Please make PRR and AC more useful.

Under current game mechanics with the new "curve" system, it has created a diminishing return on the buildup of your tanks stats - AC and PRR. Unfortunately it's FAR too sharp a diminishing return. Giving up precious slots to fit in more AC may give a small return assuming you can get your AC into the monster's attack bonus, which is far from low in EE... luckily you only have to more than DOUBLE it to have effect survival AC (which is impossible... so that extra 50-100 AC you're gaining by turtling may earn you 10%). Going full turtle vs just using Mountain stance and a PRR item or two? 10% less damage. So here you find yourself giving up evasion and dodge where both cause you to take ZERO damage and face eat 450 damage while the clothy takes 500 if they get hit. Worth it, right?

With the fact that S&B is already a massive DPS sacrifice, the AC/PRR pass killed the turtle tank. 90% of your survival options come naked as anyone can get displacement clickies and either kiting at ranged or 25% shadow fade is much much much better than taking slightly less damage. We already face the issue of massive damage numbers in EE - unless you have a dedicated healer dumping mana on your head, you can't melee tank them anyways, and if you have that, you might as well have a tankish DPS do it. Who cares if he takes 50 more damage per hit if he's doing more than double the DPS?

For AC, increasing the multiplier shifts the AC into the range where it could be effective in EE. Unfortunately that won't stop it's diminishing return, so the gain of 150 to 200 is about half of that of 100 to 150, but it's still a sharper curve making that gain more worthwhile than it is now.

PRR is the bigger item on the table. There is currently no "glass cannon" vs "tank" - everyone gets gut punched for hundreds of damage, so not getting hit is the entire key. That makes dodge, incorps, concealment, etc a BILLION times more important than PRR. The first 50-70 PRR is of course important as that makes up 50-75% of the PRR survival bonus, but anyone can try to get that... but after that, giving up a single point of dodge, incorp, conceal is a massive survivability loss. The days may be gone of all or nothing AC tanking, but we still should have our tanks. Fully armored 200+ PRR turtles should be getting hit for a tiny fraction of what that robed Sorc is getting hit for - not 10% or 20% less... 80% less. The PRR formula really needs to lose its fractioner - a straight (1 – (0.99^PRR)). This would mean that the tank is soaking up 86% of the damage instead of 56%, but isn't that how it should be? Going tank would make a serious difference, and would justify hard hitting EEs. You really would have your glass cannons that take 500 damage getting 1-2 shotted where the tanks only get hit for 100... because, you know, they're tanks.

The PRR change along would bring the decisions between cloth to heavy armor to the forefront, and I know I'd go from 100% of my chars being light/cloth to a mix.

I agree there is definitely an imbalance. Robe wearers can get 40% mitigation from PRR quite easily while the best tankish heavy armor users might push it up to near 60%. Those same robe wearers run around with 25% dodge and the heavy armor wearers cap out at just over 10% with massive investment in gear and enhancements. To get that 10% you'll have to be in one or more defender trees, which signifies that you've already given up DPS to begin with. Monks in earth stance GAIN DPS and defense at the same time and give up very little in the way of enhancements to do so.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that robe wearers are far better off. Add in the "monk factor" with robes and it pulls so far ahead that heavy armor is a joke. If the dodge cap is to stay on heavy armor, a PRR cap should be implemented on robes. From what I can see, with earth stance in particular, the devs actually want to reward players with MORE PRR for going with robes. That boggles my mind. Bare minimum, earth stance should have a dodge cap similar to heavy armor if it's going to give out PRR.

I wonder how well it'd work making the PRR formula work more like this.

Heavy Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.75
Medium Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.65
Light Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.55
Cloth = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.45

This change would also need to introduce the ability to hover over the PRR box in our character sheet to see exactly how much mitigation we're getting.

Edit. for those who don't understand the formula, Here's a comparison as to how it would work compared to the live results.

On live 100PRR = ~41% Damage reduction.
This formula would make 100prr :
47% Damage reduction in Heavy armor
41% Damage reduction in Medium armor
34% Damage reduction in Light armor
28% Damage reduction in Cloth.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fTdOmen

I wonder how well it'd work making the PRR formula work more like this.

Heavy Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.75
Medium Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.65
Light Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.55
Cloth = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.45

This change would also need to introduce the ability to hover over the PRR box in our character sheet to see exactly how much mitigation we're getting.

Edit. for those who don't understand the formula, Here's a comparison as to how it would work compared to the live results.

On live 100PRR = ~41% Damage reduction.
This formula would make 100prr :
47% Damage reduction in Heavy armor
41% Damage reduction in Medium armor
34% Damage reduction in Light armor
28% Damage reduction in Cloth.

