Elemental resistance - a more balanced approach

[Pehtis]

I really think the whole elemental (i.e. fire, cold, elect, acid, sonic) resist system should recoded to be absorption instead.

As it is at the moment the majority of heroic levels (pre level 20) have lost some their nastiness due to +30 elemental resists being common. While at epic levels +30 resists are trivial against the spam damage output.

I so remember the feeling of trepidation running the low heroic content and seeing my heroic life flash before me as that Kobald unleashed that scaarrrry 'Burning Hands' on my 50 hp char. Now I can dance joyfully in front of him and never feel any 'ouchness'.

On the other hand these days running epic content my average 900 hp char is virtually one shotted by an elem spell even after having +30 resist plus 120 elem protection up.

I just think Spell absorption these days would be a far better and more balanced use of resistance.

It's more a philosophical thing which I also think would improve the game overall. Seriously dancing in pool of lava with a +30 fire resist and not being burnt is not in keeping with the spirit of the genre. Absorption would simply mean you ALWAYS receive some hurt no matter the spell level. It would also mean it remains relevant and useful because it always scales well into later harder difficulties.

Just a suggestion!

[Discpsycho]

I'm gonna be honest, I think it's fine as is. Raw resistances are incredibly useful at low levels - I've been killed by a champion kobold shaman whose lightning bolt forked for 150 damage, which wouldn't have happened if I'd had a resistance potion / item / buff. Lava is a nice gimmick in quests like Taming the Flames, where it keeps you from meleeing the spawning Fire Elementals, but is usually pretty easy to avoid otherwise, so I'm not sure it deserves special mention or consideration.

The new lootgen system includes items with % absorption - if you're lucky you'll find something that grants both resistance AND absorption, but at high levels the latter is the only really necessary one. The are a few pieces of pre-existing gear that grant something similar (Ring of the Djinn) have proven invaluable at the end-game (this ring was a must-have for FOT and really helps out in Haunted Halls). Regardless of what slot it takes up and what item it replaces, an absorption item will be worthwhile for those problematic enemies.

I recently ran a pure fighter Vanguard life and was pleasantly surprised by the power of Shield Deflection. Between the feat and the Purple Dragon Shield I could survive the Trial of the Archons abishai by popping Consecration and hunkering down. If you have the divine past lives, which I don't, you can benefit from the % reduction even if you don't have a shield equipped.

[Chacka_DDO]

I agree and already wondered too, why a change does not happen and I hope it's already in work.

I read once a developer something regarding DR/- and DR (that's basically the same as resistance for magic damage) in general and it should not be to high and his reasoning for this was quite convincing, it was about barbarian damage reduction if I recall correctly.
I don't recall all but my impression was he was not very happy with DR at all because it makes low level to easy if it is to high and got not enough impact in higher level.
That's basically exact your reasoning (and what I think too) against e.g. fire resistance 30 from ships.

I think resistance makes the whole system more complicated than necessary and even harmful for the fun in low level. While a kobold shaman was once an dangerous opponent in low level dungeons, he is now more or less a laughing stock.

And the solution is quite obvious, don't invent something new, you just need the MRR system.
Make it MRR for each kind of magic damage and let the score for all of them appear in the character sheet (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold, alignment, light, positive, negative, poison and rust)
Then you have some universal MRR items, we all know and some items that gives MRR and PRR and the old effects not matter of source ship buffs etc get MRR for only one of the MRR types (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold, alignment, light, positive, negative, poison and rust).
Old resistance effects on items etc need to turn into MRR scores then.
This is by the way quite consistent with spell power and you could see Magical Resistance Rating then as counter-part to Spell Power.

And yes of course give Monsters MRR too in the same way. Just undecided how to handle magical chaotic damage against lawful neutral and chaotic targets, in my opinion only a chaotic outsider should be immune while a normal chaotic creature should suffer at least some damage, while normal and lawful should suffer higher damage and a lawful outsider the highest damage.
But I think the formula for this can lie in the magic effect for weapons e.g. or spell and a further divide of MRR is not need.

For PRR, AC to hit and dodge I have also some changes in mind but I better leave it out of this thread.

[Faltout]

I really think the whole elemental (i.e. fire, cold, elect, acid, sonic) resist system should recoded to be absorption instead.

As it is at the moment the majority of heroic levels (pre level 20) have lost some their nastiness due to +30 elemental resists being common. While at epic levels +30 resists are trivial against the spam damage output.

I so remember the feeling of trepidation running the low heroic content and seeing my heroic life flash before me as that Kobald unleashed that scaarrrry 'Burning Hands' on my 50 hp char. Now I can dance joyfully in front of him and never feel any 'ouchness'.

On the other hand these days running epic content my average 900 hp char is virtually one shotted by an elem spell even after having +30 resist plus 120 elem protection up.

Hmmm, I mostly disagree.
The only thing we agree on is that 30 resistance at low levels needs to GO. Devs have told us that the cargo hold buffs will eventually fade when they are sure all the new buffs are dropping in game. Well, I haven't seen a move to indicate that they will actually get rid of them. With 5 elemental resistance and sometimes 10 from a pot, you won't trivialize all the low quests like most do now.

