The sad state that is Armor

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Natharias wrote:

That's because it doesn't offer armor equal to a really good or perfect rare chest, nor the mods that rare chest can give. Well, besides life.

As written above: if an Evasion user can magically replace his 2000 Evasion + resists chest with LC, why couldn't an Armor user do this? If 40% mitigation is better than all the armor in the world, he actually should.

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Because nobody talked about armor due to not using it. People are tired of running max block, dodge, and MoM builds to clear the game.

I can guarantee that half the MoM and Block builds were actually armor-based.

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Oh, and the few that do get by are mitigated either by Lightning Coil or MoM/CoD. What's armor have against them? Nothing.

What's Evasion have against them? Nothing. So what?

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Peterlerock wrote:

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

Because that leaves no place for rare armour chests. And no place for other rare gear pieces with high armour on it.

Same goes for Evasion users, they also take it over a 2k Evasion chestpiece and would probably also love to use both.

If this 30-40% damage reduction is so extremly powerful, and better than 20k armor with a rare chest, IR, grace and determination, then for god's sake: wear Lightning coil as an armor user.

It's always argued that Evasion users have Block, Acrobatics, Evasion and LC. At least half of that stuff is accessible for Armor users, too.
You could even use Acrobatics on Armor builds. Stack your armor really high, use two Granite flasks of iron skin, the two auras, and you'll still have a pretty comfortable physical mitigation. If you think the mechanic is so super powerful, then build around it.

Yes, evasion characters also prefer to take Lightning Coil, although it isnt as strong for them as it is for armour characters. Unlike armour, evasion is subject to diminishing returns, so you just DONT need high evasion values (they arent worth investments), while medium evasion values (around 7-10k work very good. And if one can reach medium evasion value with lighning coil, why not use it?
Armour is different, medium armour values are useless at all, you either dont care about armour at all, or you invest into it deeply. That's why trying to get high armour with acrobatics is a travesty!

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Peterlerock wrote:

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

We could give armour percentage reduction, irrelevant to damage incoming (that's how evasion works). However, this cahnge will make armour quite similar to evasion, and to work properly, it requires to implement another stat (let's call it "penetration"), which, akin to accuracy, will determine, how well damage will bypass armour.

...this "penetration" will again lead to...

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

becomes weaker when bigger hits come into play

It seems you just dont understand it.

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

Yes, evasion characters also prefer to take Lightning Coil, although it isnt as strong for them as it is for armour characters. Unlike armour, evasion is subject to diminishing returns, so you just DONT need high evasion values (they arent worth investments), while medium evasion values (around 7-10k work very good. And if one can reach medium evasion value with lighning coil, why not use it?
Armour is different, medium armour values are useless at all, you either dont care about armour at all, or you invest into it deeply. That's why trying to get high armour with acrobatics is a travesty!

I wouldn't say "useless".
There's a hell of a difference between 0, 5.000 and 10.000 armor in higher maps, and 10.000 still is a "medium investment".
All this exaggeration... Did you ever even play an armor build?

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

It seems you just dont understand it.

You want fixed percentage reduction, combined with something that "penetrates"...
If GGG would implement such a system, who do you think would get such "penetration mechanics"?
Giant Skeletons and Brutus, Vaal/Dominus Slam etc, because those are "armor smashing" attacks.
They'd probably even implement a penetration mechanic into crit. ;)

You can bet your ass that it would lead to something quite similar to the current mechanic:
Crits and heavy hits make armor useless, normal attacks not.

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Peterlerock wrote:

I wouldn't say "useless".
There's a hell of a difference between 0, 5.000 and 10.000 armor in higher maps, and 10.000 still is a "medium investment".
All this exaggeration... Did you ever even play an armor build?

There is no exaggeration.

Is it so hard for you to understand the gigantic difference between building Evasion and Armour?

Evasion has diminishing returns, so having half as much evasion means you lose LESS than half your chance to evade.
However, having half as much armour means you take MORE than twice as much damage from average to big hits.

Armour is mostly an all-or-nothing defense type.
Those that take Lightning Coil without focusing on armour do so because that chest is just too useful.

So just stop trying to win your internetz.
Armour has a broken design that "works for some builds" and/or against "some enemies" in "certain content".
It's still broken.

Completely agree with OP. I have nothing to add.

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Peterlerock wrote:

As written above: if an Evasion user can magically replace his 2000 Evasion + resists chest with LC, why couldn't an Armor user do this? If 40% mitigation is better than all the armor in the world, he actually should.

Losing 2k evasion and a few resistances, which is already capped from other gear, is nothing compared to a minimum 30% reduction in physical damage. If the build can get 100% lightning resistance to get the full 40% reduction, then they are likely already using gear that can carry their cut to evasion.

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Peterlerock wrote:

I can guarantee that half the MoM and Block builds were actually armor-based.

Did you not pay attention? I said block, dodge, and MoM builds. I can't think of one armor build that did Atziri, even right now. Sure there are builds that use armor, but not armor only builds.

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Peterlerock wrote:

What's Evasion have against them? Nothing. So what?

It's obvious at this point that you're trolling. So let me fix your shit for you.

