Armor and Mitigation Changes

[Dragon.Star]

Very nice changes and looks to bring some balance back to the game that has been sorely missed for a while.

[Severlin]

Ovrad talks about Peak damage, which we also call damage spikes. The design here is some builds will have higher total mitigation and have to deal with more damage spikes (Evasion builds with high Armor Class and Dodge) and some builds will take more overall damage but have a more predictable damage curve (Heavy Armor builds.)

~ The characters these changes benefit already have lower Reflex saves and thus are taking a lot of extra damage out of the gate.

~ The Evasion builds with high Dodge will have more severe damage spikes, but overall damage will still be lower thus conserving healing spell points *if* the healer can keep them alive during the spikes.

~ If we significantly reduced the MRR of this proposal heavy armor would simply not be as valuable as Evasion + high Reflex. We love our Evasion builds, but we do want other options that can compete in tough content.

Sev~

[Qhualor]

I notice you didn't talk about DR, namely barbarian. Any possible changes coming for them too? I have lots of ideas on that.

[bbqzor]

I wanted to jump in and talk about some upcoming changes we are working on.

Does that mean they are subject to extensive change? Or is this more of a "here it is, we might alter it slightly, but GL" notice?

We have been looking at player feedback and we wanted to make changes to the game to open up more templates and character types.

Apologies for caps but: DO NOT CONFUSE CHARACTER TYPES WITH EFFORT INTO CHARACTER. There are plenty of heavy armor guys which can clear 250+ ac and 200 prr now, and they do just fine when properly kitted out with absorbs etc. This change isnt targeting new character types... its targeting characters without as much work put into them. It is lowering the bar for those builds to survive harder content. You are not reinventing the wheel, you are making the road smoother. Is this your intent?

The characters that seem to be falling behind are the heavily armored characters

"which dont have a lot of effort (past lives, gear, smart builds, etc)" is how that sentence should have ended. People who think slapping on heavy armor and a shield and getting 120 ac should mean they can run around invincible in EE are operating under a faulty set of beliefs. I'm rather tired of people comparing their non-optimal few past life "tank" to 10+ past lives evasion guys thinking it should be fair. Be EXTREMELY CLEAR with what exactly you are targeting here.

Part of the problem is that they can’t use Evasion, and part of the problem is that armor doesn’t really offer that much more armor class than robes or light armor.

Yes, but remember that heavy armor is NOT a replacement for evasion. Evasion is a feature it takes multiple levels to achieve, and then has a lot of restrictions to apply. And it only works on some attacks, some of the time. By contrast heavy armor is available for a single level, or even a feat for those who dont wish to spend a level. It is very accessible and works 100% of the time. And with these changes, it now works on 100% of attacks. The bar to get heavy armor is very low. The bar to apply heavy armor is now very low. This is too much "easy mode" too readily available.

We don’t want to hurt Evasion builds. We would rather bring the mitigation of armor and shields to those levels.

Why the heck should heavy armor/shields mitigate AE damage exactly as well as evasion? I mean I can understand improving it, but this is a flawed design goal.

Our only caveat is we don’t want Evasion builds to be able to reach the highest levels of physical mitigation on top of their existing defenses.

Again, what the heck. So the goal is to have heavy armor be brought up equal to evasion, and then lock evasion out of the highest defense? How is that sane.

Here are some of the changes we are considering.

Again, I hope this means "subject to extensive change" because man are you guys off the mark.

Physical Resist Rating
The first change is to prepare Physical Resist Rating for use in the armor changes. The formula for the rating will change to the following formula, with the resulting multiplier applied to all physical damage.
150 / (150 + PRR)
This progression follows the current formula very closely out to 300 and then this formula is more generous at those higher end values.

The new formula is probably okay from my examination and comparison of the numbers. However, focusing to reward such extreme values seems of little benefit. It encourages mudflation while leaving most of your player base where they are now. This can only mean a heralding of increasing sources of PRR, or values of existing PRR. Both of which are a mistake. It will create more imbalance for the majority of players who are not focused on "maxing out" PRR.

