Armor is bad, and it should feel bad.

"

evilcloud5 wrote:

"

Kerchunk wrote:

"

There is no true melee in the top 20 of the ladder.

Ground Slam doesn't count, EK doesn't count, Lightning Strike doesn't count.

So what counts? Heavy Strike spam? What a silly thread.

Cleave and sweep.

Spoiler

Don't be a moron.

This.

"

StarlightGamer wrote:

My tank-built Dualist (Build: Current | Planned) is currently having a tough time surviving in Cruel Act 2. Here are my stats: pitiful offense and should-be-awesome defense.

I just got done killing Great White Beast in Cruel and he was capable of taking off 30-50% of my HP even with that physical damage resistance and an additional 15% from 3 Endurance Charges. So like 87% physical damage reduction.

It annoys me now after looking through the armor discussions in the mechanics thread and the marauder forum that some people don't get that the "% reduction" that it shows in the character sheet is complete crap as a basis for determining the amount of damage your character is actually negating with armour.

See here and here

From what I can see with your current passives build that puts you at a h-value of around 8. From the armour shown in your stats screen I assume you have about ~800-900 combined base armour/evasion.

Thus, trying to absorb anything above 100 damage (at 90% damage reduction) you will see a quick drop off in damage reduction such that by the time you get hit by 400/600/800 damage you only absorb 60/50/45 percent of the damage, meaning you still get hit for 160/300/440 damage which is presumably a decent chunk of your hp.

The whole "armor sucks lol" thing with people showing their character screens is useless because they assume that the reduction seen in character screen is the reduction in game on ALL hits. The basic issue is that people spec somewhat into armour in the skilldrasil and expect huge results on boss monsters which are (as BOSS monsters) going to hit high damage and thus (in a way simulating armour penetration) not going to receive the full effect of one's armour.

Although I will agree that armour is not as flexible as it could be, as most armour builds incoporate getting the maximum possible number of endurance charges due to the flat reduction.

"

Sean_K wrote:

"

StarlightGamer wrote:

My tank-built Dualist (Build: Current | Planned) is currently having a tough time surviving in Cruel Act 2. Here are my stats: pitiful offense and should-be-awesome defense.

I just got done killing Great White Beast in Cruel and he was capable of taking off 30-50% of my HP even with that physical damage resistance and an additional 15% from 3 Endurance Charges. So like 87% physical damage reduction.

It annoys me now after looking through the armor discussions in the mechanics thread and the marauder forum that some people don't get that the "% reduction" that it shows in the character sheet is complete crap as a basis for determining the amount of damage your character is actually negating with armour.

See here and here

From what I can see with your current passives build that puts you at a h-value of around 8. From the armour shown in your stats screen I assume you have about ~800-900 combined base armour/evasion.

Thus, trying to absorb anything above 100 damage (at 90% damage reduction) you will see a quick drop off in damage reduction such that by the time you get hit by 400/600/800 damage you only absorb 60/50/45 percent of the damage, meaning you still get hit for 160/300/440 damage which is presumably a decent chunk of your hp.

The whole "armor sucks lol" thing with people showing their character screens is useless because they assume that the reduction seen in character screen is the reduction in game on ALL hits. The basic issue is that people spec somewhat into armour in the skilldrasil and expect huge results on boss monsters which are (as BOSS monsters) going to hit high damage and thus (in a way simulating armour penetration) not going to receive the full effect of one's armour.

Although I will agree that armour is not as flexible as it could be, as most armour builds incoporate getting the maximum possible number of endurance charges due to the flat reduction.

So what you're saying, is that armor sucks in any situation in which you need armor (taking hits) and that it's just better to not get hit period, thus any true melee sucks anyways since they can't trade hits.

Seems logical.

"

Rayvelion wrote:

"

Sean_K wrote:

"

StarlightGamer wrote:

My tank-built Dualist (Build: Current | Planned) is currently having a tough time surviving in Cruel Act 2. Here are my stats: pitiful offense and should-be-awesome defense.

I just got done killing Great White Beast in Cruel and he was capable of taking off 30-50% of my HP even with that physical damage resistance and an additional 15% from 3 Endurance Charges. So like 87% physical damage reduction.

It annoys me now after looking through the armor discussions in the mechanics thread and the marauder forum that some people don't get that the "% reduction" that it shows in the character sheet is complete crap as a basis for determining the amount of damage your character is actually negating with armour.

See here and here

From what I can see with your current passives build that puts you at a h-value of around 8. From the armour shown in your stats screen I assume you have about ~800-900 combined base armour/evasion.

Thus, trying to absorb anything above 100 damage (at 90% damage reduction) you will see a quick drop off in damage reduction such that by the time you get hit by 400/600/800 damage you only absorb 60/50/45 percent of the damage, meaning you still get hit for 160/300/440 damage which is presumably a decent chunk of your hp.

