Armor and Mitigation Changes

[Scraap]

Its not a PM but let me guess:
1) there is no medium shield, so you must mean light/small shield
2) there are two named small shields in game, chitin shield and weathered targe
3) they are lolz
4) he will have to craft or recraft a new shield, which now offers less prr/doublestrike/deflection etc relative to his current large shield
5) he will lose access to all the other benefits of large shield items, such as wall of wood, dethek runestone, and many others.
6) he will still evade things, meaning no gain on that front
7) he will now in theory take less physical damage assuming the other new mods fit, at the cost of redoing his itemization and losing dps via doublestike, bash, etc

Am I close? Cant believe that even has to be said. Face palm.

You forgot the complete stat point spread retool from loosing the hipoint amp you can use for giving yourself some breathing room in that regard if you're not trying to play a 2 stat wonder.

[Bridge_Dweller]

Well, yes and no. Or have you forgotten that there exist Light/Medium armor wearing DPS classes like Barbs and Rangers? Is it your intention to completely exclude these from EE content now? It was bad for melees before, but this feels like it will be even MORE exclusionary.

I'm not sure how it would work like that.

[B0ltdrag0n]

The Dodge cap went up. I think I am missing which nerf you are talking about?

Sev~

There isn't one. He is wrong.

[Thar]

Ovrad talks about Peak damage, which we also call damage spikes. The design here is some builds will have higher total mitigation and have to deal with more damage spikes (Evasion builds with high Armor Class and Dodge) and some builds will take more overall damage but have a more predictable damage curve (Heavy Armor builds.)

~ The characters these changes benefit already have lower Reflex saves and thus are taking a lot of extra damage out of the gate.

~ The Evasion builds with high Dodge will have more severe damage spikes, but overall damage will still be lower thus conserving healing spell points *if* the healer can keep them alive during the spikes.

~ If we significantly reduced the MRR of this proposal heavy armor would simply not be as valuable as Evasion + high Reflex. We love our Evasion builds, but we do want other options that can compete in tough content.

Sev~

Evastion tanks won't get the AC needed from Light armor and light shields with no enhancement line AC boosts. you will kill that mode of play.

[alancarp]

From a practical standpoint his new system makes sense.

Example An evasion toon zigs instead of zags (figuratively) and fails to "evade" a fireball.... the damage should be significant since he/she has little to no physical protection...

A heavily armored character is not relying on the incoming spell missing him, but rather on his armor mitigating it. The end result is less affected by his actions, therefore a lower, but more consistent amount of damage makes sense. [snip]

Yes - agree.... better said than mine.

[JOTMON]

While this does look promising...it is still lacking....

PRR still needs to mitigate more damage than it does. a boss that spams hits for 500 a swing will still destroy a S/B tank with 50% damage mitigation.. this needs to be able to get much higher.
Bigger increases from tiers of armor/shields.. a well invested Stalwart type tank with heavy armor and towershield with 200+ PRR should be able to mitigate 80% damage or more.

Perhaps add some Torc type effects to heavy armor when shield blocking. (converts damage to SP/HP), .. they certainly are not doing much damage when shild blocking...
and/or % defletion damage.. Deflection bonus only applies to armor/shields... this way they can have a chance of deflecting damage back to opponent, while taking little or no damage.

Apply stacking DR calculated as 10% of PRR to all players with or without armor.

Something for barbarians.. they are still utlimately screwed.... they should have something like +5 PRR/level that does not stack with armor or armor type bonusses

A heavy tank Shielding up for an attack should mean something other than get a rez clickie ready....

[Raiderone]

Well, that pretty much blows up my S&B Evasion tank completely. Goes from Sub-optional damage output traded for decent all around mitigation to nonfunctional entirely due to loosing the PRE. Glad I didn't shell out for PDK for that. ohwait.

Heavy Shield: No Evasion feat
Tower Shield: No Evasion feat
~ The Stalwart Defender and the Sacred Defender will no longer be shield based trees. Instead, the enhancements that current require shields will be changed to require medium or heavy armor.
~ The Paladin class has fallen behind beyond the second level so we plan to look at some more compelling reasons to advance in that class.
~ We plan to introduce two new trees for shield use. The Vanguard tree will be focused on DPS while using a weapon and shield. This DPS will come from a combination of weapon damage and shield bashes. The Shieldbearer tree will be a mitigation tree that will focus on heavy armor and shield. This will also offer ways to counter enemies with active mitigation such as stuns, knock downs, and the like. These trees would be available to Fighter, Paladin and perhaps even a new class that supported heavy armor and martial abilities.
Sev~

I would suggest Stalwart Defender stays the same for light armor, but not require a shield for medium or heavy armor. A guildy of mine has similar S&B Evasion toon.
Heavy Shield: Evasion.
Tower Shield: No Evasion.

