Lets' Talk: AC

[Chai]

because the game isn't one-size-fits all. Versatility is pro, not a con.

Do you ever solo or short-man stuff? Have you ever joined a bad pug where you thought you're be a "striker" and then all of a sudden you're now the "tank?"

All the time, and yes, with most people playing as a striker, no one wants to be the tank.

You're talking about a monk which almost needs to actively TRY to not have AC. You need 15 DEX anyway for TWFing and if you dump wisdom you're building your toon wrong. You're an easy to get robe, a prot 5 item, barkskin pot, and a shield clickie away from viable defense (in non-epic content).

Right now my monk has 55 completely accidental AC, unbuffed. If I took expertise, got a natural AC bonus item or a dumptruck full of pots, and slotted exceptional for dex and wis, not to mention paid attention to dodge bonus, I could get it into the 75 range. For non epics its worth it - for epics - keep that DPS gear on.

Even if it made me get hit 50% less of the time, id be satisfied and still do enough damage to be viable. Buffed with a displacement, and Im now much more of a boon to the party, especially the healers.

Pure fighter? not as easy, but it's not that hard to get in splash-build that put out 95% as much damage. if you need that 5% more DPS than so be it, you are choosing to build with no defense.

Preaching to the choir - Ive been harping on this one for years, and wearing my neg rep tossed at me by the spreadsheet gamers like a trophy.

You can STILL get a TWFing kensai, pure fighter in heavy armor to over a 70 if you chose to do so while TWFing.

This is how we used to tank previous to the defender revamps where the PRE added threat. We'd usually ditch the heavy armor and build in monk AC + evasion etc so it wasnt a pure fighter, but it did the job.

[eonfreon]

It seems all of the "let's talk about AC" threads are really just "make it easier to be an AC tank in epics" threads, that disguise themselves as "let's talk about AC" threads in order to seem more about overall game balance than they actually are. I believe that is a passive-aggressive strategy and so is less likely to succeed than one that gets right to the point.

Well, yes. Primarily because AC shifts so much in Epics from the rest of the game. Making it easier to be an AC tank in Epics is very much a byproduct of "improving AC" in some way.

However, once you have the gear you're an "AC Tank", until then you're likely slowly working to the level where the defensive gain is greater than the offensive loss (AC and DPS basically).

Being able to hit a 70 AC awhile back was great at endgame. It took awhile to get there but once achieved you had great defense all the way to Elite. The sacrifice if you were shield blocking was total loss of dps. But this didn't matter because of the way Intimidate worked. And there are ways to have decent to high AC while dual wielding depending on buffs and ability. I hoarded my 5 minute Shield wands. Another reason to have UMD. I guess the Devs saw the AC of the DPS characters was starting to equal and slighlty exceed those of Tank characters, due to Wis and Dex bonus, and that got them worried or something.

Since then many changes have been made to pave the way for greater variety, such as Grazing Hits depending on difficulty level of the quest and Intimidate and Hate Generation being tweaked. So the 70 AC defense was has been "weakened" to allow some similarity between the damage taken by the two extremes of 5% defense and 95% defense. Instead of a high AC taken 1/20th the damage of a zero AC, the range has decreased due to Grazing Hit damage and how it's calculated. So a miss can now still impart 20 hp of damage or so. Still less than the 40-80 I see Mobs hit for, but not nearly as much. Therefore AC defense is nowhere near the effectiveness already. Get surrounded and you're getting hurt bad, with less opportunity to be defensive because even shieldblocking is severly limited in that scenario.

Combine with Mobs that already do Sunder and Improved Sunder (which always make me smile, thinking of them Sundering my nearly nonexistent AC- In Epics I don't bother with AC- maybe 38-50 depending on gear, which is all about the Guards and Effects, not the AC) there already exists methods for the Devs to challenge AC builds, without completely invalidating them.

It wouldn't be as much of an issue if the dps sacrifice wasn't generally so severe. Coupled with mass healing, the thought of even having AC since you're going to be constantly healed anyway, becomes more unlikely.

Thus healing has had to become so powerful to compensate. Or maybe it became too powerful and the Devs can only think of draining the Cleric's mana bar as an effective "balancer". Which it isn't. It just becomes another plat, time, or even money sink as Mana Pot use becomes more prevalent. It's only balancing effect is that many Divine characters would rather only heal themselves and friends rather than group up with unknowns who may have little to no built-in damage mitigation or healing ability. And if they don't they better have a lot of DPS to compensate or they won't last long even with a healer.

