Remove MRR Armor Caps

[Carpone]

Situation:

Anyone spending time in Legendary Ravenloft has experienced being absolutely decimated by spells:

* DoT spells such as Niac's Biting Cold, Eladar's Electric Surge, Black Dragon Bolt, and Burning Blood.
* AE spells that are ignoring saving throws for half damage, such as Cyclonic Blast.
* AE spells that are not mitigated by MRR, such as Horrid Wilting.

Background:

The primary mitigation mechanic to reduce spell damage in DDO is Magical Resistance Rating. When the MRR cap was first introduced, it wasn't even possible to reach the arbitrary artificial cap for cloth wearers (Sorcerer, Wizard, Monk) because of the lack of itemization, past life feats and enhancement changes. Now it's commonplace for cloth armor wearers to hit the cap by equipping one item. While not as epidemic, light armor wearers (Rogue, Ranger, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) can hit the 100 MRR cap.

Reference:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Magical_Resistance_Rating
http://ddowiki.com/page/Physical_Resistance_Rating

Assessment:

The problem with MRR is the arbitrary artificial cap based on armor type. Cloth armor wearers are all too keenly aware of this. MRR cap is easily met by equipping just one legendary item. There's no point in considering an Insightful, Quality, Mythic or Artifact item bonus, or enhancements that increase MRR. This does not align with DDO's core principle of character customization.

No MRR benefit from Deep Gnome or Warlock past lives can be realized at level cap for cloth wearers, unless the Beacon of Magic set is worn. Unfortunately due to the typing of the DC bonus (Artifact), it doesn't stack with Slave Lords Sorcery set which is superior. Six past lives is a huge investment not to reap the rewards from. DDO thrives because of the TReadmill. Don't give players another reason to not TR. There are enough of those already.

Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial MRR caps based on worn armor type. PRR doesn't have an artificial cap based on armor worn, and no one is complaining about characters running around with too much PRR in cloth armor.

[Selvera]

I've also spoken on the problems of the MRR cap. They are numerous and they are arbitrary. Please remove it, and replace it with a better system which does what it was supposed to do, except correctly.

[lyrecono]

The devs mentioned they were doing this somentime ago, expect it to be comming soon.

Prr has a cap. You'll eventually run into a virtual wall of diminishing returns, where raising it becommes too expencive for barely any return

[Amundir]

If only there were ways to resist or absorb certain types of elemental damage...
</sarcasm>

[Tom116]

Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial MRR caps based on worn armor type. PRR doesn't have an artificial cap based on armor worn, and no one is complaining about characters running around with too much PRR in cloth armor.

Increasing MRR cap:
Few rare effects exist that allow your character to increase the MRR cap restriction imposed by your armor.

Beacon of Magic item sets: +10 heroic / +20 legendary for three piece item set
Nystul's Mystical Defense: +40 for five piece filigree set


Both of the above are from Ravenloft items which are bound on acquire. If they remove the cap, they lessen the incentive for players to buy Ravenloft. It would be nice for them to do so, but it is also unlikely because of that.

As a sidenote, the enchantments on robes giving people this much PRR would be pretty funny to see. Imagine someone being hit full force with a warhammer only for it to barely bruise them because of their robe they were wearing lol :)

[cru121]

removing mrr cap might look like a good idea
then again
do monks and casters need more power? are these two archetypes at the bottom of the power scale these days?

[glennson]

I too feel strongly that the cap on MRR is not appropriate.

I'm not wholly against capping MRR or PPR based on armor type in order to balance the game but it should be more logical, or at least in line with PnP logic.

A heavily armored fighter should be more susceptible to a lightning bolt than a wizard in robes.

In fact since the robes we all wear in this game are magically imbued it would be appropriate to add a boost to MRR similar to the bonus to PRR (based on armor type and bab) but scaled inversely hence robes would provide the largest innate bonus to MRR and heavy armor would provide none.

Any capping to MRR or PRR should be in line with this logic, so perhaps heavy armor would have a MRR cap and robes might have a PRR cap.

Regardless a cap of 50 or even 100 is far too low without ways of raising the cap(s), through feats and enhancements, not just gear.

[Arkat]

I'd be in favor of raising the MRR cap to 100 for Cloth Armor and to 150 for Light Armor.

Not sure the MRR cap should be removed entirely, though.

[Yamani]

I too feel strongly that the cap on MRR is not appropriate.

I'm not wholly against capping MRR or PPR based on armor type in order to balance the game but it should be more logical, or at least in line with PnP logic.

A heavily armored fighter should be more susceptible to a lightning bolt than a wizard in robes.

In fact since the robes we all wear in this game are magically imbued it would be appropriate to add a boost to MRR similar to the bonus to PRR (based on armor type and bab) but scaled inversely hence robes would provide the largest innate bonus to MRR and heavy armor would provide none.

Any capping to MRR or PRR should be in line with this logic, so perhaps heavy armor would have a MRR cap and robes might have a PRR cap.

Regardless a cap of 50 or even 100 is far too low without ways of raising the cap(s), through feats and enhancements, not just gear.
I actually agree, cloth should have highest MRR and a PRR cap while heavy armor should have highest PRR and a MRR cap.

[Selvera]

As explained before:

Prr does not have a cap; nor does it have diminishing returns.

There are ways to resist or asorb certain types of elemental damage. But not all types; and non-capped characters get this too; it's already built into the game's balance.

The ravenloft sets which raise your MRR cap are exclusively focused on caster items.

Monks and Casters don't need more power right now... in high level reaper at cap. But that is a very specific problem and has nothing to do with the MRR cap. I have proposed ways for each of those to be more in line with other character's power levels. (One specific item is the only reason monks are meta right now, and casters are only meta due to the outdated DC system).

Raising the MRR cap does not fix the MRR cap problems. It just allows for more power creep. The problem is derived from the fact that it has no effect on low level characters and a huge effect on high level characters, and disincentives a lot of gear/pastlives/build options.

Introducing a PRR cap would be taking a poorly implemented system and extending it to effect more people/builds.

[Carpone]

The devs mentioned they were doing this somentime ago, expect it to be comming soon.
Soon, like the FvS enhancement pass that was mentioned in the Sep 2016 producer letter and still has not been delivered?


Prr has a cap.
Not an arbitrary artificial cap.

[Carpone]

If only there were ways to resist or absorb certain types of elemental damage...
</sarcasm>
How much gear do you think is reasonable to dedicate towards absorb and/or resist? The dots commonly found in legendary Ravenloft are ice, fire, acid and electricity based.

My two raid-geared toons already have 9% elemental absorb from 9x Epic Arcane past lives, and use Epic Divine Past Life Block Energy x3.

[Tyrande]

instead of removing the MRR caps, how about lowering your reaper difficulty and/or wearing a spell absorption item?

Too bad Spell Mantle/Greater Spell Mantles/Spell Absorption and Greater Spell Absorption spell(s) are not implemented; but you can lobby for it? (used after counter spells)

[Cantor]

I agree that there should be PRR caps for robes/light armor with some monk skills/stances increasing the cap.

MRR caps should be based on the enhancement value of armors, not the type. This addresses the scaling issue someone brought up.

[Carpone]

instead of removing the MRR caps, how about lowering your reaper difficulty
Reaper has nothing to do with this. LH Baba dots will wreck your day with 50 MRR.


and/or wearing a spell absorption item?
Limited solution, at best.


Too bad Spell Absorption and Greater Spell Absorption spell(s) are not implemented; but you can lobby for it? (used after counter spells)
Lobbying for a spell revamp or new spells is a lost cause. It's been requested numerous times over the years on this forum. Devs are not interested in it.

[Tyrande]

Lobbying for a spell revamp or new spells is a lost cause. It's been requested numerous times over the years on this forum. Devs are not interested in it.

I think you know why they are not interested in it. Actually if you look at the dollar sign. "$".

They do not currently has a way to charge points for new spells. There are new spells. In fact, look at warlock, some new spells there...

[Carpone]

I'd be in favor of raising the MRR cap to 100 for Cloth Armor and to 150 for Light Armor.
Arbitrary values are arbitrary.

[Arkat]

Too bad Spell Absorption and Greater Spell Absorption spell(s) are not implemented; but you can lobby for it? (used after counter spells)


Lobbying for a spell revamp or new spells is a lost cause. It's been requested numerous times over the years on this forum. Devs are not interested in it.

That and what's the difference between lobbying for an additional spell/s or removing/modifying the MRR cap?

A change is a change. Might as well lobby for the one that would probably be easier for the Devs to implement - changing the MRR cap.

[Arkat]

Arbitrary values are arbitrary.

There's a reason I advocated for raising the MRR cap by the number I did. While the original number may have been arbitrary, my suggested change wasn't.

[Splunge]

I completely disagree. I like that different classes/builds have different strengths and weaknesses. I don't want to see those differences disappear.


Situation:
The primary mitigation mechanic to reduce spell damage in DDO is Magical Resistance Rating.


The primary mitigation mechanic to reduce spell damage is not getting hit by the spells. This involves aggro management and positioning, and it predates MRR. Removing the MRR cap would make these skill less important, and I don't want to see DDO require less skill. If you can't avoid getting hit, high saves, evasion (only available to cloth/light armor wearers), and absorption/resistance items already help.



MRR cap is easily met by equipping just one legendary item. There's no point in considering an Insightful, Quality, Mythic or Artifact item bonus, or enhancements that increase MRR. This does not align with DDO's core principle of character customization.

No MRR benefit from Deep Gnome or Warlock past lives can be realized at level cap for cloth wearers, unless the Beacon of Magic set is worn.


There's also no point in my DC caster considering an insightful or quality deadly item, and he doesn't benefit at all from the fighter or monk (or many other) past life feats that he has. I don't see this as a problem. Everything doesn't have to benefit every class or build.


How much gear do you think is reasonable to dedicate towards absorb and/or resist? The dots commonly found in legendary Ravenloft are ice, fire, acid and electricity based.

My two raid-geared toons already have 9% elemental absorb from 9x Epic Arcane past lives, and use Epic Divine Past Life Block Energy x3.

However much you think is appropriate. When I run RSO, I put on some crafted equipment that gives me electric resistance and absorption. That means I have to give up whatever was in that slot. I like that there are tradeoffs that have to be made. I don't want everyone to be able to fully load up on every possible enchantment at once.

[Amundir]

However much you think is appropriate. When I run RSO, I put on some crafted equipment that gives me electric resistance and absorption. That means I have to give up whatever was in that slot. I like that there are tradeoffs that have to be made. I don't want everyone to be able to fully load up on every possible enchantment at once.

^ This. When I first started playing DDO, it was common for myself to carry around various items with the different resistances on it and when the situation arose that I knew a certain element was heavily used offensively, I'd swap to the one that was appropriate.

This was mitigated in large part by the onset of the guild elemental resistances in the cargo hold and I don't really do it anymore. But if the situation arose where it would lean itself towards making the completion of quests more likely, you better bet I'd start carrying around swap-able resistance/absorption items again.

[lyrecono]

Soon, like the FvS enhancement pass that was mentioned in the Sep 2016 producer letter and still has not been delivered?


Not an arbitrary artificial cap.

You coaght my drift, soon yes.....
At least fvs and mrr cap are on the dev radar (officially).
Some classes that were originally designed to be front line melees get less melee/defense support from their enh then ranged and caster classes.



As explained before:

Prr does not have a cap; nor does it have diminishing returns.



Yes it has, it cost more items slots to raise it (cost) vs a diminishing return, 50prr gets you 33% damage reduced, double that to a 100 and only 50% damage gets reduced, double it again to a 200 prr and only 16% more from the previous point gets reduced.

50 prr, 33%
100prr, 50%
200prr, 66%
400prr, 80%

You need far more points of prr in order to double the amount.
Let's say i have a 50 prr rogue, a 200 prr barb and a paly fighter with 400 prr, i find an item with Insightful Physical Sheltering 22.
The rogue goes from 33% damage reduced to 44% damage reduced, that's 11% reduced for 1 item slot
that barb will go from taking 33% damage to 31% damage taken, so 1 item slot for 2% damage reduced.
The fighter/paly multclass will go from 20% damage taken to 19% taken, so loose 1 slot for 1% damage reduced.

Raising ones prr costs pastlives(or time invested), gear slots, enh, feats, ED points, twist slots, etc, besides past lives, each and everyone of those takes away from your build options, loosing out on CC, healing, skills, casting DCs, spell pen, HP, mrr, saves, etc. that 1 items slot with Insightful Physical Sheltering 22 will take away a build option, it's a very real cost.

The return for a high prr toon is diminished.

[slarden]

armor has a cap on MRR as it goes down and dodge has a cap as armor goes up.

Not sure there would ever be a reason to wear anything but cloth if they removed the MRR cap.

[mr420247]

You do that and monk splashes will be invincible with no fail saves on 1s

Luv it but just saying you would need to un nerf all armor up nerfs and they still would not come close

This is about layering defenses ac dodge prr mrr conceal resists absorbs and run speed

[Avocado]

Situation:

Anyone spending time in Legendary Ravenloft has experienced being absolutely decimated by spells:

* DoT spells such as Niac's Biting Cold, Eladar's Electric Surge, Black Dragon Bolt, and Burning Blood.
* AE spells that are ignoring saving throws for half damage, such as Cyclonic Blast.
* AE spells that are not mitigated by MRR, such as Horrid Wilting.

Background:

The primary mitigation mechanic to reduce spell damage in DDO is Magical Resistance Rating. When the MRR cap was first introduced, it wasn't even possible to reach the arbitrary artificial cap for cloth wearers (Sorcerer, Wizard, Monk) because of the lack of itemization, past life feats and enhancement changes. Now it's commonplace for cloth armor wearers to hit the cap by equipping one item. While not as epidemic, light armor wearers (Rogue, Ranger, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) can hit the 100 MRR cap.