---

Get out of here with that Mo. Math never solves anything.

We need a second defensive pass.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

We need a second defensive pass.

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Why? It would only take an update or two for the Devs to erode any benefit given to Medium and Heavy Armor so that Monks also get it. We saw that play out during the first defensive pass already. And since the Devs won't erode or nerf Monk stuff, any defensive pass will just eventually lead to Monks getting the benefit for less cost while also being granted full Evasion, Dodge and AC.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

We need a second defensive pass.

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Pretty much. Diminishing returns systems *always* favor defense in depth, which is what you get from playing a monk.

I should add, though, that there's no such thing as getting "in range" of a monster's attack bonus any more, because AC is a calculated system now.

AC and PRR aside, though, one SIMPLE change they could make that would produce an effect very similar to the one you want would be to decrease the BASE damage on eE mobs and increase their CRITICAL damage and also their FORT BYPASS. So, your tank can sit in melee with them and eat their basic damage because he's not going to be getting crits. Non-tanks with only 110% fortification are risking a massive crit whenever they get hit.

The evasion/not evasion thing is not as bad as you might think. You can stack the absorption up there, particularly on a turtle tank--and that's without using stuff like Energy Sheath. It's much harder to get your reflex save high enough to matter for eE even on an evasion toon, and Improved Evasion is much harder to get.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oradafu

Why? It would only take an update or two for the Devs to erode any benefit given to Medium and Heavy Armor so that Monks also get it. We saw that play out during the first defensive pass already. And since the Devs won't erode or nerf Monk stuff, any defensive pass will just eventually lead to Monks getting the benefit for less cost while also being granted full Evasion, Dodge and AC.

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A certain developer who loved monks like they were his own children no longer works for Turbine.

Just hire me to consult, it'll be Trollerific.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

We need a second defensive pass.

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Yeah probably. One of the biggest surprises of this pass is after the pass they keep handing out sources of PRR, but not dodge cap for medium or heavy armor wearers. Makes 0 sense why they have done this in this manner. When the defensive pass first occurred it was difficult for light armor wearers and cloth wearers to get a satisfactory PRR. Fast forward to now and it is pretty easy to get a high PRR, but dodge and the dodge cap have received not the same treatment at all. The PRR advances have been through gear, the enhancement pass, and feats, and epic past lives but the dodge cap has not increased at all. It really undermined the first defensive pass with this subsequent activity by the devs. It is pretty obvious to me that the devs that worked on the defensive pass no longer work on DDO and the subsequent devs have undermined their efforts. Shame on you devs because we the player base and the players that play S&B characters have been the recipients of this uninformed approach.

Rather than even specifically saying 'make PRR and AC more useful', I'd rather just back up and say 'make Light/Medium/Heavy Armor and/or Shields more useful/viable/competitive'.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maddmatt70

Yeah probably. One of the biggest surprises of this pass is after the pass they keep handing out sources of PRR, but not dodge cap for medium or heavy armor wearers. Makes 0 sense why they have done this in this manner. When the defensive pass first occurred it was difficult for light armor wearers and cloth wearers to get a satisfactory PRR. Fast forward to now and it is pretty easy to get a high PRR, but dodge and the dodge cap have received not the same treatment at all. The PRR advances have been through gear, the enhancement pass, and feats, and epic past lives but the dodge cap has not increased at all. It really undermined the first defensive pass with this subsequent activity by the devs. It is pretty obvious to me that the devs that worked on the defensive pass no longer work on DDO and the subsequent devs have undermined their efforts. Shame on you devs because we the player base and the players that play S&B characters have been the recipients of this uninformed approach.

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I agree that this seems to be the case. Those that put the defensive system in place didn't expect PRR to spiral out of control. It was likely meant to be something given in greater numbers to heavy armor users through enhancements and gear, but what we got was generic gear and enhancements that grant PRR which means everyone can get similar PRR regardless of your armor choice. The fact that similar across the board bonuses to dodge cap were never done just makes it more apparent that those that made defensive decisions didn't consider all the consequences of just throwing around PRR like candy to any and all characters with armor meaning pretty much nothing.

We really should have seen more "+X PRR if wearing heavy armor" or "+X PRR and +X doublestrike" with a shield equipped. Instead we simply got "+X PRR" and "+X doublestrike" with no restrictions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rimble

Rather than even specifically saying 'make PRR and AC more useful', I'd rather just back up and say 'make Light/Medium/Heavy Armor and/or Shields more useful/viable/competitive'.