Quests become as much about not using a Mana pot as about completion and cooperation.

Add to that the fact that Divine and Arcanes can do things better at range and thus receive less damage, while being able to click and heal quickly while doing other things (even Arcanes due to the nature of WF and PMs and UMD in general) while a melee has generally less healing (Paladins and Rangers do have self-heals, which can be a boon, but far less potent) and usually has to duck and weave and gulp, hoping to outdrink incoming damage enough to be able to swing again.

So with unreasonably high AC numbers required for dealing with simple trash AC becomes broken at the Epic for most everyone. HP and DR becomes king. As well as specific gear.

While I do agree AC is broken to this extent, it does work well until this point. Perhaps in some cases too well, but that has more to do with quest design than anything. What would be needed is more variety in what monsters attacked us with.

Of course that in itself is an issue, since I don't have a clue how much work that would entail. And for the most part it is unnecessary for the older quests. They've been balanced at their level for a long time. They really are not broken by much if at all. On Normal someone with a build with CE and AC gear may seem godlike at level, until you run a Hard or Elite quest where Grazing comes into effect. It's not like Epic, so Grazing Hits really are paper cuts, especially with some DR, but you do see the steady decline of HP.

Now, because AC may be broken in Epics does not mean that the melee build is broken in Epics. There are alternatives to AC. I like Radiance Guard for the blindness. I like the Cove Cloak for the blur. Corrosive Guards do a nice bit of damage too. Plus on my Paladin I wear CoOp Necklace so I can use those hits at least. But I had to push up HP and healing amp and disregard AC for the most part. I still carry AC gear and can switch to 65 AC or so selfbuffed and slightly over 70 with every outside buff with or without a shield depending on whether I want to dual wield or shield block, but I lose alot in other areas to reach that. So I might as well get my AC nothing and bring everything else up. AC becomes "lost" in the shuffle.

That's how I see it so far.

[Chai]

Seriously, it's not that hard to fix the AC problem...

The issue is the fear problem. They are afraid of having high AC toons dominate the game, which has been clearly demonstrated in the coding of unrealistically high ABs of epic trash. Its practically impossible in the current state of the game to have an AC toon who will dominate more than caster classes however, who can mitigate damasge via keeping their distance.

[grodon9999]

The issue is the fear problem. They are afraid of having high AC toons dominate the game, which has been clearly demonstrated in the coding of unrealistically high ABs of epic trash. Its practically impossible in the current state of the game to have an AC toon who will dominate more than caster classes however, who can mitigate damasge via keeping their distance.

And it's complete horse-hockey. Compared to casters? LOLz!

[Cyr]

The issue is the fear problem.

Partially, but it is a fear problem rooted in basic disconnect with how the game actually plays.

[grodon9999]

let me crunch some numbers and get back to you on this . . . let me figure out what's possible.

So I crunched some numbers . . . Fighter pure 20 Kensai with SOME AC gear and feats compared to a fighter 18/monk 2 with some AC gear and feats. Both start with 16 STR/DEX, the 18/2 would have lower CON for WIS points. No combat expertise . . .

keep in mind . . . both have a butt-load of gear and i tried to get as evenly as possible.

Fighter 20:

10 Base
1 Dodge
1 TWD
1 Alchemical Dodge
17 Epic Cavalry plate (+7 Slotted)
4 Shield wand
4 Bracers of wind (+3 and +1 Dodge)
7 Dex (and this is unrealistically generous but possible - includes Yugo Pot)
4 Insight (Shroud Crafted)
5 Protection
2 Dodge Trinket/goggles
1 Haste
5 Barkskin
3 Abishai (Cloak, boots, helm?)
4 Airship (3 natural, 1 more DEX)

69 - power-attack AC. He'd have to invest some AP in max-DEX bonus and maybe need more slotted in a blue-slot somewhate

Now lets take Mr. Monkey splash who has to take some points away from CON to get Wisdom . . .

