What Was Wrong with "Armor Up"

[BigErkyKid]

Have you noticed that monk splashes have disappeared from the power gaming scene?

It used to be an obvious splash for melees and now it is very rare. I argue that this was because of a confluence of factors: (i) the changes to heavy armor, (ii) the restrictions on multi classing.

Why is this an issue? Because we have gone from a system where evasion and pajamas were a no brainer to heavy armor (or at least not having monk) is almost a must. The whole point of u23 was, according to the devs, to introduce more build options, not to kill existing builds.


The problems

The benefits of heavy armor are too front loaded

The change to heavy armor has resulted in amazing defenses at very low cost. Anyone can get a shadow guardian heavy armor and have incredible physical and magical defenses. Getting even more defenses than the standard (building for PRR and AC) with heavy armor is usually very inefficient soon since the defensive trees are horrible beyond small dips.

Some classes are horribly OP in relation to the rest

Bard, paladin and barbarian are miles ahead in melee damage. Two of them cannot use monk at all and the other can only use a limited amount of monk (paladin) so in melee it becomes optimal to simply avoid it. Please note that a monk with high dodge and PRR is actually better defensively than a paladin in heavy armor (except at 28, where guardian armor evens it out). I can give you tips on how to run the numbers. However, it requires a big investment in monk, something that centered kenseis cannot generally afford and that is not smart in a paladin.

Since the classes that have been given crit enhancements simply blow out of the water all the rest in melee damage (yes, I am aware that monks with balanced attacks and MF are good trash killers), the obvious conclusion has been the death of the power gaming monk splash in melee.


Suggestions

Heavy armor should NOT be so front loaded

For those builds that simply invest minimally in armoring up, you should have made it roughly equivalent to the defense a monk splash provided. Doing otherwise is unbalanced. At the same time, there should be more benefits to getting more defenses. Yes, PRR might provide linear benefits, but the cost in terms of forgone DPS is not linear, hence it soon becomes a bad idea to keep investing in defense. Although this is a bit out of topic, given the kiting mechanics a monkcher makes for a better tank than a "real tank" in raids. We have completely overpowered quests so I won't comment on needing a tank for them.

Heavy armor should NOT be as powerful

Specially for minimal investments. Blitzers nowadays deal LESS raw damage (I am aware it is not as annoying), but because of the huge changes in PRR, combat time adjusted DPS has increased for everyone a lot. The biggest problem in high end content for melees was that mobs hit like trucks. People had to circle kite in melee, back out of the fight to heal often, etc. Giving such huge benefits to small amounts of investment (a feat, strapping on an armor) has unbalanced the defense side. This is way more powerful than a monk splash. Armor should be scaled back or we will continue to face roll quests.

Some numbers on the comparison between armored folks and centered kenseis


See this post:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/456323-What-Was-Wrong-with-quot-Armor-Up-quot?p=5552956&viewfull=1#post5552956

Code for simulations by Forzah

---- Code single enemy ---

simulateHits <- function(PRR,DR,hitchance){
startingHP = 1000
healed = 200
damage = 1200
pctReceived =100/(100+PRR) #some function of the PRR
HP = startingHP-healed
nrhits = 0
while (HP >0){
nrhits = nrhits+ 1
hit = rbinom(1,1,hitchance) #0,1 random variable
HP=min(startingHP,HP+healed) - hit*((damage*pctReceived)-DR)
}
return(nrhits)
}


--- Code multiple enemies ---

simulateHits <- function(PRR,DR,hitchance){
startingHP = 1000
healed = 100
enemies = 3
damage = c(300,400,350) #should have length equal to the number of enemies
pctReceived = 100/(100+PRR)
actualDmg = damage*pctReceived-DR
HP = startingHP-healed
nrhits = 0
while (HP >0){
nrhits = nrhits+ 1
hit = rbinom(enemies,1,hitchance) #0,1 random variable
HP = min(startingHP,HP+healed) - sum(hit*actualDmg)
}
return(nrhits)
}

--- ----

nrexp = 5000

#paladin
palPRR = 156
palDR = 30
palHit = (1-0.5)*(1-0.02)*(1-0.1)
palResult = rep(0,nrexp)
for (i in 1:nrexp){
palResult[i] = simulateHits(palPRR,palDR,palHit)
}

palFreq = table(palResult)
palCDF = cumsum(palFreq)/sum(palFreq)

#kensai
kensaiPRR = 85
kensaiDR = 0
kensaiHit = (1-0.5)*(1-0.2)*(1-0.25)
kensaiResult = rep(0,nrexp)
for (i in 1:nrexp){
kensaiResult[i] = simulateHits(kensaiPRR,kensaiDR,kensaiHit)
}

kensaiFreq = table(kensaiResult)
kensaiCDF = cumsum(kensaiFreq)/sum(kensaiFreq)

plot(palCDF,type='l')
lines(kensaiCDF,lty=2)

[Lonnbeimnech]

The whole point of u23 was, according to the devs, to introduce more build options, not to kill existing builds.
This was achieved. Those monk splash builds are just as good now as they were then, actually they are slightly better, since they got a little bit of mrr on top of their evasion.

They are better in comparison to heavy armor builds, but that's because armor got a big buff. imo a bit too much of a buff. But the buff was needed.

As far as armor being front loaded, yeah, and it should be. You are wearing a layer of metal on your body. It doesn't matter if you know how to wear it or not, it's in the way of your attacker's attack and your body.

[jalont]

My first thought is that evasion/pajamas was only proxy nerfed. That means that if it used to be a good option and people were easily completing the hardest content with that build (in fact, it was often the preferred build) then that means it's obviously still viable. The one thing that doesn't need to happen is a buff to cloth/light/evasion/dodge.

My second thought is that one of the main reasons for a monk splash was that +1 multiplier. The fact is that with the ridiculous buff to other classes, even with a monk splash for that +1 multiplier, you're likely losing dps by doing it.

The problem with your suggestions is that they only look at one factor. Class balance vs. content. There's also the other factor, class balance vs. other classes. While your suggestions will help balance classes vs. content, it does nothing to help balance classes against each other. In order for that to happen, we need to nerf casters and ranged (if we roll back the armor changes).

[BigErkyKid]

This was achieved. Those monk splash builds are just as good now as they were then, actually they are slightly better, since they got a little bit of mrr on top of their evasion.

They are not better in comparison to heavy armor builds, but that's because armor got a big buff. imo a bit too much of a buff. But the buff was needed.


Of course I am referring to comparisons, not to absolutes. Heavy armor is just better in most scenarios for typical melee builds. I argue this is wrong.




As far as armor being front loaded, yeah, and it should be. You are wearing a layer of metal on your body. It doesn't matter if you know how to wear it or not, it's in the way of your attacker's attack and your body.

Well in a game that is all about spending limited points in enhancing certain abilities, I find this comment odd. You could easily think of defensive abilities that increase the power of armor in the same way that you have abilities that make you more skilled with weapons.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Of course I am referring to comparisons, not to absolutes. Heavy armor is just better in most scenarios for typical melee builds. I argue this is wrong.




Well in a game that is all about spending limited points in enhancing certain abilities, I find this comment odd. You could easily think of defensive abilities that increase the power of armor in the same way that you have abilities that make you more skilled with weapons.

Like a barbarian spending a feat on heavy armor, or a rogue spending one feat on medium armor and another on heavy armor. Wf casters taking adamantine body, then spending the ap on arcane spell failure and finding a slot for arcane dexterity Yeah, that kinda makes sense.

[Tinco]

Yes, it's a question of investment and reliability.

Heavy armor protects from more than incorp/dodge/evasion in a more managable way (PRR/MRR reduction flattens the stream of incoming damage and prevents spikes, where as pajama users have to deal with 'random', potentially lethal spikes). MRR is a non-investment compared to getting Imp Evasion or Epic Reflexes and a reflex save of at least 70. Non-Save magic damage (again, things like fire elemental champions with unsaveable bonus damage on their aura or certain trap-types come to mind) is also a big offender.

The DR30/60 on TF-Armor is just terribly balanced against the other upgrades.

To reiterate the main problem imo: The way EE melee works, PRR 150+ is simply way easier to execute, even though the numerical defense might be lower than avoidance layering for some time. Dealing with streaky damage on pajama-users (who also don't happen to have the biggest HD or HP-bonuses in their trees as a puffer) is bound to result in hilarious deaths from time to time. High PRR is steady, and mobs don't have ways to almost completely circumvent the defense (looking at tremorsense spiders and such, which are a huge pain).

EDIT: Heavy Armor should be desirable and good on HA-types and maybe the odd off-type. Seeing evasion types regularly pick up HAP and Casters hoarding 35% -ASF just to get the fire-and-forget defense a HA gives is not a good outcome of the Armor-Up-Update and an indicator that, relatively speaking, HA is too convenient atm.

[Snapdragoon]

it was not over buffed. the reason your seeing so many paladins, barbarians, and bards, is because people actually like to play that way, but were unable to because it was borderline gimp.

its like we just got more classes and people are trying out the new classes. people always solo'd EE's on casters, monchers, monks, etc. and it was considered a hardcore achievement to do the same on a melee, and it was still sub optimal at the time. we are finally able to play a paladin, or a barbarian in heavy armor, and not be considered a gimp piece of **** that is going to end up a soulstone at the first sign of a big fight.

all the classes are finally legitimately playable, all styles of armor are finally playable (from none to heavy, and even light and medium have a place on some builds) and even all combat styles are playable. (aside from maybe pure bow, you still really have to be a moncher)

dont be so short sighted. previous builds didn't change, gimp ones got competitive. I finally see pure barbs and dont shake my head thinking they are going to useless, or s&b pallies are going to do no damage but at least live (pallies were the ultimate pike class back in the day)

[BigErkyKid]

My first thought is that evasion/pajamas was only proxy nerfed. That means that if it used to be a good option and people were easily completing the hardest content with that build (in fact, it was often the preferred build) then that means it's obviously still viable. The one thing that doesn't need to happen is a buff to cloth/light/evasion/dodge.


But we agree that they are doing it faster on armored builds? Nowadays content is easier than it was in the era of centered census.




My second thought is that one of the main reasons for a monk splash was that +1 multiplier. The fact is that with the ridiculous buff to other classes, even with a monk splash for that +1 multiplier, you're likely losing dps by doing it.


The +1 multiplier was good, but the key was that the splash provided sizable defense AND offense. I agree completely that the buff has been so big that it has simply destroyed any resemblance of balance. Which is why monk splashes are now suboptimal for the most part.



The problem with your suggestions is that they only look at one factor. Class balance vs. content. There's also the other factor, class balance vs. other classes. While your suggestions will help balance classes vs. content, it does nothing to help balance classes against each other. In order for that to happen, we need to nerf casters and ranged (if we roll back the armor changes).

Once again I agree with you. But truth is that the armor pass affects also casters. Right now, balance against content has been completely destroyed in general. Obviously the devs chose to buff everyone instead of thinking of ways of scaling down casters and other ranged options. In any case, I would agree that changes to armor (which need to happen) need to be part of a broader revision. Doing one thing at a time has resulted in wild discrepancies between options for very long time.

[Faltout]

Have you noticed that monk splashes have disappeared from the power gaming scene?

No.

But I can agree that DPS of the pallies and bards needs to be lowered while the DPS of barbs needs to go up if you ever propose that.

[Eth]

The monk splash will come back with the fighter overhaul, when they change "One with the Blade" to "One with the Plate", so you can be centered in heavy armor.

[General_Gronker]

Doing otherwise is unbalanced.

Yeah, you're not real clear on what is and is not unbalanced. Balance doesn't seem to be your forte.

[Annyee]

The game went through a large mechanical overhaul on how damage is mitigated with the introduction of PRR. The PRR that monks get through Earth Stance never really equaled that of an armor wearing toon. During "Armor UP" PRR/MRR was tweaked again to improve damage mitigation favoring armor wearing toons. This widened the gap between armored toons and monks even further than it was. Monks have never been updated to reflect this tweaking. With all the remaining class passes on the way I hope this will be addressed.

[BigErkyKid]

Like a barbarian spending a feat on heavy armor, or a rogue spending one feat on medium armor and another on heavy armor. Wf casters taking adamantine body, then spending the ap on arcane spell failure and finding a slot for arcane dexterity Yeah, that kinda makes sense.

We are on the same page.


Yes, it's a question of investment and reliability.
...
To reiterate the main problem imo: The way EE melee works, PRR 150+ is simply way easier to execute, even though the numerical defense might be lower than avoidance layering for some time (which I doubt btw, displacement clickies work for everyone).

Yes, absolutely. Add that those classes are better DPSers than real monks and everyone else in melee (monk heavy builds) and you got the current scenario. But truth is that in expected terms (and before shadow guardian) monks are still better in defenses. Not that it matters one bit and it does not account for the spikes of damage.


it was not over buffed. the reason your seeing so many paladins, barbarians, and bards, is because people actually like to play that way, but were unable to because it was borderline gimp.
...
all the classes are finally legitimately playable, all styles of armor are finally playable (from none to heavy, and even light and medium have a place on some builds) and even all combat styles are playable. (aside from maybe pure bow, you still really have to be a moncher)


As you say, melees now are way more competitive. I argue that they have become OP in relation to content. The fact that people had already overpowered quests and raids on kiters is aside.

Finally, armor is now better than pajamas because of the reasons I have sketched (class / weapon limitations and the cost of armor).

[nobdog]

Flavor of the month(decade?) build no longer flavor of the month due to obvious choice no longer obvious. This seems like exactly the point of the defensive pass. To me the default choice in a fantasy game should be "as much armor as I can wear" unless you happen to be of the "wizardly" archetype(sorc, wiz, etc), or the stealthy one(rogue, maybe ranger). monks being basically from outside of "normal" fantasy have always been the exception to this rule in fantasy tropes. One major reason that monk splash was always so prevalent was because the AC from armor was so worthless that it was worth it to wear pajamas even just for the quick switching. If yer not wearing armor anyhow, you might as well add evasion.

Evasion is still good, it's just not the only choice. It's often not the first choice. I don't see why this is a problem.

You still can't force heavy armor into every build. it's an easy choice for non-monk melees and doesn't take much if any work there; for something like a wizzy you really have to make hard choices if you want to try and get into a suit of metal. On my PM its losing 1-2 points of DC to build for armor.

To me, the monk splash SHOULD be the rare specialty build, instead of the default choice. It feels like this is what it is now.

[slarden]

The monk splash will come back with the fighter overhaul, when they change "One with the Blade" to "One with the Plate", so you can be centered in heavy armor.

lol

[slarden]

It's not just the armor up changes. The champion system also heavily favors high PRR as fortification can be completely bypassed, but PRR can't be bypassed at all. So the only mitigation to the complete fortification bypass buff is PRR.

[Chai]

I disagree with the assertion that armor should be the equivalent of a monk splash. If that happens we will be right back to 2 monk levels + pajamas builds, because those have higher dodge caps, as well as evasion.

Heavy armor should protect more against melee damage than a monk splash or even a full pure monk would have.

Monk should be better at mitigating magical attacks.

Where did Armor up go wrong? Most people point to PRR. I disagree. Its MRR. This allows heavily armored characters to absorb more magical damage at a significant rate monks and rogues do not have available. The one argument against this is evasion, which is reflex save only. Full plate means mitigating all magic, including those which attack fort and will saves to do damage as well. Disintegrate is a prime example.

[Blackheartox]

The monk splash will come back with the fighter overhaul, when they change "One with the Blade" to "One with the Plate", so you can be centered in heavy armor.
With cetus being in pc, i so see this happening lol.

Bdw, why not just nerf shadow guardian.
From playing in harmor, im pretty sure that is more broken then harmor alone by itself and im confident that many can agree with that. At least the harmor addie body pre armor up players that had shadow guardian

[Monkey-Boy]

Monk should be better at mitigating magical attacks.



If by "monk" you mean "evasion" it still is better, especially with Improved Evasion. Do EE Mior on some heavy armored "indestuctible" paladins sometime and you'll see what I'm talking about.

it's just that it not that big of a deal as there are only a few encounters in the game where spell damage is more dangerous than the incoming physical damage.

I personally think the game was more broken when armor was worthless, we're not storm troopers.

[Monkey-Boy]

With cetus being in pc, i so see this happening lol.

Bdw, why not just nerf shadow guardian.
From playing in harmor, im pretty sure that is more broken then harmor alone by itself and im confident that many can agree with that. At least the harmor addie body pre armor up players that had shadow guardian

Shadow Guardian is overkill, the reminds me to make a set of Sneak Attack Heavy armor.

[Dalsheel]

They are better in comparison to heavy armor builds, but that's because armor got a big buff. imo a bit too much of a buff. But the buff was needed.

As far as armor being front loaded, yeah, and it should be. You are wearing a layer of metal on your body. It doesn't matter if you know how to wear it or not, it's in the way of your attacker's attack and your body.

The bold part only tells me you should get MORE damage from fire and elec attacks. If we are to talk about real physics here, wearing a metal armor would fry you if you were hit by a fireball or a lightning bolt.

As for knowing how to wear it or not, a mere penalty to attack rolls is not even close to describing how clumsy an unproficient wearer would be. A balance check with auto fail on 1s every 30feet would be more appropriate.

Personally, I don't care about armors, but don't try to sell the story that everyone should be able to use it or that it should give MRR. We all know the best way to not get hurt by fire is to avoid it, not cover your body with iron and stand on it.

[BigErkyKid]

It's not just the armor up changes. The champion system also heavily favors high PRR as fortification can be completely bypassed, but PRR can't be bypassed at all. So the only mitigation to the complete fortification bypass buff is PRR.

Well, in DnD armor was linked to fortification. DDO completely destroyed that. So armor builds were less prone to sneak attack and crits. Right now I agree that champions favor a ton PRR builds. I am doing the 1 to 28 run with a sorc and even though he is a really good player now and then he gets blasted by a champion.


I disagree with the assertion that armor should be the equivalent of a monk splash. If that happens we will be right back to 2 monk levels + pajamas builds, because those have higher dodge caps, as well as evasion.

I wasn't clear enough, I mean everything considered. That is, contemplating the full defensive layering of a monk vs a harmor build. Otherwise it would be very short sighted, but yes, I it is good to clarify.



Where did Armor up go wrong? Most people point to PRR. I disagree. Its MRR. This allows heavily armored characters to absorb more magical damage at a significant rate monks and rogues do not have available. The one argument against this is evasion, which is reflex save only. Full plate means mitigating all magic, including those which attack fort and will saves to do damage as well. Disintegrate is a prime example.

The biggest problem with EEs, for the most part, has been physical damage. Do you disagree with that? Because otherwise there are plenty of classes that did NOT have evasion and where doing just fine in EE (sorcs?).

[Dalsheel]

The monk splash will come back with the fighter overhaul, when they change "One with the Blade" to "One with the Plate", so you can be centered in heavy armor.

This is so getting on my monk's bio xD

+1

[Ayseifn]

If by "monk" you mean "evasion" it still is better, especially with Improved Evasion. Do EE Mior on some heavy armored "indestuctible" paladins sometime and you'll see what I'm talking about.

it's just that it not that big of a deal as there are only a few encounters in the game where spell damage is more dangerous than the incoming physical damage.

I personally think the game was more broken when armor was worthless, we're not storm troopers.

My acrobat wears heavy armour everywhere except that fight, just swap to robes and still win easily.

[Severlin]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

[Tinco]

Time for the anti-D20 proposal:

Just remove the d20 defensive mechanics altogether, roll saves and save-related effects (divine grace, evasion, mettle, slippery mind, ...) into some side-effects of MRR, roll AC into MRR, keep dodge, and start building iconic defensive "identities" from there.

[GoldyGopher]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

One of the white elephants in the room when it comes to Armor Up is how it interacts with Difficulty Scaling.

[Powskier]

Only problem with newer armor power ,is that players want to stand in front of mobs and get hit all day now-srry that is still a weak tactic.The new armor resistances allows for sloppy melee tactics to develop ,that will fail when a player tries it in a softer setup.

[Lonnbeimnech]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

I don't think the 45 points is a big problem, and I don't think lowering it to 30 will resolve much. The invincibility sets in when people are running around with 150-200 prr, and they take negligible damage from everything.

Resolve some of the stacking, or adjust the point of diminishing returns in the prr formula.

[Grailhawk]

IMO heavy armor is not the issue, the issue is the way it stacks with displacement.

You shouldn't be able to stack the best absorption and the best avoidance on the same toon.

IMO displacement needs some kind of nerf doing so would allow you to up the PRR of heavy/medium armor classes (can be back end if need) and allow you to bake in more dodge to light/no armor classes.

[Wipey]

On my PM its losing 1-2 points of DC to build for armor.

On mine, it's 3 enhancement points and blue slot for 30 prr and mrr. So still a must have.

Of course prr change was way over the top in typical fashion. Who would have thought that 150 - 250 prr Blitzing toons would mean "this game is too easy" or "we need new difficulty" few months later.