Magical Resist Rating
In addition, we are adding a new value called Magical Resist Rating. The formula for the rating will be the same as for PRR, with the resulting multiplier applied to all magical damage.
150 / (150 + PRR)
This new rating will apply to most non-physical damage sources including spells, elemental damage, poisons, lingering damage, and similar effects.
It is our intention that existing magical items that provide PRR would also provide MRR.

What the heck. All you are doing is inflating the mobs numbers, and then deflating it on the players end. How about you just lower the mob damage on EE? This is overly complicated and unwanted. I guess just imagine that in 100pt font or something... its cumbersome and not wanted. At all.

Armor and Ratings
Armor now has a base level of mitigation through these ratings. Unenchanted armor has Physical Resist Rating as part of its mitigation, and once armor has an enchantment of at least +1 value it also gains Magical Resist Rating.
The value armor depends on the class of the armor.
Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Light Armor: 15 PRR, 15 MRR if armor has enchantments.
Medium Armor: 30 PRR, 30 MRR if armor has enchantments.
Heavy Armor: 45 PRR, 45 MRR if armor has enchantments.

Does this replace the current BAB/PRR portion that armor contributes to the formula? That is critical when commenting here. But suffice it to say that something like this is what you SHOULD be doing, not all the other insane rewriting of game mechanics (yet again). Armor should be a large portion of PRR. Right now, its not. With this change, its still not (but its better than it is). I might suggest more here, depending upon your response on the BAB front.

Shields will give additional PRR and, if enchanted, MRR.
Buckler: None
Light Shield: 5 PRR, 5 MRR if shield has enchantments.
Heavy Shield: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if shield has enchantments.
Tower Shield: 15 PRR, 15 MRR if shield has enchantments.

Okay, but giving bucklers nothing is a mistake. They should count as light shields here, as they do for most of the shield feats. You dont want people taking feats in one area and missing out in another. Feats are an expensive investment, there is no reason mechanics following their inclusion should not reflect that.

In addition, characters who are proficient with shields can also use the larger shields for defense against magical attacks that would normally require a Reflex saving throw. Instead of (or in addition to) using your Reflex saving throw to mitigate the damage you can deflect the damage off your shield. This is represented by increasing your Physical and Magical Resist Ratings against those types of attacks when using a shield. Note that you gain this additional mitigation whether you make your Reflex saving throw or not.
Physical and Magical Resist Rating multiplier against magical attacks that normally allow a Reflex saving throw.
Buckler: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Shield: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Heavy Shield: 2.0
Tower Shield: 2.0
This means that characters with heavier armor and/or heavy or tower shields have an alternate mitigation against large area of effect attacks to help them compete in high level content with characters who use Evasion.

What the heck? I feel like a broken record. You do realize that all these changes are going to make fighters (or clerics or whatever) effectively no-fail evasion characters? I mean have you played DDO? Im sorry if that sounds insulting but I am seriously questioning the amount of game time you have logged if you think this is going to work in reality the way its presented here.

As an example, let’s take the case of a character built today to use heavy armor and tower shield and maximize PRR. Assuming a character had a PPR rating of 200 previously they would have a damage multiplier of ~ .4370 to physical damage.
While this mitigation is decent, characters built this way tend to die quickly once effects like Fireballs and dragon’s breath are flying around the battlefield.

Of course they would... your "example" has a character who invested in defense in one area, and then is facing a different kind of attack. Duh. How about an example where "a rogue with evasion has a reflex save of 100, but tends to die quickly once effects like a giant with a club are swarming around the battlefield". Does that mean evasion should apply a chance to evade club swings? No, of course not. This is just not even remotely a fair baseline case. Terrible.