10 Base
1 Dodge
1 TWD
4 Icy Raiments Dodge
1 Alchemical Dodge
6 Wisdom
7 Dexterity
3 Chattering ring/Epic Grim's
4 Insight (Shroud Crafted)
5 Protection
5 Barkskin
8 Armor Bracers (Siren's belt?)
4 Shield wand
1 Haste
2 Yugo
3 Abisai (missed this fuirst time around)
5 Airship (3 Natural +2 DEX and +2 WIS)
2 Dodge 2 (trinket/goggles

72

I'm sure he might have more room to grow but he's gonna run out of gear slots eventually. Did I add anything up horribly wrong?

[Cyr]

Now note that in addition to lower con the 18/2 also loses the capstone for less dps

So that monk splash looks like a gimp in comparison...of course the major advantage for that build is the evasion gain.

He is using the same bracers/armor/trinket slot as the pure, but he also has another slot burned on chattering/grim's and whatever slots he needs for wisdom (clearly the dex both are investing in though ) meh missed the abishi only being on one and not the other...air guard proc happens decently on the bracers so that is situationally a +1...so gear slots I think the abishi should be on both to make sense here bumping up the monk by 3 or on neither dropping the fighter by 3...the chattering needs to stay though as that is a no brainer piece of gear with the gear slot difference noted then.

24 dex is not insane by any means. It is 15 starting + 6 item + 3 Exceptional (tod ring + epic slot somewhere)...that is ignoring any tomes so yeah not insane at all...so really a 14 starting + 6 item + 1 exceptional + 3 tome which is really very reasonable.

Oh and another advantage to the pure fighter is they can throw on a shield to get even better AC without messing around with their gear setup. The other build could also, but they would need some major gear shifting to pull this off in a situational basis where it might matter.

So I would say as close as possible the monk splash has 3 more AC, but is running with another gear slot used for AC (at min).

[grodon9999]

Now note that in addition to lower con the 18/2 also loses the capstone for less dps

Not only that . . . but with the gear slotting the Pure 20 would be able to fit in 2 ToD sets and the 18/2 would not have room. he'd also have less HP and the reflex save on a fighter is kinda meh so evasion would only exist on paper.


Where's this imbalance again? It sure as heck ain't in the splashing, the OP monk stances on the other hand . . .

[grodon9999]

Now note that in addition to lower con the 18/2 also loses the capstone for less dps

So that monk splash looks like a gimp in comparison...of course the major advantage for that build is the evasion gain.

He is using the same bracers/armor/trinket slot as the pure, but he also has another slot burned on chattering/grim's and whatever slots he needs for wisdom (clearly the dex both are investing in though ) meh missed the abishi only being on one and not the other...air guard proc happens decently on the bracers so that is situationally a +1...so gear slots I think the abishi should be on both to make sense here bumping up the monk by 3 or on neither dropping the fighter by 3...the chattering needs to stay though as that is a no brainer piece of gear with the gear slot difference noted then.

24 dex is not insane by any means. It is 15 starting + 6 item + 3 Exceptional (tod ring + epic slot somewhere)...that is ignoring any tomes so yeah not insane at all...so really a 14 starting + 6 item + 1 exceptional + 3 tome which is really very reasonable.

Oh and another advantage to the pure fighter is they can throw on a shield to get even better AC without messing around with their gear setup. The other build could also, but they would need some major gear shifting to pull this off in a situational basis where it might matter.

So I would say as close as possible the monk splash has 3 more AC, but is running with another gear slot used for AC (at min).

So long of the short . . . people worried about monk-splash versus armor don't know what they are talking about and should just stop typing.


Wait . . . I didn't include Abisahi on the Monkey-splash? The was an error, I meant to have the gear as close to the same as possible.

so it's potentially 3 more with a significant loss in DPS (no capstone, 1 TOD set max). Evasion with a lousy reflex save versus 20-40 HP.

I still fail to see how that's un-balanced.

[Thrudh]

Yeah, that does nothing to fix #2 though. The range of useful AC still is stuck on the d20.

If you agree that #2 is an issue then any real fix needs to expand this range somehow.

Not really... Use two tiers, one for trash, one for bosses...

Make 60-80 relevant for trash, make 80-100 relevant for bosses. Just change their to-hits. Done.

Even better, Make it three tiers, with two types of trash like Amrath

So one type of monster might miss 50% even on a 55 AC, and the other 50% on a 70 AC...