Too bad so few people spoke against when the changes were on Lama. And melee power introduction. And heal amp boosts.
Next is ranged power. Just lol. Clearly the solution to dying grouping and almost trivial content is to give us even more and more power.

[Severlin]

I don't think the 45 points is a big problem, and I don't think lowering it to 30 will resolve much. The invincibility sets in when people are running around with 150-200 prr, and they take negligible damage from everything.

Resolve some of the stacking, or adjust the point of diminishing returns in the prr formula.

The specific problem we are trying to solve is front loaded mitigation - not overall survivability. We don't plan to change the overall mitigation of fully built out characters. The plan is that you'll need it if you want to run Hard and Elite versions of Temple of Elemental Evil.

Sev~

[Tinco]

Only problem with newer armor power ,is that players want to stand in front of mobs and get hit all day now-srry that is still a weak tactic.The new armor resistances allows for sloppy melee tactics to develop ,that will fail when a player tries it in a softer setup.

Zipping around like a bunny on steroids and abusing monster pathing is exactly the picture that comes to mind when I think of a Paladin in a full-plate, sure.

The question behind your remark is actually interesting, though: What amount of damage/kind of monsters should a Heavy Fighter type character actually be able to facetank in EE? What should a light armor wearer be able to tank?

[caberonia]

of course prr change was way over the top in typical fashion. Who would have thought that 150 - 250 prr blitzing toons would mean "this game is too easy" or "we need new difficulty" few months later.

qft

[caberonia]

The specific problem we are trying to solve is front loaded mitigation - not overall survivability. We don't plan to change the overall mitigation of fully built out characters. The plan is that you'll need it if you want to run Hard and Elite versions of Temple of Elemental Evil.

Sev~

Exactly the issue. All new content will be balanced with Maxed out PRR in mind.. Better get your Monks armored up guys. ToEE where if you're not wearing heavy armor don't bother..

[LightBear]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

That's a near meaningless change, the closer you are to endgame (and the higher your prr) the less that's making any difference.
If you want to make rogues more viable on the front rows, just give em a higher dodge from improved uncanny dodge (4% per 5 rogue levels and increase the cap just as much every five rogue levels).
And improved their sneaking abilities so it doesn't break on any action/attack - call it "One with the shadows" and make it a level 20 cap stone prestige.

[Epitome]

Exactly the issue. All new content will be balanced with Maxed out PRR in mind.. Better get your Monks armored up guys.

I think...at least I hope, that it doesn't mean only high PRR armored characters are necessary to run Hard/Elite ToEE, just that it is recommended.

I wouldn't take his statement of survivability with full armor builds to optimally run this new content literally (at least my main that is a monk hopes).

[Krell]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

I think it is less of a factor now that some champions are hitting for 4-500 a pop regardless of fort or PRR. 15 PRR for heavy armor isn't that much of a difference. I think you also need to consider the potential dodge of some builds. You have some light armor builds with 35% dodge and a heavy armor build with 7% max dodge, I would say the current scale is more than justified. If anything dodge is more of a benefit with the most dangerous EE champions.

[Powskier]

Zipping around like a bunny on steroids and abusing monster pathing is exactly the picture that comes to mind when I think of a Paladin in a full-plate, sure.

The question behind your remark is actually interesting, though: What amount of damage/kind of monsters should a Heavy Fighter type character actually be able to facetank in EE? What should a light armor wearer be able to tank?

I find this interesting as well. I have 1st life fav soul that could shield block and heal or shoot spells,all day long,barely taking damage ..from around lvl 8 thru to epic. Not until EE did she really have much chance of dying, she's like a super healing platform if I didn't make her a fire tosser. Want a real easy button,there it is..healers are real welcome in any party and they dont need to be psycho killers , now they dont take damage much either!

[Karasendreth]

Have you noticed that monk splashes have disappeared from the power gaming scene?

It used to be an obvious splash for melees and now it is very rare. I argue that this was because of a confluence of factors: (i) the changes to heavy armor, (ii) the restrictions on multi classing.

Why is this an issue? Because we have gone from a system where evasion and pajamas were a no brainer to heavy armor (or at least not having monk) is almost a must. The whole point of u23 was, according to the devs, to introduce more build options, not to kill existing builds.


The problems

The benefits of heavy armor are too front loaded

The change to heavy armor has resulted in amazing defenses at very low cost. Anyone can get a shadow guardian heavy armor and have incredible physical and magical defenses. Getting even more defenses than the standard (building for PRR and AC) with heavy armor is usually very inefficient soon since the defensive trees are horrible beyond small dips.

Some classes are horribly OP in relation to the rest

Bard, paladin and barbarian are miles ahead in melee damage. Two of them cannot use monk at all and the other can only use a limited amount of monk (paladin) so in melee it becomes optimal to simply avoid it. Please note that a monk with high dodge and PRR is actually better defensively than a paladin in heavy armor (except at 28, where guardian armor evens it out). I can give you tips on how to run the numbers. However, it requires a big investment in monk, something that centered kenseis cannot generally afford and that is not smart in a paladin.

Since the classes that have been given crit enhancements simply blow out of the water all the rest in melee damage (yes, I am aware that monks with balanced attacks and MF are good trash killers), the obvious conclusion has been the death of the power gaming monk splash in melee.


Suggestions

Heavy armor should NOT be so front loaded

For those builds that simply invest minimally in armoring up, you should have made it roughly equivalent to the defense a monk splash provided. Doing otherwise is unbalanced. At the same time, there should be more benefits to getting more defenses. Yes, PRR might provide linear benefits, but the cost in terms of forgone DPS is not linear, hence it soon becomes a bad idea to keep investing in defense. Although this is a bit out of topic, given the kiting mechanics a monkcher makes for a better tank than a "real tank" in raids. We have completely overpowered quests so I won't comment on needing a tank for them.

Heavy armor should NOT be as powerful

Specially for minimal investments. Blitzers nowadays deal LESS raw damage (I am aware it is not as annoying), but because of the huge changes in PRR, combat time adjusted DPS has increased for everyone a lot. The biggest problem in high end content for melees was that mobs hit like trucks. People had to circle kite in melee, back out of the fight to heal often, etc. Giving such huge benefits to small amounts of investment (a feat, strapping on an armor) has unbalanced the defense side. This is way more powerful than a monk splash. Armor should be scaled back or we will continue to face roll quests.

Let me get this straight, your complaining because the build that almost ALL melee dps HAD to take to be viable was a splash in a DIFFERENT class is no more? and that heavy armor has replaced said build? GOOD! NO game should NEED a melee character to take a level splash is a DIFFERENT class JUST to be able to play end game content. that is a ridiculous and absolutely stupid idea. Ive been playing this for YEARS and let me tell you, barbs were gimp pieces of TRASH before this update to their stats and armor. So if you screw up the ONLY TIME IVE BEEN ABLE TO PLAY A VIABLE BARB/PALLY as dps, i swear every single melee dps player is going to strangle you. shut the heck up and learn how to play a game with ONE class instead of splashing 2 or 3 different classes together! Im not saying you SHOULDNT be able to, but you should NOT HAVE TO if you dont WANT to. FYI. IMO going PURE in your class SHOULD make you stronger unless you REALLY REALLY plan it out and work at it, not just randomly grab a few levels of monk, monk was always op and bs as heck. BTW, you cannot nerf disruption or any of the other spells beyond what they read in the PnP 3.5 because in case you newbies didnt know, this game is based on 3.5 DnD, its not freaking WoW where you can just change what spells do whenever you feel like it. The armor is more an up in the air issue, but something like nerfing displace to a 25% or something isnt gona be allowed by either most players or id guess most devs. The point of the game is to make it unique by having it actually BE DnD online. not just another **** MMO like WoW

[Monkey-Boy]

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

Just leave it be, losing 5-15 points of PRR won't make a noticeable difference one way or the other. The actual nerf will be miniscule compared to the torches and pitchforks it inspires from the people who think going from 200 PRR to 185 actually matters.

"just slapping on some armor" has opportunity costs, feats and AP for a lot of builds.

[jalont]

Let me get this straight, your complaining because the build that almost ALL melee dps HAD to take to be viable was a splash in a DIFFERENT class is no more? and that heavy armor has replaced said build? GOOD! NO game should NEED a melee character to take a level splash is a DIFFERENT class JUST to be able to play end game content. that is a ridiculous and absolutely stupid idea.

You didn't HAVE to before. It just provided a crutch for people to play on a difficulty that they apparently shouldn't have been playing on. "Endgame" has many different difficulty settings.

[Severlin]

Just leave it be, losing 5-15 points of PRR won't make a noticeable difference one way or the other.

"just slapping on some armor" has opportunity costs, feats and AP for a lot of builds.

That's the exact discussion going on with the player's council as we speak, but we welcome feedback here as well.

Sev~

[caberonia]

I think...at least I hope, that it doesn't mean only high PRR armored characters are necessary to run Hard/Elite ToEE, just that it is recommended.

I wouldn't take his statement of survivability with full armor builds to optimally run this new content literally (at least my main that is a monk hopes).

Maybe you're right. But I can't think of how you would provide challenge to a char who ignores 50%+ of melee damage without nearly 1 shotting those who don't.

[Severlin]

Maybe you're right. But I can't think of how you would provide challenge to a char who ignores 50%+ of melee damage without nearly 1 shotting those who don't.

You can build for a lot of PRR without wearing Heavy Armor. It's not a difference of 50% mitigation.

Sev~

[redoubt]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

I think this is a good place to start.

Removing the low hanging fruit in this case. Take the PRR/MRR reduction and put it into the classes or enhancement trees.

Another piece would be to convert some of the removed PRR into AC. AC still requires a significant investment to get numbers that matter. If heavy armor gave less PRR and more AC, it would still be valuable to traditional heavy armor users while having a little less value to non-traditional heavy armor users (i.e. casters, rangers etc.)

[nobdog]

That's the exact discussion going on with the player's council as we speak, but we welcome feedback here as well.

Sev~

Since you seem to be paying attention to this thread here in the down time I just wanna throw in another vote for "leave it be"

There are a lot of cool builds now that only became viable because of armor up. if you think PRR is out of hand in high end, cut some of the stacking bonuses at the top end, rather than trying to chop it off at the feet.

[slarden]

Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

Great post. I cut out everything else because while it is all important - this is what I believe was the most important point you mentioned.

Champions pose no threat to people with high PRR and prior to the nerfs could one-hit people wih low PRR. If you can address this you can make champions more powerful again without the unintended one-shotting.

[Epitome]

Maybe you're right. But I can't think of how you would provide challenge to a char who ignores 50%+ of melee damage without nearly 1 shotting those who don't.

My monk with no armor has 111 PRR. Yet that is in Earth Stance in which I suffer a reduction in offensive capability. Although when not in Earth it is unlikely my offensive capabilities are still anywhere near the lastest Pally/Barb builds with higher PRR with heavy armor.

[Oxarhamar]

We are on the same page.



Yes, absolutely. Add that those classes are better DPSers than real monks and everyone else in melee (monk heavy builds) and you got the current scenario. But truth is that in expected terms (and before shadow guardian) monks are still better in defenses. Not that it matters one bit and it does not account for the spikes of damage.



As you say, melees now are way more competitive. I argue that they have become OP in relation to content. The fact that people had already overpowered quests and raids on kiters is aside.

Finally, armor is now better than pajamas because of the reasons I have sketched (class / weapon limitations and the cost of armor).



All I have to say is you asked for it, you got it.

Where's your melee can only solo EE w/mortal fear & Legendary Dreadnaught threads now?


As an aside I tried Adamantine body instead of evasion, meh with ~160 PRR without much gear focus on PRR the loss of Dodge & evasion in composite plating were not worth the Physical or Magic damage reductions when many Physical & most Magical at racks could be completely avoided with Dodge & Evasion.

[Monkey-Boy]

I think this is a good place to start.

Removing the low hanging fruit in this case. Take the PRR/MRR reduction and put it into the classes or enhancement trees.[/QUOTE]

Only requiring 3 levels of fighter for the PRR benefits of stalwart is broken.



Another piece would be to convert some of the removed PRR into AC. AC still requires a significant investment to get numbers that matter. If heavy armor gave less PRR and more AC, it would still be valuable to traditional heavy armor users while having a little less value to non-traditional heavy armor users (i.e. casters, rangers etc.)

Does anyone care about AC anymore at all?

[caberonia]

My monk with no armor has 111 PRR. Yet that is in Earth Stance in which I suffer a reduction in offensive capability. Although when not in Earth it is unlikely my offensive capabilities are still anywhere near the lastest Pally/Barb builds with higher PRR with heavy armor.
Yes earth stance is really the only viabe option in alot of content for monk now, and as you point out even then its giving up a chunk of dps just to not die. But dead monks do 0 dps so... Just remove all other stances From your Hot bar since its the only stance the devs have deemed viable in future content.. you'll need that PRR.



Does anyone care about AC anymore at all?
I can't speak for anyone else.. but Generally I think AC went the way of the DoDo with PRR/MRR...

[BigErkyKid]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

Thanks for letting us know. In any case, it is hard to know whether a few PRR up or down will make the trick, specially because this would happen without altering the ways we have to invest in defense.

If you dial down PRR too much and do not allow for people to build for it reasonably (read, without gimping yourself), it will just be a slap to the whole style. For me, this would have to come with a broader change in the defensive enhancement trees.

[Monkey-Boy]

That's the exact discussion going on with the player's council as we speak, but we welcome feedback here as well.

Sev~

Since you're in an answering mood . . . what exactly were your intentions when you did armor up? And how far off the mark was reality from what you expected everyone to do?

[redoubt]

Only requiring 3 levels of fighter for the PRR benefits of stalwart is broken.



Does anyone care about AC anymore at all?

As an example:

My 18wiz/2 rogue wears shadow guardian light armor for the PRR/MRR bonus and still uses evasion because he has very high reflex and does traps. AC does not matter.

My 14sorc/4 fvs/2pali is in adamantine body for PRR/MRR. AC does not matter.

My 20 paladin is in heavy armor of course. PRR is much quicker to raise and has a bigger impact than AC. But, on this build AC can begin to matter.

By putting in less easy to get PRR and more easy to get AC, you could make heavy armor still very good for "tanky" builds while making it less attractive when compared to evasion. When I see people say that it is an easy choice to void evasion by putting on heavy armor, I start to think there may be a balance issue. I'm not thinking to make any drastic changes, but slide the scale just enough that traditional evasion characters will still find evasion better for their build in most cases, while traditional heavy armor characters still get very good mitigation and avoidance from heavy armor.

[BigErkyKid]

I think this is a good place to start.
Removing the low hanging fruit in this case. Take the PRR/MRR reduction and put it into the classes or enhancement trees.



Removing the low hanging fruit in this case. Take the PRR/MRR reduction and put it into the classes or enhancement trees.
Only requiring 3 levels of fighter for the PRR benefits of stalwart is broken.
[/QUOTE]

So much this, I got ninja'ed before posting. The issue right now is that the benefit from armor wearing comes mostly from slapping it on. You can not build for it very effectively because defensive trees have amazing diminishing returns in terms of how much DPS you are giving up on since they are filled with rather bad options (+1 armor class?).

Hence, taking out PRR on its own just attacks the style, not much the front or back loading of it. For me, this really needs to come with a change of the defensive trees and generally speaking defensive options.

[kauetomaz]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~
ohh look something currently being discussed and it somehow made its way to live without being on the notes. why am i not surprised *facepalm*

[Krell]

The specific problem we are trying to solve is front loaded mitigation - not overall survivability. We don't plan to change the overall mitigation of fully built out characters. The plan is that you'll need it if you want to run Hard and Elite versions of Temple of Elemental Evil.

Sev~

What would be some of the other mitigation changes? If you reduce the front loading but "don't plan to change the overall mitigation of fully built out characters" I'm assuming there would be other changes beyond the armor bonus.

[BigErkyKid]

What would be some of the other mitigation changes? If you reduce the front loading but "don't plan to change the overall mitigation of fully built out characters" I'm assuming there would be other changes beyond the armor bonus.

I am hoping he means the trees, otherwise I fail to see how he plans on doing that.

[Seikojin]

Similar to the PC thread on this, I see a lot of comment on leaving it as is. however I see a lot of yes, please change it comments as well. More than I thought I would see.

I personally don't mind the dip as long as there is a way to fill it back up. Like add PRR/MRR from materials and put them back into play. So adamantine can offer something like +10 PRR and Mithril can add something like +10 MRR.

I know they don't drop, but it can be a property on lootgen for tier 3 and 4 armors (the different types of plate, chain, etc).

[caberonia]

You can build for a lot of PRR without wearing Heavy Armor. It's not a difference of 50% mitigation.

Sev~

So how much PRR is a wizard or Sorc expected to have to run new content without being one shotted?

I ask because my 23 paladin has ~ 190 prr.. which is over 60% mitigation. My 23 Wiz on the other hand has 10 which is like 9% mitigation. At one point in time it wasn't expected of casters to build for AC.. now we're being told we need to build for PRR. Guess i need to put him in med or heavy armor since thats probably the easiest way to up his PRR.

(neither are what i would consider well equipped..)

[Gauthaag]

I d strip MRR from PRR formula and armor dependance. It could be separarate as enchantment on items and given to certain class or racial trees (drows n dwarves as innate magicaly resistant, occult slayer and higher tiers of defender trees*, maybe henshin as it s bad as it is:) )

i m fine with mitigation of physical dmg from PRR, but MRR coming with it was imho nonsense.


*just sidenote - where we had splash of monkey for evasion we now have splash of ftr3 or pally3 just for benefits from defensive stance

[redoubt]

Similar to the PC thread on this, I see a lot of comment on leaving it as is. however I see a lot of yes, please change it comments as well. More than I thought I would see.

I personally don't mind the dip as long as there is a way to fill it back up. Like add PRR/MRR from materials and put them back into play. So adamantine can offer something like +10 PRR and Mithril can add something like +10 MRR.

I know they don't drop, but it can be a property on lootgen for tier 3 and 4 armors (the different types of plate, chain, etc).

My thought I putting it back in would be to give classes like fighter and paladin feats at 5,10,15,20 that are something like:
When wearing medium armor +2 PRR/MRR.
When wearing heavy armor +4 PRR/MRR.

The PRR stays tied to wearing the armor and does not have additional cost for traditional heavy armor wearing classes. It also moves the PRR up into higher levels and makes it less front loaded.

[myliftkk_v2]

All I have to say is you asked for it, you got it.

Where's your melee can only solo EE w/mortal fear & Legendary Dreadnaught threads now?

ikr

Honestly, why do I care how long some melee wants to stand in front of a champion getting hit at while it chops away? My necro cleric still brings more DPS faster, and to greater numbers, than all the melee I've grouped with while leveling up to 20. Is it nice to see more flavors of melee in my groups, absolutely. Has it mattered one iota the "front-loading" because I'd expect to see drastic difference in heroic elites? Absolutely not, and outside of maybe an ultra-rare boss battle it won't from 1-20.

[Gauthaag]

Similar to the PC thread on this, I see a lot of comment on leaving it as is. however I see a lot of yes, please change it comments as well. More than I thought I would see.

I personally don't mind the dip as long as there is a way to fill it back up. Like add PRR/MRR from materials and put them back into play. So adamantine can offer something like +10 PRR and Mithril can add something like +10 MRR.

I know they don't drop, but it can be a property on lootgen for tier 3 and 4 armors (the different types of plate, chain, etc).

i m pretty sure adamantine and mithril armors still drop - maybe not as much as random loot, but at least several of named ones - Cavalry plate, Templars Bastion, tourney armor n such

[mezzorco]

Just leave it be, losing 5-15 points of PRR won't make a noticeable difference one way or the other.

"just slapping on some armor" has opportunity costs, feats and AP for a lot of builds.

Sure, it has opportunity costs
I see lowering armor PRR to 10-20-30 not for the difference it will make in mitigation, but for the difference there will be in opportunity cost.

Lowering base PRR, it will be less appealing for a druid or a barbarian to pick heavy armor proficiency feat, while non-swashbuckler bards for instance will continue to aim for medium armor.
I see this change as a good change, please lower it.

[Lonnbeimnech]

My thought I putting it back in would be to give classes like fighter and paladin feats at 5,10,15,20 that are something like:
When wearing medium armor +2 PRR/MRR.
When wearing heavy armor +4 PRR/MRR.

The PRR stays tied to wearing the armor and does not have additional cost for traditional heavy armor wearing classes. It also moves the PRR up into higher levels and makes it less front loaded.

Then why is it a feat if it is tied to specific classes?

Are you saying that a fighter that gets heavy armor proficiency for free is somehow better at wearing heavy armor than a barbarian that spent a feat on it?

They have the same feat.

[LightBear]

You can build for a lot of PRR without wearing Heavy Armor. It's not a difference of 50% mitigation.

Sev~

You're missing the point, it's either do or die.
(Got hit and you don't have prr up so far you can mitigate 50% of the damage? If yes; Then you're toast for sure!)