The whole "armor sucks lol" thing with people showing their character screens is useless because they assume that the reduction seen in character screen is the reduction in game on ALL hits. The basic issue is that people spec somewhat into armour in the skilldrasil and expect huge results on boss monsters which are (as BOSS monsters) going to hit high damage and thus (in a way simulating armour penetration) not going to receive the full effect of one's armour.

Although I will agree that armour is not as flexible as it could be, as most armour builds incoporate getting the maximum possible number of endurance charges due to the flat reduction.

So what you're saying, is that armor sucks in any situation in which you need armor (taking hits) and that it's just better to not get hit period, thus any true melee sucks anyways since they can't trade hits.

Seems logical.

I've had great success on my maurader so far, simply by just using armor, and armor incr ease life flasks, as well as a decoy totem to divert enemies if they're burning too much, then heal, leap slam back in and put another up to maximize the healing duration, then refresh enduring cry.

"

Rayvelion wrote:

So what you're saying, is that armor sucks in any situation in which you need armor (taking hits) and that it's just better to not get hit period, thus any true melee sucks anyways since they can't trade hits

That's the reason nobody in the top 20 ladder plays melee, ranged or "wannabe melee"-skills like Ground Slam-Kiting.

I have 411 armor with nothing on, 428 armor coming from gear and 287 evasion coming from gear (with 132 dex, that would be a 26% bonus for 361 evasion). So 839, or 1200 if you add the evasion. Aside from my build, I run Determination, which gives me +35% armor and Grace, which gives me 364 evasion.

I have 2 Kaom's Sign rings in my inventory +1 max endurance charge), so I can conceivably reach 8 max charges with a little bit of build tweaking and a lot more passive skill points. I currently have 3 max and didn't intend on getting more, mainly because Enduring Cry only gives 1 charge most of the time and having to refresh the charges every 10 seconds turns the game into an absolute chore. The best I could hope for would be a 14 second charge time, which isn't much difference.

In any case, it seems like increased armor from passives might not be a very good use of passive skill points, but I'll have to calculate it to see.

What do you think they were thinking when they decided to add such a ridiculously and overly complicated system to the game?

Edit: According to the other thread, this is the "H-value" of my current setup: h = [216-12*3]/[(1+1.16)*(1+.35)*(3+2)]. H = 12.34. So I need 12-13 points of armor per 1 point of damage mitigated?

"

Rayvelion wrote:

So what you're saying, is that armor sucks in any situation in which you need armor (taking hits) and that it's just better to not get hit period, thus any true melee sucks anyways since they can't trade hits.

Seems logical.

Yes, in some ways armour is gimped right now and needs a buff due to this (to an extent). However, that is not to say that it is impossible to build armour right now as it can be done but requires endurance charges so that the amount of base armour you need to cap damage resistance is not ridiculous (i.e. the fact that with no armor passives and no endurance charges you need around 50-100 points of BASE armour to cap damage resistance on one point of incoming damage).

While I'm not sure which would be better as a means of balancing this between changing the damage resist formula (from armour/(armour + 12*damage)) or increasing the amount of base armour on equips or even tweaking IR (such that each evasion is converted to more than just one base armour point), it needs some tweaking before melee tanking (without a complete abandon of dps) is possible.

Example per absolute armour tanking now:

passives with +~200% armor +~50% evasion wearing the lvl 65-70 hybrid str/dex armours (assuming no magic or rare items) as well as all three passive endurance charge and quest endurance charge additions and determination leaves you with:

h-value: (216-84)/(9*1.51*3.00) = 3.25 i.e. you need 3250 BASE armour to reduce 1000 damage to 100.

Now as for base armour on thy hybrid equips.

BASE Armour = evasion * 1.5 + armour = (203+340+76+105) * 1.5 + (141+271+76+105+704) = 2383

Thus even in a stilted armour build like this it only caps resist up to about 750 damage.

Considering that some people merci bosses can hit a couple thousand damage on melee (mainly brutus slam) means assuming a boss hits for 3000 damage, you still take 1500.

As a full armour build, this just is pitiful

"

StarlightGamer wrote:

What do you think they were thinking when they decided to add such a ridiculously and overly complicated system to the game?

"Fuck melee" I guess ...... or "HAAAARDCORE SYSTEM WITHOUT ANY SENSE".

As a melee Acrobatics Ranger player, I am enjoying reading this thread. Can't wait for someone to start an Evasion OP thread.

Okay, so a comparison between no endurance charges, 3 endurance charges, 5 endurance charges, and 8 endurance charges:

If I run around with none, I mitigate 1 point of damage per 37.03 points of armor.
3, and I mitigate 1 point of damage per 12.34 points of armor.
5, and 1 per 7.64
8, and 1 per 4.11

So my armor would be tripled in effectiveness by running around with 3 endurance charges, 5x as effective with 5, and 9 times as effective with 8 charges. I guess I should tweak my build and then prepare for a lifetime of spamming Enduring Cry every few seconds for eternity? Still too many uncertainties.