[dunklezhan]

~ If we significantly reduced the MRR of this proposal heavy armor would simply not be as valuable as Evasion + high Reflex. We love our Evasion builds, but we do want other options that can compete in tough content.

Sev~

I disagree that this is vital enough to just dish out a high level of general magical damage reduction on the basis that your armour has a "+" effect on it - but at least you have a good reason for your decision. I'm not against armour builds getting magical damage reduction/absorption in general with a goal to bring things on average in line with evasion/avoidance builds mind you, I just don't think it should be as easy as it feels like you're making it.

How about a lootgen armour effect that improves the benefit of the (lower base) MRR that the armour might have in comparison to its PRR. Giving up presumably another beneficial effect in order to seek your magical mitigation. Hard choices are good, I thought?

Full disclosure: I used to have a heavy tank S&B. I loved him. I respecced him to a PM (wraith)/EK/Kensai because it was more survivable a while back. I'd love to TR him as a S&B again, I've still got all his gear. My other successful melee characters are ALL evasion based (and my best is only a pure monk with only average gear - about 50% named which would basically be 2 pieces of Greensteel and the Eveningstar set all the way up at level 27) he's hardly an edge case). So I have the most to gain and nothing to lose (since you aren't nerfing avoidance/evasion) from the changes you propose. And I still think the current changes make high MRR too easy. But I don't claim to speak for the edge cases and I know that's really where you want a lot of the balance.

[Bridge_Dweller]

if you guys think evasion is needed with these changes . . . run some numbers.

[Severlin]

We will definitely need to address the lack of good small shields in future content. I know we plan to have small shields and bucklers in the loot for the epic version of Orchard which would be released at the same time as these changes.

Sev~

[Arlathen]

We will definitely need to address the lack of good small shields in future content. I know we plan to have small shields and bucklers in the loot for the epic version of Orchard which would be released at the same time as these changes.Sev~

Holy Cat out of the Bag, Batman!

[dunklezhan]

We will definitely need to address the lack of good small shields in future content. I know we plan to have small shields and bucklers in the loot for the epic version of Orchard which would be released at the same time as these changes.

Sev~

I guess some people will be very excited by this. I loathe undead quests. But I love pirate quests. So I'll just say: awesome! Another epic explorer area (not sarcasm, I love explorer areas)!

[BOgre]

There isn't one. He is wrong.

Wouldn't be the 1st time But then could you re-teach me how it DOES work then? I was under the impression that we currently have a 25% dodge cap and the new system imposes 20/15/10/5 caps on the heavier armors. I tried re-reading what I thought was the relevant info on wiki, but I'm not seeing it.

[CeltEireson]

Evastion tanks won't get the AC needed from Light armor and light shields with no enhancement line AC boosts. you will kill that mode of play.

But don't evasion tanks generally rely on dodge/concealment etc for damage mitigation in epic elite because getting AC to a relevant level currently is almost a waste of time for most.

Though I agree they should really leave large shields alone and allow them to still be used with evasion.

[Chaimberland]

We will definitely need to address the lack of good small shields in future content. I know we plan to have small shields and bucklers in the loot for the epic version of Orchard which would be released at the same time as these changes.

Sev~

Epic version of Orchard!? I'm not much of a fortune teller but I think you just derailed this thread. That is soooo cool.

[HatsuharuZ]

We will definitely need to address the lack of good small shields in future content. I know we plan to have small shields and bucklers in the loot for the epic version of Orchard which would be released at the same time as these changes.

Sev~

*Head explodes*


Question: Is there really a need for light shields? It might be a good idea to combine light shields and bucklers. Basically, make all light shields into bucklers, and increase the stats of bucklers to what used to be light shields.

[Thar]

We will definitely need to address the lack of good small shields in future content. I know we plan to have small shields and bucklers in the loot for the epic version of Orchard which would be released at the same time as these changes.

Sev~

or leave the large shield changes alone...

[B0ltdrag0n]

Wouldn't be the 1st time But then could you re-teach me how it DOES work then? I was under the impression that we currently have a 25% dodge cap and the new system imposes 20/15/10/5 caps on the heavier armors. I tried re-reading what I thought was the relevant info on wiki, but I'm not seeing it.

This check is done independent of the miss chance resulting from Armor Class and other measures of not getting hit, such as Concealment or Incorporeality. The dodge chance is capped by the Maximum dexterity bonus of the armor worn, and cannot exceed 25%.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Dodge_bonus

[Bridge_Dweller]

We will definitely need to address the lack of good small shields in future content. I know we plan to have small shields and bucklers in the loot for the epic version of Orchard which would be released at the same time as these changes.

Sev~

I still think evasion shluld be able to work with a large shield, not towers.

And while you're at it, I think Max dodge equaling your MDB should stay in the game.

[Bridge_Dweller]

epic version of Orchard
Sev~

Do you realize this leak is bigger news than anything else you posted?