Armor and Mitigation Changes

[Ebondevil]

Some people asked about Warforged and Bladeforged.

Warforged and Bladeforged with the Mithral Body feat will be treated as though they are wearing Light Armor. They can have Evasion and Improved Evasion. They gain 15 PRR and MRR like the light armors will provide.

Warforged and Bladeforged with the Admantite Body feat will be treated as though they are wearing Heavy Armor. They cannot use Evasion or Improved Evasion. They gain 45 PRR and MRR.

Sev~

I would personally argue that the Mithril Body Feat should give the same PRR/MRR as medium armour,
the armour it grants is the equivalent to a Mithril Breastplate if you compare the two:

Mithril Breastplate
+5 AC
-1 AC penalty to Skills
15% Arcane Spell Failure
+5 Max Dex Bonus

Mithril Body
+5 AC
-1 AC penalty to Skills
15% Arcane Spell Failure
+5 Max Dex Bonus

Both of which are treated as Light Armour, but should provide the PRR benefits of Medium Armour. Especially since Warforged and Bladeforged need to sacrifice a feat to get it, regardless of Class, unlike any other Race which gets Light/Medium armour for free.

The Composite Plating for All Warforged/Bladeforged is also a type of armour, and could possibly also grant some PRR/MRR even if they don't take the feats, to make up for the fact they don't get the benefits of the Class Feats that grant armour proficiency.

[Propane]

I have an 18 pally 2 monk tank using light armor and heavy shield. He was crushed by the MOTU changes and had to be totally redone to be useful.

Agreed - I am in the same boat - both with an 18pally/2monk (mixed in to FT levels since MOTU to add some dps (stunning blow) & have a 12 fighter 6 pally 2 rogue tank in a similar boat.
Changing shields mix with evasion after all these years will hurt - good shields are hard to come buy / hard to make.
I shutter at the thought of peps who ran LOB enough to get the shield they wanted - just to have it changed....

If you must - heavy/tower --> -2/-4 reflex save or something....

[Captain_Wizbang]

But... I specifically responded to your post?

/points up a few posts

As for Evasion + shield tanks, the design is that they will use light shields. It actually gives light shields a use. Yes, I realize that there are a lack of good light shields at the moment, precisely because in the past they had no use. We will be looking to add good light shields to the mix. I know we have light shields and bucklers planned for the content released with these changes.

Sev~

this is a step sideways. not forwards, not backwards either.

Mithril and "magical" shields currently in the game should be included in this as well.

[Thar]

Some corrections.

~ If the Bladeforged gets 45 PRR (s)he is using Admantite plating which counts as heavy armor and couldn't get Evasion. Mithral plating provides 15 PRR and can use Evasion.

~ I think you missed the fact that large or tower shields will double MRR versus damaging attacks that allow a Reflex save. So that 200 MRR will turn to 400 against anything that Evasion works against. That's ~73% mitigation, plus the heavy armor character can still possibly make a saving throw for half damage. While the absolute mitigation might not be as good the damage input will be much less spikey making these characters easier to heal in a frenetic battle, especially at the highest levels where two failed reflex saving throws might mean death.

~ The fact that characters designed as tanks can't hold agro is on our list. While we don't want to turn DDO into a strict trinity game (we like that you don't have to necessarily play towards that paradigm) we also don't want tanks to be useless either.

~ One handed fighting feats will not work with shields. We prefer a design that keeps the various fighting styles pure. On the other hand, if the DPS tree makes shield bashes hit as hard as we are imagining you will want the increased chance to shield bash from the shield feats. We just have to make sure that the increased shield bashes don't work while blocking because, let's face it a strategy where all you do is hold block and click for big shield bashes would really not be fun.

Sev~

73% migation vs evasion which fails for full damage at least 5% of the time and often more (25% avg) with space dedicated to full time slotting of resist items. In new content *Haunted halls, I've seen evasion builds blow up vs miirr that don't have a problem with anything else. This seems too high for no trade off since I assume that absorb/resist will stack on top of that. keeping it at the pre shield modifier would be fair since it cuts down the big hits, allows absorption to have a roll as today and gives evasion builds a niche to still be a little better at one area.