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i think the OP is meaning "Make Armor more useful."

All but the most insane monk-fanboi agrees it's weak and should be stronger.

I too would actually like to see AC actually matter. it is the least important number in the layered defense when it should be the most. issue is right now . . . guess who can get really high ACs with little to no offensive sacrifice?

You guessed it . . . monks. In the current dynamics having AC work equals god-mode for monks.

The whole system needs an enema.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maddmatt70

Yeah probably. One of the biggest surprises of this pass is after the pass they keep handing out sources of PRR, but not dodge cap for medium or heavy armor wearers. Makes 0 sense why they have done this in this manner. When the defensive pass first occurred it was difficult for light armor wearers and cloth wearers to get a satisfactory PRR. Fast forward to now and it is pretty easy to get a high PRR, but dodge and the dodge cap have received not the same treatment at all. The PRR advances have been through gear, the enhancement pass, and feats, and epic past lives but the dodge cap has not increased at all. It really undermined the first defensive pass with this subsequent activity by the devs. It is pretty obvious to me that the devs that worked on the defensive pass no longer work on DDO and the subsequent devs have undermined their efforts. Shame on you devs because we the player base and the players that play S&B characters have been the recipients of this uninformed approach.

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PRR . . . or the defensive value of PRR . . . should have a multiplicative effect depending on armor type/shield worn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

PRR . . . or the defensive value of PRR . . . should have a multiplicative effect depending on armor type/shield worn.

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Or a PRR Cap that works the reverse of the Dodge cap. Which as Madmatt pointed out seemed to be the original intent of PRR from the beginning.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oradafu

Or a PRR Cap that works the reverse of the Dodge cap. Which as Madmatt pointed out seemed to be the original intent of PRR from the beginning.

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Quite frankly nerf monks they are the problem.

There are ways to address this without nerfing monks if you so desire.

I think a PRR cap is a bucket of meh and the dodge cap wouldn't have mattered if your actual AC had actually mattered.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

Quite frankly nerf monks they are the problem.

There are ways to address this without nerfing monks if you so desire.

I think a PRR cap is a bucket of meh and the dodge cap wouldn't have mattered if your actual AC had actually mattered.

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Nerfing monks will not solve the problem because light armor wearers also make out like bandits with the way the current devs run things. If they removed monks from the game the new tanks would be ranger/pally/fighter/rogue combinations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redspecter23

We really should have seen more "+X PRR if wearing heavy armor" or "+X PRR and +X doublestrike" with a shield equipped. Instead we simply got "+X PRR" and "+X doublestrike" with no restrictions.

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This. Like how Docents grant more AC with higher armor feats, all PRR items should grant more by your armor type. Having shields apply a % bonus to PRR would create a scaling bonus for having heavier armors without granting flat large bonuses to clothy casters that would just hide behind a shield and pew their shiradi missiles.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maddmatt70

Nerfing monks will not solve the problem because light armor wearers also make out like bandits with the way the current devs run things. If they removed monks from the game the new tanks would be ranger/pally/fighter/rogue combinations.

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Issue being Heavy Armor not paying off enough? If so I think I see your point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fTdOmen

I wonder how well it'd work making the PRR formula work more like this.

Heavy Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.75
Medium Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.65
Light Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.55
Cloth = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.45

This change would also need to introduce the ability to hover over the PRR box in our character sheet to see exactly how much mitigation we're getting.

Edit. for those who don't understand the formula, Here's a comparison as to how it would work compared to the live results.

On live 100PRR = ~41% Damage reduction.
This formula would make 100prr :
47% Damage reduction in Heavy armor
41% Damage reduction in Medium armor
34% Damage reduction in Light armor
28% Damage reduction in Cloth.

---

/signed
Nice proposition.

I think the introduction of margin of success on attack would make any AC significative (I proposed it several times; if you missed it, the idea is simple: for every X points on to-hit roll above the target AC, you get +1 to damage -- X could be anything between 2 and 5).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fTdOmen

I wonder how well it'd work making the PRR formula work more like this.

Heavy Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.75
Medium Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.65
Light Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.55
Cloth = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.45

This change would also need to introduce the ability to hover over the PRR box in our character sheet to see exactly how much mitigation we're getting.

Edit. for those who don't understand the formula, Here's a comparison as to how it would work compared to the live results.

On live 100PRR = ~41% Damage reduction.
This formula would make 100prr :
47% Damage reduction in Heavy armor
41% Damage reduction in Medium armor
34% Damage reduction in Light armor
28% Damage reduction in Cloth.

