Remove MRR Armor Caps

[Carpone]

Situation:

Anyone spending time in Legendary Ravenloft has experienced being absolutely decimated by spells:

* DoT spells such as Niac's Biting Cold, Eladar's Electric Surge, Black Dragon Bolt, and Burning Blood.
* AE spells that are ignoring saving throws for half damage, such as Cyclonic Blast.
* AE spells that are not mitigated by MRR, such as Horrid Wilting.

Background:

The primary mitigation mechanic to reduce spell damage in DDO is Magical Resistance Rating. When the MRR cap was first introduced, it wasn't even possible to reach the arbitrary artificial cap for cloth wearers (Sorcerer, Wizard, Monk) because of the lack of itemization, past life feats and enhancement changes. Now it's commonplace for cloth armor wearers to hit the cap by equipping one item. While not as epidemic, light armor wearers (Rogue, Ranger, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) can hit the 100 MRR cap.

Reference:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Magical_Resistance_Rating
http://ddowiki.com/page/Physical_Resistance_Rating

Assessment:

The problem with MRR is the arbitrary artificial cap based on armor type. Cloth armor wearers are all too keenly aware of this. MRR cap is easily met by equipping just one legendary item. There's no point in considering an Insightful, Quality, Mythic or Artifact item bonus, or enhancements that increase MRR. This does not align with DDO's core principle of character customization.

No MRR benefit from Deep Gnome or Warlock past lives can be realized at level cap for cloth wearers, unless the Beacon of Magic set is worn. Unfortunately due to the typing of the DC bonus (Artifact), it doesn't stack with Slave Lords Sorcery set which is superior. Six past lives is a huge investment not to reap the rewards from. DDO thrives because of the TReadmill. Don't give players another reason to not TR. There are enough of those already.

Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial MRR caps based on worn armor type. PRR doesn't have an artificial cap based on armor worn, and no one is complaining about characters running around with too much PRR in cloth armor.

[Selvera]

I've also spoken on the problems of the MRR cap. They are numerous and they are arbitrary. Please remove it, and replace it with a better system which does what it was supposed to do, except correctly.

[Amundir]

If only there were ways to resist or absorb certain types of elemental damage...
</sarcasm>

[Carpone]

If only there were ways to resist or absorb certain types of elemental damage...
</sarcasm>

How much gear do you think is reasonable to dedicate towards absorb and/or resist? The dots commonly found in legendary Ravenloft are ice, fire, acid and electricity based.

My two raid-geared toons already have 9% elemental absorb from 9x Epic Arcane past lives, and use Epic Divine Past Life Block Energy x3.

[lyrecono]

The devs mentioned they were doing this somentime ago, expect it to be comming soon.

Prr has a cap. You'll eventually run into a virtual wall of diminishing returns, where raising it becommes too expencive for barely any return

[Carpone]

The devs mentioned they were doing this somentime ago, expect it to be comming soon.

Soon, like the FvS enhancement pass that was mentioned in the Sep 2016 producer letter and still has not been delivered?

Prr has a cap.

Not an arbitrary artificial cap.

[Tom116]

Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial MRR caps based on worn armor type. PRR doesn't have an artificial cap based on armor worn, and no one is complaining about characters running around with too much PRR in cloth armor.

Increasing MRR cap:
Few rare effects exist that allow your character to increase the MRR cap restriction imposed by your armor.

Beacon of Magic item sets: +10 heroic / +20 legendary for three piece item set
Nystul's Mystical Defense: +40 for five piece filigree set


Both of the above are from Ravenloft items which are bound on acquire. If they remove the cap, they lessen the incentive for players to buy Ravenloft. It would be nice for them to do so, but it is also unlikely because of that.

As a sidenote, the enchantments on robes giving people this much PRR would be pretty funny to see. Imagine someone being hit full force with a warhammer only for it to barely bruise them because of their robe they were wearing lol

[cru121]

removing mrr cap might look like a good idea
then again
do monks and casters need more power? are these two archetypes at the bottom of the power scale these days?

[zaidm271981]

removing mrr cap might look like a good idea
then again
do monks and casters need more power? are these two archetypes at the bottom of the power scale these days?

Indeed.
Monks have had too many nerfs and are near the bottom - think KT and the cluster it does to monks and you'll get why we want this useless MRR cap removed

[HastyPudding]

Wow, necro....