1000 hp blast - 73% = 270 hp - 33% absorb = 180.9 - 30% absorb = 126 = cocoon level/silver flame pot healing for heavy tanks. what will clerics do?

evastion 1000 hp blast = 25% full damage, 75% no damage = 250 average = 33% aborb -30 % absorb. =117.25 average but in reallity it's miss miss miss boom.. (need heal and clerics have a role).

if you say what about a 3000 pt blast... really? we are at a point in the game where we need to throw damage around that will one shot 95% of the classes/characters?

heavy tanks need help in this area and this is a good idea it's just WAAAY too much. the pre modifier 38% is enough.

why would you pick evasion over heavy armor in the above?

[Qhualor]

73% migation vs evasion which fails for full damage at least 5% of the time and often more (25% avg) with space dedicated to full time slotting of resist items. In new content *Haunted halls, I've seen evasion builds blow up vs miirr that don't have a problem with anything else. This seems too high for no trade off since I assume that absorb/resist will stack on top of that. keeping it at the pre shield modifier would be fair since it cuts down the big hits, allows absorption to have a roll as today and gives evasion builds a niche to still be a little better at one area.

1000 hp blast - 73% = 270 hp - 33% absorb = 180.9 - 30% absorb = 126 = cocoon level/silver flame pot healing for heavy tanks. what will clerics do?

evastion 1000 hp blast = 25% full damage, 75% no damage = 250 average = 33% aborb -30 % absorb. =117.25 average but in reallity it's miss miss miss boom.. (need heal and clerics have a role).

if you say what about a 3000 pt blast... really? we are at a point in the game where we need to throw damage around that will one shot 95% of the classes/characters?

heavy tanks need help in this area and this is a good idea it's just WAAAY too much. the pre modifier 38% is enough.

why would you pick evasion over heavy armor in the above?

not that I want to get into a BYOH discussion, but..

roles are only played in raids now and at least half the time, its BYOH. you can thank the players that wanted the game to go in that direction and Turbine listening to them. today its about self sufficiency and teamwork.

[Nascoe]

Sev, can we talk about adding greensteel and thunder forged shields? They would certainly help.


Oh, and bring back the dodge cap change. It was the best idea I saw presented and it was scrapped in a matter of hours. I thought: finally, a purpose to medium armor and a much needed buff for barbs.

Good point, although I doubt anyone is going to add to GS nowadays, if Turbine gives players an option of small shields from TF it would really help the step change because we could start off by making our own solid shield until we get any new ones that will be added in the future

[bbqzor]

I think you missed the fact that large or tower shields will double MRR versus damaging attacks that allow a Reflex save. So that 200 MRR will turn to 400 against anything that Evasion works against. That's ~73% mitigation, plus the heavy armor character can still possibly make a saving throw for half damage. While the absolute mitigation might not be as good the damage input will be much less spikey making these characters easier to heal in a frenetic battle, especially at the highest levels where two failed reflex saving throws might mean death.

How do you not get that if the idea was to make heavy armor "mo betta" compared to evasion, that giving it a 100% chance for 3/4ths damage is too "betta". I get wanting to support heavy armor, but this is effectively invincible mode. You dont think that running around taking 250 dmg all the time when everyone else is at risk of a 1k nuke is overkill?

The fact that characters designed as tanks can't hold agro is on our list. While we don't want to turn DDO into a strict trinity game (we like that you don't have to necessarily play towards that paradigm) we also don't want tanks to be useless either.

Very rarely an issue. I realize that with the forums you hear from all types, but anyone trying to hold agro on a well built character generally can. The problem you often run into in pugs and such is an under developed or under geared tank facing a multi life well geared sorc or something, and the constant spikes from nukes outpace the intim timer and the tank guy cant do his job. Given equally situated characters (ie, tank and caster or whatever have same amount of past lives, same destiny work, similar gear levels etc) the tanks can easily do their jobs. I realize this may not address heroic, but in all my heroic runs it wasnt quite so important the tank lock everything down as it is during events later on.

