More varied Defenses: Casters

[Hashrabal]

I've been playing a broad variety of toons lately and I've noticed one thing that really changed since the 'good old days' - variety of defenses.

Back in the 'good old days' it seems there were much more viable defense strategies then there are right now. Nowadays I build all my toons exclusively for PRR/MRR, because that is literally the only thing that can keep me alive. And while Evasion is 'nice to have' and Dodge or AC certainly won't hurt I will never ever compromise PRR for any of these. That leads to the following scenarios:

- I run as a wizard, but in heavy armor, with shields. I might slightly splash Fighter / Paladin for their defensive stances.
- I run as a warlock, but in medium armor, and with shields / towershields. I might slightly splash Paladin for the defensive Stances.
- I run as a monk, but in Earth Stance from 1-30 and don't even go near GMoF because that is not the path of most PRR - also I splash fighter and/or Paladin for more PRR.
- I run as an artificer, but in Adamantine Body and as BF if possible - for more PRR. Also I often splash Fighter / Paladin for the defensive stances.
- I run as a caster druid, again in heavy armor and with Shields. I might splash Fighter / Paladin for the defensive stances.

Or in short: whenever humanly possible I run in heavy armor with Shields, and if possible I splash Fighter/Paladin for the defensive stances.

Now, don't get me wrong, this does work. But it feels wrong. I don't WANT to have to ditch robes on a wizard - it has been ages since I last used a robe, simply because they are not up to par with heavy armor. And that bothers me. Also only ever focusing on one stat (if you count PRR/MRR as 'one stat') seems.. not like the DDO I know. In DDO, I used to tell people, you can build creatively; you can mix and match and come up with class combinations that you like, that might not be possible in other games. However, these days the old PRR/MRR really limits my options - it is basically the path of 'most PRR' that is what dictates my build choices.

Sure, I could just drop the difficulty (and I do quite often, because I don't want to compromise or simply want to try out something I'm pretty sure isn't up to par), but this gets old very quickly.

And there is another aspect that bothers me - PRR/MRR (which I often will in short call PRR from now on...) is designed to do one thing - reduce damage percentage wise. And that is a very... limited view of how to build your defense. Unfortunately, it is also the only one that currently allows you to stay alive in the endgame.

So, here I want to suggest a small piece of the puzzle of 'More varied Defenses' that could work for casters. I am talking about using the orbs that were relatively recently added to the game, to introduce a new type of defense. I'm not overly attached to the name, but we could for example call it 'Orb Shielding' or something along those lines - here is how it works:

- Each Orb provides a certain amount of 'Orb Shielding' that is a stat on the item, just like for example AC is. We could just tie it to the item level.
- The 'Orb Shielding' works as temporary HP, which is applied rapidly whenver a player is not hurt for a certain amount of time.
- Whenever a player *is* hurt, by any means, the Orb's Shield is not re-applied for [n] seconds, where [n] is a number yet to be determined (probably in playtesting).
- Some PREs could play with those values - reduce the 'penalty' time for being hit, increasing the amount of 'Orb Shielding' by a percentage / fixed value or adding effects to the shield, i.e. 'while the orb shield holds, you have a 50% chance to ignore the first spell cast at you'...

Here is an example; Wizzy the Wizard has an Orb equipped that grants +30 Orb Shielding, he has 300 HP and we ignore all other defenses for the example, his 'recharge penalty time' is currently 10s.
Second 00: Wizzy was not hit for the last 10 Seconds, so the Orb starts recharging the Shield.
Second 01: The Orb finished recharging, Wizzy now has 30 temporary HP along with his 300 normal ones.
Second 02: Wizzy is hit for 150 pts of damage (which for the sake of the example is not reduced by other defenses). Wizzy now has 180 HP left
Second 05: Wizzy is hit by another 10 pts of damage. He is now at 170 HP, since the orb did not yet recharge, therefore he had no temporary HP to soak up damage.
Second 15: Wizzy was not hit by damage for 10 seconds, so the Orb starts recharging the Shield.
Second 16: The Orb finished recharging, Wizzy now has the 170 HP he had left plus 30 temporary HP.
Second 17: Wizzy is hit by 10 pts of damage. He now has 170 hp left plus 20 temporary HP.
Second 27: Wizzy was not hit by damage for 10 seconds, so the Orb starts recharging the Shield.
Second 28: Wizzy now has 170 hp left, plus 30 temporary HP again.

