Remove MRR Armor Caps

[Noir]

*Snip* Why are the devs hellbent on disallowing building something that is virtually unkillable? In order to do this, the builder would have to trade away other aspects, and their near unkillable character wouldnt be able to DPS its way out of a wet paper bag.

Near Unkillable is still near unkillable and on such a character lower DPS would only slow them down slightly.
Your asking the DEVS why they are hellbent on not allowing what is essentially "Godmode" in their game?
And would remove most of the viability of wearing any other armor type. And seriously wonder why they won't allow this?
The answer seems quite clear and they have stated it in this thread already.

[Renvar]

Tilo's a known troll account. You can ignore him.

Anyways.

I'd venture rather than raising caps (and having to re-deal with this whenever mudflation moves on again) a better solution may be to incur a penalty to MRR based on having access to evasion.

That is to say

Rather than a 50 MRR cap with no armor

Evasion = 75% effective MRR
Improve Evasion = 50% effective MRR

Regardless of armor type.

Or something along those lines.

That way Casters don't need hamfisted high level enhancements (or get punished for making a multi-spec that doesn't take high tier abilities) to accomadate this. Players that get evasion can also feel like gearing matters past a certain point instead of going, "Welp I got 50 MRR cap in one item, guess I can ignore this stat now!"

I was under the impression that the main issue with the MRR cap was monks and rogues in melee. Casters are supposed to be glass cannons. They have defensive spells that can limit spell damage. MRR design should be targeted for non-caster builds with more limited options for mitigating magical damage.

Let's not go back to the days of the Caster Tank, please. At least, not without trade offs on the DPS or DC side.

[LT218]

Just wear medium armor when evasion isn't useful and more MRR is required. Nothing is stopping you, even on a monk.

Yeah, why didn't we think of that? Uncentered monks are awesome. I'm sure every player who put the time and effort into leveling a monk build just loves attacking at half speed, not having the stance benefits, and no Ki.

Did you miss the part where I pointed out that if you have to essentially change all your feats, gear and abilities that make a class or build unique just to survive level-appropriate content, there's really no point in using that class/build? You might as well just switch to a build that uses medium or heavy armor full time and not have to deal with that hassle.

[LT218]

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.

If this were even remotely true, where are all the end-game heavy tanks in cloth armor? How about all those cloth wearing paladins and tempests?

As someone who has spent a significant amount of in-game time running end-game LE and R1-10 content on DPS builds spanning shuricannons, gxbow mechs, swashbucklers, wolves, tempests, paladins, etc., I can tell you right now that I run medium and heavy armor on any build that doesn't take serious penalty to the rest of their abilities for doing so. On the heavy armor builds, I don't miss evasion in the slightest and die far less than on the cloth and light armor builds. It didn't use to be this way, but as they've added more non-evasionable effects into the game and/or not bothered to fix bugs related to it, the balance has changed heavily in favor of MRR over evasion. Reaper and mob powercreep in general serves to further highlight this imbalance by making the un-evadable stuff even more deadly.

[Tilomere]

Yeah, why didn't we think of that? Uncentered monks are awesome.

Yes they are! However, you don't need to aspire to that pinnacle of glory. All you need to do is be more than a soulstone. With Duality, an uncentered monk probably does the same damage as everyone else.

As I said before, I am totally in favor of taking the MRR cap away and making evasion 50% MRR. The amount of monks, rogues, and rangers in heroics that convert to warlock as a result of that heroic nerf will improve my racial past life and reaper xp accumulation.

[Renvar]

If this were even remotely true, where are all the end-game heavy tanks in cloth armor? How about all those cloth wearing paladins and tempests?

As someone who has spent a significant amount of in-game time running end-game LE and R1-10 content on DPS builds spanning shuricannons, gxbow mechs, swashbucklers, wolves, tempests, paladins, etc., I can tell you right now that I run medium and heavy armor on any build that doesn't take serious penalty to the rest of their abilities for doing so. On the heavy armor builds, I don't miss evasion in the slightest and die far less than on the cloth and light armor builds. It didn't use to be this way, but as they've added more non-evasionable effects into the game and/or not bothered to fix bugs related to it, the balance has changed heavily in favor of MRR over evasion. Reaper and mob powercreep in general serves to further highlight this imbalance by making the un-evadable stuff even more deadly.

Which is why Dodge > AC and PRR. Which is why cloth/light armor is better than Heavy Armor and Medium Armor. Evasion is just icing on the cake. Due to diminishing returns of high AC (and uselessness against champs and reapers) and PRR,

40+ Dodge and a moderate investment in AC and Dodge is far superior.