---

Light armor wearers will take a big hit under this system. I specifically chose light armor over robes to get the PRR bonus. I don't know the right numbers yet, but this change would likely have me trying to shift some prr toward more dodge again, which of course would require me to splash monk to boost my dodge cap...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redoubt

Light armor wearers will take a big hit under this system. I specifically chose light armor over robes to get the PRR bonus. I don't know the right numbers yet, but this change would likely have me trying to shift some prr toward more dodge again, which of course would require me to splash monk to boost my dodge cap...

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And then you'd get less PRR while wearing robes...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

We need a second defensive pass.

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I agree. All they have to do is add it to the feats.

Have the proficiency feats provide level up boosts to their specific tier of armor.

Clothing/cloth - no feat, no bonus.
Light - while wearing armor of the appropriate type: every X level provides +A to AC, +B to PRR, +C to DR. For example, Every 3 levels, add +1 AC, +1 PRR, +1/- DR. At level 30, the feat would provide +10 AC, +10 PRR, and +10/- DR.

Medium - while wearing armor of the appropriate type: every X level provides +A to AC, +B to PRR, +C to DR. For example, Every 3 levels, add +1.5 AC, +1.5 PRR, +1.5/- DR. At level 30, the feat would provide +15 AC, +15 PRR, and +15/- DR.

Heavy - while wearing armor of the appropriate type: every X level provides +A to AC, +B to PRR, +C to DR. For example, Every 3 levels, add +2 AC, +2 PRR, +2/- DR. At level 30, the feat would provide +20 AC, +20 PRR, and +20/- DR.

I think with this level of increment, my examples would only increase the effectiveness of armor by 30%. Meaning overall it would add a significant boost to the survivability of all armor types outside of cloth, without taking the benefits of dodge and incorp layers either.

They could go a step further. For those feats, being a Paladin or Fighter can increase those further. Like a Fighter or Pally get 2x the bonuses from their defensive feats. OR make the core enhancements in their defensive enhancement trees boost the effects from the feats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redoubt

Light armor wearers will take a big hit under this system. I specifically chose light armor over robes to get the PRR bonus. I don't know the right numbers yet, but this change would likely have me trying to shift some prr toward more dodge again, which of course would require me to splash monk to boost my dodge cap...

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So you'd Gain 3 dodge, and lose PRR, it's a better system than what we have currently.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seikojin

I agree. All they have to do is add it to the feats.

Have the proficiency feats provide level up boosts to their specific tier of armor.

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More than that.

The next defensive pass needs to start with the follow two premises:

- The single best mitigation against physical damage needs to be a guy wearing Heavy Armor and a shield and it needs to be SIGNIFICANTLY more that a guy running around in a loin-clothe.
- AC should be the MOST important aspect of a layered defense and not the least.

As currently implemented what AC would one have to have to have a meaningful AC in EE content? And is it even possible to get there? As currently implemented wouldn't a meaningful AC in EE give you near god mode in EH?

Trying to understand how AC currently works. Is AC a straight hit/mis chance? Does it's effectiveness decay at higher levels like PRR? I don't have the background that most on these forums have and have been able to find little about how current AC works. The wiki seems to be very outdated and the U14 release notes for when it was changed don't give much detail:

"Armor Class curves have been adjusted and rebalanced to better scale with high level and Epic level content, and to be more meaningful at lower levels"

This seems to also be when dodge and PRR were introduced. Was there any reasoning discussed to make doge a flat % and give PRR the sharp decline?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wongar

As currently implemented what AC would one have to have to have a meaningful AC in EE content? And is it even possible to get there? As currently implemented wouldn't a meaningful AC in EE give you near god mode in EH?

Trying to understand how AC currently works. Is AC a straight hit/mis chance? Does it's effectiveness decay at higher levels like PRR? I don't have the background that most on these forums have and have been able to find little about how current AC works. The wiki seems to be very outdated and the U14 release notes for when it was changed don't give much detail:

"Armor Class curves have been adjusted and rebalanced to better scale with high level and Epic level content, and to be more meaningful at lower levels"

This seems to also be when dodge and PRR were introduced. Was there any reasoning discussed to make doge a flat % and give PRR the sharp decline?

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200. Currently that's not an easy number to hit. If we keep the same system going, having a solid 80% miss chance at 250ac against the highest level enemy in the game would be awesome.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nightmanis

200. Currently that's not an easy number to hit. If we keep the same system going, having a solid 80% miss chance at 250ac against the highest level enemy in the game would be awesome.

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I'm not even sure 200 would matter. Highest we tested was 180 and it didn't do squat against anything that actually mattered.

