in Abbot Orchard give a good reminder that hirelings healers still don't try to help with negative levels. (They still cast Remove Blindness when you step in a fog, though...)

[Scrabbler]

u23 Paladin stuff


Paladins are further from balanced than they were previously. That is, in comparison to Fighter and Barbarian (the other heavy melee classes, meaning full BAB without Evasion or strong spellcasting), they're now more too high than they were previously too low.


The biggest thing missing from Paladins now is an aura to protect nearby allies from phyiscal attacks. That would be an obvious way to make the class better without piling on DPS. The AC aura used to do this, back in a different AC system. Since you probably won't fix the AC system, the aura needs something else (like PPR).


Holy Sword is very overpowered. We could tell it would be, but testing confirms. (Even after the +W effect was removed). Aside from being too strong in general, Holy Sword means that Paladins gain too much power from level 14, as opposed to each of levels 2-13 and 16-20.


For an ability called "Slayer of Evil" to do full damage to Neutral and Good opponents is very stupid.


It is stylistically bad for Paladins to do passive Light damage on every swing, and a bit bad for balance too. It should be Bane or Physical, or otherwise not flashy.


It is very bad for balance that Paladin Slayer of Evil damage applies to non-Evil enemies. It should not hurt non-Evil, and have extra damage when they are extra-evil (subtype).


The KOTC core3 Slayer of Evil blurb is redundant with the core2 blurb. Advancing Slayer of Evil in core2 looks like the pattern is off.


For the benefit of new players, Extra LOH enhancements should require LOH first.


I'm not much attracted to KOTC tier5. In a lot of classes players will rush to get tier5 enhancements as soon as they're level 12-13. But since I didn't have Beholders on the menu, I was pretty happy to wait and fill it in later. Overall that's because KOTC t5 doesn't include a single super-damage effect. The 10 melee power is pretty strong, but it's not as obvious an improvement as crit profile, and putting it behind Censure Demons just kinda hides the true purpose of the enhancement. Holy Retribution was non-attractive because it didn't refill a Smite (and because it would subtract Divine Might duration). Having the Harper tree to consume AP distracts from getting t5, because I can obtain even more meleepower over there (although not from just 1 enhancement). The more meleepower I have from elsewhere, the less important it is to get this 10 points.

[Scrabbler]

U23 MMR Conclusion

After trying it, it looks like adding MMR was a mistake.

The Problem That Was Faced: Heavy armor builds aren't attractive enough, because they prevent use of character features that reduce damage by a percent on a successful Reflex save, and by a different percent on a failed Reflex save.


A Straightforward Solution: Create some character features (in existing feats and new enhancements) which allow heavy armored characters to reduce damage by a percent on a successful Reflex save, and by a different percent on a failed Reflex save. (This aligns closely with the existing character feature, and doesn't stack with it, so it's easy to make them balanced)


A Complicated Non-Solution: Create a whole new stat, available from multiple new sources, which reduces damage by a rating and applies to most things with Reflex saves, and also lots of things without Reflex saves. And which doesn't work on some Reflex saves. Allow it to work in conjunction with existing percentage Reflex-damage reducers, but with stat sources being lessened according to armor category. (This works on a much broader set of effects than the old feature, and can stack with it, so it's hard to make them balanced).

Is it completely impossible to adjust MMR so it works acceptably? No, with enough effort and special-case rules it can be tweaked to fit. But it's not there yet, and the other approach would've been easier and more reliable. Right now Reflex-dump characters are too protected against Reflex attacks, characters in general are too protected against many non-Reflex attacks, and legacy energy defenses are integrated poorly. Wearing a big steel suit prevents Lighting Bolts, hurray.

[Dalnarac]

I have been reading most the post on the PRR math and it has been using 100 increments. I am hoping you are just doing this for simple math purposes. If I had 134 PRR, do I have a better benefit than 100 PRR?

[BigErkyKid]

I have been reading most the post on the PRR math and it has been using 100 increments. I am hoping you are just doing this for simple math purposes. If I had 134 PRR, do I have a better benefit than 100 PRR?

Yes.

[Rull]

u23 Paladin stuff
I'm not much attracted to KOTC tier5. In a lot of classes players will rush to get tier5 enhancements as soon as they're level 12-13. But since I didn't have Beholders on the menu, I was pretty happy to wait and fill it in later. Overall that's because KOTC t5 doesn't include a single super-damage effect. The 10 melee power is pretty strong, but it's not as obvious an improvement as crit profile, and putting it behind Censure Demons just kinda hides the true purpose of the enhancement. Holy Retribution was non-attractive because it didn't refill a Smite (and because it would subtract Divine Might duration). Having the Harper tree to consume AP distracts from getting t5, because I can obtain even more meleepower over there (although not from just 1 enhancement). The more meleepower I have from elsewhere, the less important it is to get this 10 points.[/list]

Well, crit profile is just very popular because it's effectively percentage-based and percentage damage is so strong. don't mistake MP for being weaker.

Especially on lvl12 the tier5 is very good.
Assuming for instance that you crit on 17-18-19-20/x3, and have 20 MP, 10 from 3 feats and 10 from Harper

you deal:
2-16 120% basedamage
17-20 360% basedamage
average 168% basedamage

+1 modifier on 19-20
2-16 120% basedamage
17-18 360% basedamage
19-20 480% basedamage
average 180% basedamage

but 10 more MP gives
2-16 130% basedamage
17-20 390% basedamage
average 180% basedamage
AND better light damage, much better damage vs 100% fort, better glancing blows, etc.

[DagazUlf]

This final point is useful feedback. If playing on Lamannia makes you feel that heavy armor wearers aren't getting enough defense and aren't really viable, we definitely want to hear that. Or if you think light and no armor builds are far too survivable and trivializing content without challenge or fun, that's also useful feedback. The two don't have to be directly related, of course. If your play convinces you Heavy Armor wearers are getting too much PRR, we want to hear that too. Also, if it's seems Just Right!

I primarily play a pure-class THF Fighter. Currently, I run him with light armor/high dodge/decent saves, on Live. On Lammy, I tried him out with Med. and Heavy armors to see if it was time to switch things up. The results I have from my perspective is that Med. definitely fared worse than Light and/or no armor, and Heavy was close but not any better than running him with Light armor.

Overall, it's still much improved over what we have on Live currently, but I think a little tweak upwards might be warranted. It still seems far more advantageous to go light or unarmored.

Thanks.

[Scrabbler]

My one big U23 question for the designers:

Why did you decide that all monsters throughout the game should be less dangerous and much faster to kill?

[Scrabbler]

The results I have from my perspective is that Med. definitely fared worse than Light and/or no armor, and Heavy was close but not any better than running him with Light armor.
Can you give the numbers for Dodge and PPR reduction you had for each of the armor categories? Multiplying each pair together would give a fast look at which is theoretically better.

[Severlin]

My one big U23 question for the designers:

Why did you decide that all monsters throughout the game should be less dangerous and much faster to kill?

You mean on builds that were underperforming? Because we players to have more build choices.

Sev~

[UurlockYgmeov]

You mean on builds that were underperforming? Because we players to have more build choices.

Sev~

less dangerous, faster to kill for some builds - some builds aren't threatened by much already.

[Scrabbler]

Trap XP

The release notes say that the XP bonus for disarming traps is increased. I don't understand why; it was already attractive for people to stop and disarm, even when the trap had zero threat as an obstacle. In fact, trap XP had already been cited as a good reason to take 1-2 Rogue levels on a TR character.

