Armor and Mitigation Changes

[sollor]

So the way i see it all Enhancements, Epic Destinies, Feats and Items that give PRR will also give MRR (for now).
so the Divine sphere Epic Past Life Feats will give you 27 prr and mrr which will give 16% less damage.
If you take Arcane sphere Epic Past Life Feats will give you 9% less damage.
my answer is give Arcane sphere Epic Past Life Feats mrr and take away the Absorption and take mrr from Divine sphere Epic Past Life Feats.

[Thar]

There is still the nerf to heavy shield users who will now be unable to use evasion. with no good light shields throughout the whole game, this will need to be added at all levels (along with bucklers for swashbucker) or the change is a big nerf to any evasion toon that uses shields.

[Synthetic]

If you're not having a PRR cap you should remove the dodge cap for wearing armor. It's unfair that armor wearers are penalized with no gain because of the dodge cap mechanic. In the original vision armor wearers would have had significant PRR over evasion toons, but due to changes in enhancements magic gear and feats it's simply no longer true. So just get rid of the dodge cap on armor/shields.

[lyrecono]

After all this i'm pleasantly surprised to see something done about all this melee malarkey.
Welcome to the forum Sev

These are separate enchantments. Current items will give PRR and MRR in equal amounts, but future items need not do so. There is design space for future loot to offer more of one or another.

Sev~

So, lets add things up shall we?
a lv 20 bladeforged kensai fighter/epic 8 in LD
45 prr from armor(body feat&docent)
30 from bracers
36 from past lives (27 martial, 9 pdk iconic), again assuming these will give mrr too
no shield due to 1 handed fighting style (using a Thunderholm kopesh&orb)
-------=111 prr. (taking 57% melee damage) and an assumed 111 mrr, (57% magical damage taken), diminished dodge.

vs the centered bladeforged monk6/pally2/fighter 12/epic 8 in LD, owning epic reflexes
36 from pastlives
12 from earth stance
15 from standing with stone
30 from bracers
-------=93 prr (taking 61% melee damage) and no reflex related damage taken, note: max dodge bonus possible

vs full plate wearing pally/fighter using a tower shield
200 prr (number taken from this tread) comes to roughly 43%

So this change will give the full plate&tower shield wearing fighter a 18% melee dr but looses 57% ref based damage mitigation over a popular melee build.
I'm not convinced, yet...
More feats, ED's etc will dilute the numbers further but at least it's a start

Evasion builds have to stack Reflex saving throw bonuses, while heavy armor builds will want to stack PRR (and thus MRR) to reach similar levels of mitigation. Both should make sacrifices to gear towards mitigation.

Sev~

will it really close the gap?
Does the new prr on armor stack with the older system? (prr=6+bab for plate mail)
Will Warforged body feats be brought in line with normal armors? (they do cost a feat, it is expected they work as intended)
Will those melee classes gain enhancements to make the 1 handed feat line work with the bigger shields? it seems only logical since tanks really need some dps to hold said agro (no use building defense if the ranged toons take agro away in on shot).

From wiki:
Player characters can actively block by holding the block key (default: left shift). While blocking, a character gains +2 Armor Class, has increased Damage Reduction, and is immune to most special attack and weapon effects. This includes, but is not limited to, Scorpion/Spider Poison, Wraith Constitution Drain, and damage enchantments such as Crippling, Flaming, Wounding, Maladroit, and even Bane.

Wouldn't it have been easier to create an enhancement in the tank lines that make you considered blocking 100% of the time for the purpose of block energy (ED and past live), Shield deflection and the stuff mentioned above to compensate for the lag instead of adding another system? The added prr is appreciated though.

[Tscheuss]

I liked the original ideas posted in the OP. They had the added potential of making mithril special again. Imagine a large mithril shield granting the protections of a large shield, but considered a light shield for the purposes of evasion or any other penalty. Medium mithril armor could be in high demand for the same reasons.

