Eladrin - a request for an AC experiment on Lamannia

[Caseas]

25% incorp does not stack additively with 20% from cloud kill. You have good threat generation but your damage mitigation is good not really from those two features but from your improved evasion.
Sure I can tank horoth on my barb with 900 odd hp and 10% + 10% + 20% +30 % +30 % heal amp with the hate gen armour too but give me a good ac to take the job anyday because they have better ac and therefore better damage mitigation if they can hit that limit. In a pinch these sort of tanks are fine to thow out there to use but seriously just because people have achieved great hate generation does not make you a tank which many do not see. At least your build has very good damage mitigation and I would see it as being the best current tank type for eChrono which currently has no relevant AC use.

Edit: Basically if you are in a situation where AC actually works ie TOD elite, why would you expect to be tank over someone who can hit a high AC and other damage mitigation of shield mastery etc if they can maintain agro? You dumped your AC for meatbag tanks style with 25% from incorp. Don't get me wrong this can work in a pinch just like any barb (though imp evasion is very nice) but is hardly ideal anyway.

I am totally for migrating my threat generation toward 0% and bumping more dps output and letting the shiny shield tanks step in. I want, so very badly, for S&B tanks to be #1 tanks, except for the possible off-tank position where improved evasion handles specifically designed bosses.

Man, I would LOVE to have a Dwarven Defender tanking stuff.

[Caseas]

High ac builds should remain very good regardless of the system. Many have also advocated that plate & shield builds should gain more mitigation in dr whereas pj builds generally just have a higher ac available. However, this is quite off topic as fixing the ac system should (imo) be done before any minor balancing like that. Really would be nice if a dev could comment on the thread if only to say: not feasible with our current skill/motivation/schedule/manpower/core design/etc

Yeah, I agree. Fixing the AC system would be revolutionary and quite beneficial to the entire game.

[HarveyMilk]

This thread is win. We need dev discussion about AC asap. I love the ideas floating around that make different levels of AC viable.

[Antheal]

While you are playing around with AC tanks (and making some much-needed improvements to Defender lines), any chance of revisiting epic purple-named To-Hits?

As an experiment on Lamannia, can you adjust the Epic Cojoined Abashai Devastator to have 60+3d20 To-Hit (instead of the current 100+1d20 or whatever it is)? The first die rolled would still determine critical threats, grazes, and auto-misses, like Minion.

If you do this and we can test the encounter, it will hopefully help you fix the mess that is Epic monster To-Hit. If you feel it improves the feel of the encounter, perhaps it could be rolled out onto the Live servers (with potentially slightly different numbers for other bosses).


Here's the amount of physical damage mitigation that certain ACs would provide. This assumes that grazing hits deal 35% damage (in practise it's probably closer to 40%, but I set up my spreadsheet before properly thinking this through). Also note that misses due to natural 1s cause 5% mitigation even for a 0AC Kensai.


Plausible, sustainable/semi-sustainable ACs for a threat tank with 400+ threat per second:

70 AC - 5.7% mitigation
75 - 8.575%
80 - 15.05%
85 - 26.07%
90 - 40.6%
93 - 49.75%
95 - 55.61%
97 - 61.1%
100 - 68.3%

and more degenerate ACs (not currently sustainable on any character that's likely to be able to hold aggro)
105 - 76.7%
108 - 79.64%
110 - 80.92%
120 or anything higher - 82.75%

Note that you'd need an AC of 97 or so to take the same amount of physical damage from the CAD as players do on Live - Displacement and rolls of natural 1s provides 52.5% mitigation on Live, and the CAD hits harder on Lama than on Live by about 30 points.


Edit: Some other people have suggested 60+1d60, or 60+1d40 plus the usual d20 roll. Both could work, although I prefer to suggest dice that exist in pen and paper. 60+1d60 would reward sub-75 ACs quite a bit, which I wasn't really trying to do, and would require different mechanics than the present '1=automiss, 20=autohit, 13+=graze if it's not a hit'. 60+1d40 plus a standard 1d20 attack roll would make every point of AC from 81 to 99 worth almost exactly the same amount of extra mitigation (2.5% before consideration of grazing hits).