Reference:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Magical_Resistance_Rating
http://ddowiki.com/page/Physical_Resistance_Rating

Assessment:

The problem with MRR is the arbitrary artificial cap based on armor type. Cloth armor wearers are all too keenly aware of this. MRR cap is easily met by equipping just one legendary item. There's no point in considering an Insightful, Quality, Mythic or Artifact item bonus, or enhancements that increase MRR. This does not align with DDO's core principle of character customization.

No MRR benefit from Deep Gnome or Warlock past lives can be realized at level cap for cloth wearers, unless the Beacon of Magic set is worn. Unfortunately due to the typing of the DC bonus (Artifact), it doesn't stack with Slave Lords Sorcery set which is superior. Six past lives is a huge investment not to reap the rewards from. DDO thrives because of the TReadmill. Don't give players another reason to not TR. There are enough of those already.

Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial MRR caps based on worn armor type. PRR doesn't have an artificial cap based on armor worn, and no one is complaining about characters running around with too much PRR in cloth armor.

No. This will homogenize tank stats and make there no reason to be running heavy armor weights. Everyone will be in max dodge, high mrr, prr builds. You will break ddo. They arent arbitrary, they make sense. They added them so people with evasion cant mitigate no evadable damage well. This would only work if they they gave higher armor weight and shields more mrr bonus and it would have to be a lot.

[Tilomere]

Just wear medium armor on all characters except those with evasion. Uncapped MRR so it is equal to plate against magic, and decent dodge cap so it is better than plate vs. physical, and much better against champions with on-hit damage effects.

[Selvera]

Yes it has, it cost more items slots to raise it (cost) vs a diminishing return, 50prr gets you 33% damage reduced, double that to a 100 and only 50% damage gets reduced, double it again to a 200 prr and only 16% more from the previous point gets reduced.

50 prr, 33%
100prr, 50%
200prr, 66%
400prr, 80%

You need far more points of prr in order to double the amount.
Let's say i have a 50 prr rogue, a 200 prr barb and a paly fighter with 400 prr, i find an item with Insightful Physical Sheltering 22.
The rogue goes from 33% damage reduced to 44% damage reduced, that's 11% reduced for 1 item slot
that barb will go from taking 33% damage to 31% damage taken, so 1 item slot for 2% damage reduced.
The fighter/paly multclass will go from 20% damage taken to 19% taken, so loose 1 slot for 1% damage reduced.

Raising ones prr costs pastlives(or time invested), gear slots, enh, feats, ED points, twist slots, etc, besides past lives, each and everyone of those takes away from your build options, loosing out on CC, healing, skills, casting DCs, spell pen, HP, mrr, saves, etc. that 1 items slot with Insightful Physical Sheltering 22 will take away a build option, it's a very real cost.

The return for a high prr toon is diminished.

I'm pretty sure I've explained this before... it doesn't have diminishing returns.

50 PRR = take 66.6% damage; Thus you have effectively 50% more HP vs physical damage
100 PRR = take 50% damage; Thus you have effectively 100% more HP vs physical damage
200 PRR = take 33.3% damage; Thus you have effectively 200% more HP vs physical damage
400 PRR = take 20% damage; thus you have effectively 400% more HP vs physical damage.

Would you like me to go into the math behind this? It is a very predictable pattern and does not diminish no matter how high you stack it up. Every point of PRR grants 1% effective health vs physical damage.

Or... if you don't want to think about it that way;
imagine this; let's say each point of PRR gave 0.1% damage reduction, non "diminishing" (as you term it). Let's imagine this person has 900 HP and is getting hit by a gnoll for 100 damage each. Simple math says they will die after 9 hits if they had 0 PRR.

Now say someone went from 0 PRR to 100 PRR; they would go from 0% damage reduction to 10% damage reduction. If a gnoll was hitting them for 100 damage before, now it's hitting them for 90, so they can now survive 10 hits. The +100 PRR just gave them +1 hit survived.

Now say they had 700 PRR for 70% damage reduction, thus the gnoll is hitting them for 30 damage each. They will die after the gnoll hits them 30 times.
Now if they increased their PRR by 100 again; to 80% damage reduction (still 10% increase), the gnoll is now hitting them for 20 damage per hit. They now take 45 hits to kill. So the +100 PRR just gave them +8 hits survived.

Which increase sounds more valuable to you? Going from 9 to 10 hits, or going from 30 to 45 hits? What if we take this further?

What if they further increased their PRR by 100 again; to 90% damage reduction (still 10% increase), the gnoll is now hitting them for 10 damage per hit. They now take 90 hits to kill. So the +100 PRR has just DOUBLED their durability vs this enemy.

I think it's clear that a strait 1-to-1 PRR to damage reduction formula isn't the definition of "not-diminishing returns"; it's the definition of steadily increasing returns.

[AbyssalMage]

I'm pretty sure I've explained this before... it doesn't have diminishing returns.

50 PRR = take 66.6% damage; Thus you have effectively 50% more HP vs physical damage
100 PRR = take 50% damage; Thus you have effectively 100% more HP vs physical damage
200 PRR = take 33.3% damage; Thus you have effectively 200% more HP vs physical damage
400 PRR = take 20% damage; thus you have effectively 400% more HP vs physical damage.

Would you like me to go into the math behind this? It is a very predictable pattern and does not diminish no matter how high you stack it up. Every point of PRR grants 1% effective health vs physical damage.

Or... if you don't want to think about it that way;
imagine this; let's say each point of PRR gave 0.1% damage reduction, non "diminishing" (as you term it). Let's imagine this person has 900 HP and is getting hit by a gnoll for 100 damage each. Simple math says they will die after 9 hits if they had 0 PRR.

Now say someone went from 0 PRR to 100 PRR; they would go from 0% damage reduction to 10% damage reduction. If a gnoll was hitting them for 100 damage before, now it's hitting them for 90, so they can now survive 10 hits. The +100 PRR just gave them +1 hit survived.

Now say they had 700 PRR for 70% damage reduction, thus the gnoll is hitting them for 30 damage each. They will die after the gnoll hits them 30 times.
Now if they increased their PRR by 100 again; to 80% damage reduction (still 10% increase), the gnoll is now hitting them for 20 damage per hit. They now take 45 hits to kill. So the +100 PRR just gave them +8 hits survived.

Which increase sounds more valuable to you? Going from 9 to 10 hits, or going from 30 to 45 hits? What if we take this further?

What if they further increased their PRR by 100 again; to 90% damage reduction (still 10% increase), the gnoll is now hitting them for 10 damage per hit. They now take 90 hits to kill. So the +100 PRR has just DOUBLED their durability vs this enemy.

I think it's clear that a strait 1-to-1 PRR to damage reduction formula isn't the definition of "not-diminishing returns"; it's the definition of steadily increasing returns.
Please lets stay away from the PRR debate. If you need to, simply link the graphic models and move on. Both answers are correct.

Second, and on topic. When the PRR/MRR pass was made, it was directly stated by Dev's that the "Cap" was lowered (i.e. put in place) because A) It could be exploited with one certain build (no longer the case after the third armor pass "correction", I believe) and (B) to prevent any exploit in the future. Considering I had a guildy ready to exploit the first one (i.e. "The Build") and the second one has been prevented thus far, why is there now a rush to undo there foresight? I mean, it is a rare occasion that Turbine (now SSG) did something correct before they released it to the live servers (i.e. they listened to the players that the initial model was too powerful).

[Kriogen]

It's not a problem that pyjama has cap on MRR, but that pyjama has no cap on PRR.

I would sign, but only if:
- heavy metal has less(or no) problems with dodge
- heavy metal has build in MRR
- can(with enough gear and PLs) use Evasion
- ....
- I think you get the idea

If pyjama has no limit/cap, then why bother with heavy metal?

The way I understand it:
- heavy is suppose to give good predicatable damage mitigation. You usualy get hit, but damage is reduced by a good chunk
- light is more random(ish). Many times you dont get hit at all (dodge, evasion), but on a bad day you can get hit by a big spike
- you are not suppose to have both. It would be ~tgm (toggle god mode). Rare that you get hit at all, and when you do its not for much

If I'd be dev, I'd nerf pyjama, not boost it.

[lyrecono]

Please lets stay away from the PRR debate. If you need to, simply link the graphic models and move on. Both answers are correct.

Second, and on topic. When the PRR/MRR pass was made, it was directly stated by Dev's that the "Cap" was lowered (i.e. put in place) because A) It could be exploited with one certain build (no longer the case after the third armor pass "correction", I believe) and (B) to prevent any exploit in the future. Considering I had a guildy ready to exploit the first one (i.e. "The Build") and the second one has been prevented thus far, why is there now a rush to undo there foresight? I mean, it is a rare occasion that Turbine (now SSG) did something correct before they released it to the live servers (i.e. they listened to the players that the initial model was too powerful).

To bad turbine didn't have the foresight to ballance the content in advance so we didn't need prr& mrr, even our feedback on said content didn't change their mind. Now we're stuck with needless stat requirements, wasting item&twist slots.
Almost like they were interested more in selling hearts of wood and exp potions for those grinding out those lives for the oppertunity to survive the poorly ballanced content.

[Engoril]

If I'd be dev, I'd nerf pyjama, not boost it.

They are already making indirect nerfs to pyjamas by content design. All the latest raids, Strahd's, Baba's Hut, Ride the Storm, all have massive magic damage attacks that cannot be dodged and which cannot be evaded, yet high MRR can mitigate the damage of these. They have probably been set at their high damage levels on the assumption some characters can reach 200+ MRR with no fail saves. This sort of content is effectively nerfing any build that cannot get above 50 MRR. Yes these raids have other things you can do to help you through the damage, but these are also available to the high MRR builds.

[goodspeed]

hey if thats the case can heavy armor have its mrr and prr values back to make it betters then evasion again? Why evade the fireball when you can jog through it and keep whipping spells!

[Spadedragon]

If they remove the mrr cap they would also have to remove evasion and dodge to keep things balanced.

[Ballrus]

1. Remove artificial MRR caps based on worn armor type. PRR doesn't have an artificial cap based on armor worn, and no one is complaining about characters running around with too much PRR in cloth armor.

No! Just no! No more powercreep for monks and casters!
Instead, ADD a prr cap for clothes, 75 max!!!! It's enough.

You want power? OK! but need a tradeoff for this power!

If the dev's do this, soon people will start argue that the game is too easy, and beg for a increase in dificult.

No more powercreep for monks and casters.

[cru121]

Arbitrary cap is probably bad. After all, with all past lives and best gear, you should be able to have more MRR than korthos-geared first lifer.

Perhaps instead we should have a multiplier that modifies MRR depending on armor type worn. When wearing a robe or empty armor slot: receive half benefit from MRR. You're worse off until you reach 100 MRR, anything above that makes you resist more than is currently possible.

[Arkat]

Arbitrary cap is probably bad. After all, with all past lives and best gear, you should be able to have more MRR than korthos-geared first lifer.

Perhaps instead we should have a multiplier that modifies MRR depending on armor type worn. When wearing a robe or empty armor slot: receive half benefit from MRR. You're worse off until you reach 100 MRR, anything above that makes you resist more than is currently possible.

I'd support something like this.

+1

[lyrecono]

I'm pretty sure I've explained this before... it doesn't have diminishing returns.

50 PRR = take 66.6% damage; Thus you have effectively 50% more HP vs physical damage
100 PRR = take 50% damage; Thus you have effectively 100% more HP vs physical damage
200 PRR = take 33.3% damage; Thus you have effectively 200% more HP vs physical damage
400 PRR = take 20% damage; thus you have effectively 400% more HP vs physical damage.

Would you like me to go into the math behind this? It is a very predictable pattern and does not diminish no matter how high you stack it up. Every point of PRR grants 1% effective health vs physical damage.

Or... if you don't want to think about it that way;
imagine this; let's say each point of PRR gave 0.1% damage reduction, non "diminishing" (as you term it). Let's imagine this person has 900 HP and is getting hit by a gnoll for 100 damage each. Simple math says they will die after 9 hits if they had 0 PRR.

Now say someone went from 0 PRR to 100 PRR; they would go from 0% damage reduction to 10% damage reduction. If a gnoll was hitting them for 100 damage before, now it's hitting them for 90, so they can now survive 10 hits. The +100 PRR just gave them +1 hit survived.

Now say they had 700 PRR for 70% damage reduction, thus the gnoll is hitting them for 30 damage each. They will die after the gnoll hits them 30 times.
Now if they increased their PRR by 100 again; to 80% damage reduction (still 10% increase), the gnoll is now hitting them for 20 damage per hit. They now take 45 hits to kill. So the +100 PRR just gave them +8 hits survived.

Which increase sounds more valuable to you? Going from 9 to 10 hits, or going from 30 to 45 hits? What if we take this further?

What if they further increased their PRR by 100 again; to 90% damage reduction (still 10% increase), the gnoll is now hitting them for 10 damage per hit. They now take 90 hits to kill. So the +100 PRR has just DOUBLED their durability vs this enemy.

I think it's clear that a strait 1-to-1 PRR to damage reduction formula isn't the definition of "not-diminishing returns"; it's the definition of steadily increasing returns.

Who are you talking to?
Because this isn't a responce to my statement.

An item with a stacking 22prr does different things to different builds based on what their prr was before hand.
(Insightfull sheltering goes up to 22 on the wiki, hence why took this example)
On a tank that+22 (very real tank situation) barely makes an impact where it makes a huge difference on said(100 prr) rog.
I'm not talking about your virtual hp nonsence, i'm talking about real numbers that are impacted by the shoddy formula.
What you put in doesn't necesairly show as a result.