This I feel solves a number of problems:
- It gives another stat to survive those 'Big Hits', but does not makes a character a tank, since it only works against big hits that come sparingly - which is what a good caster that has some semblance of CC should be hit with.
- It gives players an incentive to care about small hits too. When was the last time you really cared about that burning blood debuff or the archers 'plinking' against you? Yeah.. I don't recall either. But if I had a defense that could be disabled by those 'small hits' I would suddenly think about dispelling those small debuffs or maybe even combining 'Orb Shield' with DR/- to overcome those archers continually hampering the recharge of my shield. This kind of 'combining of various viable defenses' is exactly what I like to see in a future version of DDO.
- It helps make orbs more then glorified stat sticks - yes, I know you can block with them to reduce elemental damage / increase saves. The thing is, I never used that. There are very few scenarios where I want to stand still and block instead of doing something, where I also want more saves and elemental resistances. I doubt many players use orbs for that purpose.
- It feels much more 'caster-like' to use a magical orb, rather then wrap yourself in steel and carry a tower shield (some divines obviously excluded).
- If the devs feel like they need to limit the access to this kind of defense, we could easily attach that functionality to i.e. the Magical Training feat.
- It automatically enforces a choice between shields (the PRR route) or Orbs ('Orb Shielding'), since you cannot equip both (you can't equip an orb in the mainhand).
- It could allow for interesting mechanics, here are some examples:
-> a PRE/ED/Feat could have an enhancment that grants a [x]% chance to instantly recharge the shield when casting a spell
-> an enhancment that doubles the amount of orb shielding when casting on fumes (-> when the 'Echoes of Power' from the 'Magical Training' Feat trigger)
-> 'Whenever you are hit while Orb Shield is up, you cast an invisibiliy spell on you and trigger a diplomacy effect that uses your Spellcraft as a DC', something like 'Fade into the Weave' but as a proc.

I encourage everyone that got this far in the text to leave his ideas, constructive criticism and general feedback, not only about this specific idea but also about the general concept of diversifying the viable defensive options.

I can see some problems with it too:
- Having an active effect on each player using an orb that needs to be tracked on the server side could cause a lot of strain. Handing it over to the client is an even worse idea, because that would make cheating a lot easier. It could be possible to use existing technology to solve it. Whenever hit, check for an orb - if yes, attach a new debuff to the player. Then just check for the debuff before charging the shield. This would serve two purposes - reuse existing "debuff technology" instead of a new mechanic that has to be implemented and also serve as an UI to the player (which can see a debuff poping up, with a duration, so can see why the orb does not recharge). Obviously a lot of this is speculation on my part, I unfortunately do not have access to the source code to check if that would be easy to do ;P
- Limiting the effect to orbs would leave quarterstaff users in a bind. Maybe quarterstaffs could fill the role of the more 'offensive' caster weapon, while orbs could fill the 'defensive' side of caster weapons, but this is outside the scope of this suggestion.
- It is not a stat that existed in AD&D, afaik. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, neither is PRR/MRR, so...

And finally the obligatory disclaimer:
- English is not my native language, there might be spelling errors.
- Yes I do like DDO currently. Especially when lag-free and mostly bug-free, but that is another tale. I wouldn't bother writing up suggestions if I hated the game in it's current state. I would simply leave, without any notification.
- No, 'just drop the difficulty' is not a good answer to 'I am "forced" to take the same defense on every toon'.
- No, the game is not 'too easy already'. I'm fully aware there are builds that destroy the current endgame. I played 'em. Just rolling the same few toons, with minor cosmetic changes, all the time is boring.
- I do not want 'more defenses' to make your game 'that is already too easy' more easy. I want more *varied* defenses.
- Yes, there might be certain builds (~50%ish dodge rogues come to mind) that do well without heaps of PRR, but they are few and far between.
- If anyone plays 'Path of Exile', yes, this does sound suspicously like 'Energy Shield' over there. I might be guilty of playing both, *cough*.
- If you scrolled down here because 'tl;dr' then I am sorry you never learned to read well in school. Blame your government.