Why aren't you a Dev already?

[ddo4u]

Oh and on a side note - I for one am really looking forward to U11 totally killing off the 'tanks' with no damage mitigation, and never being in the position of having to heal a half-orc barbarian 'tank' through ToD again.

This.

[moops]

It boils down to this:

People like Shade who are die-hard barbarian fans are always going to not want AC to matter because they have none. AC tanks are going to want AC to matter because they have a lot. What I think it foolish is the notion that a barbarian with no armor and a big axe should be the best option for the “tank”.

Since when does it make you the best in the game to have your HP as high as possible and bring along a bunch of healers to keep your stupid toon alive. The way the game is going making the bosses hit harder, have more fortification, and more high damage spells only make it harder on the healers. I mean why on earth we would want the game to have ways for the melee toons to mitigate more damage as opposed to just surrounding a boss and hoping the healers keep them up. I mean for god’s sake if we make the melee’s need skill and not dump their AC that means that we can’t just blame the healers when we fail….that’s crazy!!!! Good god, if the Fighters could have viable AC that means that my precious Barbarian would have to attack from the back and not get the glory of being the “TANK” then people would start liking them more and it would be grade school all over again….NO DON’T PICK ME LAST FOR DODGEBALL AGAIN.

DDO started on their path to mediocrity the moment they started moving away from having defense as an option and pandered to the DPS ball and heal monkey method. This game needs a major overhaul if it wants to keep the DnD name.

Just because a healer hasn’t gone through mana pots doesn’t mean the quest wasn’t challenging. There are plenty of ways to make it challenging without making it Barbarian, Healer , caster repeat.
These can be obtained by making the bosses summon more minions, making the ones with wings fly and cast spells down (oh no, I cant get my axe that high…anyone have a ladder?) make some bosses launch you across the room. The only limitation is the imagination, and if you are content with the DPS and Heal race then I guess that imagination isn’t too vast.

And by the way TANKS are armored tracked vehicles with armaments . So a slower moving armored SD Fighter is a tank. A barbarian with sprint boost, a loin cloth and a big axe is an illiterate ****** with a bladed stick.

I think Barbarians are a asset to the party, just should not be the aggro tank if the game worked like it should.

Excellent post

There will still be raids where everyone is MAX DPS/HP build/mode. . .It will be a nice balance I think.
My Dex Ranger and Drow Kensai already carry a Tharnes set for threat reduction, since they both get aggro from even TR'dHalf Orc Barbs on certain bosses. . .People should maybe seek out these items as I think with increased HP of Bosses, AC will make a comeback even if it is just for a couple raids--because people still want TOD rings and chance for +3 tomes in VOD.

[Zerkul]

Again, +1 for Sigrog.

[sephiroth1084]

For reference my projected maxed-out AC breakdown with perfect (I think) gear and party make-up: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=338271

10 base
+16 Epic Cavalry Plate w/Nimbleness slotted
+1 alchemical armor ritual
+7 Dex (3 base, 2 blue slot, 1 DoS III, 1 Fighter PL feat)
+9 Epic Swashbuckler w/ +7 enhancement slotted
+1 alchemical shield ritual
+3 profane -- 3 piece Abishai set bonus
+6 protection -- Epic Ring of the Silver Concord
+6 Paladin aura
+4 defender stance
+4 insight -- Swashbuckler
+4 bark -- Yugo pot/Bark pot
+3 dodge -- Epic Grimm's Bracelet
+2 dodge -- Bracelet of Tharaak
+1 dodge -- Dodge feat
+2 Defender of Siberys ToD set bonus
+3 airship
_____
82
+1 Haste
+2 Recitation
+4 Inspire Heroics
+1 Ranger's Barkskin
_____
90
+5 Combat Expertise
_____
95
+1 Artificer's armor infusion
+1 Artificer's shield infusion (can you have both?)
_____
97

That's a pure paladin. A monk splash could get another 5-10 points it looks like, and a Stalwart Defender would end up a bit higher if he were standing next to a full DoS paladin, but I just wanted to demonstrate that 100 AC is not the bar by which we should be measuring and adjusting attack bonuses.