Under the new system they would have a PRR and MRR of 260 which would translate to a damage multiplier of .4285 for both physical and magical damage. Against area of effect attacks (magic requiring a Reflex saving throw) this would be increased to 520, which translates to .2238.

In this example, when the heavily armored and shielded character is hit by dragon’s breath for 500 damage it would be reduced by his/her enchanted armor and shield down to 112. Meanwhile characters in light or no armor could use Evasion to attempt to negate the damage entirely.

And if you think being auto hit for 112 is somehow comparable to being able to evade that 500 point hit, even if the evasion is almost guaranteed, you simply dont know much about MMOs. This is way overpowered.

Resist Rating Caps, Dodge Caps, and Evasion
In addition, there are new or changed caps on certain scores based on the armor you are wearing.
Dodge Cap for armor and shields
Robes or Outfit: 25%
Light Armor: 20%
Medium Armor: 10% and no Evasion feat
Heavy Armor: 5% and no Evasion feat
These cap values can be increased with abilities or enhancements as they can today.

Okay, this is actually not a bad change... but it does somewhat affect contemporary itemization. Might I suggest adding Dodge Augments in the future (or at least a named dodge augment, with like 4% heroic and 8% epic version). That will help adjustment here, as players can better access combinations which support this new direction.

Buckler: None
Light Shield: None
Heavy Shield: No Evasion feat
Tower Shield: No Evasion feat

Lol you trollin'? Seriously? After forcing everyone to use heavy shields to defensive stance, you are now screwing them for using heavy shields. Totally unnecessary. Just allow evasion with heavy shields like it has been for, oh I dont know, THE WHOLE EXISTENCE OF DDO. Lol.

PRR and MRR Cap for armor
Robes or Outfit: 100
Light Armor: 200
Medium Armor: No cap
Heavy Armor: No cap

Uh.. ouch. You need to adjust the caps here. Robes/Outfits needs to be at least 150, to accommodate current characters without nerf. The rest of the table is okay, but punishing robe/outfit guys like that is pretty underhanded after instituting the old system and the epic past life system. Its not necessary.

Note that we have designed this so characters cannot gain both Evasion and the shield bonus coupled with high levels of resistance rating. This is intentional. If you see a hole in our design that allows for this please warn us!

Consider most of my (admittedly caustic) commentary as a warning for adjustment. The concept (at least, what I think was the motive behind the concept) isn't wrong per se... but you definitely appear to suffer from a "noobs eyes" insofar as how this is going to play out once it hits live, especially in regards to people actually investing into the current paradigm. You can adjust it without screwing over players actually playing your game.

But DPS is terrible when using a shield!
We intend to give characters who use weapon and shield additional options.

~ The Stalwart Defender and the Sacred Defender will no longer be shield based trees. Instead, the enhancements that current require shields will be changed to require medium or heavy armor.

~ The Paladin class has fallen behind beyond the second level so we plan to look at some more compelling reasons to advance in that class.

~ We plan to introduce two new trees for shield use. The Vanguard tree will be focused on DPS while using a weapon and shield. This DPS will come from a combination of weapon damage and shield bashes. The Shieldbearer tree will be a mitigation tree that will focus on heavy armor and shield. This will also offer ways to counter enemies with active mitigation such as stuns, knock downs, and the like. These trees would be available to Fighter, Paladin and perhaps even a new class that supported heavy armor and martial abilities.

I dont wholly agree with these, but will reserve feedback for when such things actually show up for feedback.

What other changes do you plan?
~ The to hit values of creatures in Epic Elite content would be rebalanced so high Armor Class builds will have some mitigation.

If you think the problem with epic is the mobs "to hit" and not its "damage" (both physical and spell/trap), you are doing it wrong.

Not sure what else to say... I feel like I just got my lunch money taken. Maybe you can post a new version of this which isnt as disgusting soon. Thanks.