[Thar]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

Does this mean you will roll back champion changes since this was a result of game is too easy by the i now have uber prr crowd? And with a reduction in prr, now champions will hit harder along with everything else?

As I've said before to the nerf pally/bard crowd, can't adjust the difficulty until all the player base is up to par with each other and you have a baseline to compare vs the challenge.

that being said, i think this is a good move, Heavy armor is a bit too much at the moment compared to anything else.

[Enoach]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

I am kind of mixed on this. One thought I had would be to have a good portion of the PRR/MRR be based on the proficiency. For Heavy Armor this could be up to 3 Feats for some classes, but would still allow War Chanter Bard and EK Wizards/Sorcerers access to the PRR/MRR based on their enhancements.

Now I run a Heavy Armor S&B Paladin myself and at level 28 I'm well over 200 PRR and my damage mitigation is in the 70% for Physical and 60% for Magical which makes a big difference on physical because Even with a 230+ AC I'm still getting hit a lot in higher content.

While I've come to like the PRR/MRR mechanic I would be willing to tone it down. However, I would like to see my AC also actually mean fewer hits as well.

Yes people are going to be upset. But like any reasonable change the community will be able to move forward.

[luvirini]

Indeed, "armor up" made heavy armor characters a true easy button.

The game has been moving towards more and more casual play all the time. Armor up is just the final chapter in making the game play be "run forward at full speed while swinging a weapon" as you cannot fail quests.

Back in the day we had several difficulties in game starting with normal and people who wanted to play hard had to make better builds, get better gear and step up their game bit after that the jump to elite again raised the bar requiring more from the player and the character build/gear.

After the power creep hard became the new normal and now elite is the new normal and you cannot find challenge without either gimping your character on purpose or cherry picking the extremely few slightly harder quests and even then it is not that challenging. On Epics you can luckily run high level content at level 20 so you can do that but at heroic levels you are just totally out of luck, the game stops you from running too high level quests.

A lot of the reasons for the easier time in the game comes from the fact that many people did not want to get the skills/builds/gear to run the harder difficulties but wanted the rewards and the devs agreed that it is a good idea. Thus we only have one difficulty today and it is not hard enough if you have a reasonably skilled player playing a reasonably geared character in a reasonably good build.

The natural power creep combined with the quest level limits and the devs making elite an easy difficulty with changes like armor up and healing amp changes and the new super enchantments means that at heroic levels the only thing you can do is run the mind boringly easy things.

I do agree that EE was too hard for most melees before the armor up change but after the change heroics are a joke(well, with the power creep they mostly were before, but now more than ever) and if you try even a bit to make you character good then EEs are a joke too.

Thus armor up was the "final nail" in the coffin of difficulty. It is really not unique, just a trend continued.

As long as the design principle is that everyone should be able to run hardest difficulty in their sleep then the trend will continue.

Before armor up I liked EEs because there was actually some challenge and even good players easily died in them occasionally, basically if you did not pay attention to your build and your game play bad things happened. Your character had the power to kill everything in them easily due to the overpowered epic destinies, but you had to be careful in applying that power so you survived. After the change you can just ignore the enemy damage and run forwards as your epic destinies are as overpowered as ever and now with armorup your defenses are there too.

As example I have run a first life character solo though a lot of EE quests in an off destiny leveling up that destiny with very few difficulties. (I do have to say that I did enjoy just standing there an hitting Karlethin in the end fight of "The Thrill of the Hunt" after so many times running around away from him.. but in the end that means that even that fight was reduced to "stand there and hit the enemy")

[jalont]

So how much PRR is a wizard or Sorc expected to have to run new content without being one shotted?

I ask because my 23 paladin has ~ 190 prr.. which is over 60% mitigation. My 23 Wiz on the other hand has 10 which is like 9% mitigation. At one point in time it wasn't expected of casters to build for AC.. now we're being told we need to build for PRR. Guess i need to put him in med or heavy armor since thats probably the easiest way to up his PRR.

(neither are what i would consider well equipped..)

There's no reason to think that new content is going to provide any extra challenge. In fact, I'd assume the game will get easier with every update.

[Monkey-Boy]

It should be a sliding scale, the move damage mitigation you have the less damage you should do.

Heavy Armor and Tower shield should have the best defense and the worst offense.

However you tweak your system, that should be your goal. Anything else is broken.

Honestly, with the exception of monk-splash being OP, the old AC system worked better than the monstrosity we have today.

[redoubt]

Then why is it a feat if it is tied to specific classes?

Are you saying that a fighter that gets heavy armor proficiency for free is somehow better at wearing heavy armor than a barbarian that spent a feat on it?

They have the same feat.

As I've thought about it more, I'd give it to the classes that autogrant the feat. i.e. if autogranted heavy armor proficiency, then they get the bonus feats for heavy/medium armor. If autogranted medium armor then they get the bonus feats for medium armor.

Yes, I'm saying those classes are better at it. (This also makes it less attractive as a splash or "slap it on" addition, while preserving the full amount for classes that traditionally wear those armors.)

[BigErkyKid]

It should be a sliding scale, the move damage mitigation you have the less damage you should do.

Heavy Armor and Tower shield should have the best defense and the worst offense.

However you tweak your system, that should be your goal. Anything else is broken.

Honestly, with the exception of monk-splash being OP, the old AC system worked better than the monstrosity we have today.

Logic dictates that, making an exception for a less defense and more offense vanguard, just using a shield.

[Thrudh]

it was not over buffed. the reason your seeing so many paladins, barbarians, and bards, is because people actually like to play that way, but were unable to because it was borderline gimp.

its like we just got more classes and people are trying out the new classes. people always solo'd EE's on casters, monchers, monks, etc. and it was considered a hardcore achievement to do the same on a melee, and it was still sub optimal at the time. we are finally able to play a paladin, or a barbarian in heavy armor, and not be considered a gimp piece of **** that is going to end up a soulstone at the first sign of a big fight.

all the classes are finally legitimately playable, all styles of armor are finally playable (from none to heavy, and even light and medium have a place on some builds) and even all combat styles are playable. (aside from maybe pure bow, you still really have to be a moncher)

dont be so short sighted. previous builds didn't change, gimp ones got competitive. I finally see pure barbs and dont shake my head thinking they are going to useless, or s&b pallies are going to do no damage but at least live (pallies were the ultimate pike class back in the day)

Great post... My main is a TWF 12/4/4 ranger/fighter/paladin... still using light armor and evasion... He still does great, and I love playing him... He has not been nerfed in any way. The changes to LD and Tempest enhancements have all been large net gains for him...

I did pull my barbarian out of retirement, however, and I'm having fun with him right now... It's not because barbarians are OP... it's because I haven't played a THF heavy armor no-evasion cleaving barb in a while, and it's a refreshing change of pace for me.

I'm all for changing armor to 30/20/10... I think that's a good change, but just because you see a bunch of barbs and paladins running around in heavy armor recently, that doesn't mean everything is broken and Over-powered... Those two classes have had some massive changes lately, and they're fun to play...

But my evasion guy is just as fun to play as he ever was... I'll get back to him... I'm glad BOTH my main melee guys are fun to play again... I used to alternate between the two of them all the time... TR one, then TR the other... but the barb has been retired for a while... I'm glad I get to play him again.

I'd like to pull my bard\rogue out of retirement as well, but I'm not sure I have the time to start working on him (He's been my haggle-bot/bank character for so long, he has almost no gear, and not a single past-life... so he'd be a lot of work).

[Loromir]

Why is this an issue? Because we have gone from a system where evasion and pajamas were a no brainer to heavy armor (or at least not having monk) is almost a must. The whole point of u23 was, according to the devs, to introduce more build options, not to kill existing builds.



I'm not sure how this killed an existing build. Did they make a change to evasion or monks or light armor or something else that I don't know about. I believe Monk splashes are just as good as they used to be. Am I wrong? Did they get nerfed?

....and don't tell me that because something is now equal to or better, thus they are nerfed. I don't buy that argument. We have options now. Monk splash builds are just as good as they used to be, but now they are not necessarily the best.

"Kill and existing build"????? I don't think so.

[FestusHood]

I am kind of mixed on this. One thought I had would be to have a good portion of the PRR/MRR be based on the proficiency. For Heavy Armor this could be up to 3 Feats for some classes, but would still allow War Chanter Bard and EK Wizards/Sorcerers access to the PRR/MRR based on their enhancements.

Now I run a Heavy Armor S&B Paladin myself and at level 28 I'm well over 200 PRR and my damage mitigation is in the 70% for Physical and 60% for Magical which makes a big difference on physical because Even with a 230+ AC I'm still getting hit a lot in higher content.

While I've come to like the PRR/MRR mechanic I would be willing to tone it down. However, I would like to see my AC also actually mean fewer hits as well.

Yes people are going to be upset. But like any reasonable change the community will be able to move forward.

I agree much with what you are saying here. The problem appears to be the easy availability of high defense with little investment. The way ac is currently working is that it takes a pretty extreme investment to see any noticeable effect, and you can put in a lesser, but still substantial investment and see almost no benefit at all. Talking about the epic elite level here.

Maybe a better answer would have been to increase the amounts of ac that was granted by armors and enhancements, to make it easier to get into the range where it shows benefits, and give more benefits to those that make extreme investments.

I'm not currently using any builds that take advantage of it, but i can see how moving the defensive stance from level 6 to level 3 also made it essentially the equivalent of the two splash for evasion. Not sure how i feel about that. Both require at least some investment to make them work, either action points or saves.

Then there is the idea that you must either build for substantial prr or get wiped out. Since it is in fact possible to get a decent amount of prr without using heavy armor, i'm not sure this is a problem. Building/gearing for defensive benefits should give benefits. If choosing to ignore defense doesn't result in a person getting wiped out, then why bother? Best case scenario is that agro management and the usefulness of tanks would make a comeback. I personally wouldn't mind that.

[Thar]

That's the exact discussion going on with the player's council as we speak, but we welcome feedback here as well.

Sev~

5-15 does make a different on non tanking toons who don't stack up to 200 prr.

so if it doesn't make a difference, take it away and you solve the just slap armor on crowd.
if it does make a difference, then it is a good change as it is giving too much vs medium/light.

either way it is a good change.

[Thar]

You can build for a lot of PRR without wearing Heavy Armor. It's not a difference of 50% mitigation.

Sev~

I can't seem to make a light armor ranger with prr to get 50%. They don't get the enhancements with light armor or tempest. Am I missing something? Other than melee rangers have like no dps and no prr compared to other toons?

[Lonnbeimnech]

As I've thought about it more, I'd give it to the classes that autogrant the feat. i.e. if autogranted heavy armor proficiency, then they get the bonus feats for heavy/medium armor. If autogranted medium armor then they get the bonus feats for medium armor.

Yes, I'm saying those classes are better at it. (This also makes it less attractive as a splash or "slap it on" addition, while preserving the full amount for classes that traditionally wear those armors.)

Then we can go and address a lot of other feats.

Many shot, for every 5 rangers levels fire +1 arrows for 20 seconds

Magical training, for every wizard level gain 4sp

Toughness, for every barb level gain 1 hp

Mental toughness, for every sorc level gain 10 sp

etc etc.

The game doesn't work that way.

What you are thinking of is addressed in the stalwart defender tree, a fighter that is not just proficient in armor, but specialized in it by spending ap as he leveled up.

[Lonnbeimnech]

I can't seem to make a light armor ranger with prr to get 50%. They don't get the enhancements with light armor. Am I missing something? Other than melee rangers have like no dps and no prr compared to other toons?

build for it in this case would mean, taking 3 fighter or 3 paladin levels and wearing heavy armor and defender stance...

[Annyee]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

.... Come on.....

Ok, let me break this down for Team Turbine......

The older content, specifically the older hero content, were built/balanced WITHOUT the PRR/MRR game mechanic. The newer content, specifically the newer epic content, are built/balanced WITH the PRR/MRR game mechanic. Soooo, if you design a system for new content the old content becomes super easy. However, if you nerf your NEW mechanics that was designed to be balanced with NEW content to accommodate the OLD content the NEW content becomes oppressive. What Turbine is doing is constantly adjusting PRR/MRR to fit two different contents. This is a failed strategy that is a waste of time which is a waste of money on Turbines part. Turbine is changing game mechanics to then change the SAME game mechanic again. The content from 2006 to 2015 is vastly different with vastly different game mechanics in use when it was released. The old content has not been updated to reflect this evolution. Old DDo scaled 1-20 in a mostly linear fashion with a mostly set endgame. This new DDo does not scale linear.

Their are several possible solutions:

Update all the old content to come back into balance with all the new game mechanics. I suspect this would be a major overhaul and consume more developer hours than you are prepared to spend.

Bite the bullet and realize this is two different games. Hero and Epic. Keep all the hero content in line with the older hero content. Change/invent new game mechanics that balances with the old hero content and mesh the enhancement system to balance within that lower half of the game. Do the same thing in Epics only use the the ED's to balance out epic content. Making hero abilities and game mechanics that will "scale" into epic levels has trivialized the older hero content. We do more damage (Deadly/Melee Power/New Guild buffs) and take less damage (PRR/MRR/Dodge/New Guild buffs/easy to get +6 resistance saves on trash loot gen gear) and that is the tip of the iceberg of the problem. The old hero quests were never meant to absorb this kind of power creep. This is what we have now and it is not working. Stop trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. ED's were rolled out to enhance an enhancement system that we don't have anymore. ED's simply need to be reworked to mesh with all the updates to the enhancement lines and the new game mechanics.

Change PRR/MRR to what ever it needs to be to scale properly in older hero content. Now, to scale it into epic levels give more/better scaling PRR/MRR boosting abilities in the ED's. The options we have now for boosting PRR/MRR from our ED's are garbage minus the PRR boost from Blitz however Blitz has its own issues. This does seem to be the route you are on with scaling melee power and all. If your want to scale PRR/MRR just use the same logic however you will need to rework some ED's.

We can have all these new game mechanics in the old content but it has to be scaled within that content. It seems that scaling has come from the top content down instead of the from the bottom content up.

[redoubt]

Then we can go and address a lot of other feats.

Many shot, for every 5 rangers levels fire +1 arrows for 20 seconds

Magical training, for every wizard level gain 4sp

Toughness, for every barb level gain 1 hp

Mental toughness, for every sorc level gain 10 sp

etc etc.

The game doesn't work that way.

What you are thinking of is addressed in the stalwart defender tree, a fighter that is not just proficient in armor, but specialized in it by spending ap as he leveled up.

The point it to take the PRR out of the initial investment and have it show back up later. If you drop from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10 and just tack it back on to everyone with the feat, you have changed nothing. But if you put it back strategically, in the places where you want them to have more PRR, then you have made the desired change.

And saying the game doesn't work that way, doesn't work anymore. We've both played this one far to long to really believe that that means anything any more.

[Robai]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.
...


Since so many players are overpowered these days I agree with any nerf.
Thanks!

EDIT:
I think it should be this:
PRR is higher than MRR on Heavy armor
MRR is higher than PRR on Medium armor
PRR is the same as MRR on Light armor (low anyway)

[Lonnbeimnech]

The point it to take the PRR out of the initial investment and have it show back up later. If you drop from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10 and just tack it back on to everyone with the feat, you have changed nothing. But if you put it back strategically, in the places where you want them to have more PRR, then you have made the desired change.

And saying the game doesn't work that way, doesn't work anymore. We've both played this one far to long to really believe that that means anything any more.

Such as auto granting it to every fighter and paladin,
a.not defensive builds, but all of them.
b.the 2 classes that would be running around with +200 prr anyway.

Yeah, I'm not convinced this would change much, other than making paladins even more OP.

[Qhualor]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

whatever works so that heavy armor isn't a no brainer. if this is one of those going back to fix something that should have been fixed before, than yes do it. but math yeah, that looks to me like 15/10/5 points less but no clue what that translates into. I have no idea what that means, but im voting yes anyways! :)

[Monkey-Boy]

Logic dictates that, making an exception for a less defense and more offense vanguard, just using a shield.

No, this exception is horribly broken. Vanguard's do too much DPS for the defense they have available.

Though one could argue that about almost anyone at this point.

In the older days (pre MoTU) you took significant DPS hits for defense (AC, and splashing for evasion cost you). That was a better situation than what we have now.

[Lonnbeimnech]

whatever works so that heavy armor isn't a no brainer. if this is one of those going back to fix something that should have been fixed before, than yes do it. but math yeah, that looks to me like 15/10/5 points less but no clue what that translates into. I have no idea what that means, but im voting yes anyways! :)

http://ddowiki.com/page/Physical_Resistance_Rating

means if you were not super tweeked out, and are running around at 65prr now, you will go from ~39% to ~33% mitigation

and if you are a 200prr paladin you go from ~66% down to ~65%

and if you were a wizard that wore heavy armor but didn't take the proficiency you go from ~31% down to about ~23%

[Spoonwelder]

I read the first two pages and then stopped so if this is a repeat I apologize.....


What I would like to see is a system that was balanced around a specific goal for them to balance around the primary components of incoming damage management:


AC/DR
PRR/MRR
Dodge/Evasion
HP/HAMP


Lets say we set a theoretical target of 100 (which in turn would mitigate 50% of incoming damage on EE at level/66% on EH and 75% on EN). Say if you score 50 you would be at 25/33/38%)

Then scoring it out you could go AC/PRR and get to 66 easily and balls out you would bet to 100 on a 'perfect' build.
Or if you go Dodge/Evasion - an average build could get to 30% dodge but to get to 50% dodge would require a 'perfect' build.
HP would be such that you have enough HP and HAMP to be easily healed/self-healed through incoming damage

But it would also allow you to combinations of the above - ie. light armor, shield, dodger with moderate HP could get to that score of 100 and be competitive.

And quite honestly cap the 'overall score' at 100 such that nobody gets better than 50% dmg reduction.

I would further add that Blur/Discplacement/Ghostly should at max provide a further 25%(stacking) and the analogue for spells being elemental absorptions should also cap out at 25%.

Thus if you have 500HP damage incoming per second from a EE mob only you would get 125 dps and most players could handle 8-10 seconds between heals and in that 8-10seconds but some HP tanks might be taking 250/s but due to HP could stay toe to toe for 8-10 seconds.

NOTE: all of the above numbers are talking points - the key points are an overall cap to the benefits of the four key sources of damage mitigation - segregate (blur/ghostly/displacement) as most builds can access these easily and also put an overall cap on those.

This would allow the designers to design encounters with these caps in mind not build the game around some of the current 'perfect' builds with 200PRR/MRR/175AC/1500HP/10%dodge/PermaDisplaced builds that can go afk in front of an EE boss and not be hit (yes I am exagerating but not by much) which then leaves anyone who isnt' one of those builds to die in one shot to EE papercuts.

[Bluegirl_Two]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

And this is why you should not have a player's council. This is among the more stupid things that I've read in the forums.

The real gripe is that the monk splashes are not the top dogs any more. Cut through all the BS and that is what it is all about.

Someday the designers and developers at Turbine need to wake up and realize that any time players ask for a change it isn't to make the game better -- it is to restore their favorite thing to its place of prominence.

It was said best back on page 1. Monk splashes are just as good as they ever were. The reason players are not playing those builds isn't because they are not good -- it is because they really do want to play heavy armored fighters and paladins.

Turbine would be better served if they fixed what they did wrong with fighters. Paladins are self sufficient. Bards, barbarians, clerics, favored souls, artificers, monks, wizards, sorcerers, rangers, rogues -- all self sufficient. Fighters, still need to rely on some other character class for buffs, heals, cures. About the only thing they have going for them is that they can withstand damage due to the way the current armor system works.

The issue isn't that monks are no longer a popular splash, it is that the armor up did nothing to help fighters. They never existed in numbers before the pass unless as part of a multiclass build and they don't exist in numbers now -- unless part of a multiclass build. Take away or reduce the only thing they have in their favor and you've done nothing except restore player favorites and further hurt the worst class in the game.

[Chi_Ryu]

I personally don't mind the dip as long as there is a way to fill it back up. Like add PRR/MRR from materials and put them back into play. So adamantine can offer something like +10 PRR and Mithril can add something like +10 MRR.

This is a good idea. I would especially love Mithril to have a use to compensate for the lost PRR/MRR.

I quite like the proposed change to base armour PRR/MRR; it would make me consider sticking with Medium Armor on my pure Artificer - at the moment it is almost a no brainer to go for Heavy, since it means an instant increase of about 24PRR and 15MRR, with quite low drawbacks (a couple of percent of dodge, a skill penalty which is mostly inconsequential, and loss of Dex AC which is next to useless).

[gwonbush]

I can't seem to make a light armor ranger with prr to get 50%. They don't get the enhancements with light armor or tempest. Am I missing something? Other than melee rangers have like no dps and no prr compared to other toons?