Getting your prr up on a non monk/paladin/fighter is an item nightmare.
But it gets worse on a full out tank.
Getting an item version with +2 mythic bonus higher then what i'm already wearing doesn't make much of a dent on a 400 prr tank.
Raising the damage reduced is going to cost more and more sources.

[Selvera]

Arbitrary cap is probably bad. After all, with all past lives and best gear, you should be able to have more MRR than korthos-geared first lifer.

Perhaps instead we should have a multiplier that modifies MRR depending on armor type worn. When wearing a robe or empty armor slot: receive half benefit from MRR. You're worse off until you reach 100 MRR, anything above that makes you resist more than is currently possible.

This is a solution I have suggested in the past; and it is one I still support. MRR multiplier based on armor type.



An item with a stacking 22prr does different things to different builds based on what their prr was before hand.

This is a false statement. A character with 1000 HP can survive an additional 220 physical damage whenever they equip an item of 22 prr, regardless of what their current PRR is. But, as someone said above. This thread is about the MRR cap; it's not about me explaining to you how prr works. We can do that elsewhere.

[Tyrande]

Best way to kill punk uber monks? Damage Over Time Spells that are not resistible!

I guess this is dev's way to allow monks to have some kind of disadvantage... or so we call game balance, trade offs.

Lots of ways to kill casters though... Just have teleporting ultra hitting truck monsters; or crazy traps; but these don't work against high AC, high PRR monks.

[Fallout47]

armor has a cap on MRR as it goes down and dodge has a cap as armor goes up.

Not sure there would ever be a reason to wear anything but cloth if they removed the MRR cap.

I agree. All builds are based on a cost/benefit analysis. You choose different levels of armor for different builds for a reason: limit arcane spell failure, maintain evasion, stay centered or to max defenses. For the healbot I run, survivability is my primary goal. I went with an evasion build at the sacrifice of both PRR and MRR. I accepted that at the time I built him. When RL came out, I decided to invest in a full 5 piece Nystul's Set. I could have easily chose something else, but this is where he was weak. I accept that I can't have my cake and eat it to.

[Carpone]

Best way to kill punk uber monks?
This MRR issue is not limited to monks. Sorcerers and wizards are just as affected by it. SSG has repeatedly stated they are trying to make melee more viable compared to ranged.

[grandeibra]

This is a solution I have suggested in the past; and it is one I still support. MRR multiplier based on armor type.Agreed. Seems a simple and reasonable solution.


This is a false statement. A character with 1000 HP can survive an additional 220 physical damage whenever they equip an item of 22 prr, regardless of what their current PRR is.

...it's not about me explaining to you how prr works...Let me explain. A 200 dollar interest in one year on a 1,000 investment is great. A 200 dollar interest on a 1,000,000 investment sucks. Hence the 200 dollar has diminished returns, as in relative returns, which is what the term stems from and is used for in econ/production/banking etc. The nominal value/yield is not what is noticeable, the relative yield is. A toon that gets killed in 10 hits and wants to increase that to 11 needs a drastically higher increase in PRR if his base PRR already is 200 vs 0, hence diminished returns. Another example: If a toon can choose between say 10% ghostly or 20PRR the decision is greatly affected by whether he has a lot of PRR before or not. Your discussion about nominal increase being equal, while technically true, is not what the other poster was discussing, nor very interesting, nor the common definition of diminishing returns.

For true non-diminishing returns a formula like DamageEffect = IncomingDamage * 0.99^PRR would suffice. Not saying that is better, I actually like the diminishing returns formula that is used.

And yes you are completely right about the 1-PRR type formula being the inverse of diminishing returns (like the other poster said - not sure why you brought that up since he hadn't mentioned it). The dodge formula in DDO follows this type of return. a 1% increase in dodge for a geared monk with 45% dodge is almost twice as valuable as a 1% increase for a toon with 0. But the nominal increase is the same 1%, just as in the diminishing returns example of PRR.

[Kriogen]

This MRR issue is not limited to monks. Sorcerers and wizards are just as affected by it. SSG has repeatedly stated they are trying to make melee more viable compared to ranged.
Sorcerer and wizard can put on armor and/or shield. It's not free, you need to invest, but its doable. Sorc/wizzy can fix this MRR cap problem, if they want to.

Monks can't. To be centered, for many monks perks to work, you can not have any armor or shield.

Sorc/wizzy already have a solution, no change is required. Solution is there, you just have to use it.

So only monks are left ... it's about monks.

[grandeibra]

So only monks are left ... it's about monks.Not true. Of course monks are most heavily affected but for example:

builds that have ways to get dodge over the cap for non-cloth armor take a loss when going armor, regardless of whether they are monks or not.

builds who use A Dance of Flowers for the juicy 1.5w effect, regardless of whether they are monks or not, lose that if they armor up.

There is no way for either to rectify the loss of abilities unless they stay in cloth armor. And yes I do have a non-monk toon that runs in cloth precisely for these two even though she is not a monk. There are other similar examples as well.

And btw - I am fine with lower MRR (or PRR or both) in cloth of some kind, be it hard capped (typically not a wise solution due to power creep over time) or some negative factor for lighter rather than heavier armor.

[SirValentine]

Yes it has, it cost more items slots to raise it (cost) vs a diminishing return...


Due to the way the game actually works, it certainly makes sense to look at it as diminishing returns, but there's no use arguing with the people saying the opposite. They have their close-minded view, where, if you apply weird math to imaginary things (often called something like "virtual hit points"), then, presto, it's not really diminishing. The fact that the imaginary things aren't what we're dealing with in-game seems to be beyond them, or willfully ignored by them. (It's especially funny if someone wants to claim PRR gives you non-diminishing virtual HP in a thread about magic damage.)

[unbongwah]

So only monks are left ... it's about monks.
FYI, Swashbucklers and pure Tempests need to wear light armor to gain full DPS benefits of their respective trees. They have higher MRR cap than pajama wearers, of course, but it's still an issue for them too.

Rogues are obviously geared towards light armor as well, but I don't think any of their DPS enhancements are based on armor; it has to do with their defensive benefits (i.e., Imp Evasion, Light Armor Mastery, etc.).

[Severlin]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

[Arkat]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

Is evasion not working against wisp lightning attacks in the Baba raid intended? How about evasion not working against the lightning strikes in RSO? How about other magic attacks (not counting magic missles, chain missles, etc.) that are not evadeable in certain high-end content?

If you want to make it hard for monks to avoid certain magic damage, fine. I get it. Just don't negate our class features to do it. Keep the MRR cap low but let us use our Evasion.

[Mindos]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

There you go people, there's your Producer's Letter! Y'all happy, now?
:)

[Severlin]

FYI the Producer's Letter is on its way. It is in the review stage.

Sev~

[Dragavon]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

A while ago I asked Cordovan on the livestream about the bug with evasion not working on spells like cyclonic blast. His reply was that it was not a priority to fix, as so few mobs had it. Then come Ravenloft and all of a sudden lots of mobs have cyclonic blast.

Can you at least fix things that are not working with evasion as it should? And tell Cordovan to adjust his attitude a little, sometimes he does come across as a little arrogant.

[HastyPudding]

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

It's about time. I've long said that spellcasters (arcanes in particular) would and should know how to defend against magic-based attacks and offenses, if for any other reason than simply knowing their craft. Since we don't have spell mantles or counterspells and globes of invulnerability have very situational uses, we have to make do with MRR.

[Caarb]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

Can you at least add MRR cap to Deep Gnome and Warlock past lives and Dodge Cap to Shadarkai so completing the past lives will benefit all builds and not just ones that don't hit the hard caps. PS I also agree that hard caps are not a good idea and would prefer to have a multiplier based on armor type.

[LT218]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~
This is another shining example of SSG not understanding their own game very well.

Claiming evasion is the alternative to high MRR caps is all well and good until, as mentioned in many places on these forums, you give monsters all a bunch of non-evadable spells and abilities, which you've done recently.

But I'm sure you knew that multiple spells and spell like abilities are broken with regard to evasion before you posted this, right? Maybe you should take a look at Cyclonic Blast (bugged?), all the un-evadable DoTs Baba Lysaga and champion mobs use, etc., etc. and realize that at this point in DDO, evasion with a 50 MRR cap doesn't even come close to cutting it.

As an example, on LH Baba Lysaga, her dots are hitting for 400+ per tic when stacked up on a toon with evasion, a 90+ reflex save, epic reflexes, and 50 MRR... on LH. If evasion were a viable alternative to high MRR, those dots would have never landed on a toon in an LH raid when said toon is built and geared for reaper.

[Niminae]

This is a false statement.

You might want to be more careful about attributing your quotes. Because when you only do it for the first quote you convey the impression that every quote following is from the same person.

And that is not the case in your post.

[Hephaestas]

No. This will homogenize tank stats and make there no reason to be running heavy armor weights. Everyone will be in max dodge, high mrr, prr builds. You will break ddo. They arent arbitrary, they make sense. They added them so people with evasion cant mitigate no evadable damage well. This would only work if they they gave higher armor weight and shields more mrr bonus and it would have to be a lot.

i love my light armor but you hit the nail on the head here. Lifting the one penalty holding back high dodge and evasion builds would be opening to flood gates for the death of heavys. I still feel like theres not enough reason to go heavy armor in todays game - doing this would kill it.


MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.


nuff said^

[Tyrande]

This is another shining example of SSG not understanding their own game very well.

Claiming evasion is the alternative to high MRR caps is all well and good until, as mentioned in many places on these forums, you give monsters all a bunch of non-evadable spells and abilities, which you've done recently.

But I'm sure you knew that multiple spells and spell like abilities are broken with regard to evasion before you posted this, right? Maybe you should take a look at Cyclonic Blast (bugged?), all the un-evadable DoTs Baba Lysaga and champion mobs use, etc., etc. and realize that at this point in DDO, evasion with a 50 MRR cap doesn't even come close to cutting it.

As an example, on LH Baba Lysaga, her dots are hitting for 400+ per tic when stacked up on a toon with evasion, a 90+ reflex save, epic reflexes, and 50 MRR... on LH. If evasion were a viable alternative to high MRR, those dots would have never landed on a toon in an LH raid when said toon is built and geared for reaper.

DOTs are not meant to be dodge-able, in any game AFAIK. The lightning in those raids appear to be DOT like Eladar's Electric Surge, not regular lightning bolt like spells AFAIK.

As far as the Cyclonic Blast, dev(s) will get to it when they get to it, right? The save part AFAIK is a strength check whether you get knockdown or not. There is no mention of whether the spell is evadable. AFAIK, this spell is dodge-able when you tumble away, like scorching ray. If the ray hits, no evasion is applied.

As for tips, isn't there a monk like set at Eveningstar called Earth ~ Form of the Mid-Day Sun - that gives you -25% all damage. Together with the 25% deduction from 50 MRR, that should give you the equivalent of 100MRR, no?

Also, there's the twist of fate from Draconic Incarnation to twist in 50% absorption; and there are also items that absorb all spells, or absorb those elemental damage. Those should get you close to 90% absorption. Can't wear those items to give up DPS? Well, your choice of tumbling away or wear those things...

Monks are not supposedly the be all and end all class AFAIK.

[Hydian]

Yes it has, it cost more items slots to raise it (cost) vs a diminishing return, 50prr gets you 33% damage reduced, double that to a 100 and only 50% damage gets reduced, double it again to a 200 prr and only 16% more from the previous point gets reduced.


Yes, because you do not understand what diminishing returns means. When you advance from 1st level to 2nd level, you have doubled your level. When you advance from 10th level to 11th level, your level has only increased by 10%. That is not diminishing returns, but linear advancement. PRR and MRR work the same way. They are linear advancement. Every 100 PRR increases your effective hit points by the amount you have with 0 PRR. So if you have 1000 hitpoints, 100 PRR effectively gives you 2000, 200 PRR effectively gives you 3000, etc. It is a linear advancement. Yes, the percentages change, but as I've already demonstrated that happens with *any* system that doesn't isn't progressive returns in nature.

Diminishing returns is when the cost to benefit ratio changes. Either the cost goes up (see character creation and point buy of abilities) or the return on the cost goes down (can't think of a DDO mechanic that really does this, but City of Heroes did it with their Enhancement system).

[Avocado]

i love my light armor but you hit the nail on the head here. Lifting the one penalty holding back high dodge and evasion builds would be opening to flood gates for the death of heavys. I still feel like theres not enough reason to go heavy armor in todays game - doing this would kill it.



nuff said^

I actually prefer heavy armor now for all my melee builds. Reaper mobs bypass so much dodge that running anything under 25 might be worth nothing. I think running with a shield and 100ish mrr with a reflex save is better overall then evasion and 50 mrr. Mrr values are doubled with large shields. I prefer 275+ prr and and 150+ mrr and 15 dodge over 200 prr and 100 Mr and 30 dodge.

[Avocado]

Yes, because you do not understand what diminishing returns means. When you advance from 1st level to 2nd level, you have doubled your level. When you advance from 10th level to 11th level, your level has only increased by 10%. That is not diminishing returns, but linear advancement. PRR and MRR work the same way. They are linear advancement. Every 100 PRR increases your effective hit points by the amount you have with 0 PRR. So if you have 1000 hitpoints, 100 PRR effectively gives you 2000, 200 PRR effectively gives you 3000, etc. It is a linear advancement. Yes, the percentages change, but as I've already demonstrated that happens with *any* system that doesn't isn't progressive returns in nature.

Diminishing returns is when the cost to benefit ratio changes. Either the cost goes up (see character creation and point buy of abilities) or the return on the cost goes down (can't think of a DDO mechanic that really does this, but City of Heroes did it with their Enhancement system).

This helps me understand more. It's relative, 0 to 10 prr is 10 fold increase and 100 to 110 is a 10% increase. But does this mean that 10 prr at 50 prr is the same as getting 10 prr at 300 prr?