[HastyPudding]

If you're not having a PRR cap you should remove the dodge cap for wearing armor. It's unfair that armor wearers are penalized with no gain because of the dodge cap mechanic. In the original vision armor wearers would have had significant PRR over evasion toons, but due to changes in enhancements magic gear and feats it's simply no longer true. So just get rid of the dodge cap on armor/shields.

That's one of the dumbest ideas I've heard on these forums...

No dodge cap? So people in outfits/robes getting tons of dodge from enhancements and feats and the right gear setup can have upwards of 35-40+ dodge chance? That completely blows any AC you can get out of the competition with less than half the work needed and almost no loss in dps. That's beyond constructive into the realms of breaking the game.

[Standal]

Why does MRR need to exist? If you want to give heavy armor tanks protection against magical effects, put absorption or spell absorption on heavy armor and shields. MRR in the example posed by the devs is not only like evasion, it's better. It's more than enough to fix PRR such that it's a much more linear benefit. It would be nice if you could actually make AC work also.

This is almost certainly a horrible change. Either it won't make any difference to any but the most tweaked out defender builds or it will be completely overpowered and all FOTM builds will now be high PRR/MRR. Just depends what the actual math turns out to be.

[thegreatneil]

That's one of the dumbest ideas I've heard on these forums...

No dodge cap? So people in outfits/robes getting tons of dodge from enhancements and feats and the right gear setup can have upwards of 35-40+ dodge chance? That completely blows any AC you can get out of the competition with less than half the work needed and almost no loss in dps. That's beyond constructive into the realms of breaking the game.

....ON armor.

[Xyfiel]

To think if they would have made spell resistance work on damage spells like it should be and not jacked up CR's way too high, we could have used real "magic" resistance that already exists in DND. Spell Resistance is already in game and doesn't work, why don't you fix that?

AC, DR, and SR already covered most of the recent changes from the past few years(PRR, MRR, Dodge). Now things are just overly complicated.

[Pseudograph]

Some character/build types now popularly played can have amazing defensive abilities including evasion.

The MOST amazing still will after this change because they have advantages greater than what a shield provides.

This will not be the fortune of those builds that REQUIRE the benefit of an ADEQUATE shield to achieve some (certainly not nearly all) of that defensive capability.

If you are suggesting that all characters (not just Stalwart/Sentinel types) will no longer be able to use evasion with a large shield, this change would be outrageously (and
unnecessarily) extreme and cause only greater imbalance.

Light armor evasion tanks make real sacrifices to do their "job". Using a shield is not without costs.

Is it your intention to give shield users more "DPS" (or some other "special" consolation prize) than a poor tank should be allowed?!

My question is Why?

P.S. I think Captain America was wondering about this too.

Pseudograph

[ScoobieDoo]

So, lets add things up shall we?
a lv 20 bladeforged kensai fighter/epic 8 in LD
45 prr from armor(body feat&docent)
30 from bracers
36 from past lives (27 martial, 9 pdk iconic), again assuming these will give mrr too
no shield due to 1 handed fighting style (using a Thunderholm kopesh&orb)
-------=111 prr. (taking 57% melee damage) and an assumed 111 mrr, (57% magical damage taken), diminished dodge.

vs the centered bladeforged monk6/pally2/fighter 12/epic 8 in LD, owning epic reflexes
36 from pastlives
12 from earth stance
15 from standing with stone
30 from bracers
-------=93 prr (taking 61% melee damage) and no reflex related damage taken, note: max dodge bonus possible

Interesting comparison between the evasion and non-evasion build. Perhaps they can change it so the enhancement bonus on armor include a PRR/MRR bonus as well. Currently, there's no point getting anything more than +1 enhancement cause the rest just gives a small boost to AC which is useless for most players. Providing an enhancement bonus to PRR/MRR will make the difference between the PRR realistically attainable by the typical non-evason vs evasion build more apparent.

