is melee defense buffing coming or not?

[Peter_Principle]

Just curious, could the AC stat be manipulated so that it is useful again in epic levels? Right now it seems like monsters never miss, even for AC values that are very high.

Also, it seems crazy that an iconic D&D stat like AC is a throwaway.

[Tyrande]

Just curious, could the AC stat be manipulated so that it is useful again in epic levels? Right now it seems like monsters never miss, even for AC values that are very high.

Also, it seems crazy that an iconic D&D stat like AC is a throwaway.

AC in DDO is calculated differently than comparing with D&D on tabletop:

Monster's chance to hit: (Monster's Attack Bonus + 10.5) / (Target's Armor Class * 2)
Note: from testing, monster's Attack Bonus is typically 2.5*CR. They do not miss because in reaper, they have more than double the levels of the players.

What that means is that supposedly at max level, i.e. 32, the monster still have a 40% chance to hit with an AC of 100.
Even with an insane AC of 400, monsters still have a 10% chance to hit.
On a tank with 600 AC, monsters still have a 7% chance to hit.

This, of course, meaning your character run the dungeon around normal, i.e. CR = character level.
If you run at reaper, for like R10, the CRs of those monsters are usually doubled or more...

For tank with 600 AC, monsters still have a 17% chance to hit;
and for a regular character with 100 AC, monsters always hit.
In order for a chance of not always hitting, players should shoot for 110 AC or higher. For 150 AC, the chance of monster hitting went down to 67%
working with 25~30% dodge, that should mitigate down to less than half of the chance hitting.

I am too lazy to put together an AC vs dungeon difficulty at level 32 chart, but I am sure here someone good with R or Excel can do it quickly.

[Peter_Principle]

So it sounds like it wouldn't be that difficult at all to modify the way AC works to have it be useful again. Just change the scaling.

It is completely insane that you need a 600 AC to get monster to-hit chances down to 7%. And that's on Epic Normal? The brand new still-using-mlvl-12-gear-at-clvl-32 baby difficulty? smh

[Tyrande]

So it sounds like it wouldn't be that difficult at all to modify the way AC works to have it be useful again. Just change the scaling.

It is completely insane that you need a 600 AC to get monster to-hit chances down to 7%. And that's on Epic Normal? The brand new still-using-mlvl-12-gear-at-clvl-32 baby difficulty? smh

DDO is designed to hit players.

Yeah, that's why I figured long time ago that building for AC isn't my play of choice since I am pretty bad at it.

That's why people were using blur/displacement/concealment for normal/hard/elite.

For reaper people are building for maximize dodge + PRR/MRR... that's why barbarians and rogues are popular now. Back then prior to U50 was meld.

Hit "meld", melees were in 100% dodge and theoretically un-hittable for 15 seconds. But that god mode is gone now.

For high reaper play, melees that are not tanks have to wait on aggro mechanics such that they aggro on someone else, be that a tank or a far away caster;
or a helpless monster (held, sleeping, drunk, frozen, whatever...)

[Aelonwy]

AC in DDO is calculated differently than comparing with D&D on tabletop:

Monster's chance to hit: (Monster's Attack Bonus + 10.5) / (Target's Armor Class * 2)
Note: from testing, monster's Attack Bonus is typically 2.5*CR. They do not miss because in reaper, they have more than double the levels of the players.

What that means is that supposedly at max level, i.e. 32, the monster still have a 40% chance to hit with an AC of 100.
Even with an insane AC of 400, monsters still have a 10% chance to hit.
On a tank with 600 AC, monsters still have a 7% chance to hit.

This, of course, meaning your character run the dungeon around normal, i.e. CR = character level.
If you run at reaper, for like R10, the CRs of those monsters are usually doubled or more...

For tank with 600 AC, monsters still have a 17% chance to hit;
and for a regular character with 100 AC, monsters always hit.
In order for a chance of not always hitting, players should shoot for 110 AC or higher. For 150 AC, the chance of monster hitting went down to 67%
working with 25~30% dodge, that should mitigate down to less than half of the chance hitting.

I am too lazy to put together an AC vs dungeon difficulty at level 32 chart, but I am sure here someone good with R or Excel can do it quickly.

And that's why they want to give monsters dodge bypass. Monster to-hit is too dang high, has been too dang high for YEARS and its been worse since the U50/51 rebalance. Should we expect more of our gear stats to become utterly useless? Do they want to reinforce that their MADE UP stats of PRR/MRR will be the ONLY defensive stats that will be useful in the future?

[Tyrande]

And that's why they want to give monsters dodge bypass. Monster to-hit is too dang high, has been too dang high for YEARS and its been worse since the U50/51 rebalance. Should we expect more of our gear stats to become utterly useless? Do they want to reinforce that their MADE UP stats of PRR/MRR will be the ONLY defensive stats that will be useful in the future?

I think that's because some gaming gods like Firegoddess is complaining that R10 is too easy for him. Blame him.

[Peter_Principle]

I think that's because some gaming gods like Firegoddess is complaining that R10 is too easy for him. Blame him.

Surely adults - much less adults whose job it is to curate game content - couldn't be so thoughtless as to balance a game around the performance at either tip of the bell curve.

[draven1]

AC was changed on U14, because high AC was like "ALWAYS ON MELD". You had never gotten hit unless mobs roll on 20. Devs nerfed AC, and brought dodge & PRR/MRR later to compensate.

I doubt the effectiveness of AC would be changed, because it had caused many balance problems.

[noinfo]

AC was changed on U14, because high AC was like "ALWAYS ON MELD". You had never gotten hit unless mobs roll on 20. Devs nerfed AC, and brought dodge & PRR/MRR later to compensate.

I doubt the effectiveness of AC would be changed, because it had caused many balance problems.

No they had nefed ac long before that by adding grazing hits, you were effectively never a hit only on a 20 since that travesty.
Prior to that you had builds that could maximise ac and those that should have been able to not(ie heavy armour)