[unbongwah]

People who say PRR (or MRR) has diminishing returns are looking at this graph:
http://ddowiki.com/images/PRRGraph.png
They see the damage reduction percentage isn't linear and think, "You get less protection for every point of PRR you add, therefore the marginal benefit is going down."

However other people who talk about PRR having linear growth are looking at it in terms of effective HPs: i.e., how much physical damage can you absorb before PRR is applied. In which case, every point of PRR adds +1% to your effective HPs from your base HPs; i.e., the marginal benefit is constant.

Unfortunately, these discussions always get bogged down by people yelling at each other about the same thing from different perspectives. Imagine two groups of physicists and one of them shouts, "Look at this chart, the acceleration is constant!" while the other group retorts, "Poppycock! Look at this chart, the velocity is constantly changing at the same rate!" And it's like FOLKS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE EXACT SAME THING THAT'S HOW MATH WORKS. :rolleyes:

[Avocado]

People who say PRR (or MRR) has diminishing returns are looking at this graph:
http://ddowiki.com/images/PRRGraph.png
They see the damage reduction percentage isn't linear and think, "You get less protection for every point of PRR you add, therefore the marginal benefit is going down."

However other people who talk about PRR having linear growth are looking at it in terms of effective HPs: i.e., how much physical damage can you absorb before PRR is applied. In which case, every point of PRR adds +1% to your effective HPs from your base HPs; i.e., the marginal benefit is constant.

Unfortunately, these discussions always get bogged down by people yelling at each other about the same thing from different perspectives. Imagine two groups of physicists and one of them shouts, "Look at this chart, the acceleration is constant!" while the other group retorts, "Poppycock! Look at this chart, the velocity is constantly changing at the same rate!" And it's like FOLKS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE EXACT SAME THING THAT'S HOW MATH WORKS. :rolleyes:
So is it possible to say that the average value of every point of prr is about 1%?

[RobbinB]

Arbitrary values are arbitrary.

I don't think the original MRR cap values were arbitrary. Currently they are just outdated due to game changes and therefore the values could use adjusting.

[RobbinB]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

Prior to the intro of reaper there wasn't a lot of elemental damage that threatened to one-shot kill evasion toons, so they could afford the occasional failed save and still be ok. In current high end and reaper content a single failed save can mean death if MRR values are low. This is where evasion becomes a non-viable alternative to MRR. It might be logical to limit the highest MRR levels to non-evasion toons, but the cloth and light armor MRR caps are becoming outdated for evasion toons and should be reconsidered.

[mr420247]

Great either way but you un nerf the mrr caps you need to un nerf the armor up nerfs or there is no reason to go armor up

Once again

[Pyed-Pyper]

I don't think the original MRR cap values were arbitrary. ....

Then what would you call a hard-coded limit to MRR?


.... {pretty picture} ....
And it's like FOLKS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE EXACT SAME THING THAT'S HOW MATH WORKS. :rolleyes:

Math is hard, yo

----

Generally, I've thought that PRR and MRR should be inversely related to each other, so that, generally speaking, low AC armor has a high MRR,and high AC armor has a high PRR, with the best of both worlds found somewhere in the middle in the neighborhood of medium armor (between studded leather and scalemail), with the ultimate goal of increasing build diversity and choices.

If anyone is worried about monk builds becoming indestructible via MRR, then tie the formula to either spell power, or inversely to BAB, in a manner similar to how BAB boosts PRR.

[glennson]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

Evasion is not really comparable substitute for MRR. One cannot evade poison damage stacks from a champion casting scorching ray. One cannot evade a Polar ray from an ice flenser or 5. These are not uncommon challenges and to the highly MRRed are little challenge at all. There are a very few things that can be evaded and not reduced through MRR. Namely physical traps and the Blade Barrier spell. There are however a great number of spells and effects that can be reduced with MRR that cannot be evaded, among them some of the most deadly spells and champion buffs. Its similar to saying with enough Dodge or AC you don't really need PRR.

People play heavy armor builds now because with enough MRR and some absorption effects for the elemental dmg (which is almost the only thing that can be evaded) it is much more survivable than an evasion build. This is why I was proposing a scaling that balanced MRR and PRR against each other, in my previous message. So that only one of them can be massive on any particular build.

Part of the enjoyment of the game is making unique builds from a variety of options that have strengths and weaknesses. Then having that build be fun, effective and helpful to other players. Proper balance would allow almost any well thought out build to do this. Having one type of build overshadow all others quickly finds your players in groups of all warlocks, lol.

A heavy armor build is NOT supposed to be highly effective against magical attacks. With all the variety of effects like elemental absorption and spell absorbing items, heavily armor builds can already be quite hearty without MRR. Evasion tanks have become antiquated. Builds come and go, but to have an entire category of builds essentially negated by the inclusion of a single statistic seems to be the definition of a game breaking. Either remove the caps or make PRR caps that are inversely proportional.

By the logic presented here PRR is supposed to make builds with lower ac more survivable against physical damage. So where is the 50 PRR cap for heavy armor, 100 for medium armor. This is contrary to what I believe to be the appropriate solution but sometimes it need to get worse before it gets better !~

[mr420247]

MONK builds usually have the best AC

[LT218]

DOTs are not meant to be dodge-able, in any game AFAIK. The lightning in those raids appear to be DOT like Eladar's Electric Surge, not regular lightning bolt like spells AFAIK.

As far as the Cyclonic Blast, dev(s) will get to it when they get to it, right? The save part AFAIK is a strength check whether you get knockdown or not. There is no mention of whether the spell is evadable. AFAIK, this spell is dodge-able when you tumble away, like scorching ray. If the ray hits, no evasion is applied.

As for tips, isn't there a monk like set at Eveningstar called Earth ~ Form of the Mid-Day Sun - that gives you -25% all damage. Together with the 25% deduction from 50 MRR, that should give you the equivalent of 100MRR, no?

Also, there's the twist of fate from Draconic Incarnation to twist in 50% absorption; and there are also items that absorb all spells, or absorb those elemental damage. Those should get you close to 90% absorption. Can't wear those items to give up DPS? Well, your choice of tumbling away or wear those things...

Monks are not supposedly the be all and end all class AFAIK.
You completely missed the point. Sure, dots may not be avoidable, but they also shouldn't be doing upwards of 400 damage per tic on LH when you average, reasonably geared toon has ~1k hps. Dots shouldn't kill a player in 2 tics, nor should each tic be hitting harder than pretty much any other source of damage in a given mission. Now, let's bring it back down to reality and operate under the context where dots are unavoidable and tic for nearly 50% of the average toon's HPs and maybe rethink your statement. Given that reality, evasion is pretty much useless while a high MRR cap and maxed MRR are a extremely useful. Why build for evasion when it doesn't work versus a bunch of stuff while having 150 MRR works on all magic damage?

Re: cyclonic blast and the devs fixing it, I hope that was a joke. It's been bugged for years... And regarding you thinking that it's not bugged and guessing at what the save might do, I'd kindly suggest you do a little reading before making such statements. From the spell description:
You send a twisting torrent of wind toward your enemies that deals 1d3+3 damage per caster level (Maximum damage 15d3+45.) to targets in its path. A successful Reflex save reduces the damage by half. If the target fails its Reflex save, it must make a Strength check or Dexterity check to negate be knocked prone. The spell also clears away all lingering effects in its path, such as clouds and Wall of Fire (including friendly effects).

That brings us back to it being bugged for (for years). With that reality, it makes higher MRR a HUGE advantage over evasion since evasion does literally zero in that scenario, just like it does against dots.

You go downhill from there. You think it makes sense that toons should have to wear level 20 gear to survive in end-game content? Really? What's the point in hunting for end-game gear if you're better off with level 20 stuff?

You think that toons which already devoted a reasonable amount of build and gear resources to their defenses and have 90+ reflex saves, evasion, epic reflexes, 150 PRR, 50 MRR (capped...), 40% dodge, and 150 AC should now have to dump whatever is left of their DPS abilities and gear just to survive a dot or two? How do you propose that the DPS toons do DPS while tumbling nonstop? When you made those statements about dumping all the DPS, did you remember that there's a boss mob with a million+ HPs on LH that still needs to be killed before the entire raid gets wrecked by those dots and unavoidable spells? :rolleyes:

Also, good luck with simultaneously getting 50% absorption versus electricity, cold, and whatever other damage types are involved in those unavoidable spells.

If anyone actually followed your suggestions, would their be any point in playing a cloth DPS build left? They end up tumbling around, wearing lvl 20 gear, and have **** DPS while watching the medium and heavy armor toons do all the killing while also taking physical hits significantly better, too.

This isn't just about monks. It's any caster, melee or ranged build that wears cloth or light armor. A 50 MRR cap for cloth armor was reasonable when the level cap was 28, Epic Elite was the highest difficulty available, and mob power creep hadn't given mobs dots that tic for 50% of the HPs of an appropriately geared toon at level. Mob power creep has changed all that though. Most gear and ability power creep has increased to keep pace with it, but the MRR caps on armor haven't.

[Chai]

People who say PRR (or MRR) has diminishing returns are looking at this graph:
http://ddowiki.com/images/PRRGraph.png
They see the damage reduction percentage isn't linear and think, "You get less protection for every point of PRR you add, therefore the marginal benefit is going down."

However other people who talk about PRR having linear growth are looking at it in terms of effective HPs: i.e., how much physical damage can you absorb before PRR is applied. In which case, every point of PRR adds +1% to your effective HPs from your base HPs; i.e., the marginal benefit is constant.

Unfortunately, these discussions always get bogged down by people yelling at each other about the same thing from different perspectives. Imagine two groups of physicists and one of them shouts, "Look at this chart, the acceleration is constant!" while the other group retorts, "Poppycock! Look at this chart, the velocity is constantly changing at the same rate!" And it's like FOLKS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE EXACT SAME THING THAT'S HOW MATH WORKS. :rolleyes:

Yep, probably the easiest way to explain it is the ROI decreases at the same rate as the need for additional ROI. This relationship between two congruent non linear (in this case parabolic) entities makes the end result linear.

[Chai]

The issue with hard capping abilities is it reduces the number of possible viable builds. This raises the question: Why are the devs hellbent on disallowing building something that is virtually unkillable? In order to do this, the builder would have to trade away other aspects, and their near unkillable character wouldnt be able to DPS its way out of a wet paper bag. Its ironic, that they chose a sliding scale balance system, but then forbid players to slide the scale too far in one direction (disallowing too much defense) yet - they are perfectly willing to allow players to create all_AP_Into_DPS characters (allowing total offense). What this does is overemphasize the aspects they do allow. Ever wonder why DDO players (especially on the forums) subscribe to the notion that DPS is king, and many if not all of these balance discussions and nerf demands are based solely in how much DPS a build can do?

[Tyrande]

The issue with hard capping abilities is it reduces the number of possible viable builds. This raises the question: Why are the devs hellbent on disallowing building something that is virtually unkillable? [...]. Ever wonder why DDO players (especially on the forums) subscribe to the notion that DPS is king, and many if not all of these balance discussions and nerf demands are based solely in how much DPS a build can do?

DPS is king, but it does not make the DPSer un-killable. I guess dev wants us to choose between melee DPS, ranged DPS (greater xbow, shuriken, repeater, bow) or magic DPS *AND* defense or somewhere in between; Such that no one super hero character can solo all the dungeons or raids on reaper; making it non-fun, trivial dungeon, skipping all the social factors of DDO; and made such un-killable character dungeon destroyers.

I remembered a dev had a quote in his signature: No Challenge, no fun. I tend to agree with him.

Let's look at it this way: Does superman have a weakness? Does Batman have a weakness and need a sidekick? Does Tarzan have a weakness on women?
When you look at all the Marvel superheroes somehow, they all have strengths and weaknesses. And none of our characters are even one-tenth near the superhero level. I guess we can't have our cake and eat it too.

[Tilomere]

When you made those statements about dumping all the DPS, did you remember that there's a boss mob with a million+ HPs on LH that still needs to be killed before the entire raid gets wrecked by those dots and unavoidable spells? :rolleyes:

.

Just wear medium armor when evasion isn't useful and more MRR is required. Nothing is stopping you, even on a monk.

[J1NG]

Just wear medium armor when evasion isn't useful and more MRR is required. Nothing is stopping you, even on a monk.

And what about WF/BF Monks?

J1NG

[Renvar]

I'd be in favor of raising the MRR cap to 100 for Cloth Armor and to 150 for Light Armor.

Not sure the MRR cap should be removed entirely, though.

I agree with this, to some degree. The caps should be raised, but not removed.

Also, the raising of the cap should be tied to trade offs. Either feats, AP Spend, Twists, or gear slots.

The balance between cloth vs. heavy armor in high end content is HEAVILY in favor of cloth right now. Taking the major limitation of cloth armor away entirely with no trade offs would be a poor design choice. It would make heavy/medium armor even less appealing than it already is.

[Renvar]

No MRR benefit from Deep Gnome or Warlock past lives can be realized at level cap for cloth wearers, unless the Beacon of Magic set is worn. Unfortunately due to the typing of the DC bonus (Artifact), it doesn't stack with Slave Lords Sorcery set which is superior.

This is called a trade off: Do I want max DC's or do I want near max DC's with better defense. That is good design. I am all for ways to raise the cap, but I am not in favor of just removing it so that you don't have to make hard choices in your build between max DC's and max defense.

[Tilomere]

And what about WF/BF Monks?



Reap ALL the rewards for your build choices.

[J1NG]

Pay the price for the benefits of WF/BF. No one is going to shed a tear if a BF melee finds a single situation in the entire game they aren't optimal in.

I see...

Carry on.

J1NG

[zehnvhex]

Tilo's a known troll account. You can ignore him.