In general, it seems that a lot of people agree that heavier armor should provide more absorby-type protection. In this case, we have been discussing PRR.

What if instead of nerfing anything, you just put in a mod to the formula?

Currently the formula uses 0.65 to produce diminishing returns. Leave all the other sources of PRR alone and provide a boost to that number. i.e.

clothe = no boost and uses 0.65
light armor = 0.05 boost and uses 0.70
medium = 0.75
heavy = 0.80

You can add a small bonus for special metal types if desired.

Then add in some for shield users, i.e.:
+0.02 for a buckler
+0.04 for a light shield
+0.06 for a heavy shield
+0.08 for a tower shield.

I'm spit-balling here, so if the idea doesn't work that's cool, but lets keep it civil. Thanks.

Heavy Armor gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to your Base Attack Bonus +6.
Medium Armor gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to 2/3 of your Base Attack Bonus (round up) and add +4.
Light Armor gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to 1/2 of your Base Attack Bonus (round up) and add +2.
Adamantine Body gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to your Base Attack Bonus.
Mithral Body gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to 1/2 of your Base Attack Bonus (round up).


Alternatively, you could just take the already scaled to armor "heaviness" system in place and multiply it by some factor. This would still result in clothe receiving no further bonus, but each tier of armor getting a little more. i.e. double all of these above (or times 2.3453253 or whatever number is the right one.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fTdOmen

I wonder how well it'd work making the PRR formula work more like this.

Heavy Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.75
Medium Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.65
Light Armor = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.55
Cloth = (1 – (0.99^PRR)) × 0.45

This change would also need to introduce the ability to hover over the PRR box in our character sheet to see exactly how much mitigation we're getting.

Edit. for those who don't understand the formula, Here's a comparison as to how it would work compared to the live results.

On live 100PRR = ~41% Damage reduction.
This formula would make 100prr :
47% Damage reduction in Heavy armor
41% Damage reduction in Medium armor
34% Damage reduction in Light armor
28% Damage reduction in Cloth.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by redoubt

In general, it seems that a lot of people agree that heavier armor should provide more absorby-type protection. In this case, we have been discussing PRR.

What if instead of nerfing anything, you just put in a mod to the formula?

Currently the formula uses 0.65 to produce diminishing returns. Leave all the other sources of PRR alone and provide a boost to that number. i.e.

clothe = no boost and uses 0.65
light armor = 0.05 boost and uses 0.70
medium = 0.75
heavy = 0.80

You can add a small bonus for special metal types if desired.

Then add in some for shield users, i.e.:
+0.02 for a buckler
+0.04 for a light shield
+0.06 for a heavy shield
+0.08 for a tower shield.

I'm spit-balling here, so if the idea doesn't work that's cool, but lets keep it civil. Thanks.

---

These seem decent, though I'd put more a bit more weight on the shield delta, since that's the larger dps hit, and the best defense is still your enemy laying bleeding on the ground.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redoubt

Heavy Armor gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to your Base Attack Bonus +6.
Medium Armor gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to 2/3 of your Base Attack Bonus (round up) and add +4.
Light Armor gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to 1/2 of your Base Attack Bonus (round up) and add +2.
Adamantine Body gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to your Base Attack Bonus.
Mithral Body gives you Physical Resistance Rating equal to 1/2 of your Base Attack Bonus (round up).


Alternatively, you could just take the already scaled to armor "heaviness" system in place and multiply it by some factor. This would still result in clothe receiving no further bonus, but each tier of armor getting a little more. i.e. double all of these above (or times 2.3453253 or whatever number is the right one.)

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I hate that I can't edit. I was thinking to double the total the above calculation gives, not just the plus at the end. i.e. heavy = 2(BAB+6)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scraap

These seem decent, though I'd put more a bit more weight on the shield delta, since that's the larger dps hit, and the best defense is still your enemy laying bleeding on the ground.

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So like drop the armor iteration to 0.03 and raise the shield one to the same.

no armor = 0.65
light = 0.68
med = 0.71
heavy = 0.74

buckler +0.03 etc...

Highest max would be heavy at 0.74 and a tower at 0.12 for a total factor of 0.86.

I'd just be careful getting the number too close to 1.0. But, I'm honestly not sure how close, is too close yet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redoubt

I'd just be careful getting the number too close to 1.0. But, I'm honestly not sure how close, is too close yet.