I feel that 30 resistance all the way up to 20 is useful and not too OP when applied in appropriate levels. As for epic levels, I agree that 30 or 70 resistance is not doing much. When you apply MRR and absorption, you cut that 70 resistance's usefulness at least in half. But the solution is not to make everything absorption. I think simply having the resistance apply after absorption and before MRR is the most elegant solution making 70 or 30 resistance relevant when you cut 50% of the damage and then another 30 from what is left. Absorption should be rare because it's powerful. All % based abilities are powerful.

[Enoach]

Level Appropriate Elemental Resistance is probably the biggest issue.

30 Resists from level 1 to 10 which is more than what can be gained from the Spell (Level 11 is 30 Resistance) it one of the issues that makes Base Quests of up to level 8 so much easier. Ice Render's in base 10 quests can still catch you with your pants down .

30 Resists have taken the sting away from enemy casters. I don't want mobs hitting harder when the answer is to simply reduce the benefits. It would have been fine if the ship buffs scaled based on your level when it came to resistance. So under level 7 you get 10, under 11 you get 20 and 11+ 30.

I don't know if we will see an end to these buffs, but now with gear and even ED twist these are less and less needed at the top level and only serve to trivialize low level content.

Personally, I think it is part of what lead to parties no longer relying on spell buffs and to issue where casters of all types only use SP for offense, it is a nail in the cooperative game. Now don't get me wrong I don't want a return to the Buff-Bot where a casters SP is seen as only to be used for defense or as an extension of someone's HP bar. But at one point people use to be more cooperative and actually knew how to get the most from their spell points. Now people chug and make statements like its a cake walk...

[Amundir]

I so remember the feeling of trepidation running the low heroic content and seeing my heroic life flash before me as that Kobald unleashed that scaarrrry 'Burning Hands' on my 50 hp char. Now I can dance joyfully in front of him and never feel any 'ouchness'.

Burning Hands? I remember, and still see, Kobald Shamans pop off a lightning on elite, which used to scare me. I don't remember burning hands...

[Chacka_DDO]

Currently we totally miss the display for alignment, light, positive, negative, poison, rust damage.
For acid, sonic, fire, electric and cold damage you only see the resistance but not the percentage absorption at the end.
This has to be changed and I can hardly imagine that someone sees this differently.

Therefore, display at least all resistance and percentage absorption scores in the Character sheet, so we can see what we have at the end!

But:

For resistance it is often unclear how they stack if you read only the descriptions and this is indeed not good if you have not even a display for all of them to try it out.

1. protection absorbs up to 120 point damage (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold)
2. Enchantment resistance from spells or Items 5-55 (?) (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold, alignment, light, positive, negative, poison, rust)
3. Insight resistance from Items (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold, alignment, light, positive, negative, poison, rust)
3. Past life Ranger absorb 2/4/6 damage (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold)
5. Arcane Shield Chant 2/4/6 (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold) Warchanter enhancements
6. Sigil of Energy Negation 20/40/60 damage (Magister) (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold)
7. Variable Resistance 10/20/30 damage (Magister) (acid or sonic or fire or electric or cold)
Additional bonuses in Enhancements for Sorcerer, Dwarf, Monk and more...


For absorption you got even TWO different systems

To be honest I gave up on the stacking rules and only use MRR+one absorb item+one absorb buff and just hope they work somehow.

Absorption system one:

1. Elemental Absorption 5%/10%/15% (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold) Shiradi Champion
2. Energy Sheath 50% (acid or fire or electric or cold) Draconic Incarnation
3. Fire Shield 50% fire or cold
4. Items 5-35% (?) damage absorption (damage acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold, alignment, light, positive, negative, poison, rust)
5. Block Energy: Passive Bonus: While blocking, you absorb [10/20/30]% of Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, Force, Light, and Sonic damage. Unyielding Sentinel
6. Block Energy [10/20/30]% (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold) ED Past life active feat
7. Passive Bonus: +1%-9% Absorption of Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire damage. ED Past life passive feat
8. Shield Deflection 20%-40% (acid, cold, electric, and fire) general feat for different shields
9. Storm Dancer Absorb 15% of Electrical damage or Storm Tempest Absorb 30% of Electrical damage Tempest enhancements
and more ...

Absorption system two:

MRR absorbs a % potion of damage (acid, sonic, fire, electric, cold, alignment, light, positive, negative, poison, rust)

This is way to complicated, witch makes it not more fun to play.

in my opinion Resistance is just a relic from the 3.5 rules, working in P&P but not good for DDO and absorption was a step in the right direction.
MRR seems to be a good system because each point makes you less vulnerable but you will never be permanent immune, witch would make the game easy by decreasing fun no matter of your level.
So the MRR system should be worked out, while you should drop the old systems. Keeping the old systems just inflate DDO by making it worse.
And just to mention it, you could even change MRR in the way you got some kind of starting resistance its just a matter of the formulas you use. So you can have resistance and percentage absorption with one MRR source score.
But in my opinion is even low damage should itch you.

So:

1. Clear display
2. complete the move to the MRR system
3. consistent and not to complicated stacking rules


If you like, you could give the spell Protection from Energy the old purpose again by absorbing a fixed amount of damage after percentage absorption, witch could make you totally immune under some circumstances and only for a short duration.
But it's maybe better to turn this spell into a short duration boost for MRR.