I think that for challenging endgame bosses that target should be something like a 50-60% miss chance on AC 90-92 (before addressing changes to the to-hit/AC system), allowing for improvement with a little more gear and/or better party composition.

[grodon9999]

I think that for challenging endgame bosses that target should be something like a 50-60% miss chance on AC 90-92 (before addressing changes to the to-hit/AC system), allowing for improvement with a little more gear and/or better party composition.

if they get rid of grazing hits, sure. otherwise with the current graze system in place Elite horoth is about right.

[smatt]

It boils down to this:

People like Shade who are die-hard barbarian fans are always going to not want AC to matter because they have none. AC tanks are going to want AC to matter because they have a lot. What I think it foolish is the notion that a barbarian with no armor and a big axe should be the best option for the “tank”.

Since when does it make you the best in the game to have your HP as high as possible and bring along a bunch of healers to keep your stupid toon alive. The way the game is going making the bosses hit harder, have more fortification, and more high damage spells only make it harder on the healers. I mean why on earth we would want the game to have ways for the melee toons to mitigate more damage as opposed to just surrounding a boss and hoping the healers keep them up. I mean for god’s sake if we make the melee’s need skill and not dump their AC that means that we can’t just blame the healers when we fail….that’s crazy!!!! Good god, if the Fighters could have viable AC that means that my precious Barbarian would have to attack from the back and not get the glory of being the “TANK” then people would start liking them more and it would be grade school all over again….NO DON’T PICK ME LAST FOR DODGEBALL AGAIN.

DDO started on their path to mediocrity the moment they started moving away from having defense as an option and pandered to the DPS ball and heal monkey method. This game needs a major overhaul if it wants to keep the DnD name.

Just because a healer hasn’t gone through mana pots doesn’t mean the quest wasn’t challenging. There are plenty of ways to make it challenging without making it Barbarian, Healer , caster repeat.
These can be obtained by making the bosses summon more minions, making the ones with wings fly and cast spells down (oh no, I cant get my axe that high…anyone have a ladder?) make some bosses launch you across the room. The only limitation is the imagination, and if you are content with the DPS and Heal race then I guess that imagination isn’t too vast.

And by the way TANKS are armored tracked vehicles with armaments . So a slower moving armored SD Fighter is a tank. A barbarian with sprint boost, a loin cloth and a big axe is an illiterate ****** with a bladed stick.

I think Barbarians are a asset to the party, just should not be the aggro tank if the game worked like it should.

Some what agree.... But my problem is that for too long they've done too much pigeonholed specific NEEDS in certain raids. In that it's far more advantagious to use a certain kind of Tank/Melee/caster main as oppossed to having several different VERY viable and effective options for that roll. It seems they are at least giving it thought NOW, but as we've seen in the past, such thoughts come and often get left by the wayside the next time some big disaster happens.... Like Aritficer and all the "repairs" that will be needed over the next 6 months.

And in response to the bolded ... The problem is fancy weapon effects, BIG numbers flashing on the screen, this cool flashy graphic etc. are far more interesting and fun to MOST gamers than not getting hit. It's the easier way to go to keep the game interesting for many... Flash......

[Lormyr]

Alot of good discussion here overall. Atleast, if nothing else, the majority of us can agree that the AC system is in serious need of an overhaul.

I firmly believe that AC should be equally (key word) viable and implemented across the board, regardless of how it is achieved. If you have a whatever AC, wether it's from an AC based monk build, a ranger/monk tempest splash, a stalwart defender, or siberys defender, it should defend you just as well in all respects as the other options. This is largely an issue with grazing hits.

I believe that because it's strongly in the spirit of dnd. Also, there are benefits to the pally build or fighter build that get overlooked.

Paladins have much better spells than a ranger all around with the single exception of barkskin, and can also self heal with a frightening competence that most rangers not only lack, but can't match.

And fighters get an insane number of feats. When is the last time you saw a fighter build that struggled with what feats to cut from his build? This routinely is a problem for all of those other build combinations.