[BOgre]

This feels like yet another pendulum swing. Yesterday must have Evasion, tomorrow must have Armor. Add to that the Dodge Cap nerf and you're seriously nerfing all the "middle" classes between pyjamas and fullpates. Light/Medium Armor builds will suffer.

Leave Dodge Cap as is and reduce the power of MRR and you may have something.

[TPICKRELL]

Greetings.
...
~ The to hit values of creatures in Epic Elite content would be rebalanced so high Armor Class builds will have some mitigation.

Sev~

I support the ideas behind these changes for heavy armor.

But we need more information on the to-hit changes in EE. What do you consider high Armor Class builds and how much mitigation are we talking about.

The changes you suggested are a good change for EE heavy armor mob and I'm all for them. MRR coupled with the multipliers in the example look to strong to me. Automatically turning 1000 pt damage spells into 200 pts or less of actual damage pretty well trivializes EE damage spells (and makes most EH mob spells irrelevant).

However these changes still leave a large hole for Robe/Light armor up close and personal melee (i.e. not ranged, not caster). While Evasion is a very powerful feat, it does absolutely nothing to mitigate the 200 points a swing that many EE mobs inflict. Unless AC at an achievable level brings meaningful mitigation this still leaves a large problem for up close melee who are in light armor or robes.

If EE mob to-hit AND DC's are rebalanced sufficiently in conjunction with these changes (and the proposed changes in the separate pally thread) then I'm all behind this. If not, its just inverting the power curve so that Heavy armor is far ahead of light armor and robes.

[Scraap]

Heavy Shield: No Evasion feat
Tower Shield: No Evasion feat
~ The Stalwart Defender and the Sacred Defender will no longer be shield based trees. Instead, the enhancements that current require shields will be changed to require medium or heavy armor.
~ The Paladin class has fallen behind beyond the second level so we plan to look at some more compelling reasons to advance in that class.
~ We plan to introduce two new trees for shield use. The Vanguard tree will be focused on DPS while using a weapon and shield. This DPS will come from a combination of weapon damage and shield bashes. The Shieldbearer tree will be a mitigation tree that will focus on heavy armor and shield. This will also offer ways to counter enemies with active mitigation such as stuns, knock downs, and the like. These trees would be available to Fighter, Paladin and perhaps even a new class that supported heavy armor and martial abilities.
Sev~

Well, that pretty much blows up my S&B Evasion tank completely. Goes from Sub-optional damage output traded for decent all around mitigation to nonfunctional entirely due to loosing the PRE. Glad I didn't shell out for PDK for that. ohwait.

[Krelar]

In addition, characters who are proficient with shields can also use the larger shields for defense against magical attacks that would normally require a Reflex saving throw. Instead of (or in addition to) using your Reflex saving throw to mitigate the damage you can deflect the damage off your shield. This is represented by increasing your Physical and Magical Resist Ratings against those types of attacks when using a shield. Note that you gain this additional mitigation whether you make your Reflex saving throw or not.

Is this going to be an "always on" ability as long as you are holding a shield or a "while actively blocking" ability? (HINT: If it's only while blocking it's time to start over)

[Monkey_Archer]

This looks really great. I knew you guys would come around eventually.

I would even reduce the PRR and MRR Cap on light and cloth armor a bit more than the 100 and 200 you posted.

I agree with this. It seems very generous towards unarmored, and the 200 cap doesn't really make much sense considering even getting to 100 PRR is somewhat difficult in light armor. Either that or add some extra incentive to wear light armor.

[Severlin]

Is this going to be an "always on" ability as long as you are holding a shield or a "while actively blocking" ability? (HINT: If it's only while blocking it's time to start over)

Always on.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Well, that pretty much blows up my S&B Evasion tank completely. Goes from Sub-optional damage output traded for decent all around mitigation to nonfunctional entirely due to loosing the PRE. Glad I didn't shell out for PDK for that. ohwait.

I'd love a PM about the details, and how much you'd sacrifice by swapping to a Medium shield.