Maybe something like this for starters :
robe/cloth = no PRR bonus to enhancement level
light armor = 1 PRR bonus per enhancement level
medium armor = 2 PRR bonus per enhancement level
heavy armor = 3 PRR bonus per enhancement level

[nibel]

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)

(...)

PRR and MRR Cap for armor (tentative, work in progress)

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

Make PRR linear instead of diminishing returns. Hard cap it by armor type (ignore shield for now). Tweak current PRR equipment numbers if needed. I would cap it in increments of 20%: Robe 20, Light 40, Medium 60, Heavy 80. Make each armor tier give inherent 10 PRR. Each shield starting from light tier should give inherent 5 PRR (buckler gives only 1).

Examples:

-Robe and no shield: Cap 20, inherent 0.
-Light armor and no shield: Cap 40, inherent 10.
-Light armor and light shield: Cap 20, inherent 15 (10 + 5).
-Medium armor and heavy shield: Cap 60, inherent 30 (20 + 10).
-Heavy armor and no shield: Cap 80, inherent 30.
-Heavy armor and tower shield: Cap 80, inherent 45 (30 + 15).

This way, since the damage reduction is percentage-based, it scales right all the way from 1 to 30. Heavy armored characters will easily achieve the top tier of PRR, while things like Earth stance can be worked to "be considered as if wearing light armor" for cap reasons (Earth Stance as a whole need a balance nerf, but lets not digress on it).

Enchanted armor provides extra 2 PRR per enhancement bonus. Enchanted shields provides extra 1 PRR per enhancement bonus

Mage Armor gives 10 PRR. Shield spell (but not nightshield) gives 5 PRR. Epic Mage Armor gives 20 PRR and the target is considered to be wearing light armor (receiving a cap of 40).

PDK/Divine past lives can be reworked to give 1 PRR per tier instead of 3. With a linear progression, 1% is higher than 3 PRR almost all the time.

On top of that, DR will start to be counted AFTER PRR percentual damage reduction. So, a higher PRR makes DR more useful instead of less.

=============

Now, on MRR, I think the armor caps should be different: Increments of 15%. Robe 15, Light 30, Medium 45, Heavy 60. But, this time, shields will be considered. Bucklers will provide an additional 5, Light/Heavy additional 10, Tower additional 15, Runearms additional 20 (because it absorbs environmental energy for its shots), and Orbs additional 30 (Because they were developed to defend against magic).

Yes, this means a heavy armor cleric with an orb have a 90% MRR cap.

Absorption items will be reworked to give out MRR against their specific element, thus making them non-stackable between different values of the same absorb quality (But stacks with the general MRR bonus).

Armor by itself does not give inherent MRR, unless they are enchanted. Each +1 on armor will provide +1 MRR. Each +1 on shields will provide +3 MRR. Each +1 on orbs will provide +5 MRR. (Not sure how to set on runearms. +4 per max tier?)

On top of that, elemental resistance will start to be counted AFTER MRR percentual damage reduction. So, a higher MRR makes the resists more useful instead of less.

===================

Probably not hitting the same things you aimed at the dev reunion, but this would be my takes on PRR/MRR mechanic.

[Aviya]

Why does MRR need to exist? If you want to give heavy armor tanks protection against magical effects, put absorption or spell absorption on heavy armor and shields. MRR in the example posed by the devs is not only like evasion, it's better. It's more than enough to fix PRR such that it's a much more linear benefit. It would be nice if you could actually make AC work also.

This is almost certainly a horrible change. Either it won't make any difference to any but the most tweaked out defender builds or it will be completely overpowered and all FOTM builds will now be high PRR/MRR. Just depends what the actual math turns out to be.