That makes 50-80 a useful range... Maybe 70% of the monsters have the higher to-hit to not make it too easy. But still, the lower AC is still doing SOMETHING... better than 0 AC anyway.

And then the top tank players will still strive to increase their AC so they can handle bosses. But the people who don't still gain a benefit from AC against trash.

[Cyr]

Not really... Use two tiers, one for trash, one for bosses...

Make 60-80 relevant for trash, make 80-100 relevant for bosses. Just change their to-hits. Done.

Even better, Make it three tiers, with two types of trash like Amrath

So one type of monster might miss 50% even on a 55 AC, and the other 50% on a 70 AC...

That makes 50-80 a useful range... Maybe 70% of the monsters have the higher to-hit to not make it too easy. But still, the lower AC is still doing SOMETHING... better than 0 AC anyway.

And then the top tank players will still strive to increase their AC so they can handle bosses. But the people who don't still gain a benefit from AC against trash.

Who cares about trash? You don't build toons for trash mob. You build them for the tough fights in the game. Why throw away 4 slots on AC for trash and some build resources when you can instead wear gear to pump up your CC and dps? The whole party is going to take less damage that way and everything dies faster too.

[Thrudh]

Who cares about trash? You don't build toons for trash mob. You build them for the tough fights in the game. Why throw away 4 slots on AC for trash and some build resources when you can instead wear gear to pump up your CC and dps? The whole party is going to take less damage that way and everything dies faster too.

Who cares about AC against epic bosses? Just auto-attack and the cleric can cast mass-heals....

The reason melees suck in epics is because of TRASH. I couldn't solo Amrath on my melee if the "trash" mobs could hit me 100% of the time, and I can't solo epics for the same reason.

Casters can run and kill. Melee cannot. AC definitely matters against epic "trash" mobs.

So all these arguments you've been making about AC is just about bosses? Jeesh, the only reason AC characters shine in levels 1-19 is because of their AC against trash.

Of course AC vs trash is important!

[Adrian99]

Well, that IS the problem with AC... the fact that AC is useless in epics.

AC is slightly unbalanced, but not too bad in the 1-19 game. The new defensive PrEs and new gear make it fairly easy to get a decent AC (if you build for it) in the 1-19 game.

The only problem with AC is that it then becomes worthless at end-game.

It's as big a problem as the spell-casters had in epics before the spell-pass... Casters were very verstatile in the 1-19 game, with tons of different spells that worked. You could nuke, CC, insta-kill.... You could choose a focus.

In the original epics with their super-high hit points, and immunites, all a caster could do is CC.

Right now, a perfectly viable game choice from 1-19 is (almost) completely worthless at end-game. The only place (at end-game) AC is useful is tanking non-epic raid bosses.

If that's the case you could either conceptualize it as a problem with AC or a problem with epics. So it might make more sense to fix epics than AC, since the only problem with AC is epics. My only thought is that when the real "Let's Talk: AC" thread comes around that these ideas are properly delineated so that the devs get the best actionable information and don't screw up one thing trying to fix another. That is, whatever suggestions are made at that point, hopefully the philosophical debate will be left out so that the devs don't read all the arguments as:

[grodon9999]

Who cares about AC against epic bosses? Just auto-attack and the cleric can cast mass-heals....

The reason melees suck in epics is because of TRASH. I couldn't solo Amrath on my melee if the "trash" mobs could hit me 100% of the time, and I can't solo epics for the same reason.

Casters can run and kill. Melee cannot. AC definitely matters against epic "trash" mobs.

So all these arguments you've been making about AC is just about bosses? Jeesh, the only reason AC characters shine in levels 1-19 is because of their AC against trash.

Of course AC vs trash is important!

DPS toons with AC that works against trash = Divines not having to hear "HJEAL MEH" every 3 seconds = more fun for all parties involved.

[Thrudh]

If that's the case you could either conceptualize it as a problem with AC or a problem with epics. So it might make more sense to fix epics than AC, since the only problem with AC is epics. My only thought is that when the real "Let's Talk: AC" thread comes around that these ideas are properly delineated so that the devs get the best actionable information and don't screw up one thing trying to fix another. That is, whatever suggestions are made at that point, hopefully the philosophical debate will be left out so that the devs don't read all the arguments as:

Like I said before, there is no real AC problem. Lower the to-hit on all epic trash and a few bosses, and we're done.

Here we go... Lightbulb over the head moment.