[Chai]

Near Unkillable is still near unkillable and on such a character lower DPS would only slow them down slightly.
Your asking the DEVS why they are hellbent on not allowing what is essentially "Godmode" in their game?
And would remove most of the viability of wearing any other armor type. And seriously wonder why they won't allow this?
The answer seems quite clear and they have stated it in this thread already.

Lower DPS would slow them down far more than just "slightly".

I disagree that it would remove the viability of wearing any other armor type. People build for other things than tanking, which would need a different gear load out depending on what their build focuses on. It would in fact, be the exact opposite. Allowing us to min max in more different ways, makes more different gear load outs even more viable. It is only when you hard cap specific stats that these limitations you bring up about gear load out exist due to limiting the number of viable build combinations which can exist.

TL;DR?
Arbitrary artificial limitation = Bad
True build diversity = Good.

[slarden]

Anyways.

I'd venture rather than raising caps (and having to re-deal with this whenever mudflation moves on again) a better solution may be to incur a penalty to MRR based on having access to evasion.

That is to say

Rather than a 50 MRR cap with no armor

Evasion = 75% effective MRR
Improve Evasion = 50% effective MRR

Regardless of armor type.

Or something along those lines.

That way Casters don't need hamfisted high level enhancements (or get punished for making a multi-spec that doesn't take high tier abilities) to accomadate this. Players that get evasion can also feel like gearing matters past a certain point instead of going, "Welp I got 50 MRR cap in one item, guess I can ignore this stat now!"

Interesting ideas.

Evasion and Improved Evasion toons with a high reflex save shouldn't be taking much damage at all so what they have is far superior to MRR. Improved evasion toons that dump reflex save still only take 33.5% damage on a failed save which is an effective MRR of approximately 200 MRR (50% damage taken with improved evasion * 66.67% taken with a 50 MRR). So no violins needed there.

Non-evasion toons with a high reflex save such as wizard with high int and insightful reflexes are in the same boat - an effective MRR of approximately 200 MRR (50% damage taken with a made save * 66.67% taken with a 50 MRR). So no violins needed there.

Warlock's with light armor take 50% with 100 MRR and 58.82% with the exc lore robe and 70 MRR with the cap bonus. Sorcs are also taking 58.82% with a robe. With medium/heavy armor and a 150 MRR which is reasonable you are at 40% damage taken if you don't make your save.

So really truth is MRR cap issue limited to monk splashes that dump reflex save (which is their issue entirely) and sorcs/warlocks/caster bards. The classes without armor proficiency are only monk, wizards and sorc. Sorc is the only class of the 3 with a hard time as wizards can solve the issue with 1 feat and monks can dump reflex entirely and still get 50% damage reduction with improved evasion.

Of the classes with light armor proficiency: Ranger, Rogue, Bard and Warlock. Warlocks and caster bards have the most difficult time building for reflex saves. All other classes have an easy path to high reflex saves, improved evasion or medium armor proficiency.

Once you start getting into multiclass builds preferring a robe - that is an issue for the builder to figure out not SSG.

Aside from MRR, dodge is a huge benefit for robe builds.

[Magnus_Arcanis]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

MRR may help those without Evasion to mitigate incoming magic damage, but MRR doesn’t operate on the same parallel as Evasion. Nor to does it serve as a fix. MRR sole purpose SHOULD be to give players a mean of managing damage from non-physical (magic) sources of damage that players otherwise have no mean of dealing with, because that is what it accomplishes. Or mostly accomplishes, as players in light or no armor are basically penalized with an arbitrary cap because someone believed that Evasion should be a part of the balance equation when it shouldn’t be.

Let me explain, Evasion acts more like a miss chance. Its calculated a bit differently, but end result of the player taking no damage from a specific source type is the same. It’s in important tools for the likes of rogues who need to bypass terrain that would otherwise heavily damage the less nimble. In DDO, its essentially needed in some content as the goal is sometimes inside dangerous areas with no safe spot to stand. Without such a spot, it’d otherwise be impossible to disable that trap, open that door, pull that lever, etc… as damage interrupts the progress bar.

MRR acts like PRR. A way to manage the damage you take regardless if it was avoidable or not.

Now, I don’t think you’re going to see anyone complain that a more heavily armored characters can obtain MRR more easily and are able to reach a higher total. Under PRR you have this dynamic, but if an evasion armored character chooses to, they can invest to reach a viable number. MRR should act the same way. Right now it doesn’t with the cap.