[Scrabbler]

You mean on builds that were underperforming? Because we players to have more build choices.
1. I mean on all builds, including the ones that were already on the higher end. The ones who benefited from PPR, MMR, and Meleepower include not just S&B Fighters, but Monk Ninjas and Caster Blasters too.

2. An answer of "class balance" or "build balance" was expected. But this is a classic example of nerf refusal: by buffing most all kinds of characters, they are now universally overpowered compared to the monsters. So now are you going to go through and buff every single monster and trap, anywhere in the game?

3. The goal of "build balance" was not achieved, as a quick look at the Barbarian capstones will remind us. Predicted reply: "Barbarians will be in U25". Yeah, but it would've been better to fix the glaring problems in existing systems before creating whole new systems.

[Qhualor]

Trap XP

The release notes say that the XP bonus for disarming traps is increased. I don't understand why; it was already attractive for people to stop and disarm, even when the trap had zero threat as an obstacle. In fact, trap XP had already been cited as a good reason to take 1-2 Rogue levels on a TR character.

In my experience its a hit or miss. If there were traps between the start of the quest to the end of the quest, a trapper would sometimes disarm them. A lot of groups dont bother with side passageways to get the extra trap bonus like say Rainbow. Its actually rare to see groups specifically looking for a trapper, even in my daily Von 3s. If someone does get the traps, they are usually left behind. There are few traps I actually see groups pausing for the trapper instead of just running through them.

This boost to trap xp might get some to slow down for the extra xp, but I doubt it will change most how they run quests. Traps need to be more deadly to get players to care more.

[BigErkyKid]

3. The goal of "build balance" was not achieved, as a quick look at the Barbarian capstones will remind us. Predicted reply: "Barbarians will be in U25". Yeah, but it would've been better to fix the glaring problems in existing systems before creating whole new systems.

My problem with balancing one at a time is that it has resulted in FOTM builds.

Bard swash was arguably one of the top classes, specially because with very little grind you could have a fantastic character for all kinds of content. It packed heals, massive PDS (SWF plus swash), self casted displacement.

Now paladin is better than bard offensively (THF is king now with twitching, plus holy sword) and only behind defensively (but since overall defenses have become a bit of an overkill in this Lama update, it is not so crucial).

Do we have to expect next update to have barbarians better than paladins?

If you had updated paladin and bard at the same time, people would have complained that one was better than the other. Because bard was passed alone, most of us just let it go with a: "meh, bards deserve love even if it is too much".

But now I personally worry that this is a trend, that every update will make king the class revised.

[Severlin]

1. I mean on all builds, including the ones that were already on the higher end. The ones who benefited from PPR, MMR, and Meleepower include not just S&B Fighters, but Monk Ninjas and Caster Blasters too.


One of the top concerns for players was that melee damage on Epic Elite was too high. This comes from player feedback. The PRR buff addresses that particular issue.



2. An answer of "class balance" or "build balance" was expected. But this is a classic example of nerf refusal: by buffing most all kinds of characters, they are now universally overpowered compared to the monsters. So now are you going to go through and buff every single monster and trap, anywhere in the game?


Our buffs address specific feedback from players in the balance threads and ongoing player communication.



3. The goal of "build balance" was not achieved, as a quick look at the Barbarian capstones will remind us. Predicted reply: "Barbarians will be in U25". Yeah, but it would've been better to fix the glaring problems in existing systems before creating whole new systems.

It is not our plan to balance the entire game at one time. We are balancing things in the order that players have reported to us that they need fixed. Trying to balance more than the large amount we already are would introduce too much change and risk in the system at one time. It would also make updates much too infrequent. If we dropped updates to every 6-9 months we would lose players.

Sev~

[Rull]

1. I mean on all builds, including the ones that were already on the higher end. The ones who benefited from PPR, MMR, and Meleepower include not just S&B Fighters, but Monk Ninjas and Caster Blasters too.

2. An answer of "class balance" or "build balance" was expected. But this is a classic example of nerf refusal: by buffing most all kinds of characters, they are now universally overpowered compared to the monsters. So now are you going to go through and buff every single monster and trap, anywhere in the game?

3. The goal of "build balance" was not achieved, as a quick look at the Barbarian capstones will remind us. Predicted reply: "Barbarians will be in U25". Yeah, but it would've been better to fix the glaring problems in existing systems before creating whole new systems.

Even when you increase difficulty accordingly (I still have hope that you will)... when 2 builds are better than 50 others, sometimes it really is better to nerf the 2.
Now we have 6 builds that are good and 56 left behind.
Barbarian pass will make that 7 versus 55. Yay.

Okay, a lot of melee builds were improved to being close to competative, but other builds have fallen behind comperatively even more Like ranged non-furyshot (the sad joke that is artificer needs attention way more than barb now), many kinds of hybrid between spell and melee damage, etc.

[Seikojin]

PS - Something that I think could work is to abandon the pretention of having PRR in a formula.

Set the values of damage reduction that you want at certain PRR tresholds and then "connect the dots" for the PRR in between.

This allows you a lot more flexibility to accomplish your different goals (early PRR mattering, but crazy damage reduction not reached to soon, etc.)

I guess the devs already have in mind the sources of PRR. For instance, a pure caster is most likely getting at most 1 item and 1 enhancement, for a total of around 30-50 PRR. A heavy armored lad can get easily 100PRR. A more specialized defensive class goes up to 130-150 PRR. etc.

The other option is to bring back the hard caps to PRR.

I think having the hard caps is the best idea. This is why I mentioned having it on Lam before making a design decision. They could have adjusted caps based on feedback. Instead we had a huge uproar to it before it hit test, it got removed, and now everyone is powered up significantly and they are asking for a nerf. Seriously. People need to give feedback on actual test. Look at Cetus. Went crazy about the blitz changes, and in the last round spun 180 after actually testing it.


U23 Second Look Feedback Summary

I didn't play the first Lamannia u23 test, but I did some of the second one. Of system changes that were noticeable, they were almost all bad. Players have way too much defense, and also do too much damage, especially Paladins. The overall game challenge was already too low, meaning not only the chance for a player to win or lose a fight, but also the experience of winning it (the number of milliseconds of attacking before each monster dies, how long I can survive AFK mid-battle, what percentage of monsters can be a threat, etc).

It's baffling why they decided to take gameplay that was already "too soft" and make it globally softer. All I can figure is that a handful of specific combinations of character features were overpowered so they could do Epic Elite pretty easily, and instead of fixing the outliers they decided to boost all players in that direction, without noticing what it does to the rest of the game. Epic Elite was never supposed to be manageable, not for characters below level 35+. It existed as a "safety valve" so that players who happened to be too strong would have someplace to test their prowess, not something that everyone's entitled to beat.

If it were up to me, I would honestly cancel adding MMR, the new PPR formula, Paladin buffs, most of the defender tree. Since it's not, I'll probably quit for 6 months and then peek at how things have gone in u24.

They should put a hard PRR/MRR cap favoring heavy armors to get the best benefit. This way evasion has its place and non-evasion has its place. Given self healing, heavy armor should be viable even if at a more restricted amount than currently on Lam.

In a perfect world we would have healer roles and tank roles, etc. So I personally don't mind if my solo player runs require me to have a hireling if I run elite.


u23 Paladin stuff


Paladins are further from balanced than they were previously. That is, in comparison to Fighter and Barbarian (the other heavy melee classes, meaning full BAB without Evasion or strong spellcasting), they're now more too high than they were previously too low.


