The sad state that is Armor

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Peterlerock wrote:

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1stOfTHE5 wrote:

but you keep discussing how viable some keystones and uniques are, how blocking, dodging and immortal call protects one from damage, that it is not worth taking any base defense anyways and oneshots not existing.

And you keep discussing very unrealistic scenarios.

Sorry, but when a rare powerful crit bone giant stands in front of me, I pop EC/IC before I go on him. Why would I trust my armor/evasion?

Players get killed all day, but I doubt that armor in particular is to blame for this.

No, his scenarios are very realistic.
Block can be used by any character, evasion or armour, or even ES. Lightning Coil can also be used by both armour and evasion character. Aegis Aurora is completely different story, too.
So, to compare armour and evasion, we should take 3 scenarios into consideration.
1. Pure armour character, that uses Unwavering Stance as bonus.
2. Pure evasion character, that uses Acrobatics, Phase Acrobatics and Ondar's Guile as bonuses.
3. Character, that uses both armour and evasion.

It seems, you want to use 4. Character, that doesnt use neither evasion or armour. Well, it's viable, but it just proves my point (armour in this game is ridiculously weak).

Oh, and of course....
Crits are not OP
Immortal Call is not OP
ranged mass-AoE is not OP
block is not OP
one-handers are not OP
Max resists are not OP
An so on....

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

No, his scenarios are very realistic.
Block can be used by any character, evasion or armour, or even ES. Lightning Coil can also be used by both armour and evasion character. Aegis Aurora is completely different story, too.
So, to compare armour and evasion, we should take 3 scenarios into consideration.
(...)

No, we should not.
As an example, you can't just say "let's ignore Aegis Aurora for a moment" when talking about Armor. It's all connected.
If you straight up buff armor, how's that going to effect Aegis builds?

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But even if you want to talk only "pure evasion" vs "pure armor".

Armor reduces damage taken per hit.
Evasion reduces the number of hits taken.

Statistically, this is balanced.
Reducing Damage by 40% or evading 40% of hits, that's the same.
You can play around with the numbers (accuracy, damage) of monsters to make the balance shift towards one or another end, but the basic mechanic is statistically equal.

The scenario that lets Evasion straight up win is "being constantly bombarded by near oneshot damage of low accuracy" (that turns armor useless, and Evasion will simple evade some hits).
Then Evasion will obviously come out ahead and Armor will fail.

But in this game, you are NOT constantly bombarded with near oneshot damage.
Or, if you are, tell me please where in this game such scenarios occur.

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Peterlerock wrote:

How about:

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Natharias wrote:

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Peterlerock wrote:

If its mechanic is so super-powerful, why would an armor user not wear it, too?

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.

1. MortalKombat's statement is referring to how LC makes everything else obsolete - NOT that armour users can't/shouldn't use it.

2. And how does quoting Natharias' SINGLE nonsensical statement in a sea of legitimate concerns help your argument, I might ask?

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Peterlerock wrote:

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does not even synergize the SLIGHTEST with Energy Shield due to Recharge Delay

How about literally the thing that comes closest to immortality in this game, this?

There's some wonderful interaction between Armor and ES and a real benefit from stacking armor.

That item doesn't change the fact that ES and Armour inherently lack synergy - it merely adds a mechanic on top of it.
Take any other defense - Evasion/Block/Dodge - they will help you avoid hits, meaning you're more likely to start recharging your ES sooner.
With Armour you take the hits meaning it keeps ES stagnated.
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But, you know what's really funny?
People trying to justify a broken mechanic (Armour) with broken Uniques.
Why is Armour even available to non-Unique items, anyway?
It makes me smile.

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symban wrote:

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B34C0N wrote:

You cant run around with only Evasion/dodge/block/blind. You need armor. You can try prove me wrong tho. Go make a char, get those defensive stats, and do not take any armor point. Can you do that for me?

I can. My ranger specced out of IR into:

%75 block / %56 dodge / blind / %45~ evasion

My survival rate against what matters (compared to IR build) is WAAAY better. Not to mention my DPS is way better too because I dont need Determination/Grace anymore.

Trash mobs doesn't matter. Those big hits that 1-2 hit kill you is what really matters. Armor is totally useless against them.