[HastyPudding]

I think they made the mistake of having outfits and robes as being the same thing with just a different look. It makes it much more difficult to balance monks, which inherently have good defenses, and arcane casters, which inherently have low defenses. Unless they change the coding, you can't buff caster robes without also buffing monks.

We need more defensive spells, like spell mantles, and we need to make the existing defensive spells better and more useful in DDO's current environment.

[Hashrabal]

Unless they change the coding, you can't buff caster robes without also buffing monks.

That is part of the reason why I would not put the defense on the robe. Monks cannot use orbs. Not that monks could not also use some more defenses (they really could... ), but that is another topic.

[FranOhmsford]

The problem here is that Dodge is basically worthless when 2/3 hits will kill you! The one hit dodged is pointless because either or both of the other two will kill you!

AND THAT'S IF YOU'VE GOT 30% DODGE!

Monk's are not high hp toons, neither are Rogues - Wizards and Sorcs can get high HP because they only need to concentrate on one ability + Con {Monks and Rogues have to sacrifice Con to get other abilities up.}.

But their Dodge Percentages because of the ridiculous Dodge Cap are nowhere near high enough to compensate for both middling HP and low PRR/MRR!


A Lvl 30 Pure Rogue Acrobat or Monk {or Monk Acrobat} should be looking at a nigh on permanent 75% Dodge!
A Lvl 30 Assassin or Mechanic should be looking at at least 50% permanent Dodge! {Not for 6 seconds!}.

LE Mobs could have Dodge Bypasses of say 15-30% depending on if trash, orange named or red named {Purple Named can have complete Dodge Bypass if required}.
LH Mobs could have Dodge Bypasses of say 10-20%


The line of Defense in-game should be:
AC
Displacement/Ghostly
Dodge
PRR/MRR
So the Displacement/Ghostly type checks come before the Dodge Check.

[HastyPudding]

The problem here is that Dodge is basically worthless when 2/3 hits will kill you! The one hit dodged is pointless because either or both of the other two will kill you!

AND THAT'S IF YOU'VE GOT 30% DODGE!

Monk's are not high hp toons, neither are Rogues - Wizards and Sorcs can get high HP because they only need to concentrate on one ability + Con {Monks and Rogues have to sacrifice Con to get other abilities up.}.

But their Dodge Percentages because of the ridiculous Dodge Cap are nowhere near high enough to compensate for both middling HP and low PRR/MRR!


A Lvl 30 Pure Rogue Acrobat or Monk {or Monk Acrobat} should be looking at a nigh on permanent 75% Dodge!
A Lvl 30 Assassin or Mechanic should be looking at at least 50% permanent Dodge! {Not for 6 seconds!}.

LE Mobs could have Dodge Bypasses of say 15-30% depending on if trash, orange named or red named {Purple Named can have complete Dodge Bypass if required}.
LH Mobs could have Dodge Bypasses of say 10-20%


The line of Defense in-game should be:
AC
Displacement/Ghostly
Dodge
PRR/MRR
So the Displacement/Ghostly type checks come before the Dodge Check.

I.....kind of agree with this. In DDO, dodge is essentially what you call 'evasion' in 99% of other games. And when you get rogue classes in other games, they tend to have a ton of evasion, but low defense and usually very low defense against magic. DDO also has AC, but that complicates things because it's like dodge/evasion for highly-armored characters like fighter/paladin defenders and defensively-oriented monks.

They've dug themselves such a deep hole with how prr/mrr/dodge/ac works that it's going to take a long time and a lot of work to climb out of it.

[bsquishwizzy]

I think the fastest way to fixed caster defenses is to scale-up stuff like Shield, Angle Skin, Mage Armor, Stoneskin, and Barkskin. Add PRR/MRR/Fort boosts that increase with caster level.

Half of the problem is that straight DR is, in my opinion, very d20-centric. Armor and various stats are way past the basic rules of D&D. The effects of the spells need to change to compensate.

[Propane]

I totally agree that Non Armor - Non Shield folks are in a tough place.

Several things could be adjusted alone or in combinations...

@ Orbs

I like the ideas of Orbs providing more defense than they currently do now.
Now they are under-powered casting sticks compared to other items in the game.

Let casting sticks (weapons) be the offense choice and let orbs become more of the defensive choice.