Anyways.

I'd venture rather than raising caps (and having to re-deal with this whenever mudflation moves on again) a better solution may be to incur a penalty to MRR based on having access to evasion.

That is to say

Rather than a 50 MRR cap with no armor

Evasion = 75% effective MRR
Improve Evasion = 50% effective MRR

Regardless of armor type.

Or something along those lines.

That way Casters don't need hamfisted high level enhancements (or get punished for making a multi-spec that doesn't take high tier abilities) to accomadate this. Players that get evasion can also feel like gearing matters past a certain point instead of going, "Welp I got 50 MRR cap in one item, guess I can ignore this stat now!"

[Tilomere]

Evasion = 75% effective MRR
Improve Evasion = 50% effective MRR


Yes, lets cut heroic monk and rogue MRR in half, where most reaper dungeons are played, and MRR is needed the most. Then they will all reroll warlocks, and my reaper xp racial lives will become cake! As an added bonus, lets punish rogues who take the improved evasion feat and anyone with more than 8 monk levels when they have no-fail 1 reflex saves.

For a triple threat, the 6 monk tree builds and monk splashes will end up with 150 MRR, 250 PRR, 200 AC, AND evasion with no fail reflex 1.

Where do I sign?

:)

[Noir]

*Snip* Why are the devs hellbent on disallowing building something that is virtually unkillable? In order to do this, the builder would have to trade away other aspects, and their near unkillable character wouldnt be able to DPS its way out of a wet paper bag.

Near Unkillable is still near unkillable and on such a character lower DPS would only slow them down slightly.
Your asking the DEVS why they are hellbent on not allowing what is essentially "Godmode" in their game?
And would remove most of the viability of wearing any other armor type. And seriously wonder why they won't allow this?
The answer seems quite clear and they have stated it in this thread already.

[Renvar]

Tilo's a known troll account. You can ignore him.

Anyways.

I'd venture rather than raising caps (and having to re-deal with this whenever mudflation moves on again) a better solution may be to incur a penalty to MRR based on having access to evasion.

That is to say

Rather than a 50 MRR cap with no armor

Evasion = 75% effective MRR
Improve Evasion = 50% effective MRR

Regardless of armor type.

Or something along those lines.

That way Casters don't need hamfisted high level enhancements (or get punished for making a multi-spec that doesn't take high tier abilities) to accomadate this. Players that get evasion can also feel like gearing matters past a certain point instead of going, "Welp I got 50 MRR cap in one item, guess I can ignore this stat now!"

I was under the impression that the main issue with the MRR cap was monks and rogues in melee. Casters are supposed to be glass cannons. They have defensive spells that can limit spell damage. MRR design should be targeted for non-caster builds with more limited options for mitigating magical damage.

Let's not go back to the days of the Caster Tank, please. At least, not without trade offs on the DPS or DC side.

[LT218]

Just wear medium armor when evasion isn't useful and more MRR is required. Nothing is stopping you, even on a monk.
Yeah, why didn't we think of that? Uncentered monks are awesome. I'm sure every player who put the time and effort into leveling a monk build just loves attacking at half speed, not having the stance benefits, and no Ki. :rolleyes:

Did you miss the part where I pointed out that if you have to essentially change all your feats, gear and abilities that make a class or build unique just to survive level-appropriate content, there's really no point in using that class/build? You might as well just switch to a build that uses medium or heavy armor full time and not have to deal with that hassle.

[LT218]

The balance between cloth vs. heavy armor in high end content is HEAVILY in favor of cloth right now. Taking the major limitation of cloth armor away entirely with no trade offs would be a poor design choice. It would make heavy/medium armor even less appealing than it already is.
If this were even remotely true, where are all the end-game heavy tanks in cloth armor? How about all those cloth wearing paladins and tempests?

As someone who has spent a significant amount of in-game time running end-game LE and R1-10 content on DPS builds spanning shuricannons, gxbow mechs, swashbucklers, wolves, tempests, paladins, etc., I can tell you right now that I run medium and heavy armor on any build that doesn't take serious penalty to the rest of their abilities for doing so. On the heavy armor builds, I don't miss evasion in the slightest and die far less than on the cloth and light armor builds. It didn't use to be this way, but as they've added more non-evasionable effects into the game and/or not bothered to fix bugs related to it, the balance has changed heavily in favor of MRR over evasion. Reaper and mob powercreep in general serves to further highlight this imbalance by making the un-evadable stuff even more deadly.

[Tilomere]

Yeah, why didn't we think of that? Uncentered monks are awesome.

Yes they are! (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/492495-The-Supreme-Monkter) However, you don't need to aspire to that pinnacle of glory. All you need to do is be more than a soulstone. With Duality, an uncentered monk probably does the same damage as everyone else.

As I said before, I am totally in favor of taking the MRR cap away and making evasion 50% MRR. The amount of monks, rogues, and rangers in heroics that convert to warlock as a result of that heroic nerf will improve my racial past life and reaper xp accumulation.

[Renvar]

If this were even remotely true, where are all the end-game heavy tanks in cloth armor? How about all those cloth wearing paladins and tempests?

As someone who has spent a significant amount of in-game time running end-game LE and R1-10 content on DPS builds spanning shuricannons, gxbow mechs, swashbucklers, wolves, tempests, paladins, etc., I can tell you right now that I run medium and heavy armor on any build that doesn't take serious penalty to the rest of their abilities for doing so. On the heavy armor builds, I don't miss evasion in the slightest and die far less than on the cloth and light armor builds. It didn't use to be this way, but as they've added more non-evasionable effects into the game and/or not bothered to fix bugs related to it, the balance has changed heavily in favor of MRR over evasion. Reaper and mob powercreep in general serves to further highlight this imbalance by making the un-evadable stuff even more deadly.

Which is why Dodge > AC and PRR. Which is why cloth/light armor is better than Heavy Armor and Medium Armor. Evasion is just icing on the cake. Due to diminishing returns of high AC (and uselessness against champs and reapers) and PRR,

40+ Dodge and a moderate investment in AC and Dodge is far superior.

[Chai]

Near Unkillable is still near unkillable and on such a character lower DPS would only slow them down slightly.
Your asking the DEVS why they are hellbent on not allowing what is essentially "Godmode" in their game?
And would remove most of the viability of wearing any other armor type. And seriously wonder why they won't allow this?
The answer seems quite clear and they have stated it in this thread already.

Lower DPS would slow them down far more than just "slightly".

I disagree that it would remove the viability of wearing any other armor type. People build for other things than tanking, which would need a different gear load out depending on what their build focuses on. It would in fact, be the exact opposite. Allowing us to min max in more different ways, makes more different gear load outs even more viable. It is only when you hard cap specific stats that these limitations you bring up about gear load out exist due to limiting the number of viable build combinations which can exist.

TL;DR?
Arbitrary artificial limitation = Bad
True build diversity = Good.

[slarden]

Anyways.

I'd venture rather than raising caps (and having to re-deal with this whenever mudflation moves on again) a better solution may be to incur a penalty to MRR based on having access to evasion.

That is to say

Rather than a 50 MRR cap with no armor

Evasion = 75% effective MRR
Improve Evasion = 50% effective MRR

Regardless of armor type.

Or something along those lines.

That way Casters don't need hamfisted high level enhancements (or get punished for making a multi-spec that doesn't take high tier abilities) to accomadate this. Players that get evasion can also feel like gearing matters past a certain point instead of going, "Welp I got 50 MRR cap in one item, guess I can ignore this stat now!"

Interesting ideas.

Evasion and Improved Evasion toons with a high reflex save shouldn't be taking much damage at all so what they have is far superior to MRR. Improved evasion toons that dump reflex save still only take 33.5% damage on a failed save which is an effective MRR of approximately 200 MRR (50% damage taken with improved evasion * 66.67% taken with a 50 MRR). So no violins needed there.

Non-evasion toons with a high reflex save such as wizard with high int and insightful reflexes are in the same boat - an effective MRR of approximately 200 MRR (50% damage taken with a made save * 66.67% taken with a 50 MRR). So no violins needed there.

Warlock's with light armor take 50% with 100 MRR and 58.82% with the exc lore robe and 70 MRR with the cap bonus. Sorcs are also taking 58.82% with a robe. With medium/heavy armor and a 150 MRR which is reasonable you are at 40% damage taken if you don't make your save.

So really truth is MRR cap issue limited to monk splashes that dump reflex save (which is their issue entirely) and sorcs/warlocks/caster bards. The classes without armor proficiency are only monk, wizards and sorc. Sorc is the only class of the 3 with a hard time as wizards can solve the issue with 1 feat and monks can dump reflex entirely and still get 50% damage reduction with improved evasion.

Of the classes with light armor proficiency: Ranger, Rogue, Bard and Warlock. Warlocks and caster bards have the most difficult time building for reflex saves. All other classes have an easy path to high reflex saves, improved evasion or medium armor proficiency.

Once you start getting into multiclass builds preferring a robe - that is an issue for the builder to figure out not SSG.

Aside from MRR, dodge is a huge benefit for robe builds.

[Magnus_Arcanis]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

MRR may help those without Evasion to mitigate incoming magic damage, but MRR doesn’t operate on the same parallel as Evasion. Nor to does it serve as a fix. MRR sole purpose SHOULD be to give players a mean of managing damage from non-physical (magic) sources of damage that players otherwise have no mean of dealing with, because that is what it accomplishes. Or mostly accomplishes, as players in light or no armor are basically penalized with an arbitrary cap because someone believed that Evasion should be a part of the balance equation when it shouldn’t be.

Let me explain, Evasion acts more like a miss chance. Its calculated a bit differently, but end result of the player taking no damage from a specific source type is the same. It’s in important tools for the likes of rogues who need to bypass terrain that would otherwise heavily damage the less nimble. In DDO, its essentially needed in some content as the goal is sometimes inside dangerous areas with no safe spot to stand. Without such a spot, it’d otherwise be impossible to disable that trap, open that door, pull that lever, etc… as damage interrupts the progress bar.

MRR acts like PRR. A way to manage the damage you take regardless if it was avoidable or not.

Now, I don’t think you’re going to see anyone complain that a more heavily armored characters can obtain MRR more easily and are able to reach a higher total. Under PRR you have this dynamic, but if an evasion armored character chooses to, they can invest to reach a viable number. MRR should act the same way. Right now it doesn’t with the cap.

If you want a mechanic to allow more heavily armored character to take zero damage from reflex based sources, then add a mechanic that adds that.

Secondly, what fear is there with layering high MRR with Evasion? They take small amounts of damage all the same, but sometimes take zero? Who cares? The higher the MRR value the less value Evasion has. Double dipping in this instance doesn't yield a synergistic benefit. If the MRR gets high enough you can get to basically take zero magic damage with or without evasion.

[cru121]

Situation:

Anyone spending time in Legendary content has experienced being absolutely decimated by obscene damage.
* Big mean monsters smacking you with their pseudopods.
* Small mean archers needling with their needles.

Background:
The primary mitigation mechanic to avoid damage is:
* Dodge
* Evasion
Haha, many melees are hosed. Look my tower shield, max dex 1. No evasion for me, boo.
When dodge was redesigned, there were only a handful sources of dodge. Now it's commonplace for medium and heavy armor wearers to hit the cap by equipping one item.

Reference:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Dodge_items
http://ddowiki.com/page/Maximum_dexterity_bonus

Assessment:

The problem with Dodge (and Evasion) is the arbitrary artificial cap based on armor type. Heavy armor wearers are all too keenly aware of this. Dodge cap is easily met by equipping just one item, it doesn't even have to legendary. There's no point in considering an Insightful, Quality, Mythic or Artifact item bonus, or enhancements that increase Dodge. This does not align with DDO's core principle of character customization.

No Dodge benefit from Shadar-Kai past lives can be realized at level cap for heavy armor wearers, unless they invest into zillion of expensive enhancements in obscure tank trees. Not even sentient filigrees or Ravenloft item sets help with this unfortunate situation. Three past lives is a considerable investment not to reap the rewards from. DDO thrives because of the TReadmill. Don't give players another reason to not TR. There are enough of those already.

Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial max dex caps based on worn armor type. And Evasion for everyone!

[Chai]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

The issue here is while there is overlap, the comparison between the two systems is not equivalent. For instance, there is no evasion for poison attacks, polar ray, scorching ray, etc...spells and effects that do not use reflex save yet do yield damage numbers. Is it intended (WAI?) that evasion types be far more susceptible to those types of damage than their more heavily armored counterparts?

When something already has a counter (an entire list of spells which are not mitigated by evasion) is this hard cap still necessary?

[Tilomere]

The issue here is while there is overlap, the comparison between the two systems is not equivalent.

If they were equivalent, there would be no meaningful choice.

If characters having overlapping but not equivalent systems is an issue for you, I hate to break it to you, but this isn't monopoly.

[slarden]

The issue here is while there is overlap, the comparison between the two systems is not equivalent. For instance, there is no evasion for poison attacks, polar ray, scorching ray, etc...spells and effects that do not use reflex save yet do yield damage numbers. Is it intended (WAI?) that evasion types be far more susceptible to those types of damage than their more heavily armored counterparts?

When something already has a counter (an entire list of spells which are not mitigated by evasion) is this hard cap still necessary? I haven't tested every single damage and have just gone by the dev general statements that MRR only reduces damage for evadable damage. Poison seems to hit my high MRR toons hard so are you sure non-evadable poison attacks are reduced by MRR?

[Engoril]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

If its an alternative, then shouldn't it only be working on evadable damage? If that had been how MRR was implemented,there would not be this problem of MRR caps. Evasion types would have been happy with their evasion and left MRR for the heavies. However because MRR works on _everything_ , unlike evasion, the situation is currently unfair to the evasion builds. I agree it would also be unfair to give evasion builds uncapped MRR, but something is needed if content is going to keep getting hard hitting unevadeable magic damage that only high MRR can handle.