If you want to do something here, i would suggest one easy and thematic fix be to give tanks an enhancement line in their tanky destiny which cuts the intim timer down. So like Stalwarts and Sacred Defenders could take a 3 rank thing which like sets intimidate from 12s up 15s cd, to 10/12 at rank 1, then 8/10, then 6/8 at max. Having the button available twice as often to cover the increasing frequent spikes from epic things should do it. And it should make heroic easier as well (heroic you dont get surprise spikes or adds nearly as often, so grabbing one group of mobs then another should be good enough).

One handed fighting feats will not work with shields. We prefer a design that keeps the various fighting styles pure. On the other hand, if the DPS tree makes shield bashes hit as hard as we are imagining you will want the increased chance to shield bash from the shield feats. We just have to make sure that the increased shield bashes don't work while blocking because, let's face it a strategy where all you do is hold block and click for big shield bashes would really not be fun.

Uggghhh why more shield bash. Just stop whatever you are doing and seriously, please, I BEG YOU!!!! Go load in a s/b. Go find the training dummy or dojo kobolds or whatever you use to test. Equip your junk and start swinging. Shield Bash has an animation cap which prevents it from attacking as fast as it should. Stack on all kinds of whatever garbage you want, your shield bash rate will cap out. You will not get all the bashes you should. Watch carefully. Read your combat log. Do some math with things like doublestrike, offhand proc chance, haste, etc. Your shield bash will fall behind. It will not get the benefits in Stalwart of bashing more. An item of bashing wont help. Etc.

Unless you have personally logged in and verified this is no longer the case, shield-anything is pointless. I'd like to see a post, saying exactly that, so that I can then go look and be sure its fixed. Then, and only then, is it worth commenting on anything bash related.

The heavy armor tank gives Evasion and Improved Evasion. That itself is a big disadvantage.

The "heavy armor tank" doesnt give those things up. He never had them. He builds differently. Trying to say that things you never got is an offset cost against things you are getting is just bad logic. Man, my heavy tank armor gave up Heal. Also, he gave up Haste. And I didnt build him to have Fireball either. Ugh. I need to get a 75% chance to cast a self healing meteor swarm of haste now. Thats what that reads like. The game has existed, just fine, for years at this point. You dont "give up" things. You build towards what you want. Not building for evasion is a choice, just like building for heavy armor is a choice.

Heavy armored characters give up a lot of Dodge. Maybe 27% mitigation.

Maybe. My Heavy Armor tank has 14-15% dodge, because I went and put some stuff on him to help with that. So hes missing 10% avoidance (not mitigation, dodge is all or nothing bro). Trade off is a lot of AC gains from the armor (175-200 destiny depending, not as good as many but admittedly I dont play him often as several of my friends have better tanks). It works just fine for me. Again, you are acting like they are "giving up" things they never had. People have to pick what to build for, thats DDO. That good build choices are not obvious, or are difficult to arrive at, that may be an issue yes. But it doesnt mean there are not good ones on the table. Acting like heavy armor gave up 27% dodge is a straw argument, they only give it up if the build actually gives it up, it doesnt have to.

They give up Jump, which I use constantly when I fight with characters with lighter armors. They give up lots of Swim which can really be annoying in the watery dungeons.

You just lost a lot of whatever tiny bit of cred you have. Anyone from lv 11-15+ can and should be hitting 40 jump at will whenever they need to. Certainly at 18+ with the items out there just waiting to be looted. And swim? Seriously swim? "Omg im really annoyed in the like two water dungeons in the game"? That was posted by a dev? I did the crucible swim earlier this week on a heavy armor and shield paladin. My swim score? 5. With zero ranks. Swapped some junk around, grabbed whatever buffs available from the party, and took off with a 20. Did it just fine, at level, on Heroic Elite. If people never swap their gear around, or never ask the party for buffs, or never carry potions, or what have you.. yes those are issues. But that is the fault of an unprepared player. DDO (and pnp) are as much about preparing as they are about execution. If your heavy tank cant jump and you cant swim, well, thats on you not the heavy armor.