Only exception to this is bear trap which is only 1 boss in entire game.

You just killed yourself in the first line.

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1stOfTHE5 wrote:

I do not reply to other counter arguments (The sort like "Are you drunk?")

This line made my day. Can't argue his seriousness. Too op.

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Nurvus wrote:

That item doesn't change the fact that ES and Armour inherently lack synergy - it merely adds a mechanic on top of it.

Lacks so much synergy that there are item drops of it. It makes me smile.

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Nurvus wrote:

Take any other defense - Evasion/Block/Dodge - they will help you avoid hits, meaning you're more likely to start recharging your ES sooner.
With Armour you take the hits meaning it keeps ES stagnated.

Another relative statement. You love that aren't you?

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Nurvus wrote:

But, you know what's really funny?
People trying to justify a broken mechanic (Armour) with broken Uniques.
Why is Armour even available to non-Unique items, anyway?
It makes me smile.

You know what's even funnier?
When people try to justify wrong leveled scaled non-unique items against fundamental game mechanics. I got one big smile from one ear to the other.

But anyway, i will explain everything from the "are you drunk" line i wrote, maybe i shouldn't have, it wasn't polite i take that. But hey, i thought you guys could handle it - its just an expression anyway. But now, moving forward:

Armor and ES:

Dev logic behind this:
12*1 = armor. We should all agree. Its a fundamental mechanic right? - right.
Armor = mechanic will consist in diminishing physical damage. Fundamental mechanic right? - right.
ES = mechanic will consist as extra recharge-able health. Fundamental mechanic right? - right. Heres also its little synergy. guys: WHAT?! - me: yes, this is its synergy in all its fundamental form.

Now, why did i say: "When people try to justify wrong leveled scaled non-unique items against fundamental game mechanics. I got one big smile".

Easy:
"Do not blame the mechanics" - This is the first part of the reasoning. Theres yet more to be seen.

Armor in its own logic, its flawless, same as ES in its fundamental logic is also flawless. 12*1 in its own logic is also flawless. We should all agree here, we already know this.

What are we missing then?

But of course the items that represent this! How on earth we missed that? - i did not.

The hybrid items are broken, not the formula.
The pure Armor items are broken, not the fundamentals.
The level on those items are broken, not the affixes, nor the suffixes, nor the crafting requirements.
The required level to "unlock" next items are yet to be balanced. This is still a beta form game.

Let's continue:

Do not attack the wrong root..

Changing 12*1 to 11*1 will not solve it. It will break the game. guys: WHY?! me: cause in its fundamental form, it is not wrong. And you guys want to attack this fundamental mechanic now are ya'? guys: yea! that's what we want! join us!
me: we are still doing a loop argumentation. And i wont join you, i'm just trying to make you understand that armor is not broken. Not in its fundamentals (12*1), not in its logic (see above). ITS BROKEN IN THE THINGS AROUND US THAT TRY TO REPRESENT IT. THERES WHERE THE FLAW IS.

Guys: "no, we must soften the curve, its easier! join us! come to us! or begone!".

Lets just finish the phrase: "Do not blame the mechanics blame the gear".

Hybrid armor lacks armor, lacks ES pts.
Armor lacks pts.
items lack level, therefore, lack the two fundamental reasons above.
hybrid items, armor items are the one broken, not armor itself, not in its fundamental form. Game Over.

Uniques are what uniques are. End game items with special properties that make em special. Fair enough? - Fair enough.

1 - Armour is broken in its fundamental form from pure logic.
It has an inverse progression to all other types of defense.

Evasion has diminishing returns. Meaning if instead of 100%-perfect Evasion gear you have 80%-perfect Evasion gear, you don't have 20% less Evasion. You'll have closer to 10% less.

Many other defenses are linear.

But Armour? If you have 80%-perfect Armour gear you will lose MORE than 20% of your damage reduction. This loss will be more extreme the bigger the hits.

It's simple logic. There's no "if" or "but".

2 - Can item balance be improved? Sure.

3 - Are Uniques fine? No.
Not when some of them just make every other piece of gear in that slot obsolete.

4 - Does changing 12*1 to 11*1 fix it? No.
I didn't really think that solution through. It wouldn't change the "curve", it'd merely buff Armour.
Changing the curve is done in another way.