Let's see, you need 100 PRR to get to 50% mitigation: You have 15 (Light Armor)+ 14 (Light armor with 24 BAB) + 30 (Sheltering) +30 (Blitz) +10 (Improved Parry) and +5 (Insightful Sheltering). This brings you up to a total of 104 PRR for around 51% mitigation with no past lives (9 Divine EPLs and 3 PDK bring you up to 140 for 58.33%). You could also take Two Weapon Defense for another 5 and Epic Damage Reduction for another 10.

[Krell]

With the fix to Legendary Shield Mastery today, many sword and board builds now have 15 less PRR. 30 less PRR for sword and orb. Although the original bonus was unintended, I think it is part of the consideration between what PRR values were for different builds and what they could end up at.

[bbqzor]

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10.

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council.
Many agree with the change.
Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides.
Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

This change is both bad and necessary, allow me to explain.

Tuning down PRR, especially by such trivial (for armor users) amount is going to effectively do nothing. Which means this is just an annoyance to the player base for no reason.

But likewise, its necessary to take away the push to just wear heavy armor whether proficient or not, and the only way to do that is cut the bonus down. If people are choosing to wear heavy armor just for the passives, they ought to at least be proficient with it to do so. To accomplish that feel, this is the only solution.

It also creates a PRR gap, with nothing else mentioned (thus far) to fill in the "missing" prr. For non-heavy armor guys, this can be significant. And it definitely makes armor seem "less useful".

Overall Id be glad to see this go in IF and ONLY if it is part of a set of changes designed to simply shift around how you get to where you are, without substantially changing player's investments or builds. Like, if a light armor and shield guy loses 5 PRR, but change improved shield mastery around to give light shields 5 more PRR in the end to reward spending 2 feats, okay fine. Especially since light shields are kind of junky right now, and there was no reason before to use them, alleviating that penalty some is a good thing. Guys that sank the feats dont lose, anyone just throwing on armor is down a bit, thats great for everyone.

But just taking PRR off the top and leaving it isnt going to do anything except irritate a player base already forced to deal with trivial changes that often force character respecs all the time. We dont need more of that, ever.


You can build for a lot of PRR without wearing Heavy Armor. It's not a difference of 50% mitigation.

Is this just an allusion that monks, or light armor/shield guys can build for prr too? Or is it an attempt to claim that non armor, non shield, robed caster types can easily get to 100 prr to compete with tanks who easily get to 200 prr. Because one of them has little to do with "heavy armor" issues, and the other one is exactly the problem.

[Chai]

And this is why you should not have a player's council. This is among the more stupid things that I've read in the forums.

The real gripe is that the monk splashes are not the top dogs any more. Cut through all the BS and that is what it is all about.

Someday the designers and developers at Turbine need to wake up and realize that any time players ask for a change it isn't to make the game better -- it is to restore their favorite thing to its place of prominence.

It was said best back on page 1. Monk splashes are just as good as they ever were. The reason players are not playing those builds isn't because they are not good -- it is because they really do want to play heavy armored fighters and paladins.

Turbine would be better served if they fixed what they did wrong with fighters. Paladins are self sufficient. Bards, barbarians, clerics, favored souls, artificers, monks, wizards, sorcerers, rangers, rogues -- all self sufficient. Fighters, still need to rely on some other character class for buffs, heals, cures. About the only thing they have going for them is that they can withstand damage due to the way the current armor system works.

The issue isn't that monks are no longer a popular splash, it is that the armor up did nothing to help fighters. They never existed in numbers before the pass unless as part of a multiclass build and they don't exist in numbers now -- unless part of a multiclass build. Take away or reduce the only thing they have in their favor and you've done nothing except restore player favorites and further hurt the worst class in the game.

Armor up did quite a bit to help fighters. Melee combat damage mitigation for plate wearing classes was the single biggest detriment to fighters for a long time. Now its a viable choice rather than having to be a monk "one with the blade" or be second rate. The addition of Vanguard added to this with more CC type abilities for shield users.

Fighters aren't forced to rely on anyone else. The damage mitigation fits into this quite well because in a solo situation, it is easier to win the fight first, then heal up afterward, than it is to have to heal in the middle of battle. Fighters have a better chance of doing this now with the much better mitigation granted with plate and shields. Even on a pure fighter with dumped cha, it has been possible to hit UMD totals needed to scroll heal, and cocoon in epics on top of that means not having to rely on anyone else for healing, unless the group wants constant DPS. So while the OPTION exists to utilize a fighter as such, they rely on no one for buffs and heals.

The main issue with fighters is they haven't seen their revamp yet. Of course they will look inferior to other classes which have been revamped.

[Thrudh]

I can't seem to make a light armor ranger with prr to get 50%. They don't get the enhancements with light armor or tempest. Am I missing something? Other than melee rangers have like no dps and no prr compared to other toons?

Light armor rangers don't need 50% PRR...

You get evasion and 20%-25% dodge and 25% PRR.

[redoubt]

Such as auto granting it to every fighter and paladin,
a.not defensive builds, but all of them.
b.the 2 classes that would be running around with +200 prr anyway.

Yeah, I'm not convinced this would change much, other than making paladins even more OP.

How does it make any build more powerful?

The idea is to make slapping on heavy armor less desirable for classes like rogues and sorc, while at the same time providing the same total defense to classes like fighter and paladin (who I am referring to as traditional heavy armor wearers.) Its not an attempt to give fighters and paladins MORE prr, but to give them the same PRR (without additional cost) as they have now, but through another mechanism.

[luvirini]

The real gripe is that the monk splashes are not the top dogs any more. Cut through all the BS and that is what it is all about.


I do not care if the top melee build is monk splash or pure paladin or pure fighter or pure barbarian or what ever.

What I care about is two things:
-Be able to play different character types without feeling a gimp.
-There should be hard enough things to do without having to gimp myself.

Currently the game says to me: "Play a heavy armor melee or you are gimp" and it says "Once you do that then all content is trivial"

I have never enjoyed playing melees, I liked reasonably playing ranged characters but my real like is playing casters, so it makes me sad to kill things about 3 times as fast on my melee in EEs and do it without any danger than I do on my casters that struggle a lot more with surviving.

High level heroics is the only place where casters really shine and they are reasonable in medium level heroics and low level epics.

Before armor up my casters were on the same line as melees in EE: manage the agro and pick them off one by one and you will survive. Today the melees can just ignore agro and run into the middle of the enemy pack and start swinging. My casters have gained some extra survivability by putting on heavy armor but it is still low if enough enemies target them..

So the choice for me is:
Run a melee and complete content with eyes closed
Run with the caster and feel like a total gimp.
Run with a ranged and feel like a gimp(though less of a gimp) and still not like playing them as much as casters.

[Bluegirl_Two]

The main issue with fighters is they haven't seen their revamp yet. Of course they will look inferior to other classes which have been revamped.

The armor up revamp was supposed to be for both paladins and fighters. It had a huge impact on paladins. It had almost no impact on fighters.

The only reason fighters can manage to wait on healing is because of the current heavy armor mechanics. Reduce those and fighters won't be able to survive the encounter in order to get to the between fights stage. It is already difficult given the speed at which most parties move through encounters.

Edit: And, I should note that it isn't possible at all with epic elite content without a group to help. I see videos of every class soloing epic elites -- but not fighters. There's a reason for that.

Fighters do not get any heal skill. This means that they are already behind in positive spell power. They get no scroll mastery. They have limited skill points and typically will not invest in UMD.

While all of the things you name are possible, they are not normal for the bulk of fighter builds.

All of which means that fighters do not have the self-sufficiency that other classes have and they remain dependent on others. In a game where self sufficiency is almost a prerequisite it means that fighters are the one class that is most in need of help.

And fighters had their revamp with armor up.

[Monkey-Boy]

And fighters had their revamp with armor up.

Wrong.

[hit_fido]

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10



First, let's recognize that this is an across the board reduction, not just for heavy armor. Medium loses 10 and light loses 5.

I wanted to understand the actual affect these changes would have as well as what the contribution to mitigation is from heavy armor versus medium and light. On live right now (theoretically), considering the effect of only the worn armor on a BAB 20 character, mitigation is (type, prr, % mitigation, final damage from a 100 hit):


heavy: 71 41.52% 59
medium: 48 32.43% 68
light: 27 21.26% 79
none: 0 0.00% 100


If we allow that the character also equips a top level sheltering item, the numbers change to:


heavy: 101 50.25% 50
medium: 78 43.82% 57
light: 57 36.31% 64
none: 30 23.08% 77


Now you can add in more sources of PRR from items (artifact bonus, insightful, ???), and enhancements or epic destinies, but the net effect of adding more PRR is that the contribution the armor itself makes decreases and the mitigation gap between armor types closes. When talking about "front loading" from heavy armor, you're really just talking about ~13% less damage vs medium armor (~12% after added sheltering) - a heavy armor wearer takes 25% less damage than the light wearer, or ~22% less damage after adding sheltering. Even comparing heavy armor to a robe wearer, after they each equip a +30 sheltering bracers, the heavy wearer takes only ~35% less damage than the robe wearer.

Do we not believe that, accounting for the effect of armor type by itself, a plate armored character ought to take between 35% and 41% less damage from an attack that lands than a robe wearer? Or 22% to 25% less than a leather armor wearer? If we think those differences in damage are rational, then you don't need to adjust the numbers here and, personally, you're better off focusing more mental energy on how to ramp up Epic Elite to become the premiere challenge to heavily geared and skilled players again.

TLDR; unless my numbers are incorrect, the difference between heavy and other armor types is being blown out of proportion and the potential change being proposed, minimal as it may be, is unnecessary.

[caberonia]

I do not care if the top melee build is monk splash or pure paladin or pure fighter or pure barbarian or what ever.

What I care about is two things:
-Be able to play different character types without feeling a gimp.
-There should be hard enough things to do without having to gimp myself.

Currently the game says to me: "Play a heavy armor melee or you are gimp" and it says "Once you do that then all content is trivial"

I have never enjoyed playing melees, I liked reasonably playing ranged characters but my real like is playing casters, so it makes me sad to kill things about 3 times as fast on my melee in EEs and do it without any danger than I do on my casters that struggle a lot more with surviving.

High level heroics is the only place where casters really shine and they are reasonable in medium level heroics and low level epics.

Before armor up my casters were on the same line as melees in EE: manage the agro and pick them off one by one and you will survive. Today the melees can just ignore agro and run into the middle of the enemy pack and start swinging. My casters have gained some extra survivability by putting on heavy armor but it is still low if enough enemies target them..

So the choice for me is:
Run a melee and complete content with eyes closed
Run with the caster and feel like a total gimp.
Run with a ranged and feel like a gimp(though less of a gimp) and still not like playing them as much as casters.
Yay someone else that feels like me.




TLDR; unless my numbers are incorrect, the difference between heavy and other armor types is being blown out of proportion and the potential change being proposed, minimal as it may be, is unnecessary.
As long as you own and wear one of the 3 top sheltering items.. 2 from raids and one being mythic minos. What you're ignoring is that a heavy armor build.. say paladin can get 200 PRR with random loot gen trash...While a caster in robes is likely to have 10 prr at most without that sheltering item.

[Such755]

Completely disagree.
It was monk splash in the past, it's armor now.
It will change again, and again, and again in way that we cannot predict.
There will always be something to complain about, people will always want the things they loved in the past.
Just let it be, and accept the system.

[redoubt]

The armor up revamp was supposed to be for both paladins and fighters. It had a huge impact on paladins. It had almost no impact on fighters.

And fighters had their revamp with armor up.

Armor up was for both.

Fighter only sorta got their revamp. They got the defender and vanguard trees updates because the paladin pass was made, but kensai was not touched nor was the rest of "fighter".

[Nascoe]

So how much PRR is a wizard or Sorc expected to have to run new content without being one shotted?

I ask because my 23 paladin has ~ 190 prr.. which is over 60% mitigation. My 23 Wiz on the other hand has 10 which is like 9% mitigation. At one point in time it wasn't expected of casters to build for AC.. now we're being told we need to build for PRR. Guess i need to put him in med or heavy armor since thats probably the easiest way to up his PRR.

(neither are what i would consider well equipped..)

I have mentioned this before when the Armor up idea was first brought up, but would like to bring it up again here: Why not add some MRR (maybe even going up with caster lvl) to the Mage armor spell (could also have the shield spell and/or shield of faith spell do the same) to give casters a more lore fitting way to get it (compared to actually donning heavy armor). Heck, I would be fine with adding some PRR as well, at least to the lvl of light armor / small shields or have it scale with lvl.

If you do the same for wands and potions, it might even help me not throw those away/leave them in chests because they would be of some use (now they are a waste of time, because even starter robes give as much AC as the pots) for the robes/outfit wearers.

[jalont]

I have mentioned this before when the Armor up idea was first brought up, but would like to bring it up again here: Why not add some MRR (maybe even going up with caster lvl) to the Mage armor spell (could also have the shield spell and/or shield of faith spell do the same) to give casters a more lore fitting way to get it (compared to actually donning heavy armor). Heck, I would be fine with adding some PRR as well, at least to the lvl of light armor / small shields or have it scale with lvl.

If you do the same for wands and potions, it might even help me not throw those away/leave them in chests because they would be of some use (now they are a waste of time, because even starter robes give as much AC as the pots) for the robes/outfit wearers.

Because at some point, we were trying to buff melee so that they were equal to overpowered casters/ranged, so it would have been dumb to add even more power to those already overpowered classes. Of course it's gone too far the other way, which is why it's always better to nerf your way to balance than buff your way to balance.

[Oxarhamar]

I have mentioned this before when the Armor up idea was first brought up, but would like to bring it up again here: Why not add some MRR (maybe even going up with caster lvl) to the Mage armor spell (could also have the shield spell and/or shield of faith spell do the same) to give casters a more lore fitting way to get it (compared to actually donning heavy armor). Heck, I would be fine with adding some PRR as well, at least to the lvl of light armor / small shields or have it scale with lvl.

If you do the same for wands and potions, it might even help me not throw those away/leave them in chests because they would be of some use (now they are a waste of time, because even starter robes give as much AC as the pots) for the robes/outfit wearers.

Putting MRR PRR on Mage armor spell, meh if you like idk

On wands & potions no, no more clickies that become more or less necessary, think Displacement Shrould items.

[Impaqt]

You can build for a lot of PRR without wearing Heavy Armor. It's not a difference of 50% mitigation.

Sev~

while it is possible to get some mitigation, the gap is far too big between heavy armor and your typical squishy Caster, rogue, or even Ranger.

I'm trying to TR my Rogue right now to go pure this life.

Ever since Armor Up went live, I've noticed that physical damage has been more prevalent in content compared to evadable damage.

I'm not seeing a way to get much more than 50-60 PRR for my rogue end game. ~35% mitigation

Heavy armor builds are getting 150+ pretty easily so lets say ~60%


My Rogue has about 1/2 the hit points my Heavy melee has.

a 200point hit translates to

80 points of damage on my melee. or about 8% of his hit points.

130points on my rogue which is about 25% of his hit points......

Thats where my concern comes from....

[hit_fido]

As long as you own and wear one of the 3 top sheltering items.. 2 from raids and one being mythic minos. What you're ignoring is that a heavy armor build.. say paladin can get 200 PRR with random loot gen trash...While a caster in robes is likely to have 10 prr at most without that sheltering item.

You're no longer comparing the type of armor being worn but the additional investment made by the character to increase their defense - investments made through gear, class choice, enhancements and destiny choices. At BAB 20 the paladin still only has 71 more PRR than the caster as a result of wearing heavy armor. In fact, at 200 PRR, the heavy armor the paladin is wearing only contributes 10% to the total reduction from PRR, which is almost exactly the reduction contributed by the 10 PRR the caster has.

So yes, I ignored that as a matter of looking at the point of this thread, which is, whether heavy armor is somehow overpowering or front loaded and therefore requiring a change.

On your other point, Guardian's Ring for example is an easy 24 sheltering and a guaranteed drop.

[caberonia]

You're no longer comparing the type of armor being worn but the additional investment made by the character to increase their defense - investments made through gear, class choice, enhancements and destiny choices. At BAB 20 the paladin still only has 71 more PRR than the caster as a result of wearing heavy armor. In fact, at 200 PRR, the heavy armor the paladin is wearing only contributes 10% to the total reduction from PRR, which is almost exactly the reduction contributed by the 10 PRR the caster has.

So yes, I ignored that as a matter of looking at the point of this thread, which is, whether heavy armor is somehow overpowering or front loaded and therefore requiring a change.

On your other point, Guardian's Ring for example is an easy 24 sheltering and a guaranteed drop.
You changed the subject from armor to investments when you brought up sheltering items.

And honestly this thread is more about the crazy pendulum swing of going from one extreme to the other when adding PRR etc with armor up then it is about actual armor types. They completely borked the game when they moved from a dodge mechanic (AC) to a damage mitigation mechanic (PRR). To the point that a PRR based char has nothing to challenge him while those who didn't get super buffed from the update are going to be forced to struggle with content thats being balanced for high PRR.

Anyone who has many alts should see night and day when switching between PRR based chars and non...

[Thrudh]

While a caster in robes is likely to have 10 prr at most without that sheltering item.

So don't get hit. How did you guys play casters in the past before the heavy armor changes?

[Monkey-Boy]

Armor up was for both.

Fighter only sorta got their revamp. They got the defender and vanguard trees updates because the paladin pass was made, but kensai was not touched nor was the rest of "fighter".

As long as Fighters need to spend 30+ AP to get something worse than what's covered by a 4th level paladin spell, fighters are screwed.

[Thrudh]

while it is possible to get some mitigation, the gap is far too big between heavy armor and your typical squishy Caster, rogue, or even Ranger.

I'm trying to TR my Rogue right now to go pure this life.

Ever since Armor Up went live, I've noticed that physical damage has been more prevalent in content compared to evadable damage.

I'm not seeing a way to get much more than 50-60 PRR for my rogue end game. ~35% mitigation

Heavy armor builds are getting 150+ pretty easily so lets say ~60%

You also can easily get 20%-25% dodge.

60% mitigation vs (35% mitigation + 25% dodge)... I'm not seeing a huge imbalance here.

The monk splash that everyone says is terrible can get 25% incorp as well...

[hit_fido]

You changed the subject from armor to investments when you brought up sheltering items.

And honestly this thread is more about the crazy pendulum swing of going from one extreme to the other when adding PRR etc with armor up then it is about actual armor types.

I wanted to make the point that additional investments above and beyond the armor itself just diminish the effect of the armor and decrease it's effect on the gap. In other words - citing that investment is not a valid defense of the position that heavy armor is overpowered or front loaded.

[Lonnbeimnech]

So don't get hit. How did you guys play casters in the past before the heavy armor changes?

They spammed quicken recon, and said fleshy casters were gimp for having to avoid damage and heal with scrolls...

[Monkey-Boy]

You also can easily get 20%-25% dodge.

60% mitigation vs (35% mitigation + 25% dodge)... I'm not seeing a huge imbalance here.

The math doesn't work like that.

[Chai]

The armor up revamp was supposed to be for both paladins and fighters. It had a huge impact on paladins. It had almost no impact on fighters.

How is the impact different? Both can wear plate, use shields and use vanguard.


The only reason fighters can manage to wait on healing is because of the current heavy armor mechanics. Reduce those and fighters won't be able to survive the encounter in order to get to the between fights stage. It is already difficult given the speed at which most parties move through encounters.

This contradicts your previous statements that armor up really didn't help fighters much.


Edit: And, I should note that it isn't possible at all with epic elite content without a group to help. I see videos of every class soloing epic elites -- but not fighters. There's a reason for that.

Because you haven't seen the videos yet, that's the reason.


Fighters do not get any heal skill. This means that they are already behind in positive spell power. They get no scroll mastery. They have limited skill points and typically will not invest in UMD.

UMD has been raisable to ~40 since the cap 16 days on a dump cha fighter. Heal skill isn't absolutely needed, but can also be raised to a decent level even cross class if desired.

Cha is even more desirable due to divine might ramping up strength at such a rate that it does.


While all of the things you name are possible, they are not normal for the bulk of fighter builds.

They most certainly are normal for fighters nowdays, and many have been the norm for years now.


All of which means that fighters do not have the self-sufficiency that other classes have and they remain dependent on others. In a game where self sufficiency is almost a prerequisite it means that fighters are the one class that is most in need of help.

Fighters have been self sufficient unless the player chose not to build it in, since the cap 16 days.


And fighters had their revamp with armor up.

No, this was an added PRE. This was not the class revamp.

[Thrudh]

The math doesn't work like that.

I didn't say they were equal... I agree it's not a simple addition.

But there's not the huge imbalance you all are implying.

[caberonia]

So don't get hit. How did you guys play casters in the past before the heavy armor changes?

we now have champs running around with true sight which mitigates Casters main form of defense.. Blur/displacement.
Content wasn't balanced for high PRR then.. ToEE will be. Sev has stated so. I see the INITIAL release of champs as a nice preview of what we can expect from future content. PRR being the only viable mitigation.

[Soleran100]

As long as Fighters need to spend 30+ AP to get something worse than what's covered by a 4th level paladin spell, fighters are screwed.