The biggest thing missing from Paladins now is an aura to protect nearby allies from phyiscal attacks. That would be an obvious way to make the class better without piling on DPS. The AC aura used to do this, back in a different AC system. Since you probably won't fix the AC system, the aura needs something else (like PPR).


Holy Sword is very overpowered. We could tell it would be, but testing confirms. (Even after the +W effect was removed). Aside from being too strong in general, Holy Sword means that Paladins gain too much power from level 14, as opposed to each of levels 2-13 and 16-20.


For an ability called "Slayer of Evil" to do full damage to Neutral and Good opponents is very stupid.


It is stylistically bad for Paladins to do passive Light damage on every swing, and a bit bad for balance too. It should be Bane or Physical, or otherwise not flashy.


It is very bad for balance that Paladin Slayer of Evil damage applies to non-Evil enemies. It should not hurt non-Evil, and have extra damage when they are extra-evil (subtype).


The KOTC core3 Slayer of Evil blurb is redundant with the core2 blurb. Advancing Slayer of Evil in core2 looks like the pattern is off.


For the benefit of new players, Extra LOH enhancements should require LOH first.


I'm not much attracted to KOTC tier5. In a lot of classes players will rush to get tier5 enhancements as soon as they're level 12-13. But since I didn't have Beholders on the menu, I was pretty happy to wait and fill it in later. Overall that's because KOTC t5 doesn't include a single super-damage effect. The 10 melee power is pretty strong, but it's not as obvious an improvement as crit profile, and putting it behind Censure Demons just kinda hides the true purpose of the enhancement. Holy Retribution was non-attractive because it didn't refill a Smite (and because it would subtract Divine Might duration). Having the Harper tree to consume AP distracts from getting t5, because I can obtain even more meleepower over there (although not from just 1 enhancement). The more meleepower I have from elsewhere, the less important it is to get this 10 points.

The holy sword is to align pally with swash in terms of mechanic. The ability to increase threat range and multiplier for their favored weapons of that class. Since it doesn't stack with everything, it is balanced to be strong. Which is good. You have to use the spell slot and cast it, so that is good.

I agree that instead of light damage they should do bane or physical with their passive abilities. If physical, have it be low and scale by melee power. If they want to stick to bane, have bane scale with alignment power. Which brings me to evil... Paladins are the zealots of a narrow worldview (stylistically in lore). Think of the Children of the light from Wheel of Time. They considered everyone servants of the dark. So even those with one step of alignment different than them... Evil. So I think it could and would be fine for their anti-evil things to work on everything except lawful good. It would make more sense if Pallys were limited to chaotic good.


U23 MMR Conclusion

After trying it, it looks like adding MMR was a mistake.

The Problem That Was Faced: Heavy armor builds aren't attractive enough, because they prevent use of character features that reduce damage by a percent on a successful Reflex save, and by a different percent on a failed Reflex save.


A Straightforward Solution: Create some character features (in existing feats and new enhancements) which allow heavy armored characters to reduce damage by a percent on a successful Reflex save, and by a different percent on a failed Reflex save. (This aligns closely with the existing character feature, and doesn't stack with it, so it's easy to make them balanced)


A Complicated Non-Solution: Create a whole new stat, available from multiple new sources, which reduces damage by a rating and applies to most things with Reflex saves, and also lots of things without Reflex saves. And which doesn't work on some Reflex saves. Allow it to work in conjunction with existing percentage Reflex-damage reducers, but with stat sources being lessened according to armor category. (This works on a much broader set of effects than the old feature, and can stack with it, so it's hard to make them balanced).

Is it completely impossible to adjust MMR so it works acceptably? No, with enough effort and special-case rules it can be tweaked to fit. But it's not there yet, and the other approach would've been easier and more reliable. Right now Reflex-dump characters are too protected against Reflex attacks, characters in general are too protected against many non-Reflex attacks, and legacy energy defenses are integrated poorly. Wearing a big steel suit prevents Lighting Bolts, hurray.

I think the idea of PRR and MRR is just fine. This is a scalable solution for damage mitigation. So they can have you take damage in low levels and high levels get softened proportionately. However I think light/no armor builds get a huge benefit versus medium and heavy armor users. Caps for light and no armor users is the best solution to balance that disparity, and if heavy and medium armors are too good, give them a cap.

[Seikojin]

1. I mean on all builds, including the ones that were already on the higher end. The ones who benefited from PPR, MMR, and Meleepower include not just S&B Fighters, but Monk Ninjas and Caster Blasters too.

2. An answer of "class balance" or "build balance" was expected. But this is a classic example of nerf refusal: by buffing most all kinds of characters, they are now universally overpowered compared to the monsters. So now are you going to go through and buff every single monster and trap, anywhere in the game?

3. The goal of "build balance" was not achieved, as a quick look at the Barbarian capstones will remind us. Predicted reply: "Barbarians will be in U25". Yeah, but it would've been better to fix the glaring problems in existing systems before creating whole new systems.

Just as a friendly sideline fyi: Editing game code and fixing it after it has been deployed takes 10 times the resources to make any given change. So from the get go, any change takes a huge amount of time and money to make. After deployment of a product, you have to find the best return on that change. If adding MRR makes a huge return of pallys and heavy armors to the battlefield, and takes less time than to adjust the core system, then it is going to happen that way.

[Scrabbler]

One of the top concerns for players was that melee damage on Epic Elite was too high. This comes from player feedback. The PRR buff addresses that particular issue.
So EE damage was too high, but instead of reducing EE damage, let's reduce HC damage, HN damage, HE damage, EN damage, EH damage, and EE damage. I wonder how many players were concerned that HN and EN was too high...



It is not our plan to balance the entire game at one time.
A look at some alternate MMORPGs indicates doing it as an entirety leads to better balance results. True, the ones I'm thinking of have a higher staffing budget... but it comes down to the efforts of a single boss designer.



We are balancing things in the order that players have reported to us that they need fixed.
Hmm, well, it's a little bad for designers to act like a democracy. The "voters" have ulterior motives and are mostly much less expertise. But let's not get into that...

Consider it reported that Monk Mystic Training needs a 15% bonus to staff speed :)


It would also make updates much too infrequent.
It's hard to understand why changing the values of certain numbers in certain core enhancements would take so many days. Swapping 1d20 with 1d8, etc. It's true that doing easy, low-effort changes might not necessarily be a sufficient fix... but it'd have a chance of working, which is better than nothing.

[Dagolar]

One of the top concerns for players was that melee damage on Epic Elite was too high. This comes from player feedback. The PRR buff addresses that particular issue.



Our buffs address specific feedback from players in the balance threads and ongoing player communication.



It is not our plan to balance the entire game at one time. We are balancing things in the order that players have reported to us that they need fixed. Trying to balance more than the large amount we already are would introduce too much change and risk in the system at one time. It would also make updates much too infrequent. If we dropped updates to every 6-9 months we would lose players.

Sev~


Epic Elite is SUPPOSED to be a difficult challenge- the hover text for the difficulty even says as much.
For the first time in years, Elite really felt challenging.
I just hope this update doesn't remove that-
Lets compare (live servers):
EN What Goes Up: Can be soloed by a level 23 toon.
EH What Goes Up: Requires a reasonably functional party, with good teamwork, power, or level range.
EE What Goes Up: Requires multiple of the above, and is still a challenge regardless [and if you have well built, high level toons with good teamwork, you can manage it relatively smoothly, but with just a dash of risk of danger]. [*Ignoring invisibility running and other exploits in this.]

There are balancing flaws, especially for certain builds, yes.
But the per-difficulty balance (with the possible exception of EN being ridiculously easy) is good.

