25% Dodge cap

[thegreatneil]

This is for ape_man.

[Ape_Man]

This is for ape_man.

Without the obvious bug?

[maddmatt70]

25% incorporeal

Tell me how you get this on a Light Monk please. I have 10% from the eRing of the Stalker.

25% Dodge

Check. Not enough.

50% displacement clickable

Got one already, they don't last all that long. 1:30 seconds per charge and 2 charges each, so carry 20 of them?
And I might point out that anyone can use these, so erm...yeah. Pally with 50% mitigation from PRR can use a Displacement Clickie too.

Perma-Blur

Check, though again, anyone can use this including the above example of the Pally.


Oh and please don't try to strawman me with somthing pointless like "You want the damage mitigation of a Plate Wearer with the DPS of a Monk" Because that's just dumb and nobody is claiming that.

What I want is something equivalent. For Monks that's Dodge. Even with high Dodge chance a Monk is still going to get hit occasionally and with no or almost no Damage Mitigation inherent to the Class this means that mobs hit HARD.

An increase of the Dodge Cap for Monks wouldn't help when getting hit but would help get hit less.

Elven light monk in shadowdancer 5 destiny which is actually not a bad build has +25 incorp, 25 dodge, and displacement clickies (dragonmark feats).

[Llewndyn]

And blurry on, technically aren't you just the product of crop dusting?

I have nothing else to add.

[Archangel666]

And blurry on, technically aren't you just the product of crop dusting?

I have nothing else to add.

What, you mean splattered across the scenery as a fine mist?

(Couldn't resist, it was too good a feed line).

[FuzzyDuck81]

25% incorporeal + 25% Dodge + 50% displacement clickable offers pretty good protection. Plus, just normal AC probably gives the EE mobs 5%-10% misses.

I thought EE was already too easy? Why do we need to raise the dodge cap?

I have a monk that uses this, its rather nice most of the time you're very hard to hit & then combine that shadowdancer ability twisted in & being in primal avatar for primal travel, its roughly 30secs at a time that you can be virtually untouchable

[Dmnqwk]

The problem with dodge is you cannot simply take dodge and look at the issue as a standalone, you need to put it into context of all forms of mitigation:
1) Permanent
2) Temporary
3) Extraordinary

Permanent damage mitigation includes:
Armor
PRR
Dodge
Blurry/Ghostly/Incorporeality
DR

Temporary is:
Stoneskin
Displacement
Activated Abilities such as Shadowdancer's 100% dodge

Extraordinary include:
Stunning and other tactical feats
Mass Hold and other spells

If we remove temporary from the standard equation and focus on Extraordinary,since Epic Elite is very limiting on this category, with very high dcs being required for non-100% success rates. On top of that, Tactical feats in DDO all focus on str (who on earth classifies a TRIP as being str-based after all!)

Rather than concern yourself with a dodge cap, perhaps DDO could invest on making more tactical feats that are based upon attributes other than Strength.
Trip - Allowing a dex based trip with it reflex save based (adding str OR dex to the save) would make more sense than the current incarnation.
Stunning Blow/Fist - Blow should be str based while fist should be wisdom for the fort save.
Dirty Tricks - Int based fighting move which would result in a random condition from dazed/blinded/disarmed (deals 75% less damage) that is reflex save based (with dex or int as the modifier)

Keeping the base damage mitigation low is not so much of an issue as preventing non-str chars from having options in combat. I'd also like to see Rangers receive a feat that lets them trip/stunning blow with their bow around level 7-9. (obviously melee range only)

Focus on mitigating damage through skill rather than stacking dodge on your character!

[honkuimushi]

I'm not sure if it should be completely removed, but it should at least be raised for unarmored characters. A lot of the Monk and other character abilities or gear that a Monk or multiclassed Monk would have access to grant dodge bonuses almost exclusively. There might be some minor AC boosts, but there are very few options for DR or PRR. Past 20, with decent gear it's really easy to hit 25, and then you're out of luck. What makes it even worse, is that with all the abilities that increase MDB, a light armor build can hit the 25% cap as well. And with the increasing tiers of armor, they might very well find it easier to get a higher AC as well-- to go along with the inherent PRR they get.

Honestly, I'd prefer to see the whole new system scrapped and go back to a d20 based system with the current armor tiers and having monsters use the decreasing attack bonuses used in PnP. After all, that was reversed so players wouldn't keep interrupting their attack chain so that they would always be attacking at their highest to hit value. Computer controlled characters can be programmed not to do that. So if monsters with an attack bonus of 20 and above made 20% of their attacks at +0, 20% at -5, 20% at -10, 20% at -15, and 20% at -20, you've expanded the viable range of ACs quite a bit. If you also make them use Epic attack bonuses where you only get +1 to hit every 2 levels, you slow down the race even more. You could even use the "armor as DR" option in Unearthed Arcana. Either of those would have been better than the kludge we have to use now.

[Panserbjorne]

The problem with dodge is you cannot simply take dodge and look at the issue as a standalone, you need to put it into context of all forms of mitigation:
1) Permanent
2) Temporary
3) Extraordinary

Permanent damage mitigation includes:
Armor
PRR
Dodge
Blurry/Ghostly/Incorporeality
DR

Temporary is:
Stoneskin
Displacement
Activated Abilities such as Shadowdancer's 100% dodge

Extraordinary include:
Stunning and other tactical feats
Mass Hold and other spells

If we remove temporary from the standard equation and focus on Extraordinary,since Epic Elite is very limiting on this category, with very high dcs being required for non-100% success rates. On top of that, Tactical feats in DDO all focus on str (who on earth classifies a TRIP as being str-based after all!)