OK so your point is 30 ap vs 14 lvls in another class..........

Talk about presenting a convoluted point with little substance.

Focusing entirely on one aspect to attempt to address balance is failure.

Fighters of course need a pass BUT they were hands down the best balanced/powerful class for years in the melee department because they synergized so well with so many builds.

[Monkey-Boy]

I didn't say they were equal... I agree it's not a simple addition.

it's multiplication . . . 35% from one source and 25% from another in 48% mitigation.



But there's not the huge imbalance you all are implying.

That depends on your definition of the word "huge."

Light armor can get like 60% mitigation from PRR, if they're geared/PL'd out the wazoo and have a particular build.

Just putting on heavy armor is a stronger option. People tend to flock to what's easiest.

[luvirini]

So don't get hit. How did you guys play casters in the past before the heavy armor changes?

By picking our fights and agro management. Combined with displacement that no longer works against a lot of the champions.

Now there is no need for that, as caster you can just enter the quest and let the melees finish it for you as you cannot contribute much anyway except kill a small part of the trash.

[Severlin]

we now have champs running around with true sight which mitigates Casters main form of defense.. Blur/displacement.
Content wasn't balanced for high PRR then.. ToEE will be. Sev has stated so. I see the INITIAL release of champs as a nice preview of what we can expect from future content. PRR being the only viable mitigation.

Swashbucklers and casters are, according to our data, doing fine without heavy armor. I think Rogues are a bit behind but we are working with the player's council on changes there.

Sev~

[hit_fido]

a 200point hit translates to

80 points of damage on my melee. or about 8% of his hit points.

130points on my rogue which is about 25% of his hit points......



So if I get hit wearing plate armor and chose classes, enhancements, gear and destinies aimed at increasing my defenses well above the PRR provided by the heavy armor itself, I'll take ~35% less damage from attacks that land than if I had been wearing leather armor and chose a less defense oriented build out.

Is that difference unreasonable in and of itself - before even considering the effects of evasion for avoidance/mitigation and dodge for avoidance?

[Monkey-Boy]

OK so your point is 30 ap vs 14 lvls in another class..........

Talk about presenting a convoluted point with little substance.



Nonsense.

What do you miss out on by having to take 15 level of pally? And with it's very strong capstones you should probably go 20 anyway.

[Krell]

I read the first two pages and then stopped so if this is a repeat I apologize.....


What I would like to see is a system that was balanced around a specific goal for them to balance around the primary components of incoming damage management:


AC/DR
PRR/MRR
Dodge/Evasion
HP/HAMP


Lets say we set a theoretical target of 100 (which in turn would mitigate 50% of incoming damage on EE at level/66% on EH and 75% on EN). Say if you score 50 you would be at 25/33/38%)

Then scoring it out you could go AC/PRR and get to 66 easily and balls out you would bet to 100 on a 'perfect' build.
Or if you go Dodge/Evasion - an average build could get to 30% dodge but to get to 50% dodge would require a 'perfect' build.
HP would be such that you have enough HP and HAMP to be easily healed/self-healed through incoming damage

But it would also allow you to combinations of the above - ie. light armor, shield, dodger with moderate HP could get to that score of 100 and be competitive.

And quite honestly cap the 'overall score' at 100 such that nobody gets better than 50% dmg reduction.

I would further add that Blur/Discplacement/Ghostly should at max provide a further 25%(stacking) and the analogue for spells being elemental absorptions should also cap out at 25%.

Thus if you have 500HP damage incoming per second from a EE mob only you would get 125 dps and most players could handle 8-10 seconds between heals and in that 8-10seconds but some HP tanks might be taking 250/s but due to HP could stay toe to toe for 8-10 seconds.

NOTE: all of the above numbers are talking points - the key points are an overall cap to the benefits of the four key sources of damage mitigation - segregate (blur/ghostly/displacement) as most builds can access these easily and also put an overall cap on those.

This would allow the designers to design encounters with these caps in mind not build the game around some of the current 'perfect' builds with 200PRR/MRR/175AC/1500HP/10%dodge/PermaDisplaced builds that can go afk in front of an EE boss and not be hit (yes I am exagerating but not by much) which then leaves anyone who isnt' one of those builds to die in one shot to EE papercuts.

Some good points. When balancing PRR there are other factors that need to be considered. A Pali and Bard may have a difference of 35% vs 65% damage mitigation from PRR, but then you have to consider other differences such as 35 vs 7 dodge, or displacement spell vs. a blur item. If the real goal is to reduce front loading PRR, with similar overall damage mitigation end results from difference sources and more classes/builds viable in end game, that makes sense. It just seems there is more to the proposal than changing the armor bonus here.

[jalont]

Nonsense.

What do you miss out on by having to take 15 level of pally? And with it's very strong capstones you should probably go 20 anyway.

And this is the point. Holy sword doesn't come at a "cost", and all those fighter feats aren't a "benefit" with the way the game is currently designed. If you'd like to nerf pally trees and buff feats so that this is actually true, okay then, but with the way the game currently is, that just isn't true.

[Monkey-Boy]

we now have champs running around with true sight which mitigates Casters main form of defense.. Blur/displacement..

Casters have better options than tanking stuff with their face.

[Xaxx]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

So you just fixed a bug that will remove 15 prr from most shield users and most swf orb users which was two of the big heavy armor yada pally yada stuff that seems to be going on here... and gonna remove another 15 from heavy armor on top... i mean tbh it wont bother me to much..... but I can see alot of the people you guys did armor up for screaming their heads off over the extra damage they're gonna be taking.

[Thrudh]

we now have champs running around with true sight which mitigates Casters main form of defense.. Blur/displacement.
Content wasn't balanced for high PRR then.. ToEE will be. Sev has stated so. I see the INITIAL release of champs as a nice preview of what we can expect from future content. PRR being the only viable mitigation.

Weird... my main form for defense was staying at range, and offensive spells (i.e. killing them or CCing them before they got to me). And that's STILL my main form of defense.

So, you used to charge into the middle of mobs, and just use displacement to stay alive as a caster?

I recommend targeting that crown guy first, instead of putting heavy armor on your caster.

[Soleran100]

Nonsense.

What do you miss out on by having to take 15 level of pally? And with it's very strong capstones you should probably go 20 anyway.

While my point clearly went over your head, you addressed a balance issue by comparing AP spent to lvl 4 spells of a class<-----hence you made a convoluted point.

Which incidently doesn't focus on the thread at hand:

How does armor up swing a balance of power twards or away from paladins or fighters or how does it affect other classes........................it literally has nothing to do with bonuses to crit values or the balance you perceive of classes.

[Monkey-Boy]

And this is the point. Holy sword doesn't come at a "cost", and all those fighter feats aren't a "benefit" with the way the game is currently designed. If you'd like to nerf pally trees and buff feats so that this is actually true, okay then, but with the way the game currently is, that just isn't true.

The pally trees are fine, it's is Holy Sword that is the problem.

[Impaqt]

You also can easily get 20%-25% dodge.

60% mitigation vs (35% mitigation + 25% dodge)... I'm not seeing a huge imbalance here.

The monk splash that everyone says is terrible can get 25% incorp as well...

20-25% dodge means your dropping to robes instead of light armor. That drops PRR down even further.

[hit_fido]

I don't see the sense in making this change based on the actual numbers and the real difference in armor types.

On the other hand, while I find it reasonable that a suit of plate mail lets me take 35% less damage per hit than a suit of leather, I wonder how it is my plate wearing self is able to attack just as fast as the guy in leather. Maybe armor types needs a melee attack speed cap as well as a dodge cap? Is that a reasonable way to introduce a "cost" to offset the "gain" from being heavily armored?

Or will next month's post be about how the system is broken because "everyone" is wearing medium armor since it has the best balance of attack speed and mitigation and ergo something must change (yet again)!

[luvirini]

Is that difference unreasonable in and of itself - before even considering the effects of evasion for avoidance/mitigation and dodge for avoidance?

The problem with dodge is that it is a all or nothing thing. with PRR you may take more damage overall but it comes slowly so it is easier to heal, with dodge you take the spikes of damage as in: If you get hit it hurts and you have to react faster to it. That is what makes PRR better, you can be (almost) asleep and still do well.

As for evasion: It does not help against any damage that does not use reflex save and also it is a binary thing(and thus spiky): Either you take the high damage damage or not. Improved evasion helps a bit that you get half on failed rolls, but still does nothing against ray spells, dots and the like. The heavy armor user takes half damage from all the reflex save and other types of spells. If the heavy armor user is also using a shield their benefit is even greater as they take a quarter from the reflex save spells. That again makes the heavy armor user much easier to play as the damage is less spiky.

[Nascoe]

Because at some point, we were trying to buff melee so that they were equal to overpowered casters/ranged, so it would have been dumb to add even more power to those already overpowered classes. Of course it's gone too far the other way, which is why it's always better to nerf your way to balance than buff your way to balance.

Hm, I do see your point (yes, taking PCs a notch or two down in power would be better than finding ways to buff us and then have to solve everyone and their granny soloing EE content). On the other hand, if Armor is so easy and rewarding for casters that a large portion of them does go out of their way to use it anyway, wouldn't it be more sensible to give them a more lore fitting alternative that also rewards taking these spells?

As for how much, and whether to scale it by lvl or whatever, I am sure there are a lot of players who would be able to make a better proposal than me. I don't think it should be as much as the best heavy armors, but is there any good reason to not at least offer MRR from these kind of spells?
Off course it shouldn't stack with armor either for obvious reasons (hm, although for an EK build?).

[luvirini]

20-25% dodge means your dropping to robes instead of light armor. That drops PRR down even further.

You can get more than 20 dodge in light armor in epic levels. My bard has 22 dodge in light armor I think and is far from optimized build.

[Monkey-Boy]

20-25% dodge means your dropping to robes instead of light armor. That drops PRR down even further.

Light TF armor is MDB 21, so you can get 21% dodge in light armor.

[BigErkyKid]

No, this exception is horribly broken. Vanguard's do too much DPS for the defense they have available.

Though one could argue that about almost anyone at this point.

In the older days (pre MoTU) you took significant DPS hits for defense (AC, and splashing for evasion cost you). That was a better situation than what we have now.

I don't agree necessarily, the shield does not really add that much defense. In the vanguard tree there isn't much in the realm of defense (+1 AC? rolf). I see it as a tactical DPS tree. Yes, a bit more defense than without shield, but you lose offense too (AOE). I am biased, I like the idea of a tactical platform that is survivable. I don't think it is OP though.


I didn't say they were equal... I agree it's not a simple addition.

But there's not the huge imbalance you all are implying.

No, the problem is not whether a monk can get there too. They can. The issue, which I addressed in the first post, is that in order for a monk splash to be as defensive as a h armor build you need to splash a lot of monk. This rules out barbarian and bard and it is a bad idea in a melee paladin. So yes, there is a lack of balance in that sense and that's why monk splashes are dead in power gaming melees.


Swashbucklers and casters are, according to our data, doing fine without heavy armor. I think Rogues are a bit behind but we are working with the player's council on changes there.

Sev~

Casters can kite and swashblucklers can get very decent PRR (from 100 to 150) combined with a lot of dodge. Don't forget that one of the most common splashes is at least 3 fighter and it is very common to get the shielding feat line. That alone adds a lot of PRR. Also swash have self casted displacement on top, which might not be a big deal for some old timers with unlimited clickies but for people rolling alts (plenty of swash were alts when they came out) or newer players it adds a lot of defense.

For anything but a very heavy monk and a swash I cannot see the benefit of not going with heavy armor in melee. That includes rogues, rangers, barbarians, paladins, fighters...This seems wrong. All those classes traditionally had things to compensate for armor. We went from all outfits to all shiny armor.

[Chai]

Fighters didn't get any weaker, pallies got stronger. So much stronger that there is not point in building a fighter. This should be obvious to anyone with any basic grasp of the game mechanics.

This.

We should be waiting for a kensai revamp before comparing 2012 DPS pre to a 2014/2015 entire class revamp.

[luvirini]

Fighters didn't get any weaker, pallies got stronger. So much stronger that there is not point in building a fighter. This should be obvious to anyone with any basic grasp of the game mechanics.

Correct, in fact fighters got a lot stronger as they could easier stay in middle of groups of enemies in EEs and kill stuff and less need to do agro management and run away, but paladins got a LOT stronger.

[Monkey-Boy]

I don't agree necessarily, the shield does not really add that much defense. In the vanguard tree there isn't much in the realm of defense (+1 AC? rolf). I see it as a tactical DPS tree. Yes, a bit more defense than without shield, but you lose offense too (AOE). I am biased, I like the idea of a tactical platform that is survivable. I don't think it is OP though.


Vanguard is OP because there is NO DPS LOSS compared to TWFing and THFing and significantly more defense. We've tested the hell out of this.

Now granted there really only is one good VG build so you're kinda pigeon-holed.

[BigErkyKid]

This.

We should be waiting for a kensai revamp before comparing 2012 DPS pre to a 2014/2015 entire class revamp.

Why? Then perhaps we should stop commenting altogether. At the speed that turbine is rolling out updates of classes, some will take years to be changed. I don;t think it is OK not to discuss balance with the prospect of having things even out in years.

Yes, fighters are completely lackluster right now. I don't see a reason to build a fighter when I could roll a more powerful paladin doing the exact same things.

[BigErkyKid]

Vanguard is OP because there is NO DPS LOSS compared to TWFing and THFing and significantly more defense. We've tested the hell out of this.

Now granted there really only is one good VG build so you're kinda pigeon-holed.

On single target, correct? The problem of Vanguard is AOE. I you have tested vanguards to death you will see how cleaving is a DPS loss for the most part.

[luvirini]

Light TF armor is MDB 21, so you can get 21% dodge in light armor.

Hmm I though the base was 19, I could be wrong though, but when you add enchantments and slot in an augment you can get higher.

[Impaqt]

So if I get hit wearing plate armor and chose classes, enhancements, gear and destinies aimed at increasing my defenses well above the PRR provided by the heavy armor itself, I'll take ~35% less damage from attacks that land than if I had been wearing leather armor and chose a less defense oriented build out.

Is that difference unreasonable in and of itself - before even considering the effects of evasion for avoidance/mitigation and dodge for avoidance?

If incoming damage was balanced, this would not be as much of an issue.

Unfortunately, our devs seem to get tunnel visin quite often.

Why was evasion a bette bet than heavy armor on melee builds untill PRR was release?

Because Evadable damage was more prevalent and more damaging than mobs bonking us on the head.

Intro PRR. Mobs start bonking us for SIGNIFICANTLY more damage and evadable damage takes a vacation.

[Monkey-Boy]

On single target, correct? The problem of Vanguard is AOE. I you have tested vanguards to death you will see how cleaving is a DPS loss for the most part.

TWFing is ever worse on AOE than vanguard, unless you're a Dance of Death splat build with 30+ AP in Tempest.

Worse single target, worse multi-target, worse defense. yeah . . . that's balanced!

[Impaqt]

Light TF armor is MDB 21, so you can get 21% dodge in light armor.

and what do we do the other 25 levels? :rolleyes:

[luvirini]

On single target, correct? The problem of Vanguard is AOE. I you have tested vanguards to death you will see how cleaving is a DPS loss for the most part.

Well, you are likely two weapon fighting with a vanguard anyway with you bastard sword. The problem with paladin based vanguard is the feats, there is just not enough feats to get it all.

I have not tested the actual DPS of the different builds in any scientific manner, but the vanguard builds "felt" very much like they had about the same DPS as the great sword builds and definitely took a lot less incoming damage.

[Monkey-Boy]

and what do we do the other 25 levels? :rolleyes:

levels 1-20 who cares, AC works in heroics.

Doesn't the Red Dragon light armor have an MDB of 19 or something? I think level 25 GH stuff does as well.

[Monkey-Boy]

Well, you are likely two weapon fighting with a vanguard anyway with you bastard sword. The problem with paladin based vanguard is the feats, there is just not enough feats to get it all.



You mean THFing feats?

A human can do it.

HINT: Master's Touch scrolls cover your Tower Shield Proficiency.

[BigErkyKid]

TWFing is ever worse on AOE than vanguard, unless you're a Dance of Death splat build with 30+ AP in Tempest.

Worse single target, worse multi-target, worse defense. yeah . . . that's balanced!

TWFing is broken, don't even bring it up. I am just saying that VG is roughly the same single target DPS than others (a bit more on not red named) but significantly worse in AOE damage.

There are no defensive abilities in the VG tree, but plenty in KOTC. The healing amp and sealed life should have been in the defensive tree.

Having **** defensive trees and basically giving defense for free to everyone is what has broken the DPS ---- Defense slide you mentioned earlier, which I agree with.

[Monkey-Boy]

TWFing is broken, don't even bring it up. I am just saying that VG is roughly the same single target DPS than others (a bit more on not red named) but significantly worse in AOE damage.

And you'd be wrong. It is BETTER single-target, better AOE than TWFing, and the shield gets you better defense over the other styles.

[Thrudh]

20-25% dodge means your dropping to robes instead of light armor. That drops PRR down even further.

Not true. There are ways to up your Max Dex bonus... And several armors (including light thunderforged) start around 19 or 20 max dex bonus.

[slarden]

Swashbucklers and casters are, according to our data, doing fine without heavy armor. I think Rogues are a bit behind but we are working with the player's council on changes there.

Sev~

Displacement, cc and dodge help you avoid hits, but you can never avoid hits 100% of the time. PRR reduces the incoming enemy weapon damage 100% of the time which makes it different.

Why can champions bypass displacement and fortification entirely, but PRR always works? The champion system rewards PRR above else since it is the only thing that can mitigate champion megacrits from complete fortification bypass. It hardly matters now because of the nerfs, but the nerfs may not have been needed if the megacrit problem was taken seriously instead of discounted entirely. I would like to see champions returned to their original state, but I think complete fortification bypass needs to be looked and there should be some form of PRR/MRR bypass so it's not the ultimate easy-button.

If complete fortification bypass was changed to armor piercing xxx% and there were also buffs that bypassed PRR/MRR it would be much more balanced. If this was addressed you could restore champions to the way they were when they were originally released since it would be balanced instead of favoring high PRR builds.

[luvirini]

and what do we do the other 25 levels? :rolleyes:

Levels 1-19: You do not need dodge. 0% dodge works fine. (though there are a lot of high maximum dex bonus items in the 12-15 max dex range)
at 20 put on duelist leathers: mdb 18.
at 25 put on Flawless White Dragonhide Armor if you wish..

[Annyee]

Swashbucklers and casters are, according to our data, doing fine without heavy armor. I think Rogues are a bit behind but we are working with the player's council on changes there.

Sev~

You. Are. Correct. Please don't forget that Monks are squishy now too. Rangers need some help too.

[luvirini]

You mean THFing feats?

A human can do it.

HINT: Master's Touch scrolls cover your Tower Shield Proficiency.

I mean having twf+bastard sword+shield feats+cleave. Paladins can get the enchantment cleaves, but then they cannot get the +10 melee power from vanguard tier 5.

[BigErkyKid]

And you'd be wrong. It is BETTER single-target, better AOE than TWFing, and the shield gets you better defense over the other styles.

Why do you insist on TWF? I am not disagreeing with what you say regarding that.

I am saying that SWF&THF are ahead in AOE than VG, but similar or behind on single target.

[hit_fido]

The problem with dodge is that it is a all or nothing thing. with PRR you may take more damage overall but it comes slowly so it is easier to heal, with dodge you take the spikes of damage as in: If you get hit it hurts and you have to react faster to it. That is what makes PRR better, you can be (almost) asleep and still do well.

As for evasion: It does not help against any damage that does not use reflex save and also it is a binary thing(and thus spiky): Either you take the high damage damage or not. Improved evasion helps a bit that you get half on failed rolls, but still does nothing against ray spells, dots and the like. The heavy armor user takes half damage from all the reflex save and other types of spells. If the heavy armor user is also using a shield their benefit is even greater as they take a quarter from the reflex save spells. That again makes the heavy armor user much easier to play as the damage is less spiky.

I understand, and it's fine to point out the different ways evasion and dodge benefit a character as long as we keep everything in perspective - that includes recognizing that the difference in incoming damage is only about 25% less for heavy armor by itself than light armor. An additional investment above and beyond the armor can push that up to ~35% or thereabouts. Some of that investment is open to any character regardless of class (itemization) and some opens up based on class and destiny choice.

Look at it another way - is the game unbalanced if it encourages a caster or rogue to play differently than an armored fighter in the sense that a fighter may be safer engaging multiple mobs within melee range than the caster or rogue trying to do the same? It seems reasonable to me that the fighter should be "safer" in that situation, safer meaning able to take more direct hits than the other two builds.

If that's the case then the question is how much safer? Taking 25% to 40% less damage from direct hits is a rational number to me, especially when there is reduced opportunity for complete avoidance. But I'm sure open to hearing why 25%-40% should really be more like 10, 15, or 20% instead...

[Monkey-Boy]

Why do you insist on TWF? I am not disagreeing with what you say regarding that.

okay, I'll drop that.