In this system to really get the most out of the heavier armors you will also want to gear towards PRR and MRR. Those gears choices will mean giving up on other stats

See, that the system is determining what we have to build for is limiting player choices and destroying builds. You talk about not wanting to be a "trinity" game and then throw this out. Its effectively the same thing. I know PRR is already in game, but everyone can access and enjoy the rewards of working on that. Trying to make it a "heavy armor tank" thing is forcing peoples hands. Just call it like it is... dont act like its a freely accessible move.

I will look into why the Dodge cap might be lower for Mithral Body. I don't know off hand why this was done or what it is balanced against.

Its that way because back in the day (the day being like 2006) it used the old (3.5 pnp version) of armor statting to copy. At this point, its outdated, and an artifact of copying pnp from which everything else has already moved on. And honestly, even back then, it wasnt an appealing choice. People went composite or adamantine, just like they do now. The Mithril Fluidity feat which was supposed to help mithril body never gave enough of a boost to be worth taking 2 feat slots (mithirl body, plus fluidity). Honestly, with the system going in, now is a good time to finally address those 2 feats. Maybe combo them up so its just one feat slot with legit stats, and tweak the numbers a bit. They are one of the last sitings of original ddo armor and could use a face lift.

As for Evasion + shield tanks, the design is that they will use light shields. It actually gives light shields a use.

Man. Two things. One, no one has ever cared that light shields didnt have a use. You pulled that out of thin air. When you gave bucklers a use by adding swash, that was cool, they had none and were given one and it didnt take away from anybody. You want to make light shields better for evasion? Fine. You want to nerf every shield using evasion guy out there currently? Not cool bro. Additions are cool. Widesweeping nerfs for no reason other than "cause I wanna" are the epitome of terrible design, and its going to make people upset, and that doesnt help anything.

Two, this change does more than just that. It means anyone building for evasion will have access to lower AC and PRR values than they currently do. Tanking, currently, is hard. Its the most gear intensive job out there, and takes making a ton of sacrifices in build choices pursuing the few things which are efficient enough to get you to a good ending place. Taking away ground they gain by lowering prr/ac is not going to "help evasion tanks" by "giving their items a use". Its going to drop their tanking stats so they cant tank anymore, and kill even the name of their role as "evasion tank".

Yes, I realize that there are a lack of good light shields at the moment, precisely because in the past they had no use. We will be looking to add good light shields to the mix. I know we have light shields and bucklers planned for the content released with these changes.

Dont even know where to start here. Adding more items to the mix is not a fix its a trap. You guys never have enough time to do large itemization correctly. It never gets finished either. Youre going to add a couple in the pack that comes out with it, those will be whats there, and that will be it. It does nothing to address what people have used for years. Or what mods are currently available. Or across what level ranges and in which packs, for people who arent 20+ with all content. And what about non shield users? Which is probably the majority of your player base if my raid/pug experience is any indicator? You think everyones going to be fine if the pack is like 50% shield drops no one needs? Or you think youre going to be able to itemize a full pack of stuff, plus another 20 shields and bucklers which are backwards itemized over the whole game? None of that is realistic.

You need to take some time and go add light shields all over. Like rune arms, at a minimum. Then, AFTER the items are there to support it, make changes (which I still think are a bad idea but you seem to invested in this to pull out now). Dont pull the rug out and promise to catch us. Loot has a history of being hit and miss stat wise, and imbalanced slot wise. 3BC was better, but Im not going to overlook 6+ years of mistakes because of 1 good run. Until we can see what, exactly, you consider "good shields" are being added to the "content released" theres really no way to put any stock in this comment. It just sounds like a trap: if you believe it, youll get disappointed/nerfed, if you dont, you have to reroll your guy and throw away all your work. Either way, its bad.

