Armor Mechanics Too Steep

Hmm. There's an interesting idea in there--increased maximum resistances versus attacks.

I absolutely agree with gutting max resists to the extent they did; they were a bad mechanic that encouraged highly overturned content, and in their absence we might begin seeing healthier future PvE balance (nipping back power creep). However, max resists versus attacks, if somehow tied exclusively to AR, could be an idea worth investigating.

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CanHasPants wrote:

Hmm. There's an interesting idea in there--increased maximum resistances versus attacks.

I absolutely agree with gutting max resists to the extent they did; they were a bad mechanic that encouraged highly overturned content, and in their absence we might begin seeing healthier future PvE balance (nipping back power creep). However, max resists versus attacks, if somehow tied exclusively to AR, could be an idea worth investigating.

The 2% or 3% mitigation was not really a big issue. The real issue, that still exists, is the spell block people build up from the rares. 75% resist + 75% spell block = Average 93.75% spell damage reduction from spells that hit.

Honestly the 2% increase on max resist node should still be there with an upper cap of 85% but spell block should be capped at 25%.

A better option would having ES have a 10% damage reduction on elemental damage 'taken'. With a 75% resist the total resist would be 77.5% for individuals who have ES. Of course when their sheild is depleted and they are running on life, their reduction would be 75% again.

But I am of the mind that Brutes should be able to take brute hits while magic users should be able to take magic hits well. Bruts should be more susceptible to magic while magic users should be more susceptible to psychical damage.

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Atomgun wrote:

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gh0un wrote:

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Atomgun wrote:

Armor does almost nothing for larger hits. Even if you stack crazy amounts of armor it can still have very little affect on some of the larger hits in game. The curve seems too steep and I would like to see armor a little more useful for those who want to put a lot into it.

My 100k armor flameblaster was mitigating physical damage just fine even from the hardest hitting physical bosses, and he wasnt built to be a tank at all.
Therefore no, its not too steep considering the amount of armor that we can stack.
30-35k base armor is very easily achievable.

I am more than certain your are a minority and have gear that most of us will never have. I have all the +armor and + armor% mods on my gear and grabbed all the armor nodes in teh passive tree for armor in the marauder and duelist area. I also run 6 endurance charges. A hit from those big skeletons in level 65 still knocks my life down near halfway with my level 63 marauder. It is one of the few hits in the game I should be able to mitigate very well but I would have a easier time taking on elemental damage of that same power than I would the physical.

You dont need good gear to get decent armor.
Determination and grace + a few armor nodes will already give you 15-20k base armor if you are using iron reflexes.
Skilling armor in the tree is not the way to get armor in this game, because increasing 500 armor by a factor of 3 is not going to make a difference. 3 times zero still results in zero.
The main way to get armor is to use iron reflexes + auras and a life flask that lasts long and grants 90-100% increased armor.
From there, skilling armor nodes is going to greatly enhance that armor, and getting better gear will also help.
If you arent using iron reflexes/grace/determination, then you wont get any decent armor, no matter how good your gear is.

This is the only problem with armor. Most players dont understand how to achieve good armor values in this game, because its not so intuitive. They just skill armor nodes in the tree and dont suspect that it is pointless unless you know how to abuse auras and iron reflexes.

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gh0un wrote:

You dont need good gear to get decent armor.
Determination and grace + a few armor nodes will already give you 15-20k base armor if you are using iron reflexes.
Skilling armor in the tree is not the way to get armor in this game, because increasing 500 armor by a factor of 3 is not going to make a difference. 3 times zero still results in zero.
The main way to get armor is to use iron reflexes + auras and a life flask that lasts long and grants 90-100% increased armor.
From there, skilling armor nodes is going to greatly enhance that armor, and getting better gear will also help.
If you arent using iron reflexes/grace/determination, then you wont get any decent armor, no matter how good your gear is.

This is the only problem with armor. Most players dont understand how to achieve good armor values in this game, because its not so intuitive. They just skill armor nodes in the tree and dont suspect that it is pointless unless you know how to abuse auras and iron reflexes.

I have all of the gear, the nodes, and determination and the flask does little in comparison to the armor that I have. The issue is that my character is a strength build, using pure strength armor. I get the combo with Iron Reflexes and Grace but the armor from that is even less than the flask. I also cannot get enough dext to run grace without sacrificing more life/damage because of the loss in strenght and also losing out on more armor nodes to get the dext up high enough to run Grace where it will actually do anything. Dext would be a complete waste becasue I cannot evade and I have a 100% hit chance.

My armor according to the character screen says 90% but I know that is inaccurate. While the math on that screen used to be based on the average monster in that level it is not off as the physical damage on average is higher due to the large number of new monsters.

Regardless of what tricks I can pull off to get the armor needed, as a strength based character wearing pure armor, I should be able to easily get my armor up to handle anything but orange without dying in two hits.

Have you played against the large skeletons that group up since the update? Catacombs has a bunch of these large skeletons now that hit like trucks. I am a tank and I feel like a child under their hits. Try the catacombs and do so with a on par level character. I can take a few hits but eventually the flasks don't keep up and I don't deal enough damage to really leech it back becasue I grabbed armor nodes instead of life/damage nodes.

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Atomgun wrote:

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CanHasPants wrote:

Hmm. There's an interesting idea in there--increased maximum resistances versus attacks.

I absolutely agree with gutting max resists to the extent they did; they were a bad mechanic that encouraged highly overturned content, and in their absence we might begin seeing healthier future PvE balance (nipping back power creep). However, max resists versus attacks, if somehow tied exclusively to AR, could be an idea worth investigating.

The 2% or 3% mitigation was not really a big issue. The real issue, that still exists, is the spell block people build up from the rares. 75% resist + 75% spell block = Average 93.75% spell damage reduction from spells that hit.