If you want a mechanic to allow more heavily armored character to take zero damage from reflex based sources, then add a mechanic that adds that.

Secondly, what fear is there with layering high MRR with Evasion? They take small amounts of damage all the same, but sometimes take zero? Who cares? The higher the MRR value the less value Evasion has. Double dipping in this instance doesn't yield a synergistic benefit. If the MRR gets high enough you can get to basically take zero magic damage with or without evasion.

[cru121]

Situation:

Anyone spending time in Legendary content has experienced being absolutely decimated by obscene damage.
* Big mean monsters smacking you with their pseudopods.
* Small mean archers needling with their needles.

Background:
The primary mitigation mechanic to avoid damage is:
* Dodge
* Evasion
Haha, many melees are hosed. Look my tower shield, max dex 1. No evasion for me, boo.
When dodge was redesigned, there were only a handful sources of dodge. Now it's commonplace for medium and heavy armor wearers to hit the cap by equipping one item.

Reference:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Categoryodge_items
http://ddowiki.com/page/Maximum_dexterity_bonus

Assessment:

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

No Dodge benefit from Shadar-Kai past lives can be realized at level cap for heavy armor wearers, unless they invest into zillion of expensive enhancements in obscure tank trees. Not even sentient filigrees or Ravenloft item sets help with this unfortunate situation. Three past lives is a considerable 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 max dex caps based on worn armor type. And Evasion for everyone!

[Chai]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

That said, one thing we have planned is to continue to add increases to Maximum MRR to caster sets and to the highest cores of caster trees.

Sev~

The issue here is while there is overlap, the comparison between the two systems is not equivalent. For instance, there is no evasion for poison attacks, polar ray, scorching ray, etc...spells and effects that do not use reflex save yet do yield damage numbers. Is it intended (WAI?) that evasion types be far more susceptible to those types of damage than their more heavily armored counterparts?

When something already has a counter (an entire list of spells which are not mitigated by evasion) is this hard cap still necessary?

[Tilomere]

The issue here is while there is overlap, the comparison between the two systems is not equivalent.

If they were equivalent, there would be no meaningful choice.

If characters having overlapping but not equivalent systems is an issue for you, I hate to break it to you, but this isn't monopoly.

[slarden]

The issue here is while there is overlap, the comparison between the two systems is not equivalent. For instance, there is no evasion for poison attacks, polar ray, scorching ray, etc...spells and effects that do not use reflex save yet do yield damage numbers. Is it intended (WAI?) that evasion types be far more susceptible to those types of damage than their more heavily armored counterparts?

When something already has a counter (an entire list of spells which are not mitigated by evasion) is this hard cap still necessary?

I haven't tested every single damage and have just gone by the dev general statements that MRR only reduces damage for evadable damage. Poison seems to hit my high MRR toons hard so are you sure non-evadable poison attacks are reduced by MRR?

[Engoril]

MRR is intended to be an alternative to Evasion, and the highest levels are reserved for armor types that cannot obtain Evasion, even from a two level splash. We don't want players to be able to layer Evasion with high levels of MRR.

If its an alternative, then shouldn't it only be working on evadable damage? If that had been how MRR was implemented,there would not be this problem of MRR caps. Evasion types would have been happy with their evasion and left MRR for the heavies. However because MRR works on _everything_ , unlike evasion, the situation is currently unfair to the evasion builds. I agree it would also be unfair to give evasion builds uncapped MRR, but something is needed if content is going to keep getting hard hitting unevadeable magic damage that only high MRR can handle.

[Tilomere]

However because MRR works on _everything...If its an alternative, then shouldn't it only be working on evadable damage?

But then everyone would complain that MRR was useless because it doesn't provide the 95-100% (no fail 1) mitigation that evasion does. Instead it provides a lower mitigation amount, across a wider variety of attacks.

MRR doesn't work on everything.

[Cantor]

...
Recommendations:

1. Remove artificial max dex caps based on worn armor type. ...

Nice, very clear and gets the point across.

[LT218]

Yes they are! However, you don't need to aspire to that pinnacle of glory. All you need to do is be more than a soulstone.

You and I have very different definitions of awesome. Let's just leave it at that.

Which is why Dodge > AC and PRR. Which is why cloth/light armor is better than Heavy Armor and Medium Armor. Evasion is just icing on the cake. Due to diminishing returns of high AC (and uselessness against champs and reapers) and PRR,

40+ Dodge and a moderate investment in AC and Dodge is far superior.