[Tilomere]

However because MRR works on _everything...If its an alternative, then shouldn't it only be working on evadable damage?

But then everyone would complain that MRR was useless because it doesn't provide the 95-100% (no fail 1) mitigation that evasion does. Instead it provides a lower mitigation amount, across a wider variety of attacks.

MRR doesn't work on everything.

[Cantor]

...
Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial max dex caps based on worn armor type. ...

Nice, very clear and gets the point across.

[LT218]

Yes they are! (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/492495-The-Supreme-Monkter) However, you don't need to aspire to that pinnacle of glory. All you need to do is be more than a soulstone.
You and I have very different definitions of awesome. Let's just leave it at that.


Which is why Dodge > AC and PRR. Which is why cloth/light armor is better than Heavy Armor and Medium Armor. Evasion is just icing on the cake. Due to diminishing returns of high AC (and uselessness against champs and reapers) and PRR,

40+ Dodge and a moderate investment in AC and Dodge is far superior.
Ummm, no. There is a lot of wrong in those statement.

How do you figure avoiding 30-40% of hits is better than avoiding 95% of hits (high AC) and taking 70%+ (200+ PRR) mitigation on the hits that do land? Don't forget to account for the 60%+ magic damage mitigation (150+ MRR) on top of the AC and PRR. There's a really good reason end-game, 10-skull tank builds are sporting plate armor with crazy high levels of AC, PRR, and MRR instead of pajamas evasion and dodge.

The only time focusing on dodge and evasion is better than AC, PRR, and MRR is when the latter three aren't an option for your build. Otherwise, a high AC, high PRR, high MRR build is far more durable than a cloth build with low PRR, MRR and AC.

[Avocado]

The whole game is based off trades offs. You want to be really tanky? You sack all dps. You want all dps? You sacrifice durability. Dodge in reaper is bypassed more with each reaper level. Removing mrr caps or changing them isn't a terrible idea so long as it's done to everyone across the board. I liked the multiplier idea where armor weight multiplies mrr. Cloth none. Light 1.2. medium 1.4. heavy 1.6 or something. Or give heavy armor weights thier mrr back. Over all my answer will always be no because throwers ad monks don't need more power.

The problem with this is it unfairly favor the current game meta. Centered cloth builds make up a very large amount of the players base. Lots running with fighter levels. So you've just boosted thier mrr and left everyone else to hang dry.

I recommend you make a nystuls sentient if you are having trouble with magic damage. Again sacrifice in damage for more defense.

I actually like these dot effects because it makes my tank useful in baba because he takes almost no significant damage with 230 mrr. Rise of the tanks! But only if I could intim undead...

[LT218]

I actually like these dot effects because it makes my tank useful in baba because he takes almost no significant damage with 230 mrr. Rise of the tanks! But only if I could intim undead...
Oh hey, look, bad things happened to my teammates due to poor balance and killed them but my tank lived. Now I look awesome! Me! me! me!.. Hmm, if only I could do enough DPS to kill anything while everyone else was dead, doh.

:rolleyes:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if the only way your toon/build is useful is when an unbalanced game mechanic kills the rest of your party and you're the last one standing, it's probably not a good build. I will also point out that the singular most useful role a good tank fills is to keep the rest of the party alive by taking all the aggro, hits and damage that would have normally killed the non-tanks.

Having everyone else look bad doesn't make you look good. I see this constantly on these boards and really don't understand it. If you want to look good, do so by standing on your's and your build's own merits, not by standing on the backs of other classes or just tearing them down to your level.

[slarden]

How do you figure avoiding 30-40% of hits is better than avoiding 95% of hits (high AC) and taking 70%+ (200+ PRR) mitigation on the hits that do land? Don't forget to account for the 60%+ magic damage mitigation (150+ MRR) on top of the AC and PRR. There's a really good reason end-game, 10-skull tank builds are sporting plate armor instead of pajamas with crazy high levels of AC, PRR, and MRR instead of evasion and dodge.

The only time focusing on dodge and evasion is better than AC, PRR, and MRR is when the latter three aren't an option for your build. Otherwise, a high AC, high PRR, high MRR build is far more durable than a cloth build with low PRR, MRR and AC.

Very few builds have a high enough AC to be meaningful and it's nonsensical to compare someone specializing as a tank build built for reaper party play to other builds when comparing defenses.

People are going to have to list specific things that aren't evadable where MRR works so the devs can fix it. From what I've seen this weekend I am not getting any MRR reduction for non-evadable damage.

My experience is that wearing a robe with evasion and a high reflex save is superior to heavy armor for the simple reason most builds with heavy armor can't get a high enough AC to be meaningful without gimping. It's fairly easy to get a high dodge and high reflex save when I wear a robe. The MRR cap is primarily an issue for sorcs and secondarily caster bards and warlocks all of which don't typically have a high reflex save.

The continual begging for power creep has been very harmful to this game. If anything they should look at specific classes where the MRR cap is an issue and address it in the enhancement trees which is a grand total of 3 classes. The mrr cap hasn't been an issue for me with monks or wizards. How can it be when simply making your save reduces damage by 50% and MRR reduces it further. Making your save and 50 MRR is the equivalent of 200 MRR in terms of damage reduction. They can also add an epic feat raising the mrr cap which at least requires a trade off.

The dots are another issue entirely. The devs seem to acknowledge that it's not working as intended.

[MaeveTuohy]

I am in the opposite camp to the OP. The problem isn't that there is a cap on MRR for cloth, it's that there isn't also cap on PRR.

[Qhualor]

If anything they should look at specific classes where the MRR cap is an issue and address it in the enhancement trees which is a grand total of 3 classes.

This is the important part when talking about MRR. To this day I still laugh that there is MRR for evasion classes. Like my ranger has evasion and with enhancements I can take Evasive Dance for as much as taking 50% damage. Combine that with MRR, resists and absorption and it's like better than improved evasion.

Making things like this powerful only leads to more power creep on top of the escalating power creep while at the same time devs have to scale mobs and dungeons dealing more damage to try and offset it. Than this leads to "game is too hard" and "stop developing the game around the 1%".

I agree with Sev that there should be an MRR cap, but any improvements to MRR and the cap should be looked at with like 3 classes. I just caution (as if it's listened to) not to boost it to levels of evasion. Those classes also have access to good defenses like resists, absorption, blur, displacement, mage armor, shield, high UMD for whatever they want scroll/wand, fight from a distance, etc.

[Niminae]

Which is why Dodge > AC and PRR. Which is why cloth/light armor is better than Heavy Armor and Medium Armor. Evasion is just icing on the cake. Due to diminishing returns of high AC (and uselessness against champs and reapers) and PRR,

40+ Dodge and a moderate investment in AC and Dodge is far superior.

And then your 40%+ Dodge character runs up against any one of T3 Archeron, T1 Beast Mark, or T3 Mark of Law and learns the joys of being a low AC and low PRR character with zero dodge.

But this is a game of rock/paper/scissors, so there's always going to be a rock for your build.

[Chai]

If they were equivalent, there would be no meaningful choice.

If meaningful choice is what we value here then youd be all for removing artificial limitations being placed on meaningful choices.


If characters having overlapping but not equivalent systems is an issue for you, I hate to break it to you, but this isn't monopoly.

It might as well be. Doesnt matter which avatar you choose, in a sliding scale system with artificial limitations, they all pretty much do the same things, less the difference in visual semantics.

[Chai]

I haven't tested every single damage and have just gone by the dev general statements that MRR only reduces damage for evadable damage. Poison seems to hit my high MRR toons hard so are you sure non-evadable poison attacks are reduced by MRR?

If that is the intent of MRR then I think they need to run some more tests. I take far less ray damage on higher MRR characters.

Are those poison attacks hitting you magical poison attacks? If not, they wouldnt get MRR mitigation.

[Chai]

Evasion classes are already balanced based on not having defenses in other areas, such as AC and as many HP as heavier armor classes who as their trade off do not get evasion. Taking away rogues and monks MRR is as logical as giving them equivalent HP and PRR as fighters. These kinds of arguments being acted on are what create games which are nothing more than gauntlet with better graphics. Sure the warriors ax hits twice as hard as the elfs arrows, but the elf shoots twice as fast. Valkyrie needs food badly!

This is what installing sliding scale systems to ensure "sameness" and "fairness" into a game system originally balanced in DIFFERENCES rather than equivalencies, turns into.

[boredGamer]

Evasion classes are already balanced based on not having defenses in other areas, such as AC and as many HP as heavier armor classes who as their trade off do not get evasion. Taking away rogues and monks MRR is as logical as giving them equivalent HP and PRR as fighters. These kinds of arguments being acted on are what create games which are nothing more than gauntlet with better graphics. Sure the warriors ax hits twice as hard as the elfs arrows, but the elf shoots twice as fast. Valkyrie needs food badly!

This is what installing sliding scale systems to ensure "sameness" and "fairness" into a game system originally balanced in DIFFERENCES rather than equivalencies, turns into.

What ? MRR cap makes more differences. You're arguing for removing it and making them the same ? And saying that will make them less different ?

*** are you talking about ?

[Chacka_DDO]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

You guys make me wonder, on one hand, you create such wonderful things and then you miss the logic in what you do/say so horrible.
First of all, if what you say is true, why do light armored get a 100MRR cap and no armor a 50MRR cap? both can have evasion and both can have improved evasion.
And if you don't want to have two layers, evasion and MRR why don't you have only a cap if evasion is currently available on a specific character?
And as many already said, evasion often does nothing for you and then a monk who is forced to use no armor looks very poor and I don't think that's right.
And the next things is you say you don't want MRR+Evasion but then you implement Items to lift the MRR cap and then it is possible to have this two layers MRR + Evasion.
Sorry but all this makes no sense in my opinion. If you really don't want the two layers, make a check, if evasion can work on the damage type, MRR doesn't work, this means if you miss your evasion check you get 100% damage. And if you have no evasion check your damage gets reduced by MRR and this with NO cap! THIS is the logical solution in my opinion!

But in my opinion, the whole AC/PRR/MRR/DR system needs some attention because it is good, but not good enough.

1. I see not really a reason why an lvl 1 character should have much less PRR/MRR than an lvl 30 because the damage reduction is % and not flat like DR.
2. If you want to have advantages in PRR/MRR from heavy and medium armor, the armor type should give a bonus to your PRR/MRR so it makes really a difference to have heavier armor.
3. DR is basically totally outdated and should be entirely removed from the game, for players AND monsters. instead, players and foremost monsters should get certain bonuses on there PRR/MRR if you attack them with the wrong weapons. e.g. if you attack a devil with no good/silver he gets an additional 400PRR or something, so it really ALWAYS greatly reduces your damage no matter if you do 100 damage or 25k damage (fury shot).
4. AC should reduce damage always because it is not logical that you have an armor and then a monster hits you either not at all or it hits you as if you are naked! e.g. in your inventory, it displays how often a monster of the same level miss you, instead the hit (if the monster rolls a 19-20) the damage should be reduced by this percentage you calculate with your formula behind the scene. If the monster rolls higher it should do more damage and if it rolls lower it should do less damage, but NEVER EVER full damage as if you where naked! The same of course for players against the AC of monsters. If the Monster got a thick armor the damage from weapons and weapon effects (such as flaming) are always reduced! No grazing hits! you miss only if you roll a 1!

[AbyssalMage]

Ok, so after reading the thread from where I last posted, a few things "hit" me.

The most important thing (of those things) is that the "DDO Pendulum" has once again swung back in favor of Heavy Armor builds just like it did after the first (or maybe it was the second*) Armor Up changes. All this means is that they will eventually nerf Heavy Armor builds either through "ignoring" them or "giving" something to the non-heavy armor builds (which looks like a reality and will be here Soon(TM) for some classes before others).

*The first Armor Up pass was the change from D20 to the (IMO) abomination we know have. I believe the second one was the one that introduced PRR/MRR but I could be wrong.

[LT218]

Very few builds have a high enough AC to be meaningful and it's nonsensical to compare someone specializing as a tank build built for reaper party play to other builds when comparing defenses.
No, you missed the point of the example. The point was not to compare builds. The point was to illustrate that AC, PRR and MRR are far more effective in difficult content than Dodge + Evasion. If AC, PRR and MRR were worthless or if Dodge + Evasion was significantly superior, heavy tanks would be running around with builds focused on those instead of maxing AC, PRR, and MRR at the expense of evasion and dodge.


People are going to have to list specific things that aren't evadable where MRR works so the devs can fix it. From what I've seen this weekend I am not getting any MRR reduction for non-evadable damage.
Until the devs actually acknowledge it as a problem and commit to fixing it, this would be pointless.


My experience is that wearing a robe with evasion and a high reflex save is superior to heavy armor for the simple reason most builds with heavy armor can't get a high enough AC to be meaningful without gimping. It's fairly easy to get a high dodge and high reflex save when I wear a robe. The MRR cap is primarily an issue for sorcs and secondarily caster bards and warlocks all of which don't typically have a high reflex save.
You haven't done a medium or heavy armor DPS build properly then. I've run multiple DPS builds/lives on cloth, light and heavy armor. The heavy armor builds always have better survivability in the challenging content. I don't bother with medium armor because it sits in no man's land between the high dodge cap and MDB of cloth and light armor and the high PRR and MRR of heavy armor.

[slarden]

No, you missed the point of the example. The point was not to compare builds. The point was to illustrate that AC, PRR and MRR are far more effective in difficult content than Dodge + Evasion. If AC, PRR and MRR were worthless or if Dodge + Evasion was significantly superior, heavy tanks would be running around with builds focused on those instead of maxing AC, PRR, and MRR at the expense of evasion and dodge.