Honestly the 2% increase on max resist node should still be there with an upper cap of 85% but spell block should be capped at 25%.

A better option would having ES have a 10% damage reduction on elemental damage 'taken'. With a 75% resist the total resist would be 77.5% for individuals who have ES. Of course when their sheild is depleted and they are running on life, their reduction would be 75% again.

But I am of the mind that Brutes should be able to take brute hits while magic users should be able to take magic hits well. Bruts should be more susceptible to magic while magic users should be more susceptible to psychical damage.

2 or 3 max resist was working out to 90-100% increased mitigation. It was a huge issue, and max resists are still a huge issue.

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gh0un wrote:

My 100k armor flameblaster was mitigating physical damage just fine even from the hardest hitting physical bosses, and he wasnt built to be a tank at all.
Therefore no, its not too steep considering the amount of armor that we can stack.
30-35k base armor is very easily achievable.

100K Armour isn't common. Not at all. Are you trolling? 30-35K armour is very high as well.

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Atomgun wrote:

Regardless of what tricks I can pull off to get the armor needed, as a strength based character wearing pure armor, I should be able to easily get my armor up to handle anything but orange without dying in two hits.

Either you use the grace/determination/ironreflex combo or you dont complain that your tricks dont work to get you the necessary armor.
You cant just NOT use the combo and then complain that your armor sucks.
My flameblaster was a templar, how is that a dex based character? There are 30 dex nodes on the tree for a single point and there are also amulets that grant dex as an implicit mod.
Getting the necessary dex is not an issue.

Being a strength based character doesnt mean jackshit in this game regarding armor.
Either do what i told you or deal with the fact that you will have no armor.
In order to get decent armor in this game you will have to use grace/ironreflex/determination combo.
There is no other way. Your entire gear is worthless if you dont use the fundamentals which is this aura combo.

A naked character with this aura combo and ironreflex will already have more than 7-8k base armor. A few armor nodes and we are already looking at a naked character with 15k base armor.
Drinking the lifeflask with 90-100% increased armor will raise that to about 21k.
A granite will raise this to about 30k.
A completely naked character can already reach 30k armor given that he uses these tricks.
I know this because i already did it. So yes, reaching 30k granite armor is pretty common.

So stop complaining that your tricks dont work if you are unwilling to use the correct tricks.
Items have terrible armor values on them except if you have really good gear, therefore skilling armor nodes wont help you increase your armor.
People that have bad gear need to realize that they HAVE to use grace/determination/IR in order to get some base armor to get them through the gearing up phase.

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Atomgun wrote:

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gh0un wrote:

You dont need good gear to get decent armor.
Determination and grace + a few armor nodes will already give you 15-20k base armor if you are using iron reflexes.
Skilling armor in the tree is not the way to get armor in this game, because increasing 500 armor by a factor of 3 is not going to make a difference. 3 times zero still results in zero.
The main way to get armor is to use iron reflexes + auras and a life flask that lasts long and grants 90-100% increased armor.
From there, skilling armor nodes is going to greatly enhance that armor, and getting better gear will also help.
If you arent using iron reflexes/grace/determination, then you wont get any decent armor, no matter how good your gear is.

This is the only problem with armor. Most players dont understand how to achieve good armor values in this game, because its not so intuitive. They just skill armor nodes in the tree and dont suspect that it is pointless unless you know how to abuse auras and iron reflexes.

I have all of the gear, the nodes, and determination and the flask does little in comparison to the armor that I have. The issue is that my character is a strength build, using pure strength armor. I get the combo with Iron Reflexes and Grace but the armor from that is even less than the flask. I also cannot get enough dext to run grace without sacrificing more life/damage because of the loss in strenght and also losing out on more armor nodes to get the dext up high enough to run Grace where it will actually do anything. Dext would be a complete waste becasue I cannot evade and I have a 100% hit chance.

My armor according to the character screen says 90% but I know that is inaccurate. While the math on that screen used to be based on the average monster in that level it is not off as the physical damage on average is higher due to the large number of new monsters.

Regardless of what tricks I can pull off to get the armor needed, as a strength based character wearing pure armor, I should be able to easily get my armor up to handle anything but orange without dying in two hits.

Have you played against the large skeletons that group up since the update? Catacombs has a bunch of these large skeletons now that hit like trucks. I am a tank and I feel like a child under their hits. Try the catacombs and do so with a on par level character. I can take a few hits but eventually the flasks don't keep up and I don't deal enough damage to really leech it back becasue I grabbed armor nodes instead of life/damage nodes.

Your issue is that you play one of the weakest kinds of builds in the game. Go for an es/dagger shadow and he will do all that what you think a melee/life guy should be capable of.

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gh0un wrote:

My 100k armor flameblaster was mitigating physical damage just fine even from the hardest hitting physical bosses, and he wasnt built to be a tank at all.

"My tank wasn't built to be a tank. I just built it to shop for groceries. Really! It's only incidental that it's the tankiest tank that ever tanked."

You know you're in the .001% category, right? Then why are you pretending that you're not? Why are you acting like what you say is relevant in any way to people who haven't intentionally built supertanks?

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Jennik wrote:

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gh0un wrote:

My 100k armor flameblaster was mitigating physical damage just fine even from the hardest hitting physical bosses, and he wasnt built to be a tank at all.

"My tank wasn't built to be a tank. I just built it to shop for groceries. Really! It's only incidental that it's the tankiest tank that ever tanked."

You know you're in the .001% category, right? Then why are you pretending that you're not? Why are you acting like what you say is relevant in any way to people who haven't intentionally built supertanks?

What if i told you that you can reach 100k armor while being naked?
That would be a supertank specifically build to be a tank.
Getting 100k armor on a character that is NOT naked isnt too hard honestly.