Offensive vs Defensive - The growing rift

[Riggs]

Part of that stems from the fact that one stat in ddo can be boosted much higher and much more easily then any other.

I think people can hit high 40's mid 50's (think 56 is max for effective combat) for str but the next closest stat sits 10 or more points behind lets say 36 +3 from top end stat item from shroud for 39.

Big difference when you look at the level of effectiveness that those stats provide in combat vs defense.

Indeed.

I want my halfling rogue to be able to hit a 50 dex just like the raging barb can hit 50 str.

Offence and defence should be balanced - and they are not.

Just ask any cleric.

[Jaywade]

you know melee types are just different, from lvl 1 to lvl 20, I meaqn roll a fighter from lvl 1 to about lvl 8 you can almist stand on your own , a barb throughthe same content can be efficetive but you better have a million hela pots or a line of clerics to run with you, sure at lvl 16 a pure barb can kill faster than a pure fighter, but a fighter can have much better Ac (now's there a debate if that a good thing but I'll leave that for a secound), as many hp (can take a lot of toughness feats) and is much more varried in what said fighter can do, same w/ a pally maybe not as high dps or hp but ac can get up there plus he enhances the saves and ac of the party they all have thier place, up to lvl 12 I don't think a bard is a must have but I tell ya what I don;t want to do a reaver or a shroud grp without one now, and I think dps is so important but so is suriveabilty, which can include high hp, saves, ac, damage avoidance (blur, displacement, stoneskin) and of course the death of said attacking mob...

[Angelus_dead]

Offence and defence should be balanced - and they are not.

Offense and defense cannot be balanced. This is a fact of life... a law of nature.

It even has a name. Not an imaginative name, but the "Fundamental Offense Defense Inequality" is a term of art in military-technology history. In physics the principle is called "Entropy"- systems tend towards being destroyed. And it's especially important for game design.

The builders of a game must err on the side of too much offense instead of too much defense. Offense causes things to get won. If nobody ever wins, the game doesn't work.

Just imagine a bit you could cheat and make a D&D character who gained excessive defense at the expense of almost all offense, or vice versa. Who would win more quests? The offensive guy of course. The defensive one wouldn't die, but he wouldn't get anything done either.

[BlueLightBandit]

This threads going in two different directions... so I'll make two points.

1. Barbarians and Fighters are... yes... DIFFERENT. It doesn't take a kalashtar to figure that one out... and yes... you need to DEAL WITH IT.

2. AC at the highest level content is useless. Borr gave evidence to that in another thread, and I applaud his work on the subject. Unfortunately, people also need to simply... DEAL WITH IT.

Aside from that, if you want the game to change then create a well versed thread that is completely and totally constructive, no whining or complaining. If enough people agree with you, then hopefully they will voice it on your thread. If enough people voice it on your thread, then hopefully the devs will make those changes... otherwise... you're just gonna hafta... *sigh* DEAL WITH IT.

[Invalid_86]

The ac problems are really a problem with how BaB and multiple attacks are implemented. Fix one, fix the other.

Wow I just had deja vu.

Now where is the next "AC doesn't work right" thread?

[Snoggy]

that outshines my fighter on nearly all levels.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by outshines on all levels.

Outshines how? In what ways? And what do you mean by levels? Like level 5? Which quest at level 5?

[Snoggy]

2. AC at the highest level content is useless. Borr gave evidence to that in another thread, and I applaud his work on the subject. Unfortunately, people also need to simply... DEAL WITH IT.

His thread doesn't show that it is useless. That's oversimplifying his commentary, and sort of does an injustice to his tests.

[Snoggy]

Just imagine a bit you could cheat and make a D&D character who gained excessive defense at the expense of almost all offense, or vice versa. Who would win more quests? The offensive guy of course. The defensive one wouldn't die, but he wouldn't get anything done either.

Considering this MMO has way more content that doesn't require you to kill all that much when compared to any other MMO out there, I find that a rather amusing comment.