Kinda have to sign this.
Just go for new Enhancements in the stalwart and defender trees that grant a 10/20/30 % absorbsion of all incoming spell damage when wearing medium and 15/30/45 % when wearing heavy armor.
Just some math to explaine why 45% magical damage absorption is not too powerful compared with evasion:

 1000 points of Fire damage coming your way in Fire in Thunder raid. 
If its epic elite 99% of current evasion builds don't make their save when Rolling 1 because the dc of the fireball is very high.
-character 1 with evasion like dex based Ranger in Light armor: takes 0 damage on successful reflex save and 50% on 2 failed reflexes save (because Fire Shield scrolls are important) so a total of 1000 damage over 20 fireballs.
-character 2 with improved evasion same reflex save like a rogue or monk: takes 500 damage over 20 fireballs. 
-Character 3 with heavy armor and high reflex like pally: takes 137 damage on a reflex save (1000-->500 with save-->275 with new 45% heavy armor absorption enhancement-->137-->fireshield) and 275 on failed reflex save for a total of 3025 damage over 20 fireballs  so it would still take 3 times more  damage that an evasion character and 6 time more than an improved evasion one but it would be much better than the current situation.

Also do the same with eldritch knight tree and warpriest tree so its something that can be used by pure dc casters like palemasters and dc clerics.
It would be perfectly Balanced just because it Would work only in medium and heavy armor so there is zero chance to stack evasion on top of this.

(Barbarian for example can get this Bonus by splashing 1 Level as a fighter/cleric/fvs/wiz to unlock the enhancement from the tree or can go for 2 lvl of rogue and have evasion up to the.player choise )

[Merlin-ator]

I haven't ran any numbers yet, so my reply may not be worth much. I may also be missing a few key points of the proposal, through fog of sleeplessness. Lots of ideas on the matter, though.


This is a pretty good idea. I'm not too clear on how MRR is different from PRR (does one always affect the other?), but adding it and combining it with higher PRR would go a long way towards making heavily armored characters viable in EN and EH.

I may be reading this wrong, as I'm pretty tired, but I'm seeing that having a high PRR gives a damage multiplier. This is a good idea, allowing S&B tanks to have some nearly-acceptable damage numbers. After all, they do spend plenty of feats to maximize damage mitigation, feats that can't be spent getting reasonable DPS. My only concern is that it may not be enough to compete with THF or even TWF. I'll need to run numbers later. Will this apply before or after +[W] modifiers? Melees need an AoE attack, especially tanks who need to get hate.

Maybe allow heavy shield uses to get evasion. Stay strong on tower, though.

Rebalancing EE creatures to respond to high AC is not enough. Most, if not all monster to-hits need to be rebalanced so that a for a tank character running heroic elite/epic hard to see misses more than 5% of the time. If AC got bugged so that all characters had 0AC (but the correct value displayed on their character sheet) I doubt anyone would notice. Maybe it's time to remove AC entirely, or to change it to a bonus to PRR.

Please have armor type (Celestial, Feycraft, etc) give bonuses to PRR/MRR or remove them entirely. Due to the aforementioned uselessness of AC, all that really matters on armor is whether it's classed as robe, light, med, or heavy, and it's magical enchantments.

Could adamantine be changes give a bonus to PRR/MRR? It was kinda nice in the old AC system, but post-Menace it's only worth it if you can get something high with it, like the 20/Lawful from Angelskin.

One more thing: Please fix Mithril/Darkwood/Densewood/Darkleaf armors. Especially the wood-type armors, druids kinda need those to be less gimpy.


As one who has loathed the armor changes from MotU, and has championed every opportunity to get the old system back, no matter how long ago the ship has sailed, I'm really psyched about this. If this can be done right, and have the changes be competitive with the current LA+evasion, be satisfying, and allow the evasion+Light armor option to stay a viable choice, these changes have the possibility to be better than the old system by several light-years. It just has to be enough of a change to be worth playing a heavy toon, but not so far ahead that Rogues are mega-squishy and die from a single enemy Cleave.

EDIT: Forgot to ask: How is Shieldbearer/Vanguard going to work? Are they going to be available to all classes, or just fighters/palas?

[J-mann]

If you're not having a PRR cap you should remove the dodge cap for wearing armor. It's unfair that armor wearers are penalized with no gain because of the dodge cap mechanic. In the original vision armor wearers would have had significant PRR over evasion toons, but due to changes in enhancements magic gear and feats it's simply no longer true. So just get rid of the dodge cap on armor/shields.