Honestly, once you get further along (with TR/ER, or end-gear), EEs (on live) are already a smidge too easy. Not enough to invite argument by any but the most hardcore powergamers or TR-Spammed toons; but enough that decreasing the challenge further will completely negate the challenge of EEs, to the point that they'll be swapped in for the current EH runs.

We've already seen this problem with heroic runs, with basically noone (except newer players and casual solo players and the like) playing anything but elite.
Unlike epic quests, heroic quests never got a pass, and have remained horribly underbalanced in regards to all the mechanic changes over the past few years [In terms of soloability, HE, relative to level, is generally a bit easier on a toon than EH- and a lot of the challenge present is due mostly to elite trap scaling (which is good)].

Not that I mind being able to reliably get that elite xp on TR runs~

Just pointing out that's probably not the atmosphere level-based end-game should have.

[Rys]

You mean on builds that were underperforming? Because we players to have more build choices.

Sev~

Define underperforming. Speaking of paladins I have seen a few pretty awsome ones on live. Undestructable tanks. Yeah, maybe you don't need any tanks today, you can say, but imo you shouldn't have acces to god mode deffensive abilities and god mode offensive abilities in the same time (as it is now on Lammania). You have to choose either one: be great in deffensive OR be great in offensive OR be average in both.


One of the top concerns for players was that melee damage on Epic Elite was too high. This comes from player feedback. The PRR buff addresses that particular issue.

I disagree. First of all it is Epic Elite. It should be difficult. And other than the threat of melee damage from mobs what other challenge in Epic Elite we get on live now? I can say you it is not beating 200k hp mob with autoattack on and cooking dinner in the meantime. I loved the Stormhorns in the time of release but by now it is discredited by all the power creep and unfortunately there is nothing challenging in that pack anymore.



Our buffs address specific feedback from players in the balance threads and ongoing player communication.

Forum whiners ftw. /sigh

[Vargouille]

I have been reading most the post on the PRR math and it has been using 100 increments. I am hoping you are just doing this for simple math purposes. If I had 134 PRR, do I have a better benefit than 100 PRR?

Yes. The math scales across each point of PRR, it's just simpler to use round numbers for examples.

[Severlin]

However I think light/no armor builds get a huge benefit versus medium and heavy armor users. Caps for light and no armor users is the best solution to balance that disparity, and if heavy and medium armors are too good, give them a cap.

We are planning to reduce the MRR caps; no armor will cap at 50 and light armor will cap at 100. We are avoiding capping PRR for now, but we have considered it.

Sev~

[TPICKRELL]

We are planning to reduce the MRR caps; no armor will cap at 50 and light armor will cap at 100. We are avoiding capping PRR for now, but we have considered it.

Sev~

I and others have spent a lot of time farming out Divine and PDK past lives for PRR. It would be very unfair to limit the value of that PRR after the fact. So, if you do put a limit on PRR, consider either make it sufficiently high that normal PRR sources +past lives can fit, or make the past lives increase the cap.

[Thar]

You mean on builds that were underperforming? Because we players to have more build choices.

Sev~

He probably is talking about the melee power boost. If he's talking about pally's or sword/board tanks he never played one...

[Severlin]

One thing that's messing up our mitigation balance testing; (as players have reported) DR and energy resistance are being subtracted from damage after it is being reduced by PRR and MRR. That wasn't our intent as it makes those abilities far more powerful; the buffs to PRR are also effectively boosting the relative power of straight subtracted damage effects. We are discussing that internally.

Sev~

[Thar]

One of the top concerns for players was that melee damage on Epic Elite was too high. This comes from player feedback. The PRR buff addresses that particular issue.



Our buffs address specific feedback from players in the balance threads and ongoing player communication.



It is not our plan to balance the entire game at one time. We are balancing things in the order that players have reported to us that they need fixed. Trying to balance more than the large amount we already are would introduce too much change and risk in the system at one time. It would also make updates much too infrequent. If we dropped updates to every 6-9 months we would lose players.

Sev~

the original guy is just mad that he is getting buffed and monks are not. or if he is a monk player that he isn't getting the coolness prr/mrr. keep on with tha balancing. Everyone should be able to have fun too.

[Thar]

We are planning to reduce the MRR caps; no armor will cap at 50 and light armor will cap at 100. We are avoiding capping PRR for now, but we have considered it.

Sev~

prr cap would be bad since you can get 36 past life and 30+ from items + armor. melee need this damage reduction. all melee (even the monk haters).

[maddong]

You mean on builds that were underperforming? Because we players to have more build choices.

Sev~

We finally realized that you can't balance things around keeping blitzers at 250 MP.

I think the next realization is that you can't balance things around a paladin arcane archer doing 20k damage without helpless from slayer arrow damage only on a single manyshot adrenaline volley (250 x 4 x 5 x 4) to everything in its path (easy to add helpless with pin). That is overpowered both on a single target and with IPS.

You can't balance things around unlimited chain missiles with full spell power shiradi procs. I think this is mainly overpowered due to temporary mana boosts.

You can't balance things around ranged attacks builds that have increased their ROF to almost the same rate as melee but also get their dex bonus added twice as two separate doubleshot chances to every target in front of them. This is mainly overpowered because of IPS.

You can't balance things around wolves that get 30% attack speed from wolf form, 30% from SWF, 100% offhand, and high doublestrike.

If you do balance things around those outliers then there isn't any challenge to the game.
Everything that should be nerfed should be nerfed at once. Give the player base free +20 hearts to make up for it.

If those outliers are fixed then you need to be very careful with the MP/PRR/MRR that you hand out.

[bbqzor]

We are planning to reduce the MRR caps; no armor will cap at 50 and light armor will cap at 100. We are avoiding capping PRR for now, but we have considered it.

Why? Why make no armor so much lower than light armor? They have the exact same evasion mechanics available (both regular and improved). There is no reason for them to be artificially capped in a worse position defensively. They already have less sources of MRR available (no boost from armor and similar), why be so strict about ensuring they never reach as high?

I can get perhaps wanting to stop "robe casters" from matching "armored tempests" or something like that, but theres no reason monks or simply high dex armorless evasion rogues/druids/etc should also be pigeonholed like this. None. Any response akin to "players thought it was too much"... its completely invalid. I am tired of jealousy resulting in biased feedback against different classes. So what if a monk can use MRR like a rogue... how is that any kind of problem?

You have made a VERY clear divide that MRR and Evasion are two sides of the same coin, and with all of your changes this pass (from armor bonuses, to shield proficiency and evasion permission changes, to PrE based sources of MRR, etc) have supported that. This divide does NOT make sense in the context of two different MRR caps. It serves no purpose but arbitrary limitation.

You have created two populations, Evasion and No-Evasion. There are PRR differences pertaining to armor types and the sourcing of various bonuses which result in a good distribution of ability across that curve. The MRR bonuses have only a passing relation, with some of their value derived from similar sources. But mechanically, MRR and Evasion are tied, and there is no reason to punish a subset of the evasion population with a smaller cap.

Show even one case where this was needed to result in balanced play. I doubt such a case exists, and instead people are simply reacting over envy. I strongly hope it is reconsidered.


One thing that's messing up our mitigation balance testing; (as players have reported) DR and energy resistance are being subtracted from damage after it is being reduced by PRR and MRR. That wasn't our intent as it makes those abilities far more powerful; the buffs to PRR are also effectively boosting the relative power of straight subtracted damage effects. We are discussing that internally.