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Were the only factor raw physical damage, I'd tend to agree. Two factors to keep in mind though: dodge shuts out all damage, PRR just mitigates the first number. And that also assumes no casters in the encounter. That 86% is still hovering right around where we were at during the period when we were dealing with grazing hits on elites, which really doesn't seem that unreasonable taking the other factors into account.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

I'm not even sure 200 would matter. Highest we tested was 180 and it didn't do squat against anything that actually mattered.

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I'm saying to make AC useful, we should figure up the equations to someone having 200ac, then making it difficult to hit that. Also, to help this number only really be reached by those with a shield, remove Monk Wisdom to AC, or make it only apply half.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rimble

Rather than even specifically saying 'make PRR and AC more useful', I'd rather just back up and say 'make Light/Medium/Heavy Armor and/or Shields more useful/viable/competitive'.

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Right now Ultimate Earth Stance (what my rogue has) + Standing with Stone (Tier 4 GMOF Earth Stance based twist) is granting the same PRR bonus as a tower shield with improved shield mastery and legendary shield tactics, but with 12x the dodge cap and a massive bonus to dps.

Ultimate Earth: 15prr, Max Dodge 25
Standing with Stone: 15prr

Tower shield with ISM: 15prr, Max dodge 2
Legendary Shield Mastery: 15prr

This to me is absurd. With the way PRR is set up, you could almost double the benefit of ISM for PRR, and increase Legendary to give 20+ (if not more) and not receive so much of a benefit simply because of the bell curve. Tack onto that an exceptional DR bonus that applies permanently (not while blocking) of about 10-15, and you'd have our hearts for a while.

And remember, if you're using a tower shield there is no real reason to use anything but fullplate unless you have evasion. All of which is a huge detriment to defense, especially when considering what monks get. The only decent setup I can see is the Purple Dragon shield and the Shadowscale Fullplate (both of which I think look awesome, thank you DocOc for your efforts) simply for the consolidation and extra benefit from the dr. What would be awesome for the DR is you get that while either below 75% health, or holding a shield (again, benefiting those who use shields.)

I might also make the proposal that Greater Stalwart bonuses from both defender trees are activated when a shield is equipped, irregardless of what is in the offhand. That way I can actually scroll heal myself instead of dying instantly from the massive loss of HP from swapping.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nightmanis

I'm saying to make AC useful, we should figure up the equations to someone having 200ac, then making it difficult to hit that. Also, to help this number only really be reached by those with a shield, remove Monk Wisdom to AC, or make it only apply half.

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Making AC matter in EEs would require some monk AC nerfage as well, AC working would push them into god-mode.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

Making AC matter in EEs would require some monk AC nerfage as well, AC working would push them into god-mode.

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You just need to slide the scale a bit more toward heavy armor and shields and leave monks where they are. If a very well geared endgame monk with all the AC gear was getting 50% mitigation from AC and a moderately build heavy armor + shield wearer was at 75% (heavily geared at 90%) would that be about the right balance? Or should monk be topping out at 25% mitigation from AC, essentially making it useless to attempt in EE. Serious question. Where should these classes be sitting at EE endgame as far as AC/Dodge/PRR is concerned? Figure out that, then work backwards.

Personally I'd be fine with something like this for reasonably geared builds at EE endgame. With extra effort, some numbers could be bumped slightly.

Monk or monk splash
AC, 25% / Dodge, 30% / PRR, 0% / +evasion

Heavy Armor/S&B
AC, 85% / Dodge, 0% / PRR, 75%

Heavy Armor (no shield)
AC, 60% / Dodge, 0% / PRR 50%

Medium Armor, no shield (barbarian)
AC, 35% (assuming no raging) / Dodge, 20% / PRR, 35% / + bursts of uncanny dodge

Light Armor, no shield (rogue, ranger)
AC, 25% / Dodge, 25% / PRR, 30% / +evasion / +rogue bursts of uncanny dodge

Cloth (caster)
AC 5% / Dodge 20% / PRR 0% / +evasion (potentially with a splash)

In any case, I think adding a shield should be adding significantly to both AC and PRR. Being in cloth should be extremely squishy. Your defense is dodging or staying at range. Getting hit should hurt. I'd probably also do a pass on EE mob damage at the same time and lower it slightly as in my examples all but heavy armor wearers with shields are worse off than they are now in general (PRR specifically)

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Originally Posted by redspecter23

You just need to slide the scale a bit more toward heavy armor and shields and leave monks where they are. If a very well geared endgame monk with all the AC gear was getting 50% mitigation from AC and a moderately build heavy armor + shield wearer was at 75% (heavily geared at 90%) would that be about the right balance? Or should monk be topping out at 25% mitigation from AC, essentially making it useless to attempt in EE. Serious question. Where should these classes be sitting at EE endgame as far as AC/Dodge/PRR is concerned? Figure out that, then work backwards.