Sev~

[Bridge_Dweller]

If not, its just inverting the power curve so that Heavy armor is far ahead of light armor and robes.

Heavy armor SHOULD be better.

[Thar]

Greetings.

I wanted to jump in and talk about some upcoming changes we are working on.

We have been looking at player feedback and we wanted to make changes to the game to open up more templates and character types. We are currently fairly happy with the high end potential of casters and characters who wear no armor or light armor and use Evasion. These characters can kite and use magic to do fairly well in our content.

The characters that seem to be falling behind are the heavily armored characters. Part of the problem is that they can’t use Evasion, and part of the problem is that armor doesn’t really offer that much more armor class than robes or light armor. We have been discussing this a lot lately.

We don’t want to hurt Evasion builds. We would rather bring the mitigation of armor and shields to those levels. Our only caveat is we don’t want Evasion builds to be able to reach the highest levels of physical mitigation on top of their existing defenses.

Here are some of the changes we are considering.

Physical Resist Rating
The first change is to prepare Physical Resist Rating for use in the armor changes. The formula for the rating will change to the following formula, with the resulting multiplier applied to all physical damage.

150 / (150 + PRR)

This progression follows the current formula very closely out to 300 and then this formula is more generous at those higher end values.

As examples, a PRR of 50 would offer a damage multiplier of 0.75, a PRR of 100 would offer a damage multiplier of 0.6, and a PRR of 200 would offer a damage multiplier of 0.4285.

Magical Resist Rating
In addition, we are adding a new value called Magical Resist Rating. The formula for the rating will be the same as for PRR, with the resulting multiplier applied to all magical damage.

150 / (150 + PRR)

This new rating will apply to most non-physical damage sources including spells, elemental damage, poisons, lingering damage, and similar effects.

It is our intention that existing magical items that provide PRR would also provide MRR.



Armor and Ratings
Armor now has a base level of mitigation through these ratings. Unenchanted armor has Physical Resist Rating as part of its mitigation, and once armor has an enchantment of at least +1 value it also gains Magical Resist Rating.

The value armor depends on the class of the armor.

Robes or Outfits: No PRR, no MRR
Light Armor: 15 PRR, 15 MRR if armor has enchantments.
Medium Armor: 30 PRR, 30 MRR if armor has enchantments.
Heavy Armor: 45 PRR, 45 MRR if armor has enchantments.

Shields will give additional PRR and, if enchanted, MRR.

Buckler: None
Light Shield: 5 PRR, 5 MRR if shield has enchantments.
Heavy Shield: 10 PRR, 10 MRR if shield has enchantments.
Tower Shield: 15 PRR, 15 MRR if shield has enchantments.

In addition, characters who are proficient with shields can also use the larger shields for defense against magical attacks that would normally require a Reflex saving throw. Instead of (or in addition to) using your Reflex saving throw to mitigate the damage you can deflect the damage off your shield. This is represented by increasing your Physical and Magical Resist Ratings against those types of attacks when using a shield. Note that you gain this additional mitigation whether you make your Reflex saving throw or not.

Physical and Magical Resist Rating multiplier against magical attacks that normally allow a Reflex saving throw.

Buckler: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Light Shield: 1.0 (no additional mitigation)
Heavy Shield: 2.0
Tower Shield: 2.0

This means that characters with heavier armor and/or heavy or tower shields have an alternate mitigation against large area of effect attacks to help them compete in high level content with characters who use Evasion.

As an example, let’s take the case of a character built today to use heavy armor and tower shield and maximize PRR. Assuming a character had a PPR rating of 200 previously they would have a damage multiplier of ~ .4370 to physical damage.

While this mitigation is decent, characters built this way tend to die quickly once effects like Fireballs and dragon’s breath are flying around the battlefield.

Under the new system they would have a PRR and MRR of 260 which would translate to a damage multiplier of .4285 for both physical and magical damage. Against area of effect attacks (magic requiring a Reflex saving throw) this would be increased to 520, which translates to .2238.