I just tested the DR/PRR order last week. I did not see what is being claimed here. When I tested, it was the following order:
- Mob hits you, DR is subtracted, PRR is applied to the remainder, you take damage.

This was tested very thoroughly and held true across multiple cases. If anyone is seeing something different (ie, prr first, then dr) I would request a detailed description of what mobs/situation you were using, which sources of dr, what order it was equipped or applied in, etc. It is possible there is some bearing on the situation or order of actions which is affecting results.

I used no dr sources except Shadow Guard Docent, being hit with melee attacks (mob swings) and ranged attacks (mob archers), with PRR swapping after the docent was on to generate a range of test values (so docent equipped first). I equipped DR first, saw DR applied first, and it worked consistently across a variety of attacks etc.

I did not test energy resistance, but for "since I can remember" its always been:
- Nuke hits you, protection is subtracted and/or resist is subtracted, absorb is applied to the remainder, you take damage.

If that changed, I have no idea why, but Ill admit that one I have not tested in years. It probably relates to MRR, now that I think about it, that I didnt look into.

If you can provide more information on either of these Sev I can test. Just post it.

[B0ltdrag0n]

One thing that's messing up our mitigation balance testing; (as players have reported) DR and energy resistance are being subtracted from damage after it is being reduced by PRR and MRR. That wasn't our intent as it makes those abilities far more powerful; the buffs to PRR are also effectively boosting the relative power of straight subtracted damage effects. We are discussing that internally.

Sev~

This is good I look forward to hearing what you conclude from this.

[Severlin]

I just tested the DR/PRR order last week. I did not see what is being claimed here. When I tested, it was the following order:
- Mob hits you, DR is subtracted, PRR is applied to the remainder, you take damage.

This was tested very thoroughly and held true across multiple cases. If anyone is seeing something different (ie, prr first, then dr) I would request a detailed description of what mobs/situation you were using, which sources of dr, what order it was equipped or applied in, etc. It is possible there is some bearing on the situation or order of actions which is affecting results.

I used no dr sources except Shadow Guard Docent, being hit with melee attacks (mob swings) and ranged attacks (mob archers), with PRR swapping after the docent was on to generate a range of test values (so docent equipped first). I equipped DR first, saw DR applied first, and it worked consistently across a variety of attacks etc.

I did not test energy resistance, but for "since I can remember" its always been:
- Nuke hits you, protection is subtracted and/or resist is subtracted, absorb is applied to the remainder, you take damage.

If that changed, I have no idea why, but Ill admit that one I have not tested in years. It probably relates to MRR, now that I think about it, that I didnt look into.

If you can provide more information on either of these Sev I can test. Just post it.

Thanks for the feedback. I will look into whether the issue was only energy resistance and MRR, or it was also an issue with DR and PRR.

Sev~

[Rull]

One of the top concerns for players was that melee damage on Epic Elite was too high. This comes from player feedback. The PRR buff addresses that particular issue.

In my opinion, the problem was never that melee characters took too much damage but the damage that non-melee players receive in endgame was too low. Melees weren't popular because some builds did more damage AND were near-invulnerable by just staying out of melee range.

Then there was also a problem that people who did level16 quests on elite when they were 18 on their first life toon also expect to do level26 quests on elite at level 28 on their first life with the same ease.
At the same time it was said that the endgame in general in DDO is soloable and too easy.
The fact that the same EE that new players expect to beat is the endgame we have is the problem. This is partly a problem of created expectancy due to the normal-hard-elite naming format.

These two problems combined may have led to people asking for less melee damage in EE quests, but just answering the calls without looking at a bigger picture does not necessarily make the game better.

[Scrabbler]

One thing that's messing up our mitigation balance testing; (as players have reported) DR and energy resistance are being subtracted from damage after it is being reduced by PRR and MRR. That wasn't our intent as it makes those abilities far more powerful
Putting aside the question of total defense available, the Energy Resist and DR things needed help being more powerful. Because in general and prior to this PPR/MMR buff, they were pretty weak and often forgettable; certainly weaker than they should've been compared to their placement in various class features.

But then again, there were different sources of DR added in different eras... old Barbarian DR, and eventually recent shadow-armor DR which was designed under the assumption that Epic Elite monsters are hitting for hundreds per swing.


PS. If it was up to me, all Energy Resistance effects would also provide MMR against the matching energy type (and other sources of MMR would be lowered). That would help solve the problem of enhancements that give +6 energy resist, which is kinda useful at level 2 but a silly joke at level 20 (whereas a low-level 3% Dodge enhancement stays useful in high levels)

[Scrabbler]

We are planning to reduce the MRR caps; no armor will cap at 50 and light armor will cap at 100. We are avoiding capping PRR for now, but we have considered it.
Cappable stats in RPGs are preferably avoided, as they tend to lead to player behavior that is weird and counterintuitive. A stat cap creates the situation where gaining a kind of buff can be highly important, except when you have enough of it and it has zero importance thenceforth.

Better to have a soft cap / diminishing returns, where additional investment has less value over a certain point, but never becomes worthless. For example, you might want heavy armor to gain 100% of MMR increases while Med gets 75% and Light gets 50%.

(Although I'd prefer detaching MMR from armor entirely, greatly lowering the total MMR possible)

[CaptainSpacePony]

One thing that's messing up our mitigation balance testing; (as players have reported) DR and energy resistance are being subtracted from damage after it is being reduced by PRR and MRR. That wasn't our intent as it makes those abilities far more powerful; the buffs to PRR are also effectively boosting the relative power of straight subtracted damage effects. We are discussing that internally.

Sev~
The way some other games address this is to apply the flat reduction (resistance, DR) prior to the % reduction. It does greatly nerf DR, but it wasn't all that hot anyway.

[J-mann]

Thanks for the feedback. I will look into whether the issue was only energy resistance and MRR, or it was also an issue with DR and PRR.

Sev~

I always thought it should be in this order, otherwise our dr sources just havent kept up with the times. On the prr argument, lets look at a real world example, a cloth monk, 20% blur, 10% ghostly, 25 dodge, and 100 prr (pretty respectable) vs a heavy with 20% blur, 10% ghostly 5 dodge, and 200 prr. Assume 100 hits for 100 damage, discount ac for now:
Cloth:
55 of the hits are avoided by percent defences, leave:

45*100damage= 4500 damage*50% dr form prr=2250 damage

Heavy:
65 hits get through:
65*100=6500*100/(100+200)=2166.67 damage.

Those numbers are all fairly reasonable, and as we can see, the heavy build DOES take less damage than the cloth, and as a plus it is far less spiky than the monk build. Another point to examine is that just equiping heavy armor should NOT mean you automatically take less damage over time than a cloth build, it should depend on your role. A dps heavy armor and a dps cloth SHOULD take nearly the same damage over an extended period of time, unless we want to let cloth dps greatly out match your heavy armor, and I dont think thats what we want now is it?

The difference between heavy armor and cloth should be the method of mitigation, not the numbers. Cloth should be an avoidance based with enough dr to not get one shot, and heavy should be dr based.

Ps. Sev is right, so many of you do not understand percentil mechanics. 1% point increase means nothing if you do not know your starting point. 0-1% increase in dr is a 1% drop in damage taken, however, a 98-99% increase is a 50% decrease in damage taken. In another game I had played the devs ran into this problem in trying to balance various classes tanks. The upper ends of mitigation had gotten so high that while all classes were withing 2 percentage points of each other, some classes too up to 20% more damage than the best because mitigation values had gotten so high, making it impossible to balance around.