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If I'm honest, a good 60% from ac for Armour would be a sweet spot for me. That's over half, meaning you will notice the overall effect of it, but isn't so high that it's game breaking powerful. Monks however **** near should just not worry about getting ac at all. Taking away their wisdom to ac, while boosting what armour gets at base would go a long way to making sure this happens.

Justifying this:

Heavy Armour+Tower Shield:

High Armour, High PRR, High DR, absorbs damage but terrible at avoiding hits.

Monks

Shadow Veil, high dodge, no dr, low damage mitigation, avoids damage outright but terrible at mitigating damage when hit.

For the record though, I would rather use a heavy shield and light to medium armour, simply for a more realistic design than the super heavy built fighter. Good balance of mitigating a blow, but without losing too much mobility.

Definitely a lot of Monk hate here (expected from Teh_Troll)

Monk NEED to be able to survive in melee. With tons of hate building, they are ALSO supposed to be able to build themselves as tanks. If they nerfed PRR for cloth armor and then built the game around a state where PRR actually had a point past 70, Monks would then become useless if they just got one-shotted every time their dodge failed. They're not casters meant to be glass cannons from range. They're not Rogues meant to be backstabbing with anti aggro. They can try to be like Tempest Rangers (whom can max their dodge much more easily than Monks) where they don't go for tanking but are meant to be able to survive aggro (though seeing a ranger symbol means 99% chance they're AA as why go melee when EEs 1-3 shot?). Should they be able to take a physical hit like a S&B tank? No. But they certainly should be much better than a rogue or caster when they go tank mode. Of course there is then the issue that Mountain Stance gives survival *and* DPS, where Fire Stance is the weakest stance, Wind does nothing but gives a little double strike since it's attack speed doesn't stack while lowering HP/Fort saves, making Earth and Water the stance of choice of almost every class with monk levels.

Though stances is a different debate covered in multiple threads, the bigger concern is that currently Monk survivability is handed to everyone that splashes Monk. 6 Monk levels gives you every single point of PRR, Dodge, and Incorporal a Monk can get only being shorted 9 AC, which AC is currently pointless anyways. I think the bigger concern should be shutting off this low barrier of entry rather than kill off full Monk tank mode survivability to make heavy armor the better one. The biggest would be to make Monk stances no longer selectable feats and only grant at the appropriate monk levels. Other options could be to cap your WIS to AC bonus to your Monk level (where 20 removes the cap). Switching Shadow Veil to the 12 or 18 core.

Using Redspecter's versions of potential survival options:

Pure Monk tank mode
AC, 50% / Dodge, 28% / PRR, 50% / +evasion

Non tank Monk or Monk Splash
AC, 25% / Dodge, 33% / PRR, 10% / +evasion

Heavy Armor/S&B
AC, 85% / Dodge, 10% / PRR, 80%

Heavy Armor (no shield)
AC, 50% / Dodge, 10% / PRR 50%

Medium Armor, no shield (barbarian)
AC, 35% (assuming no raging) / Dodge, 20% / PRR, 35% / + bursts of uncanny dodge

Light Armor, no shield (rogue, ranger)
AC, 25% / Dodge, 25% / PRR, 25% / +evasion / +rogue bursts of uncanny dodge

Cloth (caster)
AC 5% / Dodge 25% / PRR 10% / +evasion (potentially with a splash)

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Originally Posted by DrawingGuy

Definitely a lot of Monk hate here (expected from Teh_Troll)

Monk NEED to be able to survive in melee. With tons of hate building, they are ALSO supposed to be able to build themselves as tanks. If they nerfed PRR for cloth armor and then built the game around a state where PRR actually had a point past 70, Monks would then become useless if they just got one-shotted every time their dodge failed. They're not casters meant to be glass cannons from range. They're not Rogues meant to be backstabbing with anti aggro. They can try to be like Tempest Rangers (whom can max their dodge much more easily than Monks) where they don't go for tanking but are meant to be able to survive aggro (though seeing a ranger symbol means 99% chance they're AA as why go melee when EEs 1-3 shot?). Should they be able to take a physical hit like a S&B tank? No. But they certainly should be much better than a rogue or caster when they go tank mode. Of course there is then the issue that Mountain Stance gives survival *and* DPS, where Fire Stance is the weakest stance, Wind does nothing but gives a little double strike since it's attack speed doesn't stack while lowering HP/Fort saves, making Earth and Water the stance of choice of almost every class with monk levels.