In this example, when the heavily armored and shielded character is hit by dragon’s breath for 500 damage it would be reduced by his/her enchanted armor and shield down to 112. Meanwhile characters in light or no armor could use Evasion to attempt to negate the damage entirely.

Resist Rating Caps, Dodge Caps, and Evasion
In addition, there are new or changed caps on certain scores based on the armor you are wearing.

Dodge Cap for armor and shields

Robes or Outfit: 25%
Light Armor: 20%
Medium Armor: 10% and no Evasion feat
Heavy Armor: 5% and no Evasion feat

These cap values can be increased with abilities or enhancements as they can today.

Buckler: None
Light Shield: None
Heavy Shield: No Evasion feat
Tower Shield: No Evasion feat

PRR and MRR Cap for armor

Robes or Outfit: 100
Light Armor: 200
Medium Armor: No cap
Heavy Armor: No cap

Note that we have designed this so characters cannot gain both Evasion and the shield bonus coupled with high levels of resistance rating. This is intentional. If you see a hole in our design that allows for this please warn us!

But DPS is terrible when using a shield!
We intend to give characters who use weapon and shield additional options.

~ The Stalwart Defender and the Sacred Defender will no longer be shield based trees. Instead, the enhancements that current require shields will be changed to require medium or heavy armor.

~ The Paladin class has fallen behind beyond the second level so we plan to look at some more compelling reasons to advance in that class.

~ We plan to introduce two new trees for shield use. The Vanguard tree will be focused on DPS while using a weapon and shield. This DPS will come from a combination of weapon damage and shield bashes. The Shieldbearer tree will be a mitigation tree that will focus on heavy armor and shield. This will also offer ways to counter enemies with active mitigation such as stuns, knock downs, and the like. These trees would be available to Fighter, Paladin and perhaps even a new class that supported heavy armor and martial abilities.

What other changes do you plan?

~ The to hit values of creatures in Epic Elite content would be rebalanced so high Armor Class builds will have some mitigation.

Sev~

PRR changes to up it for heavy and more specifically medium armor - great change

spell aborption? not needed as other items mitigate this damage.

All the rest...STOP changing stuff!!! My Evasion pally has worked months to get the stupid shield that works today with evasion. Why should i have to downgrade to a light shield which does not exist in any good version (ie raid content) today!? There is no reason to limit dodge and evasion from what people have today!!!!

and why the @#$@ do i want to have to move my character to heavy or medium armor to tank? I've been doing this for 5-6 years in light armor to give up ac to gain evasion.

STOP THE CHANGES!!!!!

[Rautis]

Changes to PRR and AC are welcome. MRR seems like it could be an interesting mechanic. To me it seems like it could be too strong. It for sure will be a huge change to the way the game will be played. Some points that I could think of

• MRR interaction with traps can be somewhat counterintuitive to players and even further decreases lethality of traps.
  
  
• Like earlier posters said the spell damage might really lose too much of its peaky nature.
  
  
• Again CeitEireson has a good point about robe using characters without evasion. They'll be in trouble in content designed with MRR in mind.
  
  
• What about Barbarians, Artificers and Favored souls? Will they be doomed to take more magical damage because their armor of choice is medium armor? Couldn't Medium and Heavy armor have same protection against spells since neither of them allows evasion? for physical damage Medium armor allows more dodge atleast.
  
  
• Add me to the list of players who would like PRR and MRR be more separate stats so you would have to make build and gear choices with each of them in mind as separate character properties.
  
  
• Changing shields that have always allowed evasion to no longer allow it seems rather strange. Maybe lower the shield multipliers to MRR into something you can agree having evasion with?

[BOgre]

Heavy armor SHOULD be better.

Well, yes and no. Or have you forgotten that there exist Light/Medium armor wearing DPS classes like Barbs and Rangers? Is it your intention to completely exclude these from EE content now? It was bad for melees before, but this feels like it will be even MORE exclusionary.