[J-mann]

In my opinion, the problem was never that mob melee damage in endgame was too high, but the non-melee damage in endgame was too low. Melees weren't popular because some builds did more damage AND were near-invulnerable by just staying out of melee range.

Then there was also a problem that people who did level16 quests on elite when they were 18 on their first life toon also expect to do level26 quests on elite at level 28 on their first life with the same ease.
At the same time it was said that the endgame in general in DDO is soloable and too easy.
The fact that the same EE that new players expect to beat is the endgame we have is the problem. This is partly a problem of created expectancy due to the normal-hard-elite naming format.

These two problems combined may have led to people asking for less melee damage in EE quests, but just answering the calls without looking at a bigger picture does not necessarily make the game better.

In a way, you are correct. However, increasing ranged damage might hurt ranged builds some, it will sink all melee builds instantly. Just imagine the ambush in friends in low places if archers were hitting for 100-200 each, melee (who tend to get initial aggro anyways) would be insta fried.

[J-mann]

The way some other games address this is to apply the flat reduction (resistance, DR) prior to the % reduction. It does greatly nerf DR, but it wasn't all that hot anyway.

This is how resistance and dr work on live. It also makes dr realatively useless in ee unless you have numbers like the shadow scale provide.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

We are planning to reduce the MRR caps; no armor will cap at 50 and light armor will cap at 100. We are avoiding capping PRR for now, but we have considered it.

Sev~

good.

you also really should cap prr depending on armor type. otherwise whats the point of buffing it? can you shed any light on that aspect of the pass (which you originally were rolling with but changed) that im not seeing?


i think heavy armor being great melee defense for a while will be good for the game. it will give all players a chance to get real hands on experience on live over a longer period of time with more builds. i think what this will show (at least im assuming it will based on the heavy armor lam videos ive seen) these changes dont really help the situation between tanks and dpsers defensively (tank can get better defenses, but its just not needed anywhere. especially when you can get by with a bit less defense and not have to trade ddos kingpin stat: dps) and will provide a clearly superior option in mitigating physical damage taken. you will take less damage per hit, still be able to benefit from displacement, some incorp, and a bit of dodge. ultimate effect? a greater percentage of your defense is coming from just getting hit more for less. so we have less spike damage. which means you arent punished as much for bad/lazy melee maneuvering, to such a degree that with sufficient self heals (too easy to reach the point of sufficient self heals, but thats a different problem) you will be able to just snooze through everything waking up occasionally to heal yourself.

so what i see to be the issue with this is that melee dps will benefit from prr too much at no significant cost, and melee tanks will not benefit enough from prr and will still not generally bring enough dps/threat gen to the table to earn *their own role* in raids 100% of the time (dragon kiters anybody? yea you know who the real tanks are.). so once these changes have gone live and you can get lots of real feedback on this, you can change the curve to be a bit less rewarding the less you have in it, and a bit-a good bit more rewarding the more you have in it. why would this be a good thing? could possibly at some points in time eliminate the need for an arbitrary prr cap on some armor types. if melees are speccing for dps, why should they be allowed to also get such a meaningful chunk of the defense that traditional tank builds get? but not vice versa? with the kind of curve suggested it might actually give traditional tanks a place in the game without making melees too weak defensively to be real dps options. assuming of course your high int employees make the numbers work nicely.

not capping prr just seems like you guys are just accepting that monkchers will continue to be the most effective tank builds available. which is ok because they have great built in defenses, and kiting can fall completely within the definition of tanking. but really? i think we all know monkchers would have a role without also being the best tanks. really.

[Rull]

In a way, you are correct. However, increasing ranged damage might hurt ranged builds some, it will sink all melee builds instantly. Just imagine the ambush in friends in low places if archers were hitting for 100-200 each, melee (who tend to get initial aggro anyways) would be insta fried.

I didn't mean to say ranged mobs should deal more damage. I meant that ranged players should receive more damage. I admit I misphrased this, changed it for clarity.

[Qhualor]

The way some other games address this is to apply the flat reduction (resistance, DR) prior to the % reduction. It does greatly nerf DR, but it wasn't all that hot anyway.

if DR is going to be another form of damage reduction in game, than it should not be nerfed, rather scaled better. as the game has changed, DR was never upgraded along with the changes. it should still be very much relevant, otherwise might as well just get rid of it because much of DR in game is virtually useless. this is one of the biggest issues with barbarians as well. their DR does not scale well into epics and making it totally useless takes away what is supposed to be the best defense for the class. i think its important that the DR math on this gets figured out properly, especially since barbs are next on the class list and would like to see their DR be viable defense.

the simplest solution would be to scale DR like barbarian inherent, Angelskin, Ironskin Chant, Adamantine Body, Stoneskin etc according to class levels, but im sure there are probably some issues with that. armor with DR needs to scale higher for epics with a starting point of probably DR 10/? my suggestions are just numbers to get my point across and i would leave that aspect of it up to the devs.

[Rautis]

One thing that's messing up our mitigation balance testing; (as players have reported) DR and energy resistance are being subtracted from damage after it is being reduced by PRR and MRR. That wasn't our intent as it makes those abilities far more powerful; the buffs to PRR are also effectively boosting the relative power of straight subtracted damage effects. We are discussing that internally.

Sev~

A buff like this to DR would be nice if DR was more build dependent and didn't come in such huge quantities on items. Barbarian with full DR spec or Adamantine Body Warforged with all general feats spent on Improved Damage Reduction can't sadly compete with Shadow Guardian effect or EE Ring of the Djinn for example.

Maximum DR possible for Barbarian is afaik 14/-. With 50% PRR mitigation it would mean 28 base damage results in a zero. For 60/epic effect on Shadow Guardian hits of up to 120 base damage result in a zero. With higher mitigation each point of DR gets even better.

I hope that something gets done about build based DR in general whenever you decide to look at Barbarians as it is one of their defining abilities. Items that equal or exceed DRs granted by class/feat investments shouldn't have been released imo(though 14/- is like nothing when you can get hit for 200 points per attack). Now that there are such items I'm not sure what is the best way to deal with this problem.

[Kalimah]

I really like the idea of the Harper tree, always nice to see more enhancements and more of them would be nice to play around with, HOWEVER, I hope you don't put it out as is and listen to player feedback a bit.

If you do decide to add this (and maybe more in the future) I think there should be SOME restrictions on it. (it's really nice for the pure characters who might not have enough points of stuff they absolutely want to spend into)

At this point I'm fine with them doing things without asking us. Its when they ask us what we want that I get nervous as hell.

[Kalimah]

i dont think giving those destinies a small amount more melee power is going to make a single bit of difference in how people view those destinies.

I could not agree more. And by neutering the melee destinies we DO play in you are definitely not increasing my enjoyment of the game.

[BigErkyKid]

The problem I see is that new systems keep being added:

Dodge, MRR, PRR, AC, DR...

But then abandoned and they just pile up.

Because they were not decided all at once, the interactions between them are out of control.

It is clear to me that Dodge and PRR are to conflictive sources of damage reduction, yet this is mostly ignored in the mechanics.

DR is absolutely useless as the game stands, aside from the DR of the shadow plate that might be hit with the nerf hammer.

You guys should have a look at all of them at once, decide what each is meant to be and when you add them to trees make sure it is not conflictive with the original spirit.

[Scrabbler]

Items that equal or exceed DRs granted by class/feat investments shouldn't have been released imo(though 14/- is like nothing when you can get hit for 200 points per attack). Now that there are such items I'm not sure what is the best way to deal with this problem.
An obvious thing to try would be to let Barbarian DR stack with (most) item-based DR. Or if that's too strong, half of it could stack and half overlap.