I am saying that SWF&THF are ahead in AOE than VG, but similar or behind on single target.

How is SWFing ahead of Vanguard in AOE?

[Thrudh]

levels 1-20 who cares, AC works in heroics.

Doesn't the Red Dragon light armor have an MDB of 19 or something? I think level 25 GH stuff does as well.

Duelist Leathers from Crystal Cove has a MDB of like 24 I think

Look, if Monkey-Boy and I agree on something, you know it's right...

Someone in light armor should invest a little in Dodge, and a little in PRR, and you don't end up that bad... It's not like dodge plus a little PRR totally sucks... It's still decent. Sure it's not the absolute best, but it's good enough to get the job done... Who wants an easy game anyway? If you're not very good at this game, stand there in the middle of mobs in heavy armor with 200 PRR, and then complain how easy the game is and how you really want a challenge....

Rest of us will try all kinds of different builds.

[Annyee]

One of the biggest problems with dodge is that with a soft cap at 25% you CAN NOT achieve a high enough % to even come close to competing with Heavy Armor. The way these two game mechanics scale with each other and themselves is very skewed to favoring an armored setup with good PRR and some dodge vs a good dodge % and some PRR.

[ghtzxc]

I agree with having the 45/30/15 changed to 30/20/10, especially after the dev's explained the reason for it. It was an unplanned power creep to the players when they didn't change the values to 2/3 to compensate for the new PRR formula. Please go through with the change/balance =)

[luvirini]

I understand, and it's fine to point out the different ways evasion and dodge benefit a character as long as we keep everything in perspective - that includes recognizing that the difference in incoming damage is only about 25% less for heavy armor by itself than light armor. An additional investment above and beyond the armor can push that up to ~35% or thereabouts. Some of that investment is open to any character regardless of class (itemization) and some opens up based on class and destiny choice.

Look at it another way - is the game unbalanced if it encourages a caster or rogue to play differently than an armored fighter in the sense that a fighter may be safer engaging multiple mobs within melee range than the caster or rogue trying to do the same? It seems reasonable to me that the fighter should be "safer" in that situation, safer meaning able to take more direct hits than the other two builds.

If that's the case then the question is how much safer? Taking 25% to 40% less damage from direct hits is a rational number to me, especially when there is reduced opportunity for complete avoidance. But I'm sure open to hearing why 25%-40% should really be more like 10, 15, or 20% instead...

No I do not see any problem with the fighter taking less damage overall. In fact it is likely a good thing.

The current implementation of it is just wrong.

If a 500 hitpoint mage takes 200 damage and the 1000 hitpoint fighter takes 150 then the mage is in much bigger trouble as he can only be hit once more before dying.

Current defenses of a caster make it unlikely to be hit but when you are hit it hurts a lot and is immediately a critical issue.

Current defenses of a fighter make it more likely that they take damage, but it is for a much lesser amount thus giving much more time to react.

So the mage requires a lot more twitch skills(and the player to be alert) than the fighter even when outside melee as the spell casters will hit the mage for so much more damage.

That is my problem with the system.

The problem for palemasters is specially bad as the "big heal" they have is so much less than a robot form and they rely mostly on heal over time.

[Thrudh]

Look at it another way - is the game unbalanced if it encourages a caster or rogue to play differently than an armored fighter in the sense that a fighter may be safer engaging multiple mobs within melee range than the caster or rogue trying to do the same? It seems reasonable to me that the fighter should be "safer" in that situation, safer meaning able to take more direct hits than the other two builds.

This is a great post and spot on.

I have a TWF evasion melee, and a THF heavy armor melee, and a caster, and an archer monk, and a turn-undead cleric, and I don't get mad that they don't all play the exact same way with the exact same defenses.

In fact, the reason I still play this game after NINE years is because they all play very differently.

[BigErkyKid]

okay, I'll drop that.


How is SWFing ahead of Vanguard in AOE?

Double strike, stun on bash and bashes don't proc on cleaves and that is the major component of DPS on VG. That's the simple way to say it.

[Thrudh]

No I do not see any problem with the fighter taking less damage overall. In fact it is likely a good thing.

The current implementation of it is just wrong.

If a 500 hitpoint mage takes 200 damage and the 1000 hitpoint fighter takes 150 then the mage is in much bigger trouble as he can only be hit once more before dying.

Except the caster doesn't get hit as often as the fighter...

So you need to compare the fighter getting hit 5 times to the mage getting hit once, and you see the system works fine.

[Monkey-Boy]

Double strike, stun on bash and bashes don't proc on cleaves and that is the major component of DPS on VG. That's the simple way to say it.

Do Cleaves DS? I've never noticed this.

[Impaqt]

levels 1-20 who cares, AC works in heroics.

Doesn't the Red Dragon light armor have an MDB of 19 or something? I think level 25 GH stuff does as well.



Levels 1-19: You do not need dodge. 0% dodge works fine. (though there are a lot of high maximum dex bonus items in the 12-15 max dex range)
at 20 put on duelist leathers: mdb 18.
at 25 put on Flawless White Dragonhide Armor if you wish..

Do you folks even read your responses? Or you just flat out dont care about about anyone whos not on life 15 or higher?

AC may work, but again, light armor is severely handicapped in that department as well.


Not true. There are ways to up your Max Dex bonus... And several armors (including light thunderforged) start around 19 or 20 max dex bonus.

getting max dodge bonus up to 25% in light armor is not something that is realistic for most players.

Massive PRR from Heavy armor is available from every set of vendor trash in the game.

[Qhualor]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Physical_Resistance_Rating

means if you were not super tweeked out, and are running around at 65prr now, you will go from ~39% to ~33% mitigation

and if you are a 200prr paladin you go from ~66% down to ~65%

and if you were a wizard that wore heavy armor but didn't take the proficiency you go from ~31% down to about ~23%

If this is correct, than those with high PRR investment aren't really losing anything. Those with light armor though will see a noticeable difference. I've always thought that light armor with investment in dodge should be comparable to heavy armor with high PRR. Considering those in light/cloth tend be evasion classes that have dodge has a primary mitigation and access to resist spells while heavy armor builds tend to be tank types with high MRR. That would sound like a good balance to me.

[Monkey-Boy]

Do you folks even read your responses? Or you just flat out dont care about about anyone whos not on life 15 or higher?



honestly? I don't care. if you can't figure out survivability at this point in the game where it's the easiest it's ever been there's no hope for you.

[Chai]

Why? Then perhaps we should stop commenting altogether. At the speed that turbine is rolling out updates of classes, some will take years to be changed. I don;t think it is OK not to discuss balance with the prospect of having things even out in years.

Yes, fighters are completely lackluster right now. I don't see a reason to build a fighter when I could roll a more powerful paladin doing the exact same things.

Because if the revamps aren't improved then theres no headroom for revamping any other class.

Im not saying don't discuss balance, but folks will use these comparisons to ask for nerfs. If this happens it would cause a kensai revamp to be equally as lackluster due to not being willing to accept paladins and bards being more powerful after they got their revamp. The more we demand of current revamps to be held in check compared to non revamped classes, the more less overhead there is in the future to do anything with those classes when their time comes.

[BigErkyKid]

Do Cleaves DS? I've never noticed this.

Nop. Don't cleave with your VG unless you really need to.

[BigErkyKid]

Because if the revamps aren't improved then theres no headroom for revamping any other class.

Im not saying don't discuss balance, but folks will use these comparisons to ask for nerfs. If this happens it would cause a kensai revamp to be equally as lackluster due to not being willing to accept paladins and bards being more powerful after they got their revamp. The more we demand of current revamps to be held in check compared to non revamped classes, the more less overhead there is in the future to do anything with those classes when their time comes.

Is this a bad think? Do we really need more power creep?

[Monkey-Boy]

Is this a bad think? Do we really need more power creep?

it's not power-creep if the weak classes are being brought up to what is now the new normal.

[Chai]

Not true. There are ways to up your Max Dex bonus... And several armors (including light thunderforged) start around 19 or 20 max dex bonus.

Yep, dragonhide begins at 19. Toss in the mobility feat for 21. Add armor mastery +4 (some items in game have this) for 25%. Mobility also comes on items (for the feat starved)

There are also class enhancements for some classes which make this higher.

[slarden]

Not true. There are ways to up your Max Dex bonus... And several armors (including light thunderforged) start around 19 or 20 max dex bonus.

I think he means the dodge cap for light armor, although my rogue has a dodge cap of 27% even with the light armor so nothing is absolute.

[Thrudh]

getting max dodge bonus up to 25% in light armor is not something that is realistic for most players.

Okay 20%... Still something to consider... You threw out 60% damage mitigation vs your 35% damage mitigation... But you can't ignore dodge...

You were complaining about your rogue... Getting 20% dodge on a first-life rogue is pretty darn easy. There are plenty of dodge items, enhancements, feats, and inherent rogue dodge bonuses (how about Improved Uncanny Dodge? - 50% dodge bonus during a tough moment is worth something!)

[Chai]

Is this a bad think? Do we really need more power creep?

Powercreep is the strong getting stronger. This is regarding revamping classes which have not seen their pass yet to be competitive with those that have seen their pass. Buffing the weak to give them a seat at the table, so to speak.

[Thrudh]

I think he means the dodge cap for light armor, although my rogue has a dodge cap of 27% even with the light armor so nothing is absolute.

Max Dex bonus = Dodge cap.

[BigErkyKid]

it's not power-creep if the weak classes are being brought up to what is now the new normal.

The point was not to try to limit the power of the new changes because then classes that are behind would not be able to be updated to the current OP level. So I would say it is directly power creep.


The more we demand of current revamps to be held in check compared to non revamped classes, the more less overhead there is in the future to do anything with those classes when their time comes.

Do we agree that currently some classes are OP with respect to content? Do we want the game to head further in that direction? Part of the current unbalanced situation is due to heavy armor and PRR (bards are a slightly different animal).

I think we have to get back to the times of the DPS ----- Defense trade off and to think seriously about ranged forms of combat. This is better, IMO, than to just buff classes until they crush content so badly than it is not even funny.

[Thar]

Swashbucklers and casters are, according to our data, doing fine without heavy armor. I think Rogues are a bit behind but we are working with the player's council on changes there.

Sev~

Swashbucklers have super dodge, casters have displacement. What about melee rangers (along with rogues?)? Rangers don't get the sneak attack (to kill fast) or bonuses to dodge that rogues get.

[BigErkyKid]

Powercreep is the strong getting stronger. This is regarding revamping classes which have not seen their pass yet to be competitive with those that have seen their pass. Buffing the weak to give them a seat at the table, so to speak.

I agree with the sentiment, but if the current classes are OP with respect to content, bringing everyone to that level is simply making everyone OP. Wouldn't it be better to set now the max bar of power and THEN bring the rest to it?

[hit_fido]

The current implementation of it is just wrong.

If a 500 hitpoint mage takes 200 damage and the 1000 hitpoint fighter takes 150 then the mage is in much bigger trouble as he can only be hit once more before dying.

Current defenses of a caster make it unlikely to be hit but when you are hit it hurts a lot and is immediately a critical issue.

Current defenses of a fighter make it more likely that they take damage, but it is for a much lesser amount thus giving much more time to react.

So the mage requires a lot more twitch skills(and the player to be alert) than the fighter even when outside melee as the spell casters will hit the mage for so much more damage.

That is my problem with the system.

The problem for palemasters is specially bad as the "big heal" they have is so much less than a robot form and they rely mostly on heal over time.

Well it's on every player to play up to their level of capability. If the armored fighter is engaging multiple mobs in melee range then the potential incoming damage goes up. Is it higher than they can withstand? Are they going to take too much damage and have to "wake up" and twitch their way out? I've no doubt an armored character taking up one mob at a time in melee range is going to feel like a snooze fest compared with the caster taking up one mob at a time in melee range , but that isn't really what happens, is it? The caster is working to keep a safe distance while playing offense whether one mob at a time or multiple using aoe. The fighter may engage a group at melee range and can get overwhelmed by numbers if they underestimate the incoming damage. The caster has a chance to immobilize or terminate a spell casting enemy at distance, the fighter may need time to engage or even need to deal with obstacles in between.



Massive PRR from Heavy armor is available from every set of vendor trash in the game.


That's one way to put it. Another way to put it is to say any BAB 20 character could switch from light armor (27 PRR) to heavy armor (71 PRR) and take about 25% less damage per landed attack, while giving up some combination of dodge %, evasion, and arcane spell success.

[BigErkyKid]

Okay 20%... Still something to consider... You threw out 60% damage mitigation vs your 35% damage mitigation... But you can't ignore dodge...

You were complaining about your rogue... Getting 20% dodge on a first-life rogue is pretty darn easy. There are plenty of dodge items, enhancements, feats, and inherent rogue dodge bonuses (how about Improved Uncanny Dodge? - 50% dodge bonus during a tough moment is worth something!)

At this point you really need to run the maths. A simple way to do this (I have), which is of course just a simplification is:

1. Compute the prob of being hit after dodge, displacement, incorporeality.

2. Compute the damage taken per hit after PRR and DR.

3. Multiply the expectation of being hit by the damage taken and then see how many hits it takes to die.

This will give you an idea of the real effect of all the numbers you are citing. If you do this, you will see that up until DR30 armor monks can be ahead (and probably swash too, didn't test those). Then it sorts of evens out.

But given that some classes are really OP wrt to the rest right now, it does not pay to splash into others anymore. That's why monk splashes are dead.

[lyrecono]

The specific problem we are trying to solve is front loaded mitigation - not overall survivability. We don't plan to change the overall mitigation of fully built out characters. The plan is that you'll need it if you want to run Hard and Elite versions of Temple of Elemental Evil.

Sev~

then why not grant the 45 prr at lv 20 (or 17 when were starting to deal with the eveningstar heroic seepage?)
or why simply not bother?
the ones hurt the most are the sub optimal platemail users, wizards, barbs etc, not the 200+prr paladins, the loose 2% mitigation at best.
Why not forgo this and fix barbarians, you know, do something with the use impaired fluff and filler in the (tier 2-4) enhancements, or build that functioning "skip champions" opt out check box we have been asking for, there are so little worthwhile and fun quests at cap that still give remnants to a capped toon that he is better of doing heroic lives for those coins.




Let me get this straight, your complaining because the build that almost ALL melee dps HAD to take to be viable was a splash in a DIFFERENT class is no more? and that heavy armor has replaced said build? GOOD! NO game should NEED a melee character to take a level splash is a DIFFERENT class JUST to be able to play end game content. that is a ridiculous and absolutely stupid idea. Ive been playing this for YEARS and let me tell you, barbs were gimp pieces of TRASH before this update to their stats and armor. So if you screw up the ONLY TIME IVE BEEN ABLE TO PLAY A VIABLE BARB/PALLY as dps, i swear every single melee dps player is going to strangle you. shut the heck up and learn how to play a game with ONE class instead of splashing 2 or 3 different classes together! Im not saying you SHOULDNT be able to, but you should NOT HAVE TO if you dont WANT to. FYI. IMO going PURE in your class SHOULD make you stronger unless you REALLY REALLY plan it out and work at it, not just randomly grab a few levels of monk, monk was always op and bs as heck. BTW, you cannot nerf disruption or any of the other spells beyond what they read in the PnP 3.5 because in case you newbies didnt know, this game is based on 3.5 DnD, its not freaking WoW where you can just change what spells do whenever you feel like it. The armor is more an up in the air issue, but something like nerfing displace to a 25% or something isnt gona be allowed by either most players or id guess most devs. The point of the game is to make it unique by having it actually BE DnD online. not just another **** MMO like WoW

This, just this.....
i got so sick and tired of seeing the same type of builds over and over with monk splashes......

[Grailhawk]

okay, I'll drop that.


How is SWFing ahead of Vanguard in AOE?

Would say the +50% Stat mood would cover it but if it doesn't Vanguard gets a good deal from its shield bash damage I'm pretty sure that doesn't proc on a cleave also.

[Thrudh]

At this point you really need to run the maths. A simple way to do this (I have), which is of course just a simplification is:

1. Compute the prob of being hit after dodge, displacement, incorporeality.

2. Compute the damage taken per hit after PRR and DR.

3. Multiply the expectation of being hit by the damage taken and then see how many hits it takes to die.

This will give you an idea of the real effect of all the numbers you are citing. If you do this, you will see that up until DR30 armor monks can be ahead (and probably swash too, didn't test those). Then it sorts of evens out.

But given that some classes are really OP wrt to the rest right now, it does not pay to splash into others anymore. That's why monk splashes are dead.

If you've done the math, show it... (I know you won't. You never do).

One thing or another is always "ahead"... People are throwing out numbers like heavy armor is 300% better, and you have no chance of surviving unless you're in heavy armor. Once again, exaggeration rules the boards...

Monk splashes are not dead... My archer-monk melees about 25% of the time... With 25% incorp, 25% Dodge, 50% displacement, and earth stance, he does just fine even in melee range... And of course, when ranging, I don't really care what his PRR is.

[Chai]

I agree with the sentiment, but if the current classes are OP with respect to content, bringing everyone to that level is simply making everyone OP. Wouldn't it be better to set now the max bar of power and THEN bring the rest to it?

Progression and power creep are not the same thing.

MMOs cannot release new updates with stagnant power or decreases in power and hope to survive.

[Severlin]

Swashbucklers have super dodge, casters have displacement. What about melee rangers (along with rogues?)? Rangers don't get the sneak attack (to kill fast) or bonuses to dodge that rogues get.

Melee rangers just got cooldowns tweaked, and they get both passive PRR and tons of Dodge on demand. They also have an AoE enhancement with a substantially shorter cooldown. While this doesn't really count as a pass, especially since most of their Dodge boost is wasted by since max dodge isn't boosted, they will probably be fine until we do the ranger pass.

Sev~

[redoubt]

As long as Fighters need to spend 30+ AP to get something worse than what's covered by a 4th level paladin spell, fighters are screwed.

Ah... I was trying to point out that fighters did NOT get their revamp. Yes, they have access to defender and vanguard, but that nothing else was touched, so it wasn't really a revamp for fighters.

[BigErkyKid]

If you've done the math, show it... (I know you won't. You never do).

One thing or another is always "ahead"... People are throwing out numbers like heavy armor is 300% better, and you have no chance of surviving unless you're in heavy armor. Once again, exaggeration rules the boards...

Monk splashes are not dead... My archer-monk melees about 25% of the time... With 25% incorp, 25% Dodge, 50% displacement, and earth stance, he does just fine even in melee range... And of course, when ranging, I don't really care what his PRR is.

That's unfair, I have shown plenty of maths around here. But I think you will trust it more if you do it yourself, I already told you exactly how I did it. Just use a spreadsheet or whatever people use nowadays :P

Monk splashes for melee are dead because other splashes or staying pure is better. At a power gaming level, of course, otherwise everything flies.

[redoubt]

Nonsense.

What do you miss out on by having to take 15 level of pally? And with it's very strong capstones you should probably go 20 anyway.

7 feats?

[BigErkyKid]

Progression and power creep are not the same thing.

MMOs cannot release new updates with stagnant power or decreases in power and hope to survive.

The problem is that this power is not added vertically (higher levels, items on max level) but as all across the board mechanics. This is breaking the game under cap and honestly now even at cap. Try bringing a toon with multiple eTRs to heroics nowadays.

[redoubt]

The pally trees are fine, it's is Holy Sword that is the problem.

Some might say that holy sword is the only reason to be a paladin and without it, don't bother. But this is another thread and I'm pretty sure this horse is dead and holy sword is not related to armor.

At least I don't think it is...

[Qhualor]

If you've done the math, show it... (I know you won't. You never do).

One thing or another is always "ahead"... People are throwing out numbers like heavy armor is 300% better, and you have no chance of surviving unless you're in heavy armor. Once again, exaggeration rules the boards...

Monk splashes are not dead... My archer-monk melees about 25% of the time... With 25% incorp, 25% Dodge, 50% displacement, and earth stance, he does just fine even in melee range... And of course, when ranging, I don't really care what his PRR is.

and my characters doing FB barb past lives wearing medium armor having ~100 PRR by 28, perma blur, 12% dodge, a whopping DR 6/-, displacement clicky, ghostly and twists Ephemeral Evolution does absolutely just fine, even with just a 25 sp blue bar. heavy armor is better if you compare one to one, but you have to include all other damage mitigation sources available plus healing plus dps/second.

[BigErkyKid]

and my characters doing FB barb past lives wearing medium armor having ~100 PRR by 28, perma blur, 12% dodge, a whopping DR 6/-, displacement clicky, ghostly and twists Ephemeral Evolution does absolutely just fine, even with just a 25 sp blue bar. heavy armor is better if you compare one to one, but you have to include all other damage mitigation sources available plus healing plus dps/second.

I actually was hoping that the higher dodge would make up for the difference. It does not, unfortunately harmor is just better than medium. It is not true that if you include dodge it changes anything.

It only does for very high dodge builds (+20%) that have incorporeality as well, but those builds are no longer in the power frontier.