Until the devs actually acknowledge it as a problem and commit to fixing it, this would be pointless.

You haven't done a medium or heavy armor DPS build properly then. I've run multiple DPS builds/lives on cloth, light and heavy armor. The heavy armor builds always have better survivability in the challenging content. I don't bother with medium armor because it sits in no man's land between the high dodge cap and MDB of cloth and light armor and the high PRR and MRR of heavy armor.

So first you say the point isn't to compare builds and then you once again set the defense benchmark at " heavy tank" which is a niche build for group play in difficult content only. Many heavy armor builds can't even compare to the defensive stats of a tank.

One thing I've found almost universally true on these forums is that when a person needs to accuse someone they don't know of not knowing how to play their opinions can safely be ignored, especially when it's after a single post.

The point of MRR was to be an alternative to evasion and to the extent non-evadable damage is being reduced by MRR it should be looked at and corrected. Non-evadable damage isn't supposed to be reduced by MRR and if it is that might lead to some improperly set damage amounts. As for the devs acknowledging it's a problem, nobody has listed any specific examples so how can they verify and acknowledge it's a problem. List specific quests and enemies and the type of damage that isn't evadable but reduced by MRR and they can verify it.

If we keep adding more power soon we will see posts R10 is too easy. People are already Pugging R10 with only one of year worth of reaper tree xp. It's better to fix the actual problem which is non-evadable damage being reduced by MRR (which possibly results in improperly set damage amts) than to just add more power.

Maybe the devs can post an official topic post to gather data about non-evadable damage being reduced by MRR. I take the least amount of magic damage on my high reflex evasion characters so I can't believe it's an extremely prevalent problem. For example my 18 wizard / 2 rogue in my sig. Things like disintegrate and horrid wilting are rough when you fail your save, but also can't be evaded. I've been one shot on high MRR characters by both so I don't think these 2 are being reduced by MRR. The only thing that would save me is more fort save.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

i dont understand the people who say that heavy armor shouldnt be effective against magical attacks or that it should grant high prr and low mrr.

a common argument in favor of this perspective is that robes are magical and because they are magical they should grant you mrr. ok, fair enough. by that logic armor that is magical should grant people wearing it mrr because it is magical. why would robes give you more?

i think anyone claiming that mrr needs to be addressed because casters are taking too much damage is wrong, being at best selfish and biased and at worst an ignorant moron. casters have distance, cc, and aggro management for defenses; giving them more than minimal levels of defensive stats is bad for game balance. the only argument that potentially supports adjusting the mrr cap would be light and unarmored melees being negatively affected too much, though i dont really think adjusting the mrr cap would be the best way to fix such a problem.

it isnt a problem though that lightly armored builds, which are supposed to have lower mitigation than heavily armored builds...have...less...duh?

[Chai]

What ? MRR cap makes more differences. You're arguing for removing it and making them the same ? And saying that will make them less different ?

*** are you talking about ?

MRR cap makes less differences, as does any artificial limitation. Without the MRR cap there are more potential builds and gear loadouts available. When everyone is building/gearing to reach the cap and then building for something else (putting the rest into less other systems), you start to see the cookie cutter effect set in.

The need (or desire) to set a cap is also yet another example among many, that the sliding scale systems they put in place do not work for balancing the game. The irrational fear that players might find a way the newer system stacks with the older methods to build a superior defense character, drives them to work around a major liability in their new system by placing a hard cap on it for those classes which still use the old system. When a system works for what it is designed for, no artificial limitations or working around the obvious major flaws are needed.

[bartharok]

If meaningful choice is what we value here then youd be all for removing artificial limitations being placed on meaningful choices.



In a game EVERY limitation or possibility is artificial.

[Chai]

In a game EVERY limitation or possibility is artificial.

This is not true, under the context that I am not talking about theory crafting or purposely philosophically lawyering what-ifs and maybe kinda sort-as with smoke and mirrors etc. - but actual factual information in the context of the environment the game is presented.

When it is not possible to take a stat higher due to having everything the environment has to offer for that stat - not an artificial limitation. The environment cannot support more and the character is maxed out.

When it is possible to take a stat higher, but the game has a "because-we-said-so" hard cap in place - artificial limitation. The environment CAN support more and the character is NOT maxed out, but limited anyhow.

When it is possible to take a stat higher for everyone, but the game has a "because-we-said-so" hard cap in place in place for specific classes/builds - artificial limitation. The environment CAN support more and the character is NOT maxed out, but limited anyhow.

Artificial limitations serve to pigeonhole potential build possibilities, and the more of them there are, the more character building takes on that cookie cutter feeling. If dodge only goes to X, PRR to Y, and MRR to Z, then everyone builds to get to X Y and Z, but even though there are more stats to be had for those, they throw everything else into something else because they are already at the artificial limit for each.

This becomes even more pronounced in a game with as much power creep as DDO, because at some point, the power will have crept up past the artificial limitations that were set in previous eras, and everyone will be at the same stat for any stat that is artificially limited. The more instances of this, the less different characters really are.

[LT218]

So first you say the point isn't to compare builds and then you once again set the defense benchmark at " heavy tank" which is a niche build for group play in difficult content only. Many heavy armor builds can't even compare to the defensive stats of a tank.

One thing I've found almost universally true on these forums is that when a person needs to accuse someone they don't know of not knowing how to play their opinions can safely be ignored, especially when it's after a single post.

The point of MRR was to be an alternative to evasion and to the extent non-evadable damage is being reduced by MRR it should be looked at and corrected. Non-evadable damage isn't supposed to be reduced by MRR and if it is that might lead to some improperly set damage amounts. As for the devs acknowledging it's a problem, nobody has listed any specific examples so how can they verify and acknowledge it's a problem. List specific quests and enemies and the type of damage that isn't evadable but reduced by MRR and they can verify it.

If we keep adding more power soon we will see posts R10 is too easy. People are already Pugging R10 with only one of year worth of reaper tree xp. It's better to fix the actual problem which is non-evadable damage being reduced by MRR (which possibly results in improperly set damage amts) than to just add more power.

Maybe the devs can post an official topic post to gather data about non-evadable damage being reduced by MRR. I take the least amount of magic damage on my high reflex evasion characters so I can't believe it's an extremely prevalent problem. For example my 18 wizard / 2 rogue in my sig. Things like disintegrate and horrid wilting are rough when you fail your save, but also can't be evaded. I've been one shot on high MRR characters by both so I don't think these 2 are being reduced by MRR. The only thing that would save me is more fort save.

https://i.imgur.com/B7hEQ3r.jpg

[slarden]

https://i.imgur.com/B7hEQ3r.jpg

I got your point - it was fairly straight-forward. It was also extremely weak as I pointed out already.

[Chai]

I got your point - it was fairly straight-forward. It was also extremely weak as I pointed out already.

Just tested it - ray damage is still reduced by MRR.

Where specifically did they state non evade-able damage is NOT supposed to be reduced?

[Chai]

I find the "alternative to evasion" argument to be part of the issue. This is another example of fairness balance being a straight up conflation and convolution of diversity. The entire point of evasion is to be a more unique defense other builds which have better physical damage defense do not get access to. Evasion builds should be better against reflex save AOE, just like heavy armor tanks should be better against physical damage sources. Advocating an MRR cap for evasion types is just as (il)logical as advocating a PRR cap for the higher HP higher AC tanks. Call it "an alternative to AC" or some such. Make it all come out in the wash where everyone has the same EHP regardless of how they are attacked, and we can all just pick the best looking avatar, as they all do the same things anyway.

Or we could remove the artificial caps and stop building clones of the same 3-5 META builds and actually play something different, that is actually DIFFERENT.

[slarden]

Just tested it - ray damage is still reduced by MRR.

Where specifically did they state non evade-able damage is NOT supposed to be reduced?

You are right, the devs introduced the concept as an alternative to evasion but it's based on type of damage an not type of save. This is just like everything else in the game - to challenge builds with high values you end up one-shotting the weaker builds in some cases. It's no different than low prr builds getting one shot.

I still don't see this as a major issue impacting me and I play builds with all armor types. It's still non-sensical to expect all builds to compare to tanks. There are many options to tackle the problem besides going to the forum and asking for more power.

[caberonia]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

This would be true IF MRR didn't block many more types of damage than evasion. Evasion simply doesn't provide a benefit to the number of spells and effects that MRR does. If someone wants to show the true difference in benefit a quick list of spells that each one protects against would overwhelmingly show that MRR is the greater of the 2.. protecting against not only evadable effects but MOST non-evadable ones as well.

If any of my fellow players would like to take the time and effort to make a side by side list of evadable spells and spells which MRR helps against it would certainly help the devs understand the HUGE advantage MRR has.

If no one else is up to the task I will attempt to make a list sometime in the future when i have the time. I don't mean disrespect but the fact that MRR DOES protect against so many MORE spells and effects than evasion I think shows a huge disconnect between dev vision and dev implementation.

Bottom line is MRR is FAR superior than evasion for the majority of magical damage types. Where as MRR is almost universally going to provide some protection. Evasion has a limited number of spells it helps against and even then is reliant on a secondary stat which must be on par for the difficulty of the content.

Altering or removing the capps from MRR isn't the fix all.. but it certainly will help the imbalance between evasion and MRR at this point.

[mr420247]

Its about layering defenses

evasion with no fail saves is op

if they fixed cylonics saves even more op

now add in all the armor up nerfs which were put into place

after all the evasion nerfs so there would be a reason to play any class but monk or rogue

[mr420247]

Run speed, ac, dodge, deflect, concealment, incorp, prr, mrr, absorbs

Jump kiting, when it takes multi proc adrenaline hits that can't even hit you

Then yes its not fun

[Chai]

You are right, the devs introduced the concept as an alternative to evasion but it's based on type of damage an not type of save. This is just like everything else in the game - to challenge builds with high values you end up one-shotting the weaker builds in some cases. It's no different than low prr builds getting one shot.

I still don't see this as a major issue impacting me and I play builds with all armor types. It's still non-sensical to expect all builds to compare to tanks. There are many options to tackle the problem besides going to the forum and asking for more power.

Im not asking for more power. Im asking for more viable combinations. Artificial limitations lessen the number of viable combinations, and creates a situation where players are pigeonholed into having to build for max X only, because X is the only aspect allowable to be maxed out, as Y and Z are capped artificially.

The fear of people building superior defense characters is irrational, because the system already has limitations. You only get 80 AP + racial, and 24 ED AP. If a character has most or all of that into defense they wont DPS their way out of a wet paper bag, but will be hard to kill.

Id like to see anyone drop a few names of other MMOs which disallow this through artificial limitations like DDO is. In successful games they enforce trade offs as outlined above. Sure someone can build a super tank, just like they can make a super max crit DPS machine or a pocket immy heal bot, but to max out any one of those aspects means being less than mediocre (terrible actually) in the other two.

No one expects all builds to compare to tanks. We just want to be able to min/max for tank stats, like we can min/max other aspect if we desire. This equates to more viable combinations, not more overall power.

[Alcedes]

Situation:

Anyone spending time in Legendary Ravenloft has experienced being absolutely decimated by spells:

* DoT spells such as Niac's Biting Cold, Eladar's Electric Surge, Black Dragon Bolt, and Burning Blood.
* AE spells that are ignoring saving throws for half damage, such as Cyclonic Blast.
* AE spells that are not mitigated by MRR, such as Horrid Wilting.

Background:

The primary mitigation mechanic to reduce spell damage in DDO is Magical Resistance Rating. When the MRR cap was first introduced, it wasn't even possible to reach the arbitrary artificial cap for cloth wearers (Sorcerer, Wizard, Monk) because of the lack of itemization, past life feats and enhancement changes. Now it's commonplace for cloth armor wearers to hit the cap by equipping one item. While not as epidemic, light armor wearers (Rogue, Ranger, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) can hit the 100 MRR cap.

Reference:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Magical_Resistance_Rating
http://ddowiki.com/page/Physical_Resistance_Rating

Assessment:

The problem with MRR is the arbitrary artificial cap based on armor type. Cloth armor wearers are all too keenly aware of this. MRR cap is easily met by equipping just one legendary item. There's no point in considering an Insightful, Quality, Mythic or Artifact item bonus, or enhancements that increase MRR. This does not align with DDO's core principle of character customization.

No MRR benefit from Deep Gnome or Warlock past lives can be realized at level cap for cloth wearers, unless the Beacon of Magic set is worn. Unfortunately due to the typing of the DC bonus (Artifact), it doesn't stack with Slave Lords Sorcery set which is superior. Six past lives is a huge investment not to reap the rewards from. DDO thrives because of the TReadmill. Don't give players another reason to not TR. There are enough of those already.

Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial MRR caps based on worn armor type. PRR doesn't have an artificial cap based on armor worn, and no one is complaining about characters running around with too much PRR in cloth armor.

I wish I could give this a thousand thumbs-downs or vote-downs or *** ever is popular.

Just no. Casters and others wearing "cloth" are not in need of any help right now. Why is everyone so determined to remove need for players who want to wear heavy armor? Clothies already enjoy no PRR cap (I have multiple wizards in my guild right now with 250ish PRR, my own is a gimp with his meager 199) so they can already tank melee hits as well as a non tank build. Now that is not enough. Now you want them to be able to just eat spells at the same time. Cuz that is what this game needs. More invincible DC casters running around insta killing everything.

People, we already had this system a long time ago. It was pretty much rejected by the community.