Evasion builds almost always use block, dodge, and MoM with their setups. Before evasion is even calculated, a max block/acro build is only damaged by 15% of all attacks and 17.5% of all spells. Attacks are further less likely to damage with high evasion and the use of Blind. Attacks, therefor, deal no more than 15% of their total DPS at any point. Likely to be less than half of that after evasion and nothing after all other considerations.

Armor builds typically get Unwavering Stance and Iron Reflexes, preventing them from evading attacks. They also require so many points into armor that max block, or block in general, is not an option. Acrobatics is also not an option, since it halves how much armor they can get. So dodge is totally out of the question. But let's assume that they use the Crest of Perandus and still manage to get 20k armor without a perfect rare shield, let alone perfect rare gear in every single slot. 60% of all attacks will hit them, and the large hits will deal almost all of their damage and all to life. Where an avoidance build would almost never take an 8k crit hit to life/mana, this build is extremely likely to take the full hit to life.

Try playing the game.

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Natharias wrote:

Did you not pay attention? I said block, dodge, and MoM builds. I can't think of one armor build that did Atziri, even right now. Sure there are builds that use armor, but not armor only builds.

You seriously want 1) and 2) to be equal??
1. I stack Armor. But at least a lot of it, because I want to put as much skillpoints into it as...
2. I use Evasion, Dodge, Spell Dodge, Block, Spellblock, MoM and Lightning Coil. All of this optimized.

"I want my one layer of defense to be as powerful as the 7 layers another build has."
Sure, they'll fix that for you. Seems totally fair. I'm sure GGG will make it happen.

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But let's assume that they use the Crest of Perandus and still manage to get 20k armor without a perfect rare shield

1. So you'd rather give up 2k armor on the shield slot for random 40% damage reduction ?
But giving up about 800 armor on the chest slot (2k rare vs Lightning Coil with Iron reflexes) for a stable 40% damage reduction, that's impossible?
2. And if armor means so much to you, you'd better use a rare shield with 36% block, not a Perandus with 40%.
Edit: oh wait, your idea looks even more stupid, you're not gaining 40% random damage block, but only 4-10% compared to any other shield... ;)

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Armor builds typically get Unwavering Stance and Iron Reflexes, preventing them from evading attacks. They also require so many points into armor that max block, or block in general, is not an option.

Yeah, sure. Couldn't think of any possible tree with block nodes in it.
Oh, wait, there's hundreds of them.
Took about 10 seconds to make this.
Tons of armor (I'd probably even cut some of it), tons of block, enough life and damage.
In the subforums, there's a lot of builds like this, and their respective players seem to be quite happy with them.

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I'm not "trolling", I just fail to understand the reasoning behind your arguments.
Why should 1 defense be as good as 7?
Why should 1 defense be failsafe against all types of damage ("make armor help against elemental damage"/"make armor prevent oneshots")?
Why shouldn't there be monsters/situations where your defenses fail?

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Peterlerock wrote:

Why should 1 defense be failsafe against all types of damage ("make armor help against elemental damage"/"make armor prevent oneshots")?

Because Evasion and Energy Shield do prevent elemental damage additionally to your elemental resistance and in the case of evasion even oneshots.
So right now, there is 1 defense that the only one not "failsafe", Armor.

I realy wonder how many armor based NON Blocking builds you have done and witnessed the true weakness of it compared to any other form of defense ...

I have nice weekend project for you:
Make a 2H Sword marrauder that stacks life and armor (That does not use LC) and try to reach Atziri.
I havent managed to kill her with my lvl 89 2H Sword Marrauder yet. I haven't even managed to kill most mapbosses without dying.

My NON Block eva crit chars do fine with lvl 80.

And that is, my most valuable uniques are BoR and Alphas.

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1stOfTHE5 wrote:

Make a 2H Sword marrauder that stacks life and armor (That does not use LC) and try to reach Atziri.

Why on earth would I want to play a character with only one line of defense?
My 2h sword marauder has Acrobatics and Immortal Call for a reason.

Evasion alone is a shitty defense as well (even ES is), that's why people stack other stuff on top of it: block, dodge, long selfcast IC, Lightning Coil, MoM, ...
You didn't, and now your Marauder sucks. Congratulations.

Again:
I'm not advocating Armor is a good defense on its own.
You gotta combine it with something else, as you gotta combine Evasion and ES with something else.

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Peterlerock wrote:

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1stOfTHE5 wrote:

Make a 2H Sword marrauder that stacks life and armor (That does not use LC) and try to reach Atziri.

Why on earth would I want to play a character with only one line of defense?
My 2h sword marauder has Acrobatics and Immortal Call for a reason.

Evasion alone is a shitty defense as well (even ES is), that's why people stack other stuff on top of it: block, dodge, long selfcast IC, Lightning Coil, MoM, ...
You didn't, and now your Marauder sucks. Congratulations.

Again:
I'm not advocating Armor is a good defense on its own.
You gotta combine it with something else, as you gotta combine Evasion and ES with something else.

I currently play a mjolner witch, which uses armor as a main defensive mechanic paired with max block/spell block.

If I wasn't wearing a coil underneath, I would be free food for most phys mobs.

Let that sink in. (For reference, I have 6k life)