[sephiroth1084]

They give up Jump, which I use constantly when I fight with characters with lighter armors. They give up lots of Swim which can really be annoying in the watery dungeons.

Uh, what?

How are heavy armor users giving up Jump? Are you referring exclusively to the low levels? It's so easy to cap Jump (40) that few characters ever bother with more than a rank or 2. Heavy armor has no discernible impact on the ability to jump around somewhere between level 11 and 18 (earlier if you have access to the Jump spel and caster levels, or group with full casters, later if you have to wait until you can get Morah's Belt from Amrath). Items with bonuses to Jump on them are almost entirely useless unless you, inexplicably, don't have a high CL Jump clicky (or need to be able to hit max Jump in quests where you're getting dispelled alot/have over 30 minutes between shrines).

Why are you jumping around a lot in combat?

Swim? How many dungeons do we have where swimming is a necessity at all? In how many of those can we dolphin-hop across the top of the water to avoid a slow Swim speed? How many of those put any emphasis whatsoever on being able to swim fast? And, finally, in how many of those do you have swims that are both long enough to really be annoyed by a slow swim speed, and have reasons to need to wear heavy armor while swimming? Sure, it takes a little while to get your armor back on, but if the swim is long enough, it would make more sense to take it off, do the swim, then put it back on.

I cannot imagine many players give any thought whatsoever to how heavy armor impacts things like this.

[Desonde]

~ If someone really wants to tank they will be looking for a smoother, more predictable damage mitigation.

Heavy armored characters give up a lot of Dodge. Maybe 27% mitigation. They give up Jump, which I use constantly when I fight with characters with lighter armors.

In this system to really get the most out of the heavier armors you will also want to gear towards PRR and MRR. Those gears choices will mean giving up on other stats.

This is pretty interested because you are stating that the play style you constantly use is in line with how the meta plays. You then suggest that tanking isn't really in the design but 'If someone really wants to tank.' you're delivering a theoretical solution to a theoretical problem.

Gearing towards PRR and MRR will show diminishing returns and will still heavily favor light armor over heavy armor. By this I mean that the first 50 points of PRR/MRR will reduce the damage as much as going from 51-150. (150/200=.75 vs 150/300=.5) they would need to further go from 150-450 in order to reduce the damage by a further 0.25.

Here's why that's an issue, 300PRR/MRR is probably around where players will be able to get which will be 33% damage taken, let's say the player has 1200hp and the base damage the monster does is 100. Said monster will now only do 33 a hit or about .275% of the total hp per second, however, at the point when tanking starts to have issues there will be 16 creatures attacking at least once a second, so that 33/0.275% becomes 528/44% per second meaning the tanks death occurs in ~2.27 seconds.

However it gets worse, on normal with full scaling that 100 becomes 170 (On hard does it only scale faster or is the cap also increased?) which is 56/4.666% at 300prr. Against the spawns of 16 it will be 896/74.666%.

This system works fine against bosses, even at 250 damage a hit, but a tank will have to sit back and try not to get hit until they make it to the boss because their defenses will fall apart when facing off against numbers.

Against reflex saves the some tank would only take ~10% damage (150/750=.2*.5(for tower shield)?) from every hit, so lets say it's 180 with resistances factored in, resulting in 18, and magic users spawn in groups of up to 8 (haven't seen any groups of 16 AoE spell spammers yet) results in 144 damage every 3 seconds, half if they can also make the reflex save.

Now lets compare that to a light armored imp. evasion character that jumps around and tries to get hit as little as possible (ranged and run, or Displacement, Incorp, Dodge, Blind). With around 150prr/mrr if they get hit they will take 1/2 damage as apposed to 1/3. When hit by an evadable effect, 5% of the time they will take 25% of the damage dealt (or grant them an effect similar to Imp. Evasion if they have only evasion).

No armored toons will probably be less effected depending on sources of mrr for them.

This isn't enough to make heavy armored characters viable beyond where they are currently, it will however add to the power creep of the current meta (and help boost light armor options).