[Blackheartox]

and my characters doing FB barb past lives wearing medium armor having ~100 PRR by 28, perma blur, 12% dodge, a whopping DR 6/-, displacement clicky, ghostly and twists Ephemeral Evolution does absolutely just fine, even with just a 25 sp blue bar. heavy armor is better if you compare one to one, but you have to include all other damage mitigation sources available plus healing plus dps/second.

Im interested to hear, why do you have 25 sp ?
How did you end with 25 sp as barb?

[BigErkyKid]

Would say the +50% Stat mood would cover it but if it doesn't Vanguard gets a good deal from its shield bash damage I'm pretty sure that doesn't proc on a cleave also.

Correct. The opportunity cost of a cleave is much higher in VG than in the other two (DBs, bashes, auto stuns).

I was kind of hoping you would run the numbers some day on a mudstone + chops yielding vanguard.

[Bluegirl_Two]

Im interested to hear, why do you have 25 sp ?
How did you end with 25 sp as barb?

Past lives, gear -- either could be providing spell points.

[Thrudh]

I actually was hoping that the higher dodge would make up for the difference. It does not, unfortunately harmor is just better than medium. It is not true that if you include dodge it changes anything.

It only does for very high dodge builds (+20%) that have incorporeality as well, but those builds are no longer in the power frontier.

Again, how much better? Is heavy armor 20x better than medium armor with some dodge, or light armor with a ton of dodge?

Is it 5x better?

50% better?

10% better?

Is the medium armor guy unable to complete the same content that the heavy armor guy can complete?

[Blackheartox]

Past lives, gear -- either could be providing spell points.

20 per plife or 25 from a power 1 or 25 sp augment.
On a epic levels barb?
How and why?

[BigErkyKid]

Again, how much better? Is heavy armor 20x better than medium armor with some dodge, or light armor with a ton of dodge?

Is it 5x better?

50% better?

10% better?

Is the medium armor guy unable to complete the same content that the heavy armor guy can complete?

Get a spreadsheet. Add some numbers on what you think are valid values for dodge, incorporeality and concealment for the builds you want to compare. Compute damage per hit after damage reduction for an example of damage (say 200). Multiply the damage taken per hit times the probability of being hit. This will give you the "expected damage" per hit. Compute how many hits to drop a guy with 1k HPs to zero. Then you will have a grasp of how those things matter.

[bbqzor]

Melee rangers just got cooldowns tweaked
Granted. But before they were measured in minutes, which in todays game is pretty easily argued as non-playable, so this is more of a "now its kind of like everyone else" instead of an actual boost above any perceived baseline. It also completely omitted any changes to A Thousand Cuts, which still only works 6s out of every 120s, or basically not at all in a practical sense. Ninja Spys get essentially the same thing on a 30s (or action boost) cooldown... hard to say this tweak really fixed anything, it was a temporary band aid at best.


and they get both passive PRR
You mean the 10 PRR for 6 AP enhancement? With the "armor up" changes being discussed, they are set to lose 5 PRR off the light armor base. Let just say this is not really a serious gain in any sense of things. 10 PRR does not compare to heavy armor, nor the defender stances (core stance, works with light armor), nor even putting a shield on (which tempests cant do), nor just about anything else. And with a huge 6 AP cost, its punitive when trying to afford other things in the tree, yet you cant not buy it because its their only source of actual mitigation (as opposed to avoidance like dodge).


and tons of Dodge on demand.
Anyone can throw on a 10% random gen dodge item, pick up the Dodge feat, and grab a ship buff for 15% dodge. Tempests can get to 25% somewhat easily, but thats hardly anything anyone else cant do. To actually increase their dodge cap (the only real source of "dodge" that would set them apart from say, a swashbuckler or caster) they have to sink a feat on mobility, and a whopping 9 AP to raise the cap by 3. Spending 3 AP to get 1 additional dodge cap (after buying 2 feats to boot) is NOT a good way to build an efficient and effective character. Better to just not do that and live with 25%, same as anyone else.


They also have an AoE enhancement with a substantially shorter cooldown
Dance of Death is literally the only reason to play a tempest right now. And it is not bad, that is true. But with the shorter melee range (as discussed elsewhere, TWF really has to be in the mobs face to have the attack physically reach) it is very difficult to use it to full effect. The mobs have to be positioned juuuuust right. This is rather parallel to cleave, better in some ways, worse than others. While it might help tempests be playable, its hardly something of an advantage vs any other build. MAYBE when you adjust TWF reach, so its the same as other styles, this will become "good". As it is, its more of a life preserver on an otherwise lackluster enhancement tree and core class.


While this doesn't really count as a pass, especially since most of their Dodge boost is wasted by since max dodge isn't boosted, they will probably be fine until we do the ranger pass.
Yea, Im not trying to say you guys called those changes a "ranger pass" or something. But I AM trying to say the class is in dire need of adjustment. After Rogues, Rangers are easily the class most in need of a pass. They lack any base damage function beyond favored enemy (which even at lv20, +10 is generally far behind anything else, say rogues 10-16d6 or barbs 6d6+improved power attack, or a paladins 7d6 light, etc... and that doesnt even count that rangers bonus only works on some mob types).

And they dont have any meaningful defenses. They just dont. Saying "they have 10 prr and dodge" isnt correct in a relative sense... anyone, heck even wiz/sorc can get 10 PRR outta the EK tree. And you know what else? The Ek version also adds AC, immunity to magic missiles, and so on. For less AP (its 3 vs 6 by specific enhancement, or 13 vs 16 for tree totals).. no matter how you slice it, the ranger one is more limited and more expensive. And sinking 9 AP and 2 feats to get 3 additional dodge is going to do virtually nothing for gameplay (after ghostly, blur, AC, and dodge, a difference of 3% dodge wont do much to change how quickly you die, not enough to be worth over 10% of your total AP).

Look Im not saying you cant play a tempest now, and Im not saying you guys are trying to act like there is no problem. But please, be aware of how big this problem actually is. Its not some minor cosmetic clean up. They are hurting against almost any other option. Their "benefits" arent anything you cant do better another way. And most of them are simply more costly ways of doing what everyone else can do cheaper. They need a big pass. Whenever it happens, it needs to be substantial. From adding Bane Damage (like your weapon is greater bane vs your favored enemies) or changing FE to +2d6 instead of +2 per tier, or having the Whirling Steel add shield PRR along with shield AC, some rather big things need to happen. Thanks.

[Braegan]

Im interested to hear, why do you have 25 sp ?
How did you end with 25 sp as barb?
One of the ship buffs give 25 sp...

Arcane Sanctum.

[Thar]

The problem is that this power is not added vertically (higher levels, items on max level) but as all across the board mechanics. This is breaking the game under cap and honestly now even at cap. Try bringing a toon with multiple eTRs to heroics nowadays.

with lack of people to run with in heroics, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. all mmo's start to move people through the initial content faster so they can get new people caught up and playing at the paying content levels.

[luvirini]

Except the caster doesn't get hit as often as the fighter...

So you need to compare the fighter getting hit 5 times to the mage getting hit once, and you see the system works fine.

You are missing the point.

The point is not total damage it is how threatening that damage is.

It does not mater how much less or more damage the caster or the fighter takes over the quest. It is about how many % of your total hitpoints you take before you react.

Warning probability math below.

I will try to simplify this if this is too complex.

The TL;DR version: Caster dies..:)

----
Take a basic scenario:
A caster with 500 hitpoint and a melee with 1000 hp.

So take a enemy that hits for 250-350(a fairly normal number in EEs), that translates to 225-315 on the caster(10% migation)/hit and 75-105 on the melee(70% migation)

Caster: Is very unlikely to be hit by a random normal EE enemy(displacement, incorp, keeping away form the enemies and so on), but if the enemy gets close then they are about 30% to be hit(order of magnitude after all desenses)
Melee: Is very likely to be hit by a random normal EE enemy as even a normal shield build only gets about 70% effective chance to be missed.

During a quest a caster is likely hit only a few times, as they will likely only close with enemies only 1/20 seconds to burst. Say only 2 of the enemies of each group will try to hit him after surviving the burst. So in 49% of the cases the caster takes no damage 42% of the times he is hit once and 9% of the cases he is hit twice. So:
case 1: 49% of no worry.
case 2: 42% they are hit once and are at about half their HP and thus even a bit of lag or slowness in the running away they in in case 3 easily.
case 3: 9% they are dead or really close to it: in about 30% of these they survive(sum of the damage is 500 or less), in 70% they die.

So simplified they have about 6% of dying each time they want do a lot of damage.


During the same quest the melee is hit a lot, say many groups of 6 mobs. Say that all 6 will try to strike him before he cleaves them to death and that 3 will try to hit him again before dying.

So the 9 attempted hits produce:
Worst case: all 9 hit: 0.002% and they do a lot of damage.. but even in worst case the melee takes 945 damage that is less than the 1000 (and the damage curve is really heavily centered on the 810 due to the many rolls)
So 0% probability of instant death/encounter. Though they are in bad shape.

The melee needs to be hit about 11 times between heals for a reasonable %(almost half) to get over 1000 hp. If the enemies try to hit him 11 times between heals he is hit 11 times about 0.0002% of the time. Thy need to be hit substantially more than that for the % to be anything close to realistic (I hate binoms so calculating the value is best left to someone who likes them)

So as long as the melee makes sure to heal every few dozen enemy swings he will be fine. The caster needs to heal after every hit, that is 30 % of the cases he is hit as the second hit is so likely deadly once they are wounded. So any lag or momentary concentration loss is likely deadly for the caster when he is close to the enemies.

Double striking enemies add the additional fun to the caster of giving no reaction time..
---

[BigErkyKid]

with lack of people to run with in heroics, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. all mmo's start to move people through the initial content faster so they can get new people caught up and playing at the paying content levels.

But it trivializes epic content too. Eberron epics?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~



Why not tie some defense to BaB?

That way, the better you fight, (higher level you are) the better your defense as well.

[Krelar]

Why not tie some defense to BaB?

That way, the better you fight, (higher level you are) the better your defense as well.

??

That's what the +BaB, +BaB*2/3, and +BaB/2 lines are for....

[Talon_Moonshadow]

IMO heavy armor is not the issue, the issue is the way it stacks with displacement.

You shouldn't be able to stack the best absorption and the best avoidance on the same toon.

IMO displacement needs some kind of nerf doing so would allow you to up the PRR of heavy/medium armor classes (can be back end if need) and allow you to bake in more dodge to light/no armor classes.



The nerf to Displacement is to stop fighting epic wolves and give us real epic challenges.. like things with true seeing.


It really bothers me both, that we fight the same monsters we did at level 5, when we are 25...
...and that people complain that those "normal" low level monsters are not a challenge.

An Minitour is not suppose to be able to bypass Displacement.
But a Lich that buffs his minions could do so. A Pit Fiend could do so...
etc.

[Blackheartox]

One of the ship buffs give 25 sp...

Arcane Sanctum.

Missed that one heh.

[Sehenry03]

So this is what I am getting from this thread...

1) Rogues/Rangers/Casters are mad because tankish (Barb/Pally/Fighters) classes got a big boost to survivability. I'm not sure why a class (barb maybe not but can easily get plate ability) designed to wear the most durable armor in the game can face tank better then they can. Rogues/Rangers are upset because they can be killed rather easy. Rangers are the only one with an argument here...casters and rogues are know as glass cannons for a reason and even rangers have had that term used for them for years.

2) Casters don't want to be pigeon holed into wearing heavy armor. Fine. Don't. I know lots of EE sorcs that don't wear heavy armor and still solo EE content just fine. CC and pure uninhibited AOE DPS.

3) Fighters are mad because Paladins have better DPS...so after being at the bottom of the DPS pile for 8+ years?? Pally's finally get a break and now you want to ruin it for them? My question is why are BARDS!!!!! at the top of DPS charts? Really? Yeah because a bard is the first thing I think of when I think of a master of dps with a weapon. A bard is a top 3 melee DPS class in the game?!?!?! This is just wrong.

4) Monk splash builders are mad because monk splashes got nerfed...which they didn't. It is awful easy to get a monk splash build to 100-150PRR which is PLENTY for damage mitigation PLUS have tons of dodge PLUS evasion.

If I missed something let me know...but I vote to leave the heavy armor classes alone and give them there moment in the limelight considering how long they have been at the bottom of the dung pile.

[Bluegirl_Two]

How is the impact different? Both can wear plate, use shields and use vanguard.

It isn't the enhancement tree by itself, it is the synergy within the class. Vanguard is much better for paladins than for fighters because of that synergy.

This contradicts your previous statements that armor up really didn't help fighters much.

No, it does nothing of the kind. The help is minimal because what works in theory isn't what happens in practice. The "pause and heal" approach does not actually take place. Fighters are the only ones stuck in that mode. Thus, they were not really helped at all.

Because you haven't seen the videos yet, that's the reason.

I'd ask you to provide some but we both know you never provide what you're asked for.

UMD has been raisable to ~40 since the cap 16 days on a dump cha fighter. Heal skill isn't absolutely needed, but can also be raised to a decent level even cross class if desired.

Maybe you missed the part about it all takes skill points -- of which the fighter typically has 1. So explain other than in just theory what builds are spending their 1 skill point per level on either of these skills.

Cha is even more desirable due to divine might ramping up strength at such a rate that it does.

I know that all my fighter builds get divine might. I did find a build in the fighter forums with added CHA. The next post immediately behind it read:


despite how much it pains me to say it, if you want to be snb...go pally or go home.

They most certainly are normal for fighters nowdays, and many have been the norm for years now.

Show me the builds. No, never mind, that requires you to show us something again. Again, you never do that.

Fighters have been self sufficient unless the player chose not to build it in, since the cap 16 days.

Wrong.

No, this was an added PRE. This was not the class revamp.

Semantics. It was a full game pass that changed how armor works and was advertized as intended to make fighters and paladins better. The "how" is not the important part. To the contrary, it can be argued that all of the class revamps have been nothing more than enhancement changes.

Comments in ORANGE.

[Braegan]

Now granted there really only is one good VG build so you're kinda pigeon-holed.

Wait. There's only really one way to build a Vanguard? Le Sigh, I probably did it wrong then. :(

[Blackheartox]

You are missing the point.

The point is not total damage it is how threatening that damage is.

It does not mater how much less or more damage the caster or the fighter takes over the quest. It is about how many % of your total hitpoints you take before you react.

Warning probability math below.

I will try to simplify this if this is too complex.

The TL;DR version: Caster dies..:)

----
Take a basic scenario:
A caster with 500 hitpoint and a melee with 1000 hp.

So take a enemy that hits for 250-350(a fairly normal number in EEs), that translates to 225-315 on the caster(10% migation)/hit and 75-105 on the melee(70% migation)

Caster: Is very unlikely to be hit by a random normal EE enemy(displacement, incorp, keeping away form the enemies and so on), but if the enemy gets close then they are about 30% to be hit(order of magnitude after all desenses)
Melee: Is very likely to be hit by a random normal EE enemy as even a normal shield build only gets about 70% effective chance to be missed.

During a quest a caster is likely hit only a few times, as they will likely only close with enemies only 1/20 seconds to burst. Say only 2 of the enemies of each group will try to hit him after surviving the burst. So in 49% of the cases the caster takes no damage 42% of the times he is hit once and 9% of the cases he is hit twice. So:
case 1: 49% of no worry.
case 2: 42% they are hit once and are at about half their HP and thus even a bit of lag or slowness in the running away they in in case 3 easily.
case 3: 9% they are dead or really close to it: in about 30% of these they survive(sum of the damage is 500 or less), in 70% they die.

So simplified they have about 6% of dying each time they want do a lot of damage.


During the same quest the melee is hit a lot, say many groups of 6 mobs. Say that all 6 will try to strike him before he cleaves them to death and that 3 will try to hit him again before dying.

So the 9 attempted hits produce:
Worst case: all 9 hit: 0.002% and they do a lot of damage.. but even in worst case the melee takes 945 damage that is less than the 1000 (and the damage curve is really heavily centered on the 810 due to the many rolls)
So 0% probability of instant death/encounter. Though they are in bad shape.

The melee needs to be hit about 11 times between heals for a reasonable %(almost half) to get over 1000 hp. If the enemies try to hit him 11 times between heals he is hit 11 times about 0.0002% of the time. Thy need to be hit substantially more than that for the % to be anything close to realistic (I hate binoms so calculating the value is best left to someone who likes them)

So as long as the melee makes sure to heal every few dozen enemy swings he will be fine. The caster needs to heal after every hit, that is 30 % of the cases he is hit as the second hit is so likely deadly once they are wounded. So any lag or momentary concentration loss is likely deadly for the caster when he is close to the enemies.

Double striking enemies add the additional fun to the caster of giving no reaction time..
---
One question, why do you assume the "caster" does not have harmor?
You can build a bf with addie body as sorc or wizz, you get free harmor as cleric and maxed bab, you can splash a fighter or take feat on fsoul, you can spend feats or splash fighter on druid.
So, why do you assume the "caster" is not running around in harmor?
My caster is runing in light/med armor depending how i distribute my ap and i land around 120-130 prr with 17% dodge and 950-1200 hp being full dc based sorc.
And everyone has the ability to build the same caster as i did.
You can do a first life shiradi stanced palie sorc fsoul and have bazilion prr while being ranged.

Im just pointing out that your calc is off and is not projecting how the current ddo works

[Qhualor]

Im interested to hear, why do you have 25 sp ?
How did you end with 25 sp as barb?

ship buff

[Enoach]

Why not tie some defense to BaB?

That way, the better you fight, (higher level you are) the better your defense as well.

The problem with this approach is

1. Divine Power grants the caster BaB equal to a Fighter of the same level
2. Tenser's Transfermation grants you a BaB equal to your character level

Both above are spells accessible either as a clickie, a scroll or an enhancement. So changing it to work off of BaB would not change a lot.

[Thrudh]

Get a spreadsheet. Add some numbers on what you think are valid values for dodge, incorporeality and concealment for the builds you want to compare. Compute damage per hit after damage reduction for an example of damage (say 200). Multiply the damage taken per hit times the probability of being hit. This will give you the "expected damage" per hit. Compute how many hits to drop a guy with 1k HPs to zero. Then you will have a grasp of how those things matter.

Okay, since you won't do it.

200 per hit... 12 hits... Heavy armor guy just standing there gets hit 12 times. With 60% mitigation, he takes 960 points of damage (80 per).

200 per hit... 12 hits... Monk splash, cloth guy has 25% miss due incorporeal, 9 hits left... 25% dodge... 7 hits left... With 20% mitigation, he takes 1120 (160 per).

That's 16% more damage...

Oh noes! Monk splashes are dead! (And I'm pretty sure monks can get higher than 20% mitigation)

200 per hit... 12 hits... Light armor guy has 25% dodge, 9 hits left... With 35% mitigation, he takes 1170 (170 per)

That's 22% more damage...

Oh noes! Light armor guys have no chance of finishing content...

Of course, light armor guys also get evasion... so even though they are taking more damage from physical attacks, they are taking less damage from magical attacks... I wonder if that evens anything out at all?

3 reflex-save damage spells from a caster...

200 per hit... 60% mitigation from heavy armor guy.... 80 per hit... (240 damage)
200 per hit... 100% mitigation from evasion... 0 per hit...

Even if heavy armor guy saves for half-damage, he's still taking damage and evasion guy is taking zero.

[bartharok]

Wait. There's only really one way to build a Vanguard? Le Sigh, I probably did it wrong then. :(

You know master monkey, its his way or its bad.

[btolson]

An update:
That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.
Sev~

I think you should set all types of armor to add the same amount of BAB to PRR; the current scaling just seems to make medium too unattractive, especially for barbs who are a full BAB class, and I don't see the point in it (what goal does differing the amount of BAB scaling satisfy that can't be achieved by altering the constants instead?). If reducing MRR from current values is really desirable then you might do this:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB) +3
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB) + 0
- MRR: 10

This will have almost no effect on most light armor characters since they are generally 3/4 BAB or less in the case of EK's.

It will help medium armor the most (which will be boosted relative to other armors, but still see a small decrease in actual value vs live), which is currently the most neglected armor type by players.

Heavy armor gets the biggest nerf, but that seems to be the point.



If reducing MRR is not really desired, and is just collateral damage in the suggested change, then you might do this:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 45 + (BAB/2) + 6
- MRR: 45
Medium Armor
- PRR: 30 + (BAB/2) +3
- MRR: 30
Light Armor
- PRR: 15 + (BAB/2) + 0
- MRR: 15

Here, light armor sees a loss of 2 PRR, medium armor sees a loss of about 3 PRR (for a capped full BAB barb), and heavy armor sees a loss of about 12 PRR. Thus again, heavy armor sees the biggest nerf, and medium armor is helped the most (relative to other armors).


Obviously these exact numbers may not be perfect, but I really think the BAB progression should be identical for all types because it serves no practical effect beyond making medium armor worse than it should be.