[Kalimah]

My problem with balancing one at a time is that it has resulted in FOTM builds.

Bard swash was arguably one of the top classes, specially because with very little grind you could have a fantastic character for all kinds of content. It packed heals, massive PDS (SWF plus swash), self casted displacement.

Now paladin is better than bard offensively (THF is king now with twitching, plus holy sword) and only behind defensively (but since overall defenses have become a bit of an overkill in this Lama update, it is not so crucial).

Do we have to expect next update to have barbarians better than paladins?

If you had updated paladin and bard at the same time, people would have complained that one was better than the other. Because bard was passed alone, most of us just let it go with a: "meh, bards deserve love even if it is too much".

But now I personally worry that this is a trend, that every update will make king the class revised.


Oh the bard pass that had a month of pages of the "bard is OP" junk? Every update where character power is adjusted to help "game balance" all we do is "shift game balance" then argue about it.

Puke.

[Seikojin]

I and others have spent a lot of time farming out Divine and PDK past lives for PRR. It would be very unfair to limit the value of that PRR after the fact. So, if you do put a limit on PRR, consider either make it sufficiently high that normal PRR sources +past lives can fit, or make the past lives increase the cap.

I think if they made the 50/100/200/None cap for prr and mrr, it would be fine. (no armor/light/medium/heavy). I think 50 is a good reduction when utilizing items and past lives.


We are planning to reduce the MRR caps; no armor will cap at 50 and light armor will cap at 100. We are avoiding capping PRR for now, but we have considered it.

Sev~




One thing that's messing up our mitigation balance testing; (as players have reported) DR and energy resistance are being subtracted from damage after it is being reduced by PRR and MRR. That wasn't our intent as it makes those abilities far more powerful; the buffs to PRR are also effectively boosting the relative power of straight subtracted damage effects. We are discussing that internally.

Sev~

Thanks, however I think PRR needs the same caps. Even after switching when DR is utilized.


prr cap would be bad since you can get 36 past life and 30+ from items + armor. melee need this damage reduction. all melee (even the monk haters).

They mentioned MRR cap, but a PRR cap of the same would be just fine. So it would free up your bracelet slot.


Why? Why make no armor so much lower than light armor? They have the exact same evasion mechanics available (both regular and improved). There is no reason for them to be artificially capped in a worse position defensively. They already have less sources of MRR available (no boost from armor and similar), why be so strict about ensuring they never reach as high?

I can get perhaps wanting to stop "robe casters" from matching "armored tempests" or something like that, but theres no reason monks or simply high dex armorless evasion rogues/druids/etc should also be pigeonholed like this. None. Any response akin to "players thought it was too much"... its completely invalid. I am tired of jealousy resulting in biased feedback against different classes. So what if a monk can use MRR like a rogue... how is that any kind of problem?

You have made a VERY clear divide that MRR and Evasion are two sides of the same coin, and with all of your changes this pass (from armor bonuses, to shield proficiency and evasion permission changes, to PrE based sources of MRR, etc) have supported that. This divide does NOT make sense in the context of two different MRR caps. It serves no purpose but arbitrary limitation.

You have created two populations, Evasion and No-Evasion. There are PRR differences pertaining to armor types and the sourcing of various bonuses which result in a good distribution of ability across that curve. The MRR bonuses have only a passing relation, with some of their value derived from similar sources. But mechanically, MRR and Evasion are tied, and there is no reason to punish a subset of the evasion population with a smaller cap.

Show even one case where this was needed to result in balanced play. I doubt such a case exists, and instead people are simply reacting over envy. I strongly hope it is reconsidered.



I just tested the DR/PRR order last week. I did not see what is being claimed here. When I tested, it was the following order:
- Mob hits you, DR is subtracted, PRR is applied to the remainder, you take damage.

This was tested very thoroughly and held true across multiple cases. If anyone is seeing something different (ie, prr first, then dr) I would request a detailed description of what mobs/situation you were using, which sources of dr, what order it was equipped or applied in, etc. It is possible there is some bearing on the situation or order of actions which is affecting results.

I used no dr sources except Shadow Guard Docent, being hit with melee attacks (mob swings) and ranged attacks (mob archers), with PRR swapping after the docent was on to generate a range of test values (so docent equipped first). I equipped DR first, saw DR applied first, and it worked consistently across a variety of attacks etc.

I did not test energy resistance, but for "since I can remember" its always been:
- Nuke hits you, protection is subtracted and/or resist is subtracted, absorb is applied to the remainder, you take damage.

If that changed, I have no idea why, but Ill admit that one I have not tested in years. It probably relates to MRR, now that I think about it, that I didnt look into.

If you can provide more information on either of these Sev I can test. Just post it.

No armor half light armor. makes common sense to me. 50 mrr would give you room to gear and past life to it. And if you hit the cap, change up the items that make you hit cap. It would allow flexibility to hit cap and expand other capabilities (like DC's, defense layers, etc).

[Failedlegend]

We are planning to reduce the MRR caps; no armor will cap at 50 and light armor will cap at 100. We are avoiding capping PRR for now, but we have considered it.

Sev~

I really need to stress that not all robe wearers have evasion so need to have a way to increase that cap possibly with orbs increasing the caps (and counting as large shields for enhancements and MRR)

[Severlin]

I really need to stress that not all robe wearers have evasion so need to have a way to increase that cap possibly with orbs increasing the caps (and counting as large shields for enhancements and MRR)

Robe users will have the potential for up to 50 MRR over what they have on live. Casters have their own defenses from spells. If it turns out those are insufficient then my thought is that we would add high level spells that add to mitigation for casters and don't appear as clickies. We'd do that as part of a caster pass.

Sev~

[Failedlegend]

Robe users will have the potential for up to 50 MRR over what they have on live. Casters have their own defenses from spells. If it turns out those are insufficient then my thought is that we would add high level spells that add to mitigation for casters and don't appear as clickies. We'd do that as part of a caster pass.

Sev~

Ah ok, still sad to see Orbs being kind of un-used especially because some of them look wicked awesome.

As for Spells/SLAs what about Eldritch shield in the EK line, it requires a shield so maybe have it be a multi-selector instead that grants extra cap breaking MRR (like CL & MCL) when wielding an Orb.

Also those "caster defenses" you mention can easily be wiped out by a single dispel like effect (beholders, etc.) so I'd like to see some sort of resistance to that kind of stuff somewhere (possibly EK)

Anyways if you do end up doing/announcing a caster pass I'll be sure to contribute as much as possible :D


Thanks for the feedback. I will look into whether the issue was only energy resistance and MRR, or it was also an issue with DR and PRR.

Sev~

Is really such a bad thing for it to be the other way around?

I mean DR is a joke right now, if it went Damage - PRR = X - DR = Final damage it would make DR useful again.

[Sebastrd]

One thing that's messing up our mitigation balance testing; (as players have reported) DR and energy resistance are being subtracted from damage after it is being reduced by PRR and MRR. That wasn't our intent as it makes those abilities far more powerful; the buffs to PRR are also effectively boosting the relative power of straight subtracted damage effects. We are discussing that internally.

Sev~

Why even keep DR around? It's an old mechanic that accomplishes the same thing as PRR but in an inelegant, poorly-scaling manner.

[Nightmanis]

A buff like this to DR would be nice if DR was more build dependent and didn't come in such huge quantities on items. Barbarian with full DR spec or Adamantine Body Warforged with all general feats spent on Improved Damage Reduction can't sadly compete with Shadow Guardian effect or EE Ring of the Djinn for example.