To test the viability of the changes, take your ideal build into a fully scaled 'Thrill of the Hunt' and 'What Goes Up' and try and tank the spawns in the end bosses.

[Rixaen]

MRR?

Really I mean REALLY?. No seriously.

We have something called SR already. You know Spell Resistance. and if you bothered to have actual balance between players and mobs when it comes to CR then SR would be a very viable defense for non evasion characters and for SR users evasion would be a back up not the other way around.

There is a reason Drow have it, and it is suppose to be to make them nearly unstoppable against arcane forces, that is infact the logic behind someone as ****ing mighty as Elminster wanting the help of others, mainly non casters, in fighting off the threat to Eveningstar.

Infact yes in PnP my go to race for warriors is drow as they are the best race to provide a needed layer of protection against magic in high lvl play for those of a more warrior orientation.

The fact that items like the Ring of Evasion, items with actual useful SR, and items like the holy avenger for pallies that dispels on hit, and offers great SR to the pallie wielding it are all not in the game are the issue, not needing to ****ing move ever more away from PnP rules and traditions that made life long D&D players give this waste of programming a chance.

[Qhualor]

MRR?

Really I mean REALLY?. No seriously.

We have something called SR already. You know Spell Resistance. and if you bothered to have actual balance between players and mobs when it comes to CR then SR would be a very viable defense for non evasion characters and for SR users evasion would be a back up not the other way around.

There is a reason Drow have it, and it is suppose to be to make them nearly unstoppable against arcane forces, that is infact the logic behind someone as ****ing mighty as Elminster wanting the help of others, mainly non casters, in fighting off the threat to Eveningstar.

Infact yes in PnP my go to race for warriors is drow as they are the best race to provide a needed layer of protection against magic in high lvl play for those of a more warrior orientation.

The fact that items like the Ring of Evasion, items with actual useful SR, and items like the holy avenger for pallies that dispels on hit, and offers great SR to the pallie wielding it are all not in the game are the issue, not needing to ****ing move ever more away from PnP rules and traditions that made life long D&D players give this waste of programming a chance.

so you are saying you want spell resistance to be more like magical and natural poison? you want spell resistance to work so you have a chance to make a save against an enemy caster that throws a fireball at you and a chance at not taking any fire damage?

[Severlin]

Uh, what?

How are heavy armor users giving up Jump?

I cannot imagine many players give any thought whatsoever to how heavy armor impacts things like this.

As an aside, we have to consider the entire leveling experience as well as end game. Especially since many players end up cycling through the heroic levels quite a bit. Not every comment I make applies to end game.

Sev~

[Rixaen]

so you are saying you want spell resistance to be more like magical and natural poison? you want spell resistance to work so you have a chance to make a save against an enemy caster that throws a fireball at you and a chance at not taking any fire damage?

that is and how it had always been in PnP do you not know that how SR works here in DDO is watered down and frankly just wrong. It is well known for example that in PnP where you can hurt yourself and allies with your aoe effects for example rarely do you see wizards dance in things like walls of fire or point blank a fireball. Except races like Drow which are historically prone to such seemingly reckless tactics because, and to quote an old manual on drow, harmful magic is about as likely to threaten a drow as much as a rainy day does a duck.

In fact for many drow fans, the fact drow where a race that from the get go required special effort to unlock and yet was watered down and inherently gimp due to the way 32 point stat races worked that the way they ****ed up SR in DDO and on the drow player race in paticular was a huge slap in the face that I have no doubt drove off many fans of playing drow.

A drow, a paladin with a holy avenger, hell anyone with a good SR item of around 10 plus their current character lvl was pretty safe from most magical attacks. Hence why most casters in PnP often have large groups of non caster warrior orientated servants or allies just like player wizards do for when things like golems come along.

In fact in 2nd ed MR or magic resistance as it was known back then was a straight % and drow had a base 50% plus 2% for each lvl they had. with a cap at 80%, but they also where known to be able to brew a potion that could further enhance this and render them virtually immune to hostile magic for the time it lasted and was commonly carried only in raids on the surface by the front line assault force to help ofcourse further create the illusion to surface dwellers of drow magic immunity.