Sure, soon as robes get a free 45 prr/mrr and the ac of heavy armor. The difference between the investments isnt even remotely similar either. I have already shown that 100 prr and 25 dodge takes MUCH more damage than 250 prr and 5 dodge, and its much more spiky. People act like 25 dodge is something so super great, no, its the similar to 25% mitigation, in fact it is some ways inferior. Also do not fall into the percentages trap, 25 dodge and 25% reduction is NOT the same as a 50% reduction. Assume 100 1 damage hits, the former would take 56.25 damage, the later 50 damage, for an edge of 12.5%. In the first case of 100 prr and 25 dodge vs 250 prr and 5 dodge is roughly 12.5% in favor of the plate, without the spikes in damage the robes will take.

Now as to mrr, mrr applies to a bunch of things that evasion does not and applies to everything evasion DOES. Further the investment to get a working reflex save plus evasion plus no fail on one is MUCH more than getting a good mrr, and a good mrr will work on a HUGE list of damage spells that evasion does not. Please actually look at the math and the other extranalities and not just say... hurrr durrr dodge is capped so should prr hurr.....

[Zakharov]

I understand the need for melee mitigation but adding blanket magical mitigation to all armor/shields makes no sense at all and reduces what should be part of the strategy - "what armor should I wear for this encounter?" That should be just as much part of planning encounters as "what weapon should I use?"

Please consider removing MRR as an automatic addition to all armor/shields and instead adding it as a powerful prefix/suffix for random/named loot. Adding it to specific named armors/shields that have the lore of providing specialized protection against magic makes more sense and provides more incentive to equip that type of gear.


Whatever plan you go with let me add my normal plea: All abilities, gear, enhancements etc players have - the enemies should have as well and the AI to use them. That's the best way to make encounters interesting.

[Tilomere]

I think if we knew what everyone needed, the system that fit it would appear.

The "right" amount of magical absorption I found on my druid/barb/cleric experience was 50% fire shield, 30% shield deflection, and 20% past life, for 72% mitigation on a character with solid self healing and a fairly solid hp pool, and was only possible because Druids use unarmed as their shield bash when shapeshifted so can have the deflection abilities active at will. Druids don't really need magical protection when wearing medium/heavy armor and shape shifted with a shield/shield feats, but do show that medium/heavy armor builds need around 70% mitigation one way or the other. But I only started needing this amount of absorption starting in shavarath (epic lvls).

For barbs, without fire shield, shield deflection, self healing, or past lives, 70% has to come from ?.

Paladins get saves for 50%, so need another source of reduction or to have their saves ultimately mean more to get to 70%.

A pure fighter in heavy armor needs 70% from ?

A pure cleric in heavy armor needs 70% from ?

I'm inclined to say just add 70% magical damage reduction to heavy/medium epic armors, let paladins be harder to kill, and call it a day. I can't honestly see myself playing non-viable medium and heavy armor wearers with less than 70% reflex mitigation under any circumstances.

[lyrecono]

Interesting comparison between the evasion and non-evasion build. Perhaps they can change it so the enhancement bonus on armor include a PRR/MRR bonus as well. Currently, there's no point getting anything more than +1 enhancement cause the rest just gives a small boost to AC which is useless for most players. Providing an enhancement bonus to PRR/MRR will make the difference between the PRR realistically attainable by the typical non-evason vs evasion build more apparent.

thank you, i was typing this at 03:00 last night, right after reading it, i'm glad it came out as it is.
The estimates are rough, changing ed's, feats and enhancements will blur the numbers even more.
The point i (in a very sleepy mode) tried to make was that the evasion version came "somewhat" ahead, compared to a full plate fighter.
we had a similar discussion earlier in guild about a lv 28 pure fighter kensai in ld and a lv 28 pure (undead) wizard
When levels go up and take into account all the gear/ed stuff etc the gap in hp between the wiz and fighter wasn't that big anymore.
The same happens here between the 2.