[BlueLightBandit]

His thread doesn't show that it is useless. That's oversimplifying his commentary, and sort of does an injustice to his tests.

Useless... no. How about useful less than 2% of the time in the shroud on elite? That re-under-simplify it enough?

His thread shows that a high AC does nothing against a mobs melee attack at a certain level. That a realistically high AC, while difficult to reach yet still possible, is not worth a hill of beans at the highest level content in the game... that's what I got from his tests.

[Snoggy]

Useless... no. How about useful less than 2% of the time in the shroud on elite? That re-under-simplify it enough?

His thread shows that a high AC does nothing against a mobs melee attack at a certain level. That a realistically high AC, while difficult to reach yet still possible, is not worth a hill of beans at the highest level content in the game... that's what I got from his tests.

Howbout we just put it all on the table?

His tests show that HIS AC (which he admits is still missing some gear so isn't the highest attainable AC out there) is showing in testing that it is getting hit rather often against Orthons and Red Nameds and the Pit Fiend on ELITE in The Shroud.

That's a pretty small portion of the game. So it's useful less than 2% of the time in way less than 2% of the content in this game. IIRC, he states his AC works just fine on the the rest of the new mod's quests on elite.

Like I said, you are oversimplifying his commentary and his tests. Useless? That's oversimplifying it.

[Borror0]

Like I said, you are oversimplifying his commentary and his tests. Useless? That's oversimplifying it.

True, he is. AC is useless in Shroud elite, the rest is fine or would be fine with a +4 Insight weapon.

[Wu_Jen]

DPS has continued to scale. AC/Fort has not. Hence more DPS focused characters.

[LOUDRampart]

I think this discussion places a glaring spotlight on something else... that is the difference between DDO and PnP.

In DDO the quests must be made for the highest denominator or the game loses its luster for the players with high end gear. As such the players without the high end gear lose out. Fortunately making a DPS build doesn't take a lot of recourses to make. Creating a defensive build does. (Maybe a solution is to have more defensive items available that compete with spots DPS items would normally be placed.)

On the other hand is the PnP game. In that the DM can look at each characters str and weaknesses and decide how to make the game challenging... every encounter is tailor made to fit the party, as it is built, not whatever random group happens to be in a pug. This is a huge difference here between the two games.

[Eudimio]

Hello,

Why do all of you in this thread debate that offense and defense are mutually exclusive?

Consider this fighter:

We'll say human, 32 point-buy, level 16.

Start End
str 16 32
dex 15 22
con 16 24
int 11 13
wis 8 8
cha 8 8

Feats (16):
Two Weapon Fighting
Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Greater Two Weapon Fighting
Power Attack
Combat Expertise
Dodge
Toughness
Weapon Focus
Weapon Specialization
Greater Weapon Focus
Greater Weapon Specialization
Mobility
Spring Attack
Oversized Two Weapon Fighting
Khopesh Proficiency
Whirlwind Attack

Pertinent Enhancements:
Armor Mastery 3
Fighter's Strength 3
Human Versatility 4
Haste Boost 4

I'm not going to list the items or final numbers. It should be clear that this fighter would be an offensive dynamo when needed or a sturdy tank when desired.

Happy Hunting.

[negative]

Well Eudimio, even with that build you posted, out of the box, it will have decent DPS w/o getting any sort of hard to find weapons. On the other hand, you'll have to get numerous semi-rare items to even approach a meaningfull AC, and that's w/ CE on. Without CE it's pretty much impossible to achieve a meaningfull AC end game imo. If someone wants to prove me wrong, great, my paladin could use the advice on how to achieve 55+ AC without it.

Personally, I don't think a hybrid build is impossible, both my defensive tanks I would label as hybrid, it just one aspect is much easier to obtain than the other.

[Eudimio]

I totally agree negative. And shroud weapons makes dps simple. Oh, it looks like I left out tower shield mastery. But yeah, +5 mfp, +5 mts, chaosguards, and +5 protection cloak are premium items. They are insanely difficult to get. Yeah, have fun farming a chattering ring and a seal of earth. So that would be about a 58 AC with those items. Ranger barkskin, palladin aura (if pallies aren't extinct yet), bard inspire heroism, and green steel +4 AC weapon puts you in the AC 75 range. Use your human or fighter AC boost to hit AC 80.