[bbqzor]

As an aside, we have to consider the entire leveling experience as well as end game. Especially since many players end up cycling through the heroic levels quite a bit. Not every comment I make applies to end game.

Jump potions, house P buff, a +5 jump item swap... this junk is fixable even in the harbor stages of the game. If new players dont have the resources, okay, theyre new and will likely face those conditions in many areas. If youre worried about people "cycling through heroic quite a bit"... hi those are the exact kind of people that will know about jump potions, house P buff, etc.

As an aside... what the heck would jump even have to do with "Armor and Mitigation" changes anyhow? Youre not talking about dropping heavy armor's armor check penalty. Youve not once acted like taking your armor off for a jump and putting it back on is being changed with new "equip your armor fast" feats. What does that even have to do with the discussion! You brought it up in a list of few things to try and act like heavy armor was totally pwning players as a terrible choice, why? Because you had nothing else to cite? Back to the points in the OP maybe, jumps a non-issue and should never have been mentioned.

[Rixaen]

As an aside, we have to consider the entire leveling experience as well as end game. Especially since many players end up cycling through the heroic levels quite a bit. Not every comment I make applies to end game.

Sev~

This right here is going to give you an endless nightmare with dealing with the typical forumite of DDO who lives to min max, meta game the content, and really only cares about their completed toon rather then the journey towards that sense of completion. Its also an aspect of our forums that drives off many would be new citizens of Storms Reach.

DDO has become the haven for zerg mentality type players. It is what it is and even mentioning you give a thought to any other aspect of the game will be viewed by them as either ignorant or uncaring of what to this type of gamer is the only aspect that DEVs need to focus on.

[Rixaen]

Jump potions, house P buff, a +5 jump item swap... this junk is fixable even in the harbor stages of the game. If new players dont have the resources, okay, theyre new and will likely face those conditions in many areas. If youre worried about people "cycling through heroic quite a bit"... hi those are the exact kind of people that will know about jump potions, house P buff, etc.

As an aside... what the heck would jump even have to do with "Armor and Mitigation" changes anyhow? Youre not talking about dropping heavy armor's armor check penalty. Youve not once acted like taking your armor off for a jump and putting it back on is being changed with new "equip your armor fast" feats. What does that even have to do with the discussion! You brought it up in a list of few things to try and act like heavy armor was totally pwning players as a terrible choice, why? Because you had nothing else to cite? Back to the points in the OP maybe, jumps a non-issue and should never have been mentioned.

Well i do recall long ago in the way back a party wiping in I think it ws von3 because the cleric couldnt make a jump to reach a much needed shrine, no matter that they stripped down, had their dumped str buffed as much as it could be, a GH and a jump spell all cast on them, and they just couldnt reach it.

I think that jump was later tweaked or removed to make it much easier and not actually require an investment in jump to make. I always thought such where a far more fair way to approach making some shrines less then a given then say trapped shrines which still require trap skills to safely clear during a moment most typically noted for being when players are worn down, low on life and mana, and need that shrine.

[Qhualor]

that is and how it had always been in PnP do you not know that how SR works here in DDO is watered down and frankly just wrong. It is well known for example that in PnP where you can hurt yourself and allies with your aoe effects for example rarely do you see wizards dance in things like walls of fire or point blank a fireball. Except races like Drow which are historically prone to such seemingly reckless tactics because, and to quote an old manual on drow, harmful magic is about as likely to threaten a drow as much as a rainy day does a duck.

In fact for many drow fans, the fact drow where a race that from the get go required special effort to unlock and yet was watered down and inherently gimp due to the way 32 point stat races worked that the way they ****ed up SR in DDO and on the drow player race in paticular was a huge slap in the face that I have no doubt drove off many fans of playing drow.