Rather than concern yourself with a dodge cap, perhaps DDO could invest on making more tactical feats that are based upon attributes other than Strength.
Trip - Allowing a dex based trip with it reflex save based (adding str OR dex to the save) would make more sense than the current incarnation.
Stunning Blow/Fist - Blow should be str based while fist should be wisdom for the fort save.
Dirty Tricks - Int based fighting move which would result in a random condition from dazed/blinded/disarmed (deals 75% less damage) that is reflex save based (with dex or int as the modifier)

Keeping the base damage mitigation low is not so much of an issue as preventing non-str chars from having options in combat. I'd also like to see Rangers receive a feat that lets them trip/stunning blow with their bow around level 7-9. (obviously melee range only)

Focus on mitigating damage through skill rather than stacking dodge on your character!

Very insightful.

In order to balance this with existing mitigation, you need to look at all mitigation. Entirely true. (+1 REP)

One thing, that was not discussed however, was prerequisites. Extraordinary mitigation should REMAIN that way. As it cannot be increased drastically or doled out to every class or it essentially becomes another type of mitigation altogether.

Currently, trip is a free tactical ability so just allowing a DEX-based trip in addition to the STR-based trip would increase mitigation AND unbalance encounters. A way to prevent STR characters from losing Trip (brute force applied to legs), or DEX characters from gaining Trip in massive amounts would be to use PREREQUISITES. If you were to make Improved Trip/Combat Expertise act as a prerequisite it reduces the number of people using it and ensures that it remains extraordinary.

The system is balanced because it requires an advanced defensive stance (Combat Expertise) and Improved Trip to perform. Additionally, you should lose all Archer's Focus stacks when you perform a Bow trip. Your focus is not on the targets in your field-of-vision!

The classes that I designed Improved Trip feats for were Rangers, Fighters, Rogue, Artificers and Monks:

*OMNIPRESENT FOCUS (RANGER) BENEFITS: As Rangers are able to focus on switching between ranged/melee combat, perhaps they should NOT lose Archer's Focus when tripping with a bow, due to the fact that they switch between ranged/melee routinely as well as keeping two targets in sight as a granted ability from class levels.

*TACTICAL COMBO (FIGHTER) BENEFITS: Fighter utilizes both Improved Trip/Knockdown effects (including 6 secs knockdown from Great Crossbow) to render a target prone and Improved Sunder concurrently, in effect, rendering a Severe Stunning Blow to a creature and rendering it helpless for up to 8 secs or until the target stands up. If you are using a Great X-bow or a Repeating X-bow and have Improved Sunder as well, the Sunder may be performed as a ranged attack. The fighter must apply both tactical feats himself with the Improved Trip occurring FIRST, then the Improved Sunder applied NEXT to be eligible for the mob to receive the Severe Stunning Blow.

*TEMPLE STRIKE (ROGUE) BENEFITS: Rogue strikes a vulnerable point on any mob that can be Bluffed, giving a -15 penalty to the Balance save to stand up (ensuring that when an enemy fails it's save against your DC, that it's going to STAY down. Successfully bluffing the target then enables sneak attack damage and you could switch to a melee weapon or commence volleying with a repeater/heavy crossbow and preventing retribution from the mob.

*HARASSING TRIP (ARTIFICER) BENEFITS: When a creature is tripped by you, attacks from your Iron Defender will extend the Trip duration by 3 secs per attack, up to 10 stacks. When a mob is tripped by your Iron Defender, your crossbow/bow will extend the duration by 2 sec for each missile that hits, up to 30 stacks. (MAX DURATION: 1min30secs)

*INSTINCTIVE RE-STRINGING (MONK) BENEFITS: Synergy exists within Henshin Mystic abilities for specific weapon/ranged attacks/AOEs so I elect that we include the Bow spec options within that tree, offering a choice between Quarterstaves/Bows (choosing both options further into the tree). The specific weapon/ranged abilities are: Ki Bolt, Force/Fire Spellpower/Lighting the Candle. The AOE abilities are: Glancing blows and Fire-based. When using a Quarterstaff, the Trip would use his Dexterity, when using a Longbow, the trip would use his Wisdom. This improved trip ability indicates that a monk could unstring his bow, perform a trip with the quarterstaff and re-string the bow in a moment's notice. The effect of Improved Trip for monks could probably lower the cooldown on trip by 5 seconds since martial arts/quarterstaves usually involve multiple trips and would ensure that you could give those powerful ki abilities a cast time to balance them while still allow considerable damage that would not immediately inundate the monk with attackers. (With a 10sec cooldown, you could trip 4 attackers, have a few seconds to gather each/position yourself for a Incinerating Wave/begin casting Cauldron of Flame and stack the damage for 20 secs OR you could trip only 3 and s(assuming all of them failed their STR/DEX check and their balance saves!).

My intention though is to make the requirements for DEX-based Tripping, specific to the feat/enhancement and making it easier to balance with only minor tweaks to encounters instead of a complete re-balancing.

[EvilII]

14 PRR mitigates ~9% damage
Shadowdancer gets 100% dodge for 15 seconds every 2 min ~ 12.5% damage mitigation.

.

To be fair, you are getting 100% damage redcution for 15 seconds and then you'll be dead before the cooldown expires. So that's still 100% damage reduction (incorporeal).

[QuantumFX]

Or set the hard cap to equal your current DEX score. (Notice that I said score not modifier.) It’s kind of absurd that a function that is based off of physical coordination (dodge) isn’t influenced by the D&D stat that represents physical coordination (DEX).