Let's also not overlook the fact that, on average, the paladin and fighter varieties are going to have atleast 100 hp more than the ranger and monk combos, probably even more than that.

These are important factors I think. Now, the question is do these things match the extra dps of two-weapon fighting in general game balance? The answer is it depends entirely upon the player and what is being ran and on what difficulty, and not so much about the extra dps.

The real issue is allowing defender characters to properly perform their role with better threat management, but that is a seperate discussion.

A very large part of this game's success and draw (besides it's interactive combat system) is the incredible versatility and customization of character builds. Anything that diminishes that is very unfortunate to me.

There needs to be balance, we all know that. But isn't a large part of that balance the difficulty setting? Why shouldn't a character with a 90 AC be pratically invulnerable in virtually every quest on normal? That makes sense to me. Very powerful character, less reward, less challenge. Isn't that why elite and epic settings exist? To challenge otherwise rediculously powerful characters while offering greater rewards?

[xandariant]

/signed

I trust Sirgog knows that he says about numbers and I for sure think AC should be important in this game.

[Aelonwy]

What a surprise to see this thread like all the other AC related threads that have come and come (many with good viable suggestions) being ignored by the Dev team...

Its not a surprise but it is sorrowful. Maybe they don't realise that it would greatly satisfy us just to know that they are reading these thoughts even if they have no plans to implement them.

[parvo]

Agree a better AC system is needed.

[Riggs]

If they do end up testing different to hits then they need to be looking at alternatives to grazing as well. 45% of incoming damage even on a miss is garbage.

If they insist on inflicting ac with this sort of stuff its no wonder so few even bother trying. Grazing was the turing point in the death of AC.

If they must continue with this artificial means then:

Normal no graz
Hard on 19
Elite on 18
Epic on 17

Simple straight forward progression considering that monster to hit and damage is scaled already in those cases (though I don't believe they should be in game anyway).

15% on elite is a reasonalbe compremise to the garbage of 45% we get now.

That and combine with the iterative attack modifier by AD though perhaps scalling it further and we have a reasonable comprimise.

More or less what I meant by 'less'.

Not that AC would stop working on epic - but assuming a higher to hit bonus for monsters on epic would mean less protection from ac - but not zero as Shade likes.

He has a one track mind - as evidenced by comparing Fvs with super high hp as the 'other tank' - completely ignoring what a 'tank' is supposed to be - and that very few fvs are going to hit that hp mark.

"MOAR HP + DPS!!" - Hmm that sounds like he was asking for exactly the same thing as exists currently. He hates AC for all the reasons others have already stated.

Comparing the sale price of a dps item vs an ac epic item - and using the fact that dps sells for more as some kind of 'proof' that ac should NOT matter because it doesnt matter currently on epics...well it has zero logic behind it.

As is his assertion that the difference between a 800-1000 hp character and a 'plain old 400-500 hp one' is made up from the difference of 8 con vs 14+...because that 60 hp somehow = 300 - maybe because he thinks non-barbs dont have hp gear also.

It would be nice if he used logic as much as time spent testing how uber his barb is in an unbalanced game system that was based on a balanced game system at one point.

Barbs...rage rage away.

[lord_of_rage]

More or less what I meant by 'less'.

Not that AC would stop working on epic - but assuming a higher to hit bonus for monsters on epic would mean less protection from ac - but not zero as Shade likes.

He has a one track mind - as evidenced by comparing Fvs with super high hp as the 'other tank' - completely ignoring what a 'tank' is supposed to be - and that very few fvs are going to hit that hp mark.

"MOAR HP + DPS!!" - Hmm that sounds like he was asking for exactly the same thing as exists currently. He hates AC for all the reasons others have already stated.

Comparing the sale price of a dps item vs an ac epic item - and using the fact that dps sells for more as some kind of 'proof' that ac should NOT matter because it doesnt matter currently on epics...well it has zero logic behind it.

As is his assertion that the difference between a 800-1000 hp character and a 'plain old 400-500 hp one' is made up from the difference of 8 con vs 14+...because that 60 hp somehow = 300 - maybe because he thinks non-barbs dont have hp gear also.