And he's still a dps monster! So without any rare raid items, subtract 3 from the AC. There is no spoon.

Happy Hunting.

Edit:

Oh, and here's my ROGUE at 80 AC:

http://imageduck.com/v/screenshot0007748f.jpg

And he would severely out-dps my example fighter.

[negative]

I totally agree negative. And shroud weapons makes dps simple. Oh, it looks like I left out tower shield mastery. But yeah, +5 mfp, +5 mts, chaosguards, and +5 protection cloak are premium items. They are insanely difficult to get. Yeah, have fun farming a chattering ring and a seal of earth. So that would be about a 58 AC with those items. Ranger barkskin, palladin aura (if pallies aren't extinct yet), bard inspire heroism, and green steel +4 AC weapon puts you in the AC 75 range. Use your human or fighter AC boost to hit AC 80.

And he's still a dps monster! So without any rare raid items, subtract 3 from the AC. There is no spoon.

Happy Hunting.

I'm not sure what your point is.

Personally, I think it proves my point. Why should meaningfull AC be reserved only for those with the absolute best gear w/ raid gear on top of that? Sure, a supurb AC should be, but not simply meaningfull. A Defensive tank is a pretty basic character archetype. Obviously, the gap in AC between a casual player and a hardcore player is greater than 20 already. Which doesn't work so well with a d20. Heck, personally I think TWF and THF should see some benifit from wearing armor instead of robes, but that seems like a pipe dream at this point.

A lot of this seems to me to be a side-affect of the escalating attack bonus progression. In PnP, sure, that first attack might always get through the THF's AC, but the rest of the attacks in the oppenents full round attack get easier and easier to absorb with AC. Not exactly the case in DDO.

[Snoggy]

Why should meaningfull AC be reserved only for those with the absolute best gear w/ raid gear on top of that?

Probably for the same reason that the top DPS builds require high end items? I mean, the barbs getting the huuuuuuuuuge crits I see posted on the forums tend to be using and abusing a sword of shadows or a deathnip, right?

And so many barbs talk about wrecking the kill count using wounding of puncturing rapiers right?

That's pretty much the same thing as needing +5 Mithril Full Plate and a Chattering Ring.

[negative]

Probably for the same reason that the top DPS builds require high end items? I mean, the barbs getting the huuuuuuuuuge crits I see posted on the forums tend to be using and abusing a sword of shadows or a deathnip, right?

And so many barbs talk about wrecking the kill count using wounding of puncturing rapiers right?

That's pretty much the same thing as needing +5 Mithril Full Plate and a Chattering Ring.

When I say meaningful, I don't mean: outstanding, supurb, the best. I mean, enough to be better off than wearing a robe. The barb w/o the SoS still does damage, and is better off swinging whatever non-raid weapon they have than trying to do something else. Just because you don't have +5 mith FP and a chat ring shouldn't mean you should be wearing a robe, but it pretty much does where we stand now.

[Eudimio]

When I say meaningful, I don't mean: outstanding, supurb, the best. I mean, enough to be better off than wearing a robe. The barb w/o the SoS still does damage, and is better off swinging whatever non-raid weapon they have than trying to do something else. Just because you don't have +5 mith FP and a chat ring shouldn't mean you should be wearing a robe, but it pretty much does where we stand now.

Okay, I'll remove the +5 mithral fullplate and the chattering ring. Is +3 mithral fullplate or +5 (steel/standard) fullplate achievable for most people to have?

That lowers the AC in my example by five to about a AC 75 max. It certainly isn't a 20-point difference. And as Snoogy said (I paraphrase), there isn't one item on my list that is more difficult to obtain than a w/p rapier, let alone two of them.

And I could up the AC by choosing halfling or dwarf as the race. But it wouldn't change my point.

Happy Hunting.