IF they were to remove the MRR cap from cloth armor, then they should move it to the PRR. 50 PRR cap. Of course now, you are going to be getting one hit killed by archers and other melee on higher reaper levels...this would make plenty of sense. but i bet i will find a wordy post begging for "more power please" regarding clothies being squishy again


PRR/MRR/AC are working JUST FINE. Characters who are investing heavily into this stuff are doing so AT A MAJOR COST to their dps. To allow clothies to run around with 250 PRR, 150 MRR, 110 DC's on their insta kills, 30% Dodge, 50% Displace, 25% Incorp, in the case of warlock and necro wizards some of the best sustained self healing in the game, and 2,800 HP is stupid.

Just stop. If you are struggling as a clothie in reapers right now, it isnt the mechanics. its you.

[Zites]

No, you missed the point of the example. The point was not to compare builds. The point was to illustrate that AC, PRR and MRR are far more effective in difficult content than Dodge + Evasion. If AC, PRR and MRR were worthless or if Dodge + Evasion was significantly superior, heavy tanks would be running around with builds focused on those instead of maxing AC, PRR, and MRR at the expense of evasion and dodge.


Until the devs actually acknowledge it as a problem and commit to fixing it, this would be pointless.


You haven't done a medium or heavy armor DPS build properly then. I've run multiple DPS builds/lives on cloth, light and heavy armor. The heavy armor builds always have better survivability in the challenging content. I don't bother with medium armor because it sits in no man's land between the high dodge cap and MDB of cloth and light armor and the high PRR and MRR of heavy armor.

Says the guys in the robes trying for worlds first R10 "Killing Time" sorry I don't feel sorry for ya, that they build a raid that runs train on HS n OP LMAO!!! You always say you want a challenge how bout damage from both sides ;)

[LT218]

Says the guys in the robes trying for worlds first R10 "Killing Time" sorry I don't feel sorry for ya, that they build a raid that runs train on HS n OP LMAO!!! You always say you want a challenge how bout damage from both sides ;)
You must really enjoy being wrong. You are 2 for 2 in 2 sentences.

[zaidm271981]

removing mrr cap might look like a good idea
then again
do monks and casters need more power? are these two archetypes at the bottom of the power scale these days?

Indeed.
Monks have had too many nerfs and are near the bottom - think KT and the cluster it does to monks and you'll get why we want this useless MRR cap removed

[Zites]

You must really enjoy being wrong. You are 2 for 2 in 2 sentences.

i guar-ron-tee you in light or cloth and couldn't hit a squire with a bazooka if you didn't play the meta and keep telling your self it's your ability to use macros ;;D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oScmodG_riM

[HastyPudding]

Wow, necro....



But yes, I always did find that the MRR cap hinders spellcasters more than monks. Wizards and sorcerers are supposed to be very knowledge about magic, so they are supposed to have magical defenses in place to protect themselves against a magical attack. In DDO they don't have that (anymore). Protection from energy, resist energy, and the non-stacking spell resistance spells are terrible when actually defending against magic. Arcane casters in DDO have no spell mantles or wards to protect themselves.

[Zites]

Indeed.
Monks have had too many nerfs and are near the bottom - think KT and the cluster it does to monks and you'll get why we want this useless MRR cap removed

Yep looks like the bottom to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPjCfOAQetE

[Shadow_Jumper]

IF they were to remove the MRR cap from cloth armor, then they should move it to the PRR. 50 PRR cap. Of course now, you are going to be getting one hit killed by archers and other melee on higher reaper levels...this would make plenty of sense. but i bet i will find a wordy post begging for "more power please" regarding clothies being squishy again


There shouldn't be a cap on any defenses. The limit should be that cloth/light armor have more opportunity cost to gain more defense than medium/heavy armor, while heavy/medium armor have less opportunity cost.

EDF was a massive slap in the face to fighter/paladin builds because it removed the opportunity cost of the stalwart/sacred defender stance that fighter/paladins took and made it 0 opportunity cost. The fact that the devs succumbed to pressure from players who complained that they were dying too much in reaper, when they specifically said reaper was meant to kill you and that they wouldn't balance off of it is hilarious. That they "added" defense in such a way that gave 0 benefit to melee that were taking the same benefits of it for an opportunity cost, and gave it to melee that weren't for 0 opportunity loss is grossly incompetent.

There shouldn't be a limit on prr/mrr at any level. The cap should be how much dps you want to sacrifice for the defense,. What there should be is major gains for major sacrifices. The devs don't know what is/isn't possible with defense in the game rn, so they just capped it because they're lazy. And as a result heavy/medium armor is going to need a massive powercreep to catch up.

[Zites]

There shouldn't be a cap on any defenses. The limit should be that cloth/light armor have more opportunity cost to gain more defense than medium/heavy armor, while heavy/medium armor have less opportunity cost.

EDF was a massive slap in the face to fighter/paladin builds because it removed the opportunity cost of the stalwart/sacred defender stance that fighter/paladins took and made it 0 opportunity cost. The fact that the devs succumbed to pressure from players who complained that they were dying too much in reaper, when they specifically said reaper was meant to kill you and that they wouldn't balance off of it is hilarious. That they "added" defense in such a way that gave 0 benefit to melee that were taking the same benefits of it for an opportunity cost, and gave it to melee that weren't for 0 opportunity loss is grossly incompetent.

There shouldn't be a limit on prr/mrr at any level. The cap should be how much dps you want to sacrifice for the defense,. What there should be is major gains for major sacrifices. The devs don't know what is/isn't possible with defense in the game rn, so they just capped it because they're lazy. And as a result heavy/medium armor is going to need a massive powercreep to catch up.

Yea than maybe you could solo R10 Raids next sounds like fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w07rvF1e7iE

[zaidm271981]

MRR may help those without Evasion to mitigate incoming magic damage, but MRR doesn’t operate on the same parallel as Evasion. Nor to does it serve as a fix. MRR sole purpose SHOULD be to give players a mean of managing damage from non-physical (magic) sources of damage that players otherwise have no mean of dealing with, because that is what it accomplishes. Or mostly accomplishes, as players in light or no armor are basically penalized with an arbitrary cap because someone believed that Evasion should be a part of the balance equation when it shouldn’t be.

Let me explain, Evasion acts more like a miss chance. Its calculated a bit differently, but end result of the player taking no damage from a specific source type is the same. It’s in important tools for the likes of rogues who need to bypass terrain that would otherwise heavily damage the less nimble. In DDO, its essentially needed in some content as the goal is sometimes inside dangerous areas with no safe spot to stand. Without such a spot, it’d otherwise be impossible to disable that trap, open that door, pull that lever, etc… as damage interrupts the progress bar.

MRR acts like PRR. A way to manage the damage you take regardless if it was avoidable or not.

Now, I don’t think you’re going to see anyone complain that a more heavily armored characters can obtain MRR more easily and are able to reach a higher total. Under PRR you have this dynamic, but if an evasion armored character chooses to, they can invest to reach a viable number. MRR should act the same way. Right now it doesn’t with the cap.

If you want a mechanic to allow more heavily armored character to take zero damage from reflex based sources, then add a mechanic that adds that.

Secondly, what fear is there with layering high MRR with Evasion? They take small amounts of damage all the same, but sometimes take zero? Who cares? The higher the MRR value the less value Evasion has. Double dipping in this instance doesn't yield a synergistic benefit. If the MRR gets high enough you can get to basically take zero magic damage with or without evasion.

Exactly! +1

[zaidm271981]

yep looks like the bottom to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpjcfoaqete

kt.

[Shadow_Jumper]

Yea than maybe you could solo R10 Raids next sounds like fun!


Your point? You argued for EDF. I have spent the entire time pointing out that it was a bad idea for multiple reasons. Now here you are arguing that you need more defenses. Sadly the deevs just listen to screaming people with no grasp on reality for their changes.

[SerPounce]

On the one hand a hard cap is a sloppy, inelegant, solution, but on the other hand most people are running in silent avenger or beacon of magic anyway so it's not like light armor/cloth is behind overall. And with all the static bonuses to PRR (but not so much for max dex/dodge cap) it feels like medium and heavy armor have fallen behind more.

DDO has never really gotten defense right since number inflation made the d20 AC system fall apart around when epic was introduced. The key generally seems to be to layer as many low investment defensive stats as is practical and just accept that you'll occasionally get ganked by some oddball effect or series of bad rolls on high difficulties.

[Zites]

Your point? You argued for EDF. I have spent the entire time pointing out that it was a bad idea for multiple reasons. Now here you are arguing that you need more defenses. Sadly the deevs just listen to screaming people with no grasp on reality for their changes.

My point is I say they give it to ya than maybe you all can actually beat Killing Time LMAO also if you had let it go as it was intended I would have 25% HP but no you had to **** the bed.

[LT218]

i guar-ron-tee you in light or cloth and couldn't hit a squire with a bazooka if you didn't play the meta and keep telling your self it's your ability to use macros ;;D.
Why don't you let me know when you're done moving the goalposts. Moving them doesn't make you not wrong. It just makes you look desperate.

[Zites]

Why don't you let me know when you're done moving the goalposts. Moving them doesn't make you not wrong. It just makes you look desperate.

I want MMR cap increased damit so you can get a challenge because this is what you play for!

[zaidm271981]

Wow, necro....



But yes, I always did find that the MRR cap hinders spellcasters more than monks. Wizards and sorcerers are supposed to be very knowledge about magic, so they are supposed to have magical defenses in place to protect themselves against a magical attack. In DDO they don't have that (anymore). Protection from energy, resist energy, and the non-stacking spell resistance spells are terrible when actually defending against magic. Arcane casters in DDO have no spell mantles or wards to protect themselves.


It also hinders monks because in high level reaper content, they constantly have to change into spell absorb gear and lose dps as a result. Or die anyway. And the alternative way to raise mrr cap on a monk is either using frozen wanderer or nystuls, both of which means they lose dps on their wraps. Its just not that simple or reasonable for monk dpsers to just randomly slap on 50mrr cap and then bring legendary and reaper content with magic damage that cant be avoided. Not to mention the champs which only high mrr will help u mitigate damage anyway. If there is no way monks will get the mrr cap help they need by any of the devs, then as it is they'll have to rely on solutions which will reduce their dps.

[Zites]

It also hinders monks because in high level reaper content, they constantly have to change into spell absorb gear and lose dps as a result. Or die anyway. And the alternative way to raise mrr cap on a monk is either using frozen wanderer or nystuls, both of which means they lose dps on their wraps. Its just not that simple or reasonable for monk dpsers to just randomly slap on 50mrr cap and then bring legendary and reaper content with magic damage that cant be avoided. Not to mention the champs which only high mrr will help u mitigate damage anyway. If there is no way monks will get the mrr cap help they need by any of the devs, then as it is they'll have to rely on solutions which will reduce their dps.

LMAO! Yep you need mmr cap increased it's so unfair. On a side note ever play dodge ball?

[Shadow_Jumper]

My point is I say they give it to ya than maybe you all can actually beat Killing Time LMAO also if you had let it go as it was intended I would have 25% HP but no you had to **** the bed.

I'm sorry that reasonable discussion to improve the game across all classes is beyond your reach.

EDF was one of the worst things they have done for the game. Giving classes that weren’t meant to have multiplicative hp a free feat was dumb. I agree that it being 50% versus 25 would have been better for balance as a whole, and that we got stuck with the worst of three options. But the best was for it to have just never been implimented.

I did not argue for reduced from 50 to 25. I argued that the feat be deleted and whoever came up with the idea not be allowed in charge of class balance.

[Zites]

I'm sorry that reasonable discussion to improve the game across all classes is beyond your reach.

EDF was one of the worst things they have done for the game. Giving classes that weren’t meant to have multiplicative hp a free feat was dumb. I agree that it being 50% versus 25 would have been better for balance as a whole, and that we got stuck with the worst of three options. But the best was for it to have just never been implimented.

I did not argue for reduced from 50 to 25. I argued that the feat be deleted and whoever came up with the idea not be allowed in charge of class balance.

Your right I lost my temper yesterday my bad, there's a lot we agree on (it being 50% versus 25 would have been better for balance as a whole) and I know you did not argue for reduced from 50 to 25.

But I disagree that EDF was one of the worst things they have done for the game here's why. I've gotten friends from WOW that were new to the DDO to try it and they really appreciated the HP it helps them stay alive, also many in game appreciate the HP, but hate that we can't heal with it on, this is the good and the bad of it for many.

Giving classes that weren’t meant to have multiplicative hp is problematic and it has unbalanced heavy armor classes, if they don't address it with a Ftr/Pally Pass or improve Med/Heavy Armor it's essentially Fubared Heavy Armor classes especially in the end game scene, but for less advanced players it can be a good thing. There is 1 additional positive from it and I think this is why they limited heals with EDF on, there's a lot more healers in parties now and to me a stanch believer in the trinity system it's good to see more healers.

This would not have been the way I went about addressing the problems of giving new and less advanced players more survivability but it can still work if they finish the job by buffing Med/Heavy Armor or the classics that wear it, Increasing reaper difficulty 6-10 or giving us reaper 11-20, and not giving into the megalomaniacal powercreepy wetdreams of the META!

[slarden]

The problem with MRR is the arbitrary artificial cap based on armor type. Cloth armor wearers are all too keenly aware of this. MRR cap is easily met by equipping just one legendary item. There's no point in considering an Insightful, Quality, Mythic or Artifact item bonus, or enhancements that increase MRR. This does not align with DDO's core principle of character customization.

No MRR benefit from Deep Gnome or Warlock past lives can be realized at level cap for cloth wearers, unless the Beacon of Magic set is worn. Unfortunately due to the typing of the DC bonus (Artifact), it doesn't stack with Slave Lords Sorcery set which is superior. Six past lives is a huge investment not to reap the rewards from. DDO thrives because of the TReadmill. Don't give players another reason to not TR. There are enough of those already.

This is not the problem. There are actually many ways to raise cap and/or upgrade to different armor types. On my warlock I upgrade to medium armor primarily to exceed the cap.