The sad state that is Armor

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I think I don't understand "flat" damage reduction the same as you do.
To me, flat damage reduction is a fixed amount that is always deduced from damage whatever you do (for example 500 less damage to each hit). This is very strong against up to medium damage, but is quickly very weak against higher damage.

"Flat" refers to a system where it result is the same regardless of any variables. Flat reduction is shown in Arctic Armor (-x damage) and e-charges (-4% physical damage taken).

The way armor works right now is not flat, it is linear, if not exponential. I haven't looked at the armor tables since it's absolutely useless for anyone to begin thinking of using. Higher armor does well against small hits, and becomes less and less powerful against bigger hits.

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Natharias wrote:

"

I think I don't understand "flat" damage reduction the same as you do.
To me, flat damage reduction is a fixed amount that is always deduced from damage whatever you do (for example 500 less damage to each hit). This is very strong against up to medium damage, but is quickly very weak against higher damage.

"Flat" refers to a system where it result is the same regardless of any variables. Flat reduction is shown in Arctic Armor (-x damage) and e-charges (-4% physical damage taken).

The way armor works right now is not flat, it is linear, if not exponential. I haven't looked at the armor tables since it's absolutely useless for anyone to begin thinking of using. Higher armor does well against small hits, and becomes less and less powerful against bigger hits.

Its not armor that is underpowered, but elemental/chaos resistances are broken.
Solution:
Make armor act as a base rating for elemental defense then use elemental/chaos resist modifiers as a boost for base rating and show elemental/chaos damage reduction like armor already does for physical damage although it will need different values.

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Nurvus wrote:

The problem is that armor is "overpowered" against weakling physical damage dealers.
It's overpowered against content you overgear. Against the content you really shouldn't give a damn about.

But against proper content, it starts falling short.

Here's the irony, though:
It ONLY defends against physical damage (unlike Evasion vs elemental attacks or Energy Shield vs non-Chaos).
The ONLY damage it defends against can cut through armor like butter at high difficulty.

So armor is a type of defense that specializes in defending against ONE type of damage... and is the worst at it.

This happens because several monsters and map mods can easily stack to the point that even if you don't get one-shot... since you take EVERY hit, you can easily get two or three shotted.

Moreover, it makes certain items mandatory to withstand the current meta - that alone is a huge giveaway that it's broken.

Another giveaway, is the fact that its exponential effectiveness makes it so that you need great gear and plenty passives to even make it acceptable...
Even if GGG "balances it" for endgame, it will always be underwhelming at lower level/gear.

Problem solved, change how elemental/chaos resist works so they become multipliers to armor against elemental/chaos damage.
(+1)- Armor will be useful against elemental and chaos damage
(-1)- Mechanics of elemental/chaos resist will need some rework

The problem is just with the big hits. I'd really like to see Unwavering Stance have and added effect, something like 'Enemy attacks can not be evaded or dodged. Armor is twice as effective. Stun chance is lucky.' That would change the scaling in the equation to be a factor of 6 rather than a factor of 12 for US characters. You'd still need to stack a massive amount of armor to deal with huge hits but it should actually be possible (especially if they add a few 'more' armor nodes behind US), it has the drawback of no longer making you completely immune to stun relying on a double roll and the improved function of armor reducing damage.

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PHRandom wrote:

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Natharias wrote:

"

I think I don't understand "flat" damage reduction the same as you do.
To me, flat damage reduction is a fixed amount that is always deduced from damage whatever you do (for example 500 less damage to each hit). This is very strong against up to medium damage, but is quickly very weak against higher damage.

"Flat" refers to a system where it result is the same regardless of any variables. Flat reduction is shown in Arctic Armor (-x damage) and e-charges (-4% physical damage taken).

The way armor works right now is not flat, it is linear, if not exponential. I haven't looked at the armor tables since it's absolutely useless for anyone to begin thinking of using. Higher armor does well against small hits, and becomes less and less powerful against bigger hits.

Its not armor that is underpowered, but elemental/chaos resistances are broken.
Solution:
Make armor act as a base rating for elemental defense then use elemental/chaos resist modifiers as a boost for base rating and show elemental/chaos damage reduction like armor already does for physical damage although it will need different values.

So builds getting ~90% fire resistance shouldn't be able to barely facetank Atziri with over 6k hit points?

And then you say that the problem isn't that not a single pure armor build can facetank a boss?

Are you sure you're not playing Diablo III?

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PHRandom wrote:

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Nurvus wrote:

Spoiler

The problem is that armor is "overpowered" against weakling physical damage dealers.
It's overpowered against content you overgear. Against the content you really shouldn't give a damn about.

But against proper content, it starts falling short.

Here's the irony, though:
It ONLY defends against physical damage (unlike Evasion vs elemental attacks or Energy Shield vs non-Chaos).
The ONLY damage it defends against can cut through armor like butter at high difficulty.