Just make the epic trash BAB random.... Say 50-75... And there we go... Matched with the d20 roll to hit, we just increased the useful AC range from 55-95.

Make it a bell curve so most of them are right around 63, but some have a crappy +50 to hit, and a few have an awesome +75 to hit.

Or is that what Cyr was suggesting before?

Basically, we keep the 1d20 roll for to hit, but behind the scenes, all the trash mobs to-hit have a range instead of all orthans have +50 to hit, etc.

[Cyr]

Who cares about AC against epic bosses? Just auto-attack and the cleric can cast mass-heals....

The reason melees suck in epics is because of TRASH. I couldn't solo Amrath on my melee if the "trash" mobs could hit me 100% of the time, and I can't solo epics for the same reason.

Casters can run and kill. Melee cannot. AC definitely matters against epic "trash" mobs.

So all these arguments you've been making about AC is just about bosses? Jeesh, the only reason AC characters shine in levels 1-19 is because of their AC against trash.

Of course AC vs trash is important!

Yes, it's all about the bosses and not the solo abilities of melee. The reasons why AC character shine in levels 1-19 (when they do) is when they tank Horoth and the only heals that are needed are for marks or they tank Sulu and the clerics can blow their SP doing other things as the party is never at risk of a wipe throughout the raid due to the tank going down.

If all you gain is trash resistance then no it's not an awesome thing to spend build resources and gear slots for it. If you are not really sacrificing something then whatever sure why not...but when it starts dipping into real sacrifices like feat slots, AP, and gear slots then it has to be worth something more then 50% miss chance on a mob that lasts for maybe a few swings before dying and that you have numerous ways of lowering their damage output already many of which also increase your dps such as stuns, freezing ice, earthgrab, stone prison...

All that junk does not work on boss mobs. The methods of mitagating damage against them are much smaller and they stick around much longer.

[grodon9999]

If all you gain is trash resistance then no it's not an awesome thing to spend build resources and gear slots for it. If you are not really sacrificing something then whatever sure why not...but when it starts dipping into real sacrifices like feat slots, AP, and gear slots then it has to be worth something more then 50% miss chance on a mob that lasts for maybe a few swings before dying and that you have numerous ways of lowering their damage output already many of which also increase your dps such as stuns, freezing ice, earthgrab, stone prison...

All that junk does not work on boss mobs. The methods of mitagating damage against them are much smaller and they stick around much longer.

Give people a choice. Make damage mitigation via AC a viable option if people chose to build this way. If the to-hits were similar to Elite Amrath it would be a more viable option.

More viable options = better game.

[Cyr]

Like I said before, there is no real AC problem. Lower the to-hit on all epic trash and a few bosses, and we're done.

Here we go... Lightbulb over the head moment.

Just make the epic trash BAB random.... Say 50-75... And there we go... Matched with the d20 roll to hit, we just increased the useful AC range from 55-95.

Make it a bell curve so most of them are right around 63, but some have a crappy +50 to hit, and a few have an awesome +75 to hit.

Or is that what Cyr was suggesting before?

Basically, we keep the 1d20 roll for to hit, but behind the scenes, all the trash mobs to-hit have a range instead of all orthans have +50 to hit, etc.

Not exactly. I would throw the d20 out completely for mobs. You don't see that dice being rolled anyways so it's not like it is a big loss from a d&d feeling standpoint. It would be a behind the scenes roll each time instead of a once per mob roll with no upper or lower limit, but with the median and probably the standard deviation based upon the mobs base to hit score. The once per mob roll thing works well for trash mobs, but for boss mobs it is not a great idea because it could lead to people doing the hardest raids by resetting instances until a favorable roll came up for the boss mob.

By doing it on a roll to roll basis you can have a wider range of AC numbers for both trash and bosses.

[Dartwick]

Any AC over 50 should help in the end game. I dont mean you should be unhittable, but it should notably reduce your damage over time.

[Cyr]

Give people a choice. Make damage mitigation via AC a viable option if people chose to build this way. If the to-hits were similar to Elite Amrath it would be a more viable option.

More viable options = better game.

You are singing to the choir on that one. I think the base to hit numbers in epics are complete garbage that needs to change no matter what else is done involving the system to address the other concern (larger range of AC mattering). But that means all mobs in epics, not just the gimps.