Ummm, no. There is a lot of wrong in those statement.

How do you figure avoiding 30-40% of hits is better than avoiding 95% of hits (high AC) and taking 70%+ (200+ PRR) mitigation on the hits that do land? Don't forget to account for the 60%+ magic damage mitigation (150+ MRR) on top of the AC and PRR. There's a really good reason end-game, 10-skull tank builds are sporting plate armor with crazy high levels of AC, PRR, and MRR instead of pajamas evasion and dodge.

The only time focusing on dodge and evasion is better than AC, PRR, and MRR is when the latter three aren't an option for your build. Otherwise, a high AC, high PRR, high MRR build is far more durable than a cloth build with low PRR, MRR and AC.

[Avocado]

The whole game is based off trades offs. You want to be really tanky? You sack all dps. You want all dps? You sacrifice durability. Dodge in reaper is bypassed more with each reaper level. Removing mrr caps or changing them isn't a terrible idea so long as it's done to everyone across the board. I liked the multiplier idea where armor weight multiplies mrr. Cloth none. Light 1.2. medium 1.4. heavy 1.6 or something. Or give heavy armor weights thier mrr back. Over all my answer will always be no because throwers ad monks don't need more power.

The problem with this is it unfairly favor the current game meta. Centered cloth builds make up a very large amount of the players base. Lots running with fighter levels. So you've just boosted thier mrr and left everyone else to hang dry.

I recommend you make a nystuls sentient if you are having trouble with magic damage. Again sacrifice in damage for more defense.

I actually like these dot effects because it makes my tank useful in baba because he takes almost no significant damage with 230 mrr. Rise of the tanks! But only if I could intim undead...

[LT218]

I actually like these dot effects because it makes my tank useful in baba because he takes almost no significant damage with 230 mrr. Rise of the tanks! But only if I could intim undead...

Oh hey, look, bad things happened to my teammates due to poor balance and killed them but my tank lived. Now I look awesome! Me! me! me!.. Hmm, if only I could do enough DPS to kill anything while everyone else was dead, doh.



I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if the only way your toon/build is useful is when an unbalanced game mechanic kills the rest of your party and you're the last one standing, it's probably not a good build. I will also point out that the singular most useful role a good tank fills is to keep the rest of the party alive by taking all the aggro, hits and damage that would have normally killed the non-tanks.

Having everyone else look bad doesn't make you look good. I see this constantly on these boards and really don't understand it. If you want to look good, do so by standing on your's and your build's own merits, not by standing on the backs of other classes or just tearing them down to your level.

[slarden]

How do you figure avoiding 30-40% of hits is better than avoiding 95% of hits (high AC) and taking 70%+ (200+ PRR) mitigation on the hits that do land? Don't forget to account for the 60%+ magic damage mitigation (150+ MRR) on top of the AC and PRR. There's a really good reason end-game, 10-skull tank builds are sporting plate armor instead of pajamas with crazy high levels of AC, PRR, and MRR instead of evasion and dodge.

The only time focusing on dodge and evasion is better than AC, PRR, and MRR is when the latter three aren't an option for your build. Otherwise, a high AC, high PRR, high MRR build is far more durable than a cloth build with low PRR, MRR and AC.

Very few builds have a high enough AC to be meaningful and it's nonsensical to compare someone specializing as a tank build built for reaper party play to other builds when comparing defenses.

People are going to have to list specific things that aren't evadable where MRR works so the devs can fix it. From what I've seen this weekend I am not getting any MRR reduction for non-evadable damage.

My experience is that wearing a robe with evasion and a high reflex save is superior to heavy armor for the simple reason most builds with heavy armor can't get a high enough AC to be meaningful without gimping. It's fairly easy to get a high dodge and high reflex save when I wear a robe. The MRR cap is primarily an issue for sorcs and secondarily caster bards and warlocks all of which don't typically have a high reflex save.

The continual begging for power creep has been very harmful to this game. If anything they should look at specific classes where the MRR cap is an issue and address it in the enhancement trees which is a grand total of 3 classes. The mrr cap hasn't been an issue for me with monks or wizards. How can it be when simply making your save reduces damage by 50% and MRR reduces it further. Making your save and 50 MRR is the equivalent of 200 MRR in terms of damage reduction. They can also add an epic feat raising the mrr cap which at least requires a trade off.

The dots are another issue entirely. The devs seem to acknowledge that it's not working as intended.