So armor is a type of defense that specializes in defending against ONE type of damage... and is the worst at it.

This happens because several monsters and map mods can easily stack to the point that even if you don't get one-shot... since you take EVERY hit, you can easily get two or three shotted.

Moreover, it makes certain items mandatory to withstand the current meta - that alone is a huge giveaway that it's broken.

Another giveaway, is the fact that its exponential effectiveness makes it so that you need great gear and plenty passives to even make it acceptable...
Even if GGG "balances it" for endgame, it will always be underwhelming at lower level/gear.

Problem solved, change how elemental/chaos resist works so they become multipliers to armor against elemental/chaos damage.
(+1)- Armor will be useful against elemental and chaos damage
(-1)- Mechanics of elemental/chaos resist will need some rework

Well, then I think 2 things should happen to armor:
1 - Ability to reduce the additional damage dealt by critical hits (before it calculates normal mitigation), with more efficiency against larger multiplier.
So X armor against a crit from a 1000 base damage might reduce a +100% multiplier to +80% (from 2000 to 1800, 20% less multiplier) but a +300% to +150% (from 4000 to 2500 total, 50% less multiplier).
An easier way to put this would be to look at the additional damage a crit is dealing, such that X armor against 1000 additional damage from crit reduces it by 200 (20%), but against 3000 reduces it by 1500 (50%).
It works better against bigger incoming bonus crit damage, but on the other hand, has little effect on a low crit multiplier (crits with +50% multiplier might represent the "ground zero" and not have their bonus damage reduced at all).
2 - Affect elemental damage, through (either/both):
a) Naturally cause X% of your armor to work against elemental damage
b) Add a Notable / Keystone that causes (an additional) X% of your armor to work against elemental damage, but also lowers your max resists cap by Y%.

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If you're going to link armour and elemental resistance, you might as well simply give more elemental resistances to armour nodes and/or make some elemental resistance +%armour mods, rather than trying some potentially game-breaking method.

What game-breaking? Are you dense?

Assuming you have 75% all resists...
If you have 50% Evasion, 30% Dodge and 20% Spell Dodge, that means you take 0.7*0.5*0.25=0,0875 times (~0,9%) the average damage from elemental attacks, instead of 0.25 times (25%).
Non-attack Spells will deal 0.25*0.8=0.2 (20%) instead of 0.25 times (20%).

Energy Shield works fully against elemental damage.

If you have armor? Jack shit. Elemental damage just laughs on your face, and heavy physical hits will still melt you.

Adding resistance nodes doesn't do anything to solve armor's problem - it just gets you to elemental resist cap sooner...
Causing a small percentage (10% is hypotetical) of your armor to affect elemental damage will be almost like Spell Dodge for Evasion, but since armor is less effective the bigger the incoming damage, strong elemental hits will still have nearly full effect.

Some Math.
Damage Reduction Factor = Armour / ( Armour + (12 * Damage) )
Received Damage Formula = Damage * (1-Damage Reduction Factor)

Armor = 1200
Incoming Physical hits = 200 and 1000
Resistances = 75% (resistances apply first)
Incoming Elemental hits = 800 and 4000 (elemental damage becomes proportionally higher as you advance in the game because you are eventually EXPECTED to reach the resist cap)

Currently (0% of your armor works against Elemental damage):
Physical damage taken vs 200 = 134 (33% reduction)
Physical damage taken vs 1000 = 910 (9% reduction)
Elemental damage taken vs 800 = 200 (75% resistances, 0% reduction)
Elemental damage taken vs 4000 = 1000 (75% resistances, 0% reduction)
Assuming 10% of your armor works against Elemental damage):
Elemental damage taken vs 800 = 190 (75% resistances, 5% reduction)
Elemental damage taken vs 4000 = 990 (75% resistances, 1% reduction)
What if 50% of your armor works against Elemental damage?
Elemental damage taken vs 800 = 160 (75% resistances, 20% reduction)
Elemental damage taken vs 4000 = 950 (75% resistances, 5% reduction)

Totally overpowered, right?

Note: On the off-chance using Granite Flask + Resist Flask might become an OP combo for elemental damage mitigation, you can make Granite Flask also apply a penalty to all resist caps (somewhere between 5% and 10%).

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If you're going to link armour and elemental resistance, you might as well simply give more elemental resistances to armour nodes and/or make some elemental resistance +%armour mods, rather than trying some potentially game-breaking method.

lol.

Everything suggested in this thread is a potential game-breaking method. This thread can also be read like: "I don't want to ever die while playing poe" which is the same as: "i just want to minimize the risk of taking a bad call and die" wich also may be like: "i want to stomp hard on the A.I. with raw stats".

Giving more survival it's not fun, i mean, we are supposed to die (eventually, but die). Also, there are ways of making this less "risky". Just think about it. The solutions are already in-game. Armor has nothing to do with this.