Though stances is a different debate covered in multiple threads, the bigger concern is that currently Monk survivability is handed to everyone that splashes Monk. 6 Monk levels gives you every single point of PRR, Dodge, and Incorporal a Monk can get only being shorted 9 AC, which AC is currently pointless anyways. I think the bigger concern should be shutting off this low barrier of entry rather than kill off full Monk tank mode survivability to make heavy armor the better one. The biggest would be to make Monk stances no longer selectable feats and only grant at the appropriate monk levels. Other options could be to cap your WIS to AC bonus to your Monk level (where 20 removes the cap). Switching Shadow Veil to the 12 or 18 core.

Using Redspecter's versions of potential survival options:

Pure Monk tank mode
AC, 50% / Dodge, 28% / PRR, 50% / +evasion

Non tank Monk or Monk Splash
AC, 25% / Dodge, 33% / PRR, 10% / +evasion

Heavy Armor/S&B
AC, 85% / Dodge, 10% / PRR, 80%

Heavy Armor (no shield)
AC, 50% / Dodge, 10% / PRR 50%

Medium Armor, no shield (barbarian)
AC, 35% (assuming no raging) / Dodge, 20% / PRR, 35% / + bursts of uncanny dodge

Light Armor, no shield (rogue, ranger)
AC, 25% / Dodge, 25% / PRR, 25% / +evasion / +rogue bursts of uncanny dodge

Cloth (caster)
AC 5% / Dodge 25% / PRR 10% / +evasion (potentially with a splash)

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Why does a monk get double the avoidance of a ranger or rogue?
Why are you backing down light armor from what is in game already?

You speak of monk hate, but in order to deflect the "monk hate" all the people who want to protect monk supremacy seem to defect any reductions to monk and push it off on light armor wearers...

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Originally Posted by redoubt

Why does a monk get double the avoidance of a ranger or rogue?
Why are you backing down light armor from what is in game already?

You speak of monk hate, but in order to deflect the "monk hate" all the people who want to protect monk supremacy seem to defect any reductions to monk and push it off on light armor wearers...

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That "50% AC" is rather arbitrary, but it is considering someone that is going all out on their AC, wearing NA, Deflect, white dragon, etc items - so if someone in light armor decided to give up on things to fit in AC, they'd get close as well. My own Rogue fits none of that, and would have to sacrifice to do so. As of now, their's no point as AC helps little in EE - but then he also has Uncanny Dodge giving me a 50% dodge clicky that DOES work in EE. He also has high Diplomacy to strip aggro, blinds, and is an assassin, so relies on stealth kills without even being aggroed in the first place. My Ranger is ranged rather than melee, so he can just kite (of course not counting pin/dance/nerve venom/ledges out of reach)... so he has no need of sacrificing DPS for AC when he's rarely in reach.

Meh . . . just nerf monks.

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

Meh . . . just nerf monks.

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All they need to do is take away centered with a blade and move 10k stars up to Monk level 14 or 16 to take the class back down from FoTM and back to "pure monk is a loss of DPS"

PRR and A/C should be attainable by every class that invests into it for survivability in the end game.

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Originally Posted by Atremus

All they need to do is take away centered with a blade and move 10k stars up to Monk level 14 or 16 to take the class back down from FoTM and back to "pure monk is a loss of DPS"

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In general there is too much front-loaded stuff in the class trees, it's not just a monk thing. Divine might from 2 cleric/pally/FVS, 30% haste boost from 1 fighter level, evasion from 2 rogue/monk levels, Divine Grace from a 2-level splash, etc . . .

And yet shortly after the ENH pass . . . Turbine decides to nerf the devotion . . . in friggin Deepwood? That was what was broken enough to get their attention?

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Originally Posted by Atremus

PRR and A/C should be attainable by every class that invests into it for survivability in the end game.

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The problem is it's just given to monks, no investment needed. Pre MoTU stuff required you to build specifically for AC if you wanted defense. Most classed could do it, of course it ironically required monk-splash but it was far less broken than things are now.

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Originally Posted by Teh_Troll

Meh . . . just nerf monks.

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Hey man leaves monks alone, they are the best pay 2 win class. To be honest if they dropped Zen Archery and removed the ability to buy he higher monk stances this would not be as much of a problem. Before the defense pass everyone has in jamy-jams. Now post defensive post most people are in jamy-jams...Progress? Or just reduce the amount of PRR you can get from non-armor sources, make Fire Stance the offensive stance (Str buff and increased Crit) and Earth the defensive stance (Con buff, PRR, ac buff). Personally my Monks are in Wind stance.