It would be nice if he used logic as much as time spent testing how uber his barb is in an unbalanced game system that was based on a balanced game system at one point.

Barbs...rage rage away.

Shade likes his simple minded me first approach to work. Others enjoy ac tanks. I do. Yes its a pain while gearing them out. Because unlike ug smash dps ac tanks take alot of gear and stats to work. Its not always a simple playstyle. But it is to many of us a very rewarding one esp when you get the gear. Its so much easier to max two stats and smash with a two hander. You are almost always viable. AC melees are not until we get up in the 80s and are still capable of doing dps.

I am glad they are improving ac and making defenders more viable. Sirgog always provides great suggestions to improve the game and unlike others his are not biased. I hope devs consider something along these lines along with continuing to provide more useful ac gear.

[Riggs]

Like the idea of more damage the greater the to hit margin, which should be applied the other way too when being missed.

We used that on old games, it worked well - and a high level fighter could do a lot of damage even with a table leg(in a game where people did not run around with str higher than the gods) - which is how it should be for a high level melee type.

But yeah grazing hits needs to go or be sharply reduced, hit on a 20, grazing on a 19, maybe epics on an 18 - but no further.

And allowing defender builds to get shield blocking benefits while attacking...

And my monks dps doesnt suffer on epics because of his str - it is because I havent looted those epic SOS handwraps yet, and cant rage up to 80 str with 200 kinds of stacking rages...otherwise he gets by on epics pretty good.

[lord_of_rage]

For reference my projected maxed-out AC breakdown with perfect (I think) gear and party make-up: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=338271



That's a pure paladin. A monk splash could get another 5-10 points it looks like, and a Stalwart Defender would end up a bit higher if he were standing next to a full DoS paladin, but I just wanted to demonstrate that 100 AC is not the bar by which we should be measuring and adjusting attack bonuses.

I think that for challenging endgame bosses that target should be something like a 50-60% miss chance on AC 90-92 (before addressing changes to the to-hit/AC system), allowing for improvement with a little more gear and/or better party composition.

Ive crunched lights numbers and he comes in at about 93 fully raid buffed in his next life as an 18p2m dos with pa on twf. Im sure I might be able to squeeze another point or two out but not sure.

[Riggs]

Its not a surprise but it is sorrowful. Maybe they don't realise that it would greatly satisfy us just to know that they are reading these thoughts even if they have no plans to implement them.

More damage = more pots sold...

[sirgog]

Like the idea of more damage the greater the to hit margin, which should be applied the other way too when being missed.

We used that on old games, it worked well - and a high level fighter could do a lot of damage even with a table leg(in a game where people did not run around with str higher than the gods) - which is how it should be for a high level melee type.

But yeah grazing hits needs to go or be sharply reduced, hit on a 20, grazing on a 19, maybe epics on an 18 - but no further.

And allowing defender builds to get shield blocking benefits while attacking...

And my monks dps doesnt suffer on epics because of his str - it is because I havent looted those epic SOS handwraps yet, and cant rage up to 80 str with 200 kinds of stacking rages...otherwise he gets by on epics pretty good.

Honestly I think grazing hits are needed. DDO allows lots of forms of stacking of stats in degenerate ways. Grazing Hits keep builds that stack AC to the max in check somewhat.

You don't notice them at all unless you have an insanely high AC, and you can mitigate them somewhat with DR. But really, they are there to compensate for monsters being too stupid to hit us with Destruction and Improved Destruction weapons, to Sunder us, and to hit us with Exhaustion, Strength Sapping, Acid Fog and maybe even Sundering Ooze - exactly the things we do as players to Malicia.

Other effects could keep degenerate builds under control too - absolute time limits on fights that force players to have a minimum level of DPS (keeps all-out defensive builds, like Shield Mastery WF sorcs with max Con and dumped Cha from soloing things like eChrono), and so on.

Basically, I feel 80% physical damage mitigation isn't gamebreaking, but 95% is. Without grazing hits, raid bosses that focus on melee would need to hit for 300+ to pose a challenge at all to AC builds.