5 - But is the curve broken? Yes.
It scales wrong.
It's not just a level scaling issue.

the way armour is less effective against big hits is fine. Armour could do a little more at various stages of the progression, it could do with a tiny buff, but the mechanic of it doing less against big hits is fine. If it didnt scale like this against damage then it would be the same situation as elemental resists were when so much max res was in the game where its impossible to balance high damage because it does virtually nothing against 1 character while still obliterating another character.

I can remember seeing one "one shot", a friend got hit by gmp sub phys elite birdman bloodbomb while in a map with vulnerability and a damage affix. That's it, that is the only time I have witnessed a legit 1 shot that I can remember, ever, outside of vaal/dominus slams in maps which obviously I have seen kill a few people stupid enough not to get out of the way. I can't remember being 1 shotted personally, might have happened way back when I was playing a character with shit defenses but I don't recall any instance of it.

Armour works, thats why people use granite flasks. It was when Kripp started talking about how armour sucks that I first saw massive waves of this sort of talk in the forum. This is Kripp who played virtually all armour builds and used a granite flask on all of them. Why? Because it mitigates phys damage, it does it's job.

I wouldnt stick a character with only armour against a massive phys hitting creature, and I wouldnt stick a character with 0 armour against it either. Evasion or block or dodge sucks, you are going to get hit and when you do having 0 phys mitigation will leave you taking noticeably more damage. Armour sucks because while you will take less damage, you are going to get hit again and again and again. They all suck until you combine layers of them together. You need avoidance, either Evasion, Block or Dodge and you need physical mitigation, either armour, arctic armour, endurance charges, IC or coil. If you don't have both you are substantially less tanky than you should be.


I dont buy all this talk that evaluates armour based on encounters that you can go a month of playing maps 6 hours a day and never encounter while ignoring what you are actually dealing with all the time, which is small, medium and fairly large phys hits where armour is actually effective.

Armours weakness isnt 1 large phys hit, its burst damage, Evasions weakness is large phys hits, they will get through your entropy and you need something there to mitigate them. I feel like there was a time when you just took IR, that was it, how you defended your character, and people still view armour like that, Armour + Unwavering + Iron Reflexes, it's an awful combo to have on their own, where as Evasion at that time was seen as just so bad you shouldnt even consider it. When Evasion (accuracy) got a slight rework with the new Ranger tree it started getting more popular, and people were combining defenses more. It was combinations of Evasion with things like Armour, Block, Dodge, Endurance Charges, AA, layered defense. I think people are still evaluating one against the other, solo armour vs multilayered defenses that include Evasion and then saying "oh see, armour sucks". No it doesnt, that Evasion melee tank you are comparing it to is not pure Evasion, take away their Acro, Phase Acro, Block, Endurance Charges, IC and maybe even a Coil and compare pure Evasion to pure Armour and you will see they both suck when not used as part of a multilayered setup. Armour could do with a little buff, sure, but it does work, people just need to get their head around looking at it the same way they look at evasion, block etc, a component of your defenses, not the sum total of them.

@the ppl explaining that armor is on par, if not even better.

Mind explaining me really simple why I make the experiacne that
- some Eva (~3000) + Accrobatics + Phase Accrobatics + Ondar's Guile with 3.5k health
survives better in lvl70+ maps than
- some Armor (~3000) + IR + Unwavering with 5.1k health?

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1stOfTHE5 wrote:

- some Eva (~3000) + Accrobatics + Phase Accrobatics + Ondar's Guile with 3.5k health

This is:
40% dodge, 30% spell dodge
probably about 40% chance to avoid projectile attacks, and negligible (is it written like that?) chance to evade normal attacks.
I'd say: it's "1.5 lines of defense" (dodge + a bit of projectile defense)

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- some Armor (~3000) + IR + Unwavering with 5.1k health?

This is:
stun immunity + nothing else.
That's "0 lines of defense".

How on earth do you only achieve 3000 armor with iron reflexes?
Why would you even spec into IR if this is all you can get?

Stop making up those weird examples.

It is about the same to have 0 armor or 3000 armor. But with IR, you can easily get 10000-20000 armor. And then it's an actual line of defense.
Same with your evasion example. 3000 Evasion is also like "0 Evasion".