A drow, a paladin with a holy avenger, hell anyone with a good SR item of around 10 plus their current character lvl was pretty safe from most magical attacks. Hence why most casters in PnP often have large groups of non caster warrior orientated servants or allies just like player wizards do for when things like golems come along.

In fact in 2nd ed MR or magic resistance as it was known back then was a straight % and drow had a base 50% plus 2% for each lvl they had. with a cap at 80%, but they also where known to be able to brew a potion that could further enhance this and render them virtually immune to hostile magic for the time it lasted and was commonly carried only in raids on the surface by the front line assault force to help ofcourse further create the illusion to surface dwellers of drow magic immunity.

im just trying to understand what you mean by SR. I know how it works. fortunately in this game we don't have to worry about friendly fire too much or DDO would be a very different game.

taken from 3.5

Spell Resistance (Ex)[edit]

Spell resistance is the extraordinary ability to avoid being affected by spells. (Some spells also grant spell resistance.) To determine if a spell or spell-like ability works against a creature with spell resistance, the caster must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level). If the result equals or exceeds the creature’s spell resistance, the spell works normally, although the creature is still allowed a saving throw. (The defender’s spell resistance is like an Armor Class against magical attacks.) If the caster fails the check, the spell doesn’t affect the creature. The possessor does not have to do anything special to use spell resistance. The creature need not even be aware of the threat for its spell resistance to operate.

Only spells and spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance. Extraordinary and supernatural abilities (including enhancement bonuses on magic weapons) are not. A creature can have some abilities that are subject to spell resistance and some that are not. Even some spells ignore spell resistance; see When Spell Resistance Applies, below.

A creature can voluntarily lower its spell resistance. Doing so is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Once a creature lowers its resistance, it remains down until the creature’s next turn. At the beginning of the creature’s next turn, the creature’s spell resistance automatically returns unless the creature intentionally keeps it down (also a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity).

A creature’s spell resistance never interferes with its own spells, items, or abilities.

A creature with spell resistance cannot impart this power to others by touching them or standing in their midst. Only the rarest of creatures and a few magic items have the ability to bestow spell resistance upon another.

Spell resistance does not stack. It overlaps.

as you can see it says its like an Armor Class against magical attacks. sounds awfully like this brand new thing Sev is implementing with MRR, except he/she is tying it to actual armor. im not 100% on board with MRR myself and I could actually be more behind SR working as described above instead. I cant speak why Sev or whoever would be the dev would be to make SR work as it really should. it does seem to make more sense.

not all spells would work though. I don't know what is considered extraordinary or supernatural in DDO.

[jakeelala]

Jump potions, house P buff, a +5 jump item swap... this junk is fixable even in the harbor stages of the game. If new players dont have the resources, okay, theyre new and will likely face those conditions in many areas. If youre worried about people "cycling through heroic quite a bit"... hi those are the exact kind of people that will know about jump potions, house P buff, etc.

As an aside... what the heck would jump even have to do with "Armor and Mitigation" changes anyhow? Youre not talking about dropping heavy armor's armor check penalty. Youve not once acted like taking your armor off for a jump and putting it back on is being changed with new "equip your armor fast" feats. What does that even have to do with the discussion! You brought it up in a list of few things to try and act like heavy armor was totally pwning players as a terrible choice, why? Because you had nothing else to cite? Back to the points in the OP maybe, jumps a non-issue and should never have been mentioned.

Let it go, it was a bad justification but you're not going to get anywhere skewering him for it.

[Oxarhamar]

As an aside, we have to consider the entire leveling experience as well as end game. Especially since many players end up cycling through the heroic levels quite a bit. Not every comment I make applies to end game.

Sev~

Good to hear this is your thinking!

Funny story: I watched a Heavy Armor wearing trying to do the jump puzzle in Deathwrym wearing their skivvies.

[Satyriasys]

I cannot imagine many players give any thought whatsoever to how heavy armor impacts things like this.

It's called armor check penalty. If you do not value skills in ddo then it will matter little to you. There is a large majority however who make great use from ddo's skill system.