Maximum DR possible for Barbarian is afaik 14/-. With 50% PRR mitigation it would mean 28 base damage results in a zero. For 60/epic effect on Shadow Guardian hits of up to 120 base damage result in a zero. With higher mitigation each point of DR gets even better.

I hope that something gets done about build based DR in general whenever you decide to look at Barbarians as it is one of their defining abilities. Items that equal or exceed DRs granted by class/feat investments shouldn't have been released imo(though 14/- is like nothing when you can get hit for 200 points per attack). Now that there are such items I'm not sure what is the best way to deal with this problem.

They really should make all the WF and Barb DR stacking. Hell, a WF Barb with the Shadow Docent with Addy body should have the highest DR possible currently.

Or at least in my opinion it should.

[bbqzor]

Robe users will have the potential for up to 50 MRR over what they have on live. Casters have their own defenses from spells. If it turns out those are insufficient then my thought is that we would add high level spells that add to mitigation for casters and don't appear as clickies. We'd do that as part of a caster pass

The problem isnt "casters" wearing "robes". Its monks. And I am tired of people saying monks are OP. There is nothing you can do on a monk you cant do on some other build (in terms of defenses, for the purposes of this topic, etc etc... dont go all monkcher on me). Just because they are more convenient to build with in reaching some totals doesnt make them any more OP than a sorc relative to a wizard, simply because the sorc has an easier time getting spellpower or whatever.

Why should a tanking monk be at a marked disadvantage over a tanking evasion build of any sort, simply because of their requirement to use no armor over light armor? Remember, this isnt PRR... this is MRR. And it pertains to Evasion. If Evasion and Improved Evasion are balanced at 100MRR for all the other cases, it should follow that they are balanced here as well.

Two suggestions:

Make the non-armor MRR cap 50, +2 for every monk level. Then add +2 MRR to the cores of Grandmaster 1-5 (ie, not the 0 one). This means a 20 Monk hits the 100 cap when in GMoF, 90 while out of it, and down from there for people multiclassing (the typical 2 monk splash hardly matters at all). Note, I am NOT saying adds 2 MRR directly. I am saying adds to the MRR cap... you have to get the MRR itself from somewhere else.

Then, instead of adding high level spells for any caster concerns, I would suggest utilizing Orbs more. Have orbs provide passive MRR like shields, but only if you have magical training. This is a simple option that gives Orb use some measure of defense outside of "active blocking" to get the existing benefit. It also prevents monks from using it since Orbs wont allow centering. Furthermore, it is easy to tie into class levels like the monk solution (+2 per "magical training" class levels, any class with the feat can count towards the total) meaning it wont be a simple "oh I took a feat to unlock a ton of MRR cap". It also keeps the cap at 90 (50 base, plus 40 for 20 magical training levels) which, even in the best case, is still less than what armor would provide.

Additionally, it allows something like a light armor evasion build with casting to maybe get a bit over 100 (but again, far short of what medium/heavy can obtain, with a max of 140 in some kind of bard or eldritch knight version). Since they were originally 200 and this requires them to forgo using an actual shield, it seems fair. Like a way to make a "spell tanking" guy vs a "melee tanking" guy. And frankly, those kinds of characters should be really good against spells. Thats kind of their fluff, and if it makes orb a more appealing choice for bards thats probably a good thing as I have never yet seen one actually being played on live at epic levels. Itd be really neat to see an EK with an orb just kind of shrugging off magic while swashbuckling with a rapier in the other hand and throwing spells back... I mean that sounds like a harper right? Stuff writes itself.

In summary... its pretty easy math. MRR is making EVERYONE better. People worried about "too better relative to X" need to realize... X has changed. The new X is way more resilient than the old one. If 100 MRR (50% dmg) is balanced for evasion, that means they are taking 0% or 50%. With Improved Evasion it means 0% or 25%. If thats balanced, then its balanced. All cases of Evasion should be in that boat. Making monks die to spells easier (the one thing they were supposed to be top notch in relative to other evaders in pnp, hence the innate SR type stuff) just to avoid buffing casters is insufficient. Use a solution which accomplishes the goal without penalizing anyone else. Do things right, take the time and be sure its right. And if you add some cool new "vs magic" style tanks and open up a new build niche, well, that can hardly be a bad thing. Id welcome having differently oriented tank design. The game could use some more actual "build goal" variance, instead of just more ways to get top dps.

Thanks.

[Failedlegend]

Monks have evasion...they don't need MRR

I agree with the Orb stuff though.

[Fefnir_2011]

Robe users will have the potential for up to 50 MRR over what they have on live. Casters have their own defenses from spells. If it turns out those are insufficient then my thought is that we would add high level spells that add to mitigation for casters and don't appear as clickies. We'd do that as part of a caster pass.

Sev~

Caster pass? those words make me feel all tingly. Don't tease the casters like that.

[bbqzor]

Monks have evasion...they don't need MRR

By that logic rogues, rangers, swashbucklers, druids using evasion from primal, and anyone in light armor in shadowdancer also need no MRR.

Its not about "who needs MRR". The devs already made that decision... EVERYONE gets it.

Since everyone has it, people in comparable and equal circumstances should have comparable and equal access. Otherwise, it creates imbalance. There is no reason to say "everyone with evasion gets 100 MRR... except monks, you get 50". And thats what the situation currently is.

Its not about need, its about making sure the playing field is even. There is no reason for this, years down the road, to be yet another imbalanced thing that they wind up having to redo and recode to try and fix problems. This punishes anyone using monk for evasion vs anything else for evasion. Thats not good... evasion is the same mechanic in either case.

If its balanced for one, then its balanced. Let everyone have the same level of defense, its better for us, and its easier to balance around.

Maybe theyd rather tie it to Water stance. Water stance could add +10 to MRR cap (not to MRR, to the cap) for each tier (so GM stance is +40). Then put the last +10 as part of the "water stance" ability in GMoF, Walking with Waves. It could add +3/6/10 to MRR cap when in water stance.

Theres lots of ways to even this out, from Monk Levels (preferable in my mind since it nips multiclass mutants in the bud), to Water stance (to seperate it from combo-ing with earth tanking), to other ideas like certain monk abilities (diamond body, diamond soul, timeless body, empty body, and perfect self all add +10 to MRR cap). Theres dozens of balanced approaches.

Just capping monks at 50 because you took aim at casters isnt one of them. Monks, specifically, have several defenses in pnp supposed to make them good vs casters. Rogues get none, evasion is it, the rest focus on vs traps. No reason monks should wind up below everyone else here. None except "ran out of time, had to make a sloppy general rule"... dont want to see that happen.


I agree with the Orb stuff though.

Nods. Obviously its a very rough writeup, but its seems easier to parallel the new existing system than invent spells to address some concern. I really think more build end-goal variety is healthy too. Hopefully it catches on. Glad it was understandable. Cheers.

[Thar]

Robe users will have the potential for up to 50 MRR over what they have on live. Casters have their own defenses from spells. If it turns out those are insufficient then my thought is that we would add high level spells that add to mitigation for casters and don't appear as clickies. We'd do that as part of a caster pass.

Sev~

and as a sorc how many spare spell slots do you have for extra high level spells? Add an enhancement in the tree that adds mrr with shield spell or armor spell and make them useful. 4 ac is nothing...

[Thar]

Why even keep DR around? It's an old mechanic that accomplishes the same thing as PRR but in an inelegant, poorly-scaling manner.

barbs should be given a % dr or prr boost in the class. it would help a lot.