[Thar]

Granted. But before they were measured in minutes, which in todays game is pretty easily argued as non-playable, so this is more of a "now its kind of like everyone else" instead of an actual boost above any perceived baseline. It also completely omitted any changes to A Thousand Cuts, which still only works 6s out of every 120s, or basically not at all in a practical sense. Ninja Spys get essentially the same thing on a 30s (or action boost) cooldown... hard to say this tweak really fixed anything, it was a temporary band aid at best.


You mean the 10 PRR for 6 AP enhancement? With the "armor up" changes being discussed, they are set to lose 5 PRR off the light armor base. Let just say this is not really a serious gain in any sense of things. 10 PRR does not compare to heavy armor, nor the defender stances (core stance, works with light armor), nor even putting a shield on (which tempests cant do), nor just about anything else. And with a huge 6 AP cost, its punitive when trying to afford other things in the tree, yet you cant not buy it because its their only source of actual mitigation (as opposed to avoidance like dodge).


Anyone can throw on a 10% random gen dodge item, pick up the Dodge feat, and grab a ship buff for 15% dodge. Tempests can get to 25% somewhat easily, but thats hardly anything anyone else cant do. To actually increase their dodge cap (the only real source of "dodge" that would set them apart from say, a swashbuckler or caster) they have to sink a feat on mobility, and a whopping 9 AP to raise the cap by 3. Spending 3 AP to get 1 additional dodge cap (after buying 2 feats to boot) is NOT a good way to build an efficient and effective character. Better to just not do that and live with 25%, same as anyone else.


Dance of Death is literally the only reason to play a tempest right now. And it is not bad, that is true. But with the shorter melee range (as discussed elsewhere, TWF really has to be in the mobs face to have the attack physically reach) it is very difficult to use it to full effect. The mobs have to be positioned juuuuust right. This is rather parallel to cleave, better in some ways, worse than others. While it might help tempests be playable, its hardly something of an advantage vs any other build. MAYBE when you adjust TWF reach, so its the same as other styles, this will become "good". As it is, its more of a life preserver on an otherwise lackluster enhancement tree and core class.


Yea, Im not trying to say you guys called those changes a "ranger pass" or something. But I AM trying to say the class is in dire need of adjustment. After Rogues, Rangers are easily the class most in need of a pass. They lack any base damage function beyond favored enemy (which even at lv20, +10 is generally far behind anything else, say rogues 10-16d6 or barbs 6d6+improved power attack, or a paladins 7d6 light, etc... and that doesnt even count that rangers bonus only works on some mob types).

And they dont have any meaningful defenses. They just dont. Saying "they have 10 prr and dodge" isnt correct in a relative sense... anyone, heck even wiz/sorc can get 10 PRR outta the EK tree. And you know what else? The Ek version also adds AC, immunity to magic missiles, and so on. For less AP (its 3 vs 6 by specific enhancement, or 13 vs 16 for tree totals).. no matter how you slice it, the ranger one is more limited and more expensive. And sinking 9 AP and 2 feats to get 3 additional dodge is going to do virtually nothing for gameplay (after ghostly, blur, AC, and dodge, a difference of 3% dodge wont do much to change how quickly you die, not enough to be worth over 10% of your total AP).

Look Im not saying you cant play a tempest now, and Im not saying you guys are trying to act like there is no problem. But please, be aware of how big this problem actually is. Its not some minor cosmetic clean up. They are hurting against almost any other option. Their "benefits" arent anything you cant do better another way. And most of them are simply more costly ways of doing what everyone else can do cheaper. They need a big pass. Whenever it happens, it needs to be substantial. From adding Bane Damage (like your weapon is greater bane vs your favored enemies) or changing FE to +2d6 instead of +2 per tier, or having the Whirling Steel add shield PRR along with shield AC, some rather big things need to happen. Thanks.

good post vs my short rant.

Lot of opinions on ranger hence the thread i did on their enhancements a while back with possible fixes. hopefully a ranger pass is coming soon (tm)? Sev, is this coming with 25 when the ranged power changes are coming or soon after???

[Blackheartox]

You know master monkey, its his way or its bad.

Wait til i build one!

[bartharok]

Wait til i build one!

Its going to be awful?

[luvirini]

Do you folks even read your responses? Or you just flat out dont care about about anyone whos not on life 15 or higher?

AC may work, but again, light armor is severely handicapped in that department as well.


I read your response and the things I meant is that with any self healing of really any type you can manage heroic content with really bad defenses. If you do not have self healing then regardless of your defenses you are in trouble in today's game as no one else will likely heal you...

In heroic levels you do not likely get your Dodge high enough to matter really unless you are bard.

Thus in heroic levels with the low dodge you will likely have it is very unlikely that your armor maximum dex bonus will be the limiting factor if you are in light armor unless you have the +10% form bard, then you need to start looking at the high MDB armors.

I do not care if you are first life 15th life or 55th life as the number of lifes will not help you much, the purchasable fighter past life feat being the only one I can think of.

The big difference between top tier heroic elite creatures hitting you for 80-100(and very few at that) to the bottom tier EE creatures hitting you for 150-200 is such that in epics the dodge% matters a LOT more was my point. If you make a build that have decent survivability in EEs and is in light armor and focusing on dodge (you will not get good survivability anyway..), then the same build will likely be just fine in heroics with 0% dodge due to the other defenses you need to build.



getting max dodge bonus up to 25% in light armor is not something that is realistic for most players.


Correct, but you gave a range of 20-25% and the lower edge of that range is realistic to anyone in epic levels if you are building for dodge as there are many armors with starting MDB of 18-19 where just slotting in a +2 gem gets you to 20-21.

Getting to 25(and over) then requires you to have levels in some class that gives those bonuses, like a ranger.


Massive PRR from Heavy armor is available from every set of vendor trash in the game.

Yes and that is the big problem with the current system, you get so much more survivability with simply having heavy armor on compared to trying hard to get your defenses up any other way.

[Thar]

I think you should set all types of armor to add the same amount of BAB to PRR; the current scaling just seems to make medium too unattractive, especially for barbs who are a full BAB class, and I don't see the point in it (what goal does differing the amount of BAB scaling satisfy that can't be achieved by altering the constants instead?). If reducing MRR from current values is really desirable then you might do this:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB) +3
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB) + 0
- MRR: 10

This will have almost no effect on most light armor characters since they are generally 3/4 BAB or less in the case of EK's.

It will help medium armor the most (which will be boosted relative to other armors, but still see a small decrease in actual value vs live), which is currently the most neglected armor type by players.

Heavy armor gets the biggest nerf, but that seems to be the point.



If reducing MRR is not really desired, and is just collateral damage in the suggested change, then you might do this:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 45 + (BAB/2) + 6
- MRR: 45
Medium Armor
- PRR: 30 + (BAB/2) +3
- MRR: 30
Light Armor
- PRR: 15 + (BAB/2) + 0
- MRR: 15

Here, light armor sees a loss of 2 PRR, medium armor sees a loss of about 3 PRR (for a capped full BAB barb), and heavy armor sees a loss of about 12 PRR. Thus again, heavy armor sees the biggest nerf, and medium armor is helped the most (relative to other armors).


Obviously these exact numbers may not be perfect, but I really think the BAB progression should be identical for all types because it serves no practical effect beyond making medium armor worse than it should be.

light armor needs more prr not less. your destroying rangers, rogues, bards even more with that proposal to make light bab *0. I agree with the point that BAB should be the same across any armor type. +6 for all no matter what armor to show the skill of those fighter classes in "parry'ing" as the bab is the melee skill of the character vs the inate resistance the base armor gives by being harder to punch through steel plates vs leather. low bab classes would not gain hardly anything, heavy wouldn't lose. med/light armor melee would be brought up a little. This seems like a fair change.

[luvirini]

200 per hit... 60% mitigation from heavy armor guy.... 80 per hit... (240 damage)
200 per hit... 100% mitigation from evasion... 0 per hit...

Even if heavy armor guy saves for half-damage, he's still taking damage and evasion guy is taking zero.

Sorry that is not how it works as you have few things wrong:

Ball and other area effects:
The heavy armor character takes half damage due to MRR and then if he has a shield half again due to and then can save for half again =1/8 in best case.
The evasion character in the best possible case(improved evasion, not normal) will fail on a 1 thus take 1/40 of the damage(1/20th with only normal evasion).

And if your saves are not good enough the the heavy armor person starts to take 1/4 and the evasion build 100%

and then the really bad news for evasion builds:
Ray spells, dots ans similar without a reflex save (and there are lots of these)
The heavy armor character takes half damage due to MRR
The evasion character takes full damage.

[Thar]

Of course, light armor guys also get evasion... so even though they are taking more damage from physical attacks, they are taking less damage from magical attacks... I wonder if that evens anything out at all?

3 reflex-save damage spells from a caster...

200 per hit... 60% mitigation from heavy armor guy.... 80 per hit... (240 damage)
200 per hit... 100% mitigation from evasion... 0 per hit...

Even if heavy armor guy saves for half-damage, he's still taking damage and evasion guy is taking zero.

you assume that evasion is always working which isn't always true. probably 50-95% of time depending on the build. and heavy armor guy with shield gets 2x mrr and then save. I have a pally that was light armor/evasion tank. i switched to heavy armor as i hardly take over 50 pts of damage from a spell. easily healable. vs the beating i take more often in melee.

[Blackheartox]

Its going to be awful?

Of course!

[bartharok]

Of course!

Great! We need more people willing to do that, then maybe some day my builds will seem tolerable.

[luvirini]

One question, why do you assume the "caster" does not have harmor?
You can build a bf with addie body as sorc or wizz, you get free harmor as cleric and maxed bab, you can splash a fighter or take feat on fsoul, you can spend feats or splash fighter on druid.
So, why do you assume the "caster" is not running around in harmor?
My caster is runing in light/med armor depending how i distribute my ap and i land around 120-130 prr with 17% dodge and 950-1200 hp being full dc based sorc.
And everyone has the ability to build the same caster as i did.
You can do a first life shiradi stanced palie sorc fsoul and have bazilion prr while being ranged.

Im just pointing out that your calc is off and is not projecting how the current ddo works

I am responding to people talking about 9% migation non armored caster vs armored non caster.

Heavy armor casters are a different issue, but that was not the discussion they had and that I was commenting on.

*shrug* Of course I build my casters with heavy armor because devs want everyone to be in heavy armor clearly.

But overall if everyone is forced to have heavy armor to be survivable then what is the point of having the other options in the game?

[luvirini]

One question, why do you assume the "caster" does not have harmor?
You can build a bf with addie body as sorc or wizz, you get free harmor as cleric and maxed bab, you can splash a fighter or take feat on fsoul, you can spend feats or splash fighter on druid.
So, why do you assume the "caster" is not running around in harmor?
My caster is runing in light/med armor depending how i distribute my ap and i land around 120-130 prr with 17% dodge and 950-1200 hp being full dc based sorc.
And everyone has the ability to build the same caster as i did.
You can do a first life shiradi stanced palie sorc fsoul and have bazilion prr while being ranged.

Im just pointing out that your calc is off and is not projecting how the current ddo works

Oh yeah, and please do a corresponding calc for a rogue in light armor as that was the other option and since people seem to like take things out of context..

I just selected the more powerful of the two options(the one with reasonable defenses, not the one with really bad)

[Chai]

I am responding to people talking about 9% migation non armored caster vs armored non caster.

Heavy armor casters are a different issue, but that was not the discussion they had and that I was commenting on.

*shrug* Of course I build my casters with heavy armor because devs want everyone to be in heavy armor clearly.

But overall if everyone is forced to have heavy armor to be survivable then what is the point of having the other options in the game?

To play the game using an avoidance play style, or build some CC in, rather than standing there taking hits firing spells off.

.....the same way we played the game when Halfling dodge machines in feety pajamas were the FOTM.

[Thrudh]

you assume that evasion is always working which isn't always true.

We're all assuming a ton of things, almost none of which are always true. There are 20+ variables for each character, trade-offs to consider...

Instead, we actually have people complaining that casters can't get their PRR as high as a paladin, ignoring all other variables.

Here's the real test... Can your character solo epic hard, and contribute in a group on epic elite?? Then it's viable and not gimp.

(Power-gamers will instead say "Does your character do only 95% of max DPS, and take 5% more damage per hit? If so, you're gimp")

[Thrudh]

I am responding to people talking about 9% migation non armored caster vs armored non caster.

Heavy armor casters are a different issue, but that was not the discussion they had and that I was commenting on.

*shrug* Of course I build my casters with heavy armor because devs want everyone to be in heavy armor clearly.

But overall if everyone is forced to have heavy armor to be survivable then what is the point of having the other options in the game?

LOL.. No caster is "forced" to wear heavy armor to survive.

[luvirini]

To play the game using an avoidance play style, or build some CC in, rather than standing there taking hits firing spells off.

.....the same way we played the game when Halfling dodge machines in feety pajamas were the FOTM.

For pajama builds:
Yes, I agree it is certainly possible to play the game the same way all melees were required to play before the armor up change(pick of enemies one by one and stun or something them and then kill them off).

While you have played with one or two enemies, but in the same time the heavy armor melee with the cleaves standing in middle of enemies has cleared the rest of the enemy group.

As for casters:
Yes you really should have CC but it is really had to get close enough to 100% CC to not get hit several times if you want to kill the large groups of enemies you typically see in newer content as all other spells except energy burst are really inefficient in terms of SP and you will run out of SP pretty fast and energy burst is centered on you.

The other spell point saving option of going shiradi Is certainly an option. You do pew pew damaging some enemies and the heavy armor melee kills everything...

So yes, there is absolutely no "need" to be in heavy armor, and likely many people actually enjoy the challenge, the same way many people enjoyed the challenge of running melees in EE content before the armor up changes. There is nothing wrong with wanting the challenge. Personally I just hate feeling like a gimp so such is not for me.

[Thar]

Melee rangers just got cooldowns tweaked, and they get both passive PRR and tons of Dodge on demand. They also have an AoE enhancement with a substantially shorter cooldown. While this doesn't really count as a pass, especially since most of their Dodge boost is wasted by since max dodge isn't boosted, they will probably be fine until we do the ranger pass.

Sev~

Barbs have a tier 3 aoe. Pally a tier 5 with much shorter cooldown. The change to the cooldown was a this needs to occur to make this enhancement useable, not a fix to the dps problem the class has. IF you could fire both that and 1000 cuts off at the same time, then it's marginally useful for 5 sec (1 sec to click on both and then resume attacking mob = 6 sec), but the other still has a silly long cooldown. please look at whirlwind for melee. it's abismal with twf vs monks.

The class has no crowd control, can't use tactics, can't stun, trip, or use spells to snare as dc's are abismally low vs dc's at level.

no dodge cap increase as you address. rogues also get uncanny dodge and huge bonus to dodge that recycles like every fight. bards get displacement as a spell for min and half at epic. what do rangers have?

the 10 prr is a start, but they can't really survive with light armor as it is with just 10 extra prr (only while twf, not ranged) and less hp than other frontline fighters. (which most of the revamped classes exceed prr bonuses, 50 for pally, 20+ for barbs, etc). this is a big problem in wheloon/stormhorns which seems to be the new quest content to throw oodles of mobs at you at once. Rangers just don't have the prr to survive and the aoe to kill.

the only ranger doing ok damage periodically is the furyshot ranger which is far behind monchers and you can't be in fury and do etr's in other sphere's. Can you get a melee ranger to kill stuff? yes. Can you get one that will be even 50% as effective as any other melee (and half the ranged builds) class out there including rogues who get 10d6+ sneak dice? no way. a few select natural enemy's doesn't give enough extra specialized damage to keep up. The enhancement tree is too expensive. 6 pts for 10 prr. 2 pts for 1 to hit and damage. vs vanguard that gets the same with ac bonus too...

I believe you see some of the problems with the class as you have spoken about damage mitigation in the past, dodge above. DPS also is an issue and can't be ignored.

[Blackheartox]

Oh yeah, and please do a corresponding calc for a rogue in light armor as that was the other option and since people seem to like take things out of context..

I just selected the more powerful of the two options(the one with reasonable defenses, not the one with really bad)

Rogue players have ways to handle ee very easy as well.
As a friend alrdy pointed out and showed in several ee videos he is using web traps.

My point is like this, you can play everything you want with harmor, rangers, rogues and even monks (gosh) but i dont think harmor should be forced on every single build.
I am plaiyn in med/light as caster, and i swap to robes sometimes simply because i do not need harmor, for apsolutely no content that i run, and apsolutely nothing presents a issue beside me playing dumb or stupid (which is really really offten).
I dont want my caster to be able to survive a bazilion hits while standing there and spaming 1 2 3.
I did a 12 soul 5 wiz 3 palie snboard shiradi stanced bf build on alt and yes its wonderful and all.
But my sorc is just more fun being able to get killed.

I am generally a challenge seeker in ddo, and i never get why devs thro at us so many easy buttons with godmode in built.
If you really cared you could splash harmor to anything and be one of the cool guys.
But thing is, you really really dont need that unless you feel worse for not being able to complete quests at same speed as that 3x completionist barb dude standing next to you.
Go solo, feel good about yourself if you hate seing others be better at you at this game.
I understand when something is out of ballance and a nerf is required, but people who say that non harmor builds are bad, not viable and canot perform as well are just wrong.
We have showed and given proof to players that say rogues and rangers cant survive with simple technical proposals so that they can improve their gameplay.
Most of them ignored it and wont listen.
For me for example the power from palie and barb does not come from damage mitigation as from strong capstones and a bit to strong synergy and healing amp change.
But hey, if devs say they will make future content harder and do a pass on most classes while throwing at us stuff we cant beat so easy im fully ok with that.
Give em time, and improve your playstyle first before asking for nerfs or throwing claims that are not correct is my suggestion to people in this thread

[Monkey-Boy]

You know master monkey, its his way or its bad.

Now you get it.

[BigErkyKid]

Now you get it.

But seriously, there is mostly 1 way to build the good DPS VG. So master monkey is right there.

If you don't take the capstone you are doing it wrong. That already locks 42 points in enhancements...what is there left to do?

Choices are minimal.

[bartharok]

But seriously, there is mostly 1 way to build the good DPS VG. So master monkey is right there.

If you don't take the capstone you are doing it wrong. That already locks 42 points in enhancements...what is there left to do?

Choices are minimal.

You have made the choice for 42 points. The rest is up for grabs, and you still have the feats and race to consider. So there is not 1 way, there is one thing that is necessary.

[BigErkyKid]

You have made the choice for 42 points. The rest is up for grabs, and you still have the feats and race to consider. So there is not 1 way, there is one thing that is necessary.

Let's boil it down to real choices:

1. Race
2. Weapon
3. Left over enhancement points

Since you cannot multi class, those are only marginal choices. Max DPS and no dip in sacred defender? Khopesh / pick vs dwarxe / b sword?

The build will play very similarly regardless, those are not crucial points. Multi classing is usually what brings the most in terms of customization, since trees are anyway quite streamlined. More powerful abilities higher up, etc.

[bartharok]

Let's boil it down to real choices:

1. Race
2. Weapon
3. Left over enhancement points

Since you cannot multi class, those are only marginal choices. Max DPS and no dip in sacred defender? Khopesh / pick vs dwarxe / b sword?

The build will play very similarly regardless, those are not crucial points. Multi classing is usually what brings the most in terms of customization, since trees are anyway quite streamlined. More powerful abilities higher up, etc.

So you think feats count for nothing, or you are forced to pick certain ones?

[LavidDynch]

Melee rangers just got cooldowns tweaked, and they get both passive PRR and tons of Dodge on demand. They also have an AoE enhancement with a substantially shorter cooldown. While this doesn't really count as a pass, especially since most of their Dodge boost is wasted by since max dodge isn't boosted, they will probably be fine until we do the ranger pass.

Sev~

I'm sorry but cooldowns doesn't really cut it. Rangers would need something like +25-50 base dmg or x2 crit vs FE, to be anywhere near the current melee-META (barbarian).

[Monkey-Boy]

So you think feats count for nothing, or you are forced to pick certain ones?

If you want your toon to be good, yes.

There's a little freedom, but not that much.

[Monkey-Boy]

I'm sorry but cooldowns doesn't really cut it. Rangers would need something like +25-50 base dmg or x2 crit vs FE, to be anywhere near the current melee-META (barbarian).

I don't think a Ranger needs to catch up to Barbarians, but catching up to paladin is a reasonable expectation.

[Skeen]

I'm sorry but cooldowns doesn't really cut it. Rangers would need something like +25-50 base dmg or x2 crit vs FE, to be anywhere near the current melee-META (barbarian).

Why would devs worry about making Rangers anywhere near Barbarian DPS?

[jalont]

Why would devs worry about making Rangers anywhere near Barbarian DPS?

DPS can come in different flavors (i.e. FE flavor), but DDO is just entirely too easy for all classes to not have equal DPS because all other differences don't matter. Who cares about survivability differences when it's impossible to die because the mobs don't pose a danger to you?