There is too little information on the idea to make working models though.
that's why i made the suggestion on the enhancements:
Assuming 30% (epic pastlife), 30% (block energy ed twist), 20/25/30/40% (shield deflection, pending on shield type) will give you a powerful absorption, assuming it all stacks as it should, a 80% on a buckler and a 100% on a tower shield.
Add an enhancement that lets you be considered blocking all the time (like a stance) and you can skip the development of mrr entirely!
Saving us from 3 months of bug and exploit fixes
Just make sure it absorbs everything! Magic miscles, dots etc.

[Aviya]

thank you, i was typing this at 03:00 last night, right after reading it, i'm glad it came out as it is.
The estimates are rough, changing ed's, feats and enhancements will blur the numbers even more.
The point i (in a very sleepy mode) tried to make was that the evasion version came "somewhat" ahead, compared to a full plate fighter.
we had a similar discussion earlier in guild about a lv 28 pure fighter kensai in ld and a lv 28 pure (undead) wizard
When levels go up and take into account all the gear/ed stuff etc the gap in hp between the wiz and fighter wasn't that big anymore.
The same happens here between the 2.

There is too little information on the idea to make working models though.
that's why i made the suggestion on the enhancements:
Assuming 30% (epic pastlife), 30% (block energy ed twist), 20/25/30/40% (shield deflection, pending on shield type) will give you a powerful absorption, assuming it all stacks as it should, a 80% on a buckler and a 100% on a tower shield.
Add an enhancement that lets you be considered blocking all the time (like a stance) and you can skip the development of mrr entirely!
Saving us from 3 months of bug and exploit fixes
Just make sure it absorbs everything! Magic miscles, dots etc.

I propose a simple new enhancement in stalwart, defender, eldrich and warpriest tree that works only if you wear medium or heavy armor (so no evasion to stack) absorbing 10/20/30 % of incoming magical damage for medium and 15/30/45 % for heavy armor.

1000 points of Fire damage coming your way in Fire in Thunder raid.
If its epic elite 99% of current evasion builds don't make their save when Rolling 1 because the dc of the fireball is very high.
-character 1 with evasion like dex based Ranger in Light armor: takes 0 damage on successful reflex save and 50% on 2 failed reflexes save (because Fire Shield scrolls are important) so a total of 1000 damage over 20 fireballs.
-character 2 with improved evasion same reflex save like a rogue or monk: takes 500 damage over 20 fireballs.
-Character 3 with heavy armor and high reflex like pally: takes 137 damage on a reflex save (1000-->500 with save-->275 with new 45% heavy armor absorption enhancement-->137-->fireshield) and 275 on failed reflex save for a total of 3025 damage over 20 fireballs so it would still take 3 times more damage that an evasion character and 6 time more than an improved evasion one but it would be much better than the current situation.

If you are a tank with a shield you can stack shield blocking mechanics to improve your survivability and it's a reward to player skill and reactive playstyle instead of a passive one.

[lyrecono]

If you are a tank with a shield you can stack shield blocking mechanics to improve your survivability and it's a reward to player skill and reactive playstyle instead of a passive one.[/I]

The first problem with this is that you can't run while blocking and 80% of ddo's content is run through to begin with.
The second problem is trying reward player skill in a game where the most dangerous mob is the lag monster, i personally never had lag besides part 1 in the shroud (before chests) and ramp in "Enter the kobold", since U19 i see it more and more, people freezing between 30 to 120 seconds, people dc-ing, loosing connection to the chat server etc is making reactive gameplay less and less atractive.
(and no "get better gear" remarks please, if 32 gig internal memory, a dedicated ddo ssd, 6core i7proc, 64 bits windows, 2 high end graphic cards, fiber optic connection, fresh install etc doesn't work, what will?)

Making it a tier 5 defender enhancement will lock splashes out of the auto block feature.
Saves us from developer time and the fix backlash.