I am not sure the temp HP method is the best way to go, but I do like the concept and how it opens ideas.

Orbs could...
Increase HP by X%
Provide some PRR and MRR while equipped
Have X% to block incoming attack...

@ Spells

The number of offensive spells far out weigh the number of defensive spells.

Since the spells were created
1) AC scale has totally changed
2) Dodge was added / improved
3) PRR was added
4) MRR was added


I find it hard to believe that there aren't some arcane off in a tower somewhere working on a way to use magic to help themselves live longer instead of just looking for new ways to take out mobs. All of these new system updates and changes were made, without any updates or additions to the spell list.

New or updated spells are needed to help arcane's defense (IMO).

A few of my thoughts are below, as always discussion and number crunching is encouraged – I need to start with a straw man to get the party started. Unless stated differently, most spells should scale off caster level, this would keep scrolls and wands from getting to overpowered.

Nightshield

Current
Grants a +1 resistance bonus to saves (+2 at 6th level, +3 at 9th level), and protection from Magic Missiles for 1 minute per caster level. Minimum duration 5 minutes.

Easy update
Carry +1 / 3 levels progression to LV 20 for a total of +6

Long term
Let the stacking bonus stack with ALL other bonus in game

Protection from Evil

Current

Creates a magical barrier that wards a target from attacks by Evil creatures. It grants a +2 deflection bonus to Armor Class, and a +2 resistance bonus to saves versus attacks from Evil creatures. The target is also warded from Evil magical controls and compulsions.

Easy – NA

Long Term

+2 deflection & +2 resistance per 5 levels

Shield

Current

Grants a +4 shield bonus to Armor Class, and protection from Magic Missile for 1 minute per caster level.

Short term

+4 is joke since the armor pass – should be +10 min
Long Term

AC should be 10 + 1 per caster level
AC should be 5 + 1 per caster level stacking with other forms of AC
Add some MRR + 1 per caster level

Mage Armor

Current

An invisible, but tangible field of force surrounds an ally, providing a +4 armor bonus to Armor Class for 5 minutes plus 1 minute per caster level.

Short term

+4 is joke since the armor pass – should be +10 min
Long Term

AC should be 10 + 1 per caster level
AC should be 5 + 1 per caster level stacking with other forms of AC
Add some PRR + 1 per caster level

Tumble

Current

Gives an ally a +10 enhancement bonus to the Skill Tumble.

Long Term
+1 Dodge / 2 levels when cast on oneself
+1 Dodge / 5 level when cast on another

Stoneskin

Current

The warded creature gains resistance to base melee damage granting Damage Reduction 10/Adamantine. Once the spell has prevented a total of 10 points damage per caster level it is discharged. Otherwise it lasts 1 minute per caster level. (Special material component: Granite and Diamond Dust.)

Easy

5 + caster level DR Adamantine
Long term

5 + caster level DR Adamantine + 10 x (Caster Level – 20) extra boost in Epics



New Defense Spells

LV 4 Minor Incorporeal
1% incorporeal / 2 caster levels

Lv 6 Diamond Skin / Shell

+ 5 PRR per caster level – self cast only
+ 10 + 1 per caster level DR – self cast only

LV 6 Major Incorporeal
+3% incorporeal / 2 caster levels

LV7 Bigby Defensive Hand
1 attack / caster level is pushed away – protecting caster from all damage and effects

@ Eldritch Knight

This entire tree needs some rework.
Major defensive buffs should be added to LV12, 18, 20 cores and possible T5...

[HastyPudding]

/spells

I'd love to see the spell mantle spells. Those are the staple of arcane defenses in just about every setting. They could be translated to DDO's mechanic by simply being a personal MRR buff or a short term spell absorption effect, like a pale lavender iuon stone or a scarab; absorbing a certain amount of spells before dissipating, with a decently lengthy cooldown of maybe 1-2 minutes.

[Arkai]

Those are good ideas, I specially love the orb ones.

My last sorc life was into a medium armor and it felt so wrong... The current life i'm wearing robes again and praying when aggro gets ugly :P

[Cantor]

Can't give this kind of buff to orbs. You guys are thinking like casters. Every SWF melee uses an orb too. The buffs need to be attached to the spells and scale with uncapped caster level. And as has been addressed, they need to stack.