But yes, I always did find that the MRR cap hinders spellcasters more than monks. Wizards and sorcerers are supposed to be very knowledge about magic, so they are supposed to have magical defenses in place to protect themselves against a magical attack. In DDO they don't have that (anymore). Protection from energy, resist energy, and the non-stacking spell resistance spells are terrible when actually defending against magic. Arcane casters in DDO have no spell mantles or wards to protect themselves.

[zaidm271981]

Wow, necro....



But yes, I always did find that the MRR cap hinders spellcasters more than monks. Wizards and sorcerers are supposed to be very knowledge about magic, so they are supposed to have magical defenses in place to protect themselves against a magical attack. In DDO they don't have that (anymore). Protection from energy, resist energy, and the non-stacking spell resistance spells are terrible when actually defending against magic. Arcane casters in DDO have no spell mantles or wards to protect themselves.

It also hinders monks because in high level reaper content, they constantly have to change into spell absorb gear and lose dps as a result. Or die anyway. And the alternative way to raise mrr cap on a monk is either using frozen wanderer or nystuls, both of which means they lose dps on their wraps. Its just not that simple or reasonable for monk dpsers to just randomly slap on 50mrr cap and then bring legendary and reaper content with magic damage that cant be avoided. Not to mention the champs which only high mrr will help u mitigate damage anyway. If there is no way monks will get the mrr cap help they need by any of the devs, then as it is they'll have to rely on solutions which will reduce their dps.

[Zites]

Indeed.
Monks have had too many nerfs and are near the bottom - think KT and the cluster it does to monks and you'll get why we want this useless MRR cap removed

Yep looks like the bottom to me!

[zaidm271981]

yep looks like the bottom to me!

kt.

[SerPounce]

On the one hand a hard cap is a sloppy, inelegant, solution, but on the other hand most people are running in silent avenger or beacon of magic anyway so it's not like light armor/cloth is behind overall. And with all the static bonuses to PRR (but not so much for max dex/dodge cap) it feels like medium and heavy armor have fallen behind more.

DDO has never really gotten defense right since number inflation made the d20 AC system fall apart around when epic was introduced. The key generally seems to be to layer as many low investment defensive stats as is practical and just accept that you'll occasionally get ganked by some oddball effect or series of bad rolls on high difficulties.

[glennson]

I too feel strongly that the cap on MRR is not appropriate.

I'm not wholly against capping MRR or PPR based on armor type in order to balance the game but it should be more logical, or at least in line with PnP logic.

A heavily armored fighter should be more susceptible to a lightning bolt than a wizard in robes.

In fact since the robes we all wear in this game are magically imbued it would be appropriate to add a boost to MRR similar to the bonus to PRR (based on armor type and bab) but scaled inversely hence robes would provide the largest innate bonus to MRR and heavy armor would provide none.

Any capping to MRR or PRR should be in line with this logic, so perhaps heavy armor would have a MRR cap and robes might have a PRR cap.

Regardless a cap of 50 or even 100 is far too low without ways of raising the cap(s), through feats and enhancements, not just gear.

[Arkat]

I'd be in favor of raising the MRR cap to 100 for Cloth Armor and to 150 for Light Armor.

Not sure the MRR cap should be removed entirely, though.

[Carpone]

I'd be in favor of raising the MRR cap to 100 for Cloth Armor and to 150 for Light Armor.

Arbitrary values are arbitrary.

[Arkat]

Arbitrary values are arbitrary.

There's a reason I advocated for raising the MRR cap by the number I did. While the original number may have been arbitrary, my suggested change wasn't.

[RobbinB]

Arbitrary values are arbitrary.

I don't think the original MRR cap values were arbitrary. Currently they are just outdated due to game changes and therefore the values could use adjusting.

[Renvar]

I'd be in favor of raising the MRR cap to 100 for Cloth Armor and to 150 for Light Armor.

Not sure the MRR cap should be removed entirely, though.

I agree with this, to some degree. The caps should be raised, but not removed.

Also, the raising of the cap should be tied to trade offs. Either feats, AP Spend, Twists, or gear slots.

The balance between cloth vs. heavy armor in high end content is HEAVILY in favor of cloth right now. Taking the major limitation of cloth armor away entirely with no trade offs would be a poor design choice. It would make heavy/medium armor even less appealing than it already is.