[bbqzor]

I'd love a PM about the details, and how much you'd sacrifice by swapping to a Medium shield.

Its not a PM but let me guess:
1) there is no medium shield, so you must mean light/small shield
2) there are two named small shields in game, chitin shield and weathered targe
3) they are lolz
4) he will have to craft or recraft a new shield, which now offers less prr/doublestrike/deflection etc relative to his current large shield
5) he will lose access to all the other benefits of large shield items, such as wall of wood, dethek runestone, and many others.
6) he will still evade things, meaning no gain on that front
7) he will now in theory take less physical damage assuming the other new mods fit, at the cost of redoing his itemization and losing dps via doublestike, bash, etc

Am I close? Cant believe that even has to be said. Face palm.

[BurnerD]

From a practical standpoint his new system makes sense.

Example An evasion toon zigs instead of zags (figuratively) and fails to "evade" a fireball.... the damage should be significant since he/she has little to no physical protection...

A heavily armored character is not relying on the incoming spell missing him, but rather on his armor mitigating it. The end result is less affected by his actions, therefore a lower, but more consistent amount of damage makes sense.

I play both kinds of toons so I really don't have a bias. This just seems logical to me. Sounds like a good direction....

Ovrad talks about Peak damage, which we also call damage spikes. The design here is some builds will have higher total mitigation and have to deal with more damage spikes (Evasion builds with high Armor Class and Dodge) and some builds will take more overall damage but have a more predictable damage curve (Heavy Armor builds.)

~ The characters these changes benefit already have lower Reflex saves and thus are taking a lot of extra damage out of the gate.

~ The Evasion builds with high Dodge will have more severe damage spikes, but overall damage will still be lower thus conserving healing spell points *if* the healer can keep them alive during the spikes.

~ If we significantly reduced the MRR of this proposal heavy armor would simply not be as valuable as Evasion + high Reflex. We love our Evasion builds, but we do want other options that can compete in tough content.

Sev~

[B0ltdrag0n]

These look like great changes. Thanks!

[Severlin]

This feels like yet another pendulum swing. Yesterday must have Evasion, tomorrow must have Armor. Add to that the Dodge Cap nerf and you're seriously nerfing all the "middle" classes between pyjamas and fullpates. Light/Medium Armor builds will suffer.

Leave Dodge Cap as is and reduce the power of MRR and you may have something.

The Dodge cap went up. I think I am missing which nerf you are talking about?

Sev~

[alancarp]

I'm seeing a lot of resistance in the comments thus far to the idea of eliminating Evasion for the heavily armored toons. Frankly, I don't care how it's been done that way for 'THE WHOLE EXISTENCE OF DDO': it just doesn't make any logical sense that anybody wearing 50 lbs. of armor and carrying a large shield would be able to evade anything. You shouldn't be able to have the best of both worlds, IMHO. A 5% dodge cap (i.e., 5% evasion chance) for the full tin cans makes reasonable sense.

In fact, while I applaud the ideas presented in post 1, I do have only a minor question or two:

1. Did you really intend no difference in the PRR/MRR rating multipliers in going from buckler->light shield->hvy shield->tower? I guess I would have expected a slight bonus at each tier, perhaps 1.0 for the buckler, 1.3 for the light shield, 2.0 for hvy, and 2.5 for the tower.... something like that. This would also provide a reward for taking the proficiency feat for the Towers.

2. I'm not clear on whether Armor Class would continue as status quo, or be replaced by this system.

But otherwise, in thinking about defense: it's a "layered" thing. If I have some dodge ability, then you might miss me that way. A whiff is not very likely, but I may have a shield. If you get past my shield, then you have to deal with my armor. Beyond my armor, I might have other magic to resist your damage attempts. These changes seem consistent with those 'real world' ( :] ) physics involved.