Can someone confirm melee getting buffed?

"

...Add a passive keystone that increases durability significantly, but reduces your projectile damage and spell damage to zero. The only problem I see with this is that there is some fun in playing a melee range caster (concentrate - shock nova, ice nova, molten shell) so reducing spell damage to zero wouldn't help this type of character, but it would help all other melee so I think that would be ok.
...

I actually like this idea a lot, and think it has little downside. A player who wants to play ranged makes a decision, and does not take the keystone. One thing you'd need to consider is which classes need to be able to reach it. Placement of such keystones might mean that some classes could take it twice, and that could be unbalancing. If so, then you could hang one off every class in such a way as there is no arc to it from any other class. Or you could just place one right between every class, and give every class the opportunity to take it twice, and balance around that possibility.

The other possibility would be a support gem that globally effects the player, instead of the skills it attaches to. I.e, imagine a gem that if resident in any piece of equipped gear, increases your damage reduction, but eliminates your ability to do ranged attacks. Sort of a "keystone support gem," I guess. You could even level them up.

I suppose you could imagine other types of such gems....

"

Courageous wrote:

"

...Add a passive keystone that increases durability significantly, but reduces your projectile damage and spell damage to zero. The only problem I see with this is that there is some fun in playing a melee range caster (concentrate - shock nova, ice nova, molten shell) so reducing spell damage to zero wouldn't help this type of character, but it would help all other melee so I think that would be ok.
...

I actually like this idea a lot, and think it has little downside. A player who wants to play ranged makes a decision, and does not take the keystone. One thing you'd need to consider is which classes need to be able to reach it. Placement of such keystones might mean that some classes could take it twice, and that could be unbalancing. If so, then you could hang one off every class in such a way as there is no arc to it from any other class. Or you could just place one right between every class, and give every class the opportunity to take it twice, and balance around that possibility.

The other possibility would be a support gem that globally effects the player, instead of the skills it attaches to. I.e, imagine a gem that if resident in any piece of equipped gear, increases your damage reduction, but eliminates your ability to do ranged attacks. Sort of a "keystone support gem," I guess. You could even level them up.

I suppose you could imagine other types of such gems....

This isn't a really good solution, because all it means is that you are making a mandatory keystone passive that you have to get if you want to tank (and are not based off endurance). Its in fact the exact same problem we have now with endurance, if you want to tank, you have to get endurance, and its not solving the problem. In fact it would probably create a broken melee hero that can tank with endurance + keystone passive that you just came up with

This is just honestly scapegoating the issue, the tree is fine and there isn't any missive defensive ability. The tree has plenty of defense type nodes and abilities, as do items. Yes there are defense nodes for more "glass cannony/offensive" classes, but they will (always) be at the cost of offense (its just that in OB, its easier to get to life/defense nodes than in CB). There isn't anything wrong with the tree at all for any of the characters (duelist may have some issues, but tnats an unrelated issue), in fact the tree is really well designed in OB.

tl/dr: we really don't need another CB CI where it becomes mandatory if you are doing some sought of general defense (in that case it was ES). Armor is like basically the INT in D2 (completely useless). It just so happens in D2, you could get around that by just using mana flasks. In PoE, you get around shit armor with granite flasks, which are both broken (just got nerfed) and not really a replacement for armor since armor implies constant tanking (and not tanking based off pots)

"

deteego wrote:

Spoiler

Some people are making good notes here about the disparity between ranged and melee (where ranged heroes can get just as tanky as melee ones due to the distribution of nodes in the tree)

There isn't any problem with this if the typical melee gear (heavy chest and head armor) actually provided good defense (and guess what, this type of gear either provides very high armor), and the reason why this gear doesn't provide good defense, is because armor sucks, and so having high armor (unless its granite) is irrelevant in the game.

I honestly think we don't really need to touch the tree at all, that would create such massive balance disruptions it wouldn't be funny.

All it comes down to is armor being shit, and since armor is the predominant stat that non ES/Evasion melee based characters are going to get (apart from life) it doesn't take Einstein to figure it out.

You would have the exact same problem if ES scaled terribly, than any non-blood magic based caster would be terrible and you would only have specific viable caster builds if you want to get into merciless (in just the same way you only have specific viable builds for melee if you want to get into merciless)

As for evasion, I can't really comment since I don't play an evasion based character , however evasion is always going to be a less valuable defense since its based on chance. It will also probably need some sought of buff, but then again thats the point of evasion. Things like evasion and ES are gotten typically on non tanky characters, and because of that, both of those defense mechanics are meant to less reliable and/or weaker than actual life/armor. Tanks are tanks because they can reliably tank (rolling the dice with dodging doesn't cut it, and ES doesn't allow you to tank for extended periods of time). The thing is, a shadow or a melee duelist is not supposed to be as tanky as a pure STR maruader (or a combination ES/Life based templar), however they make up for it in other ways. Shadow has superior mobility (which also happens to play very well with CI, get out before your shield burns out and then jump back in), and Dualists are meant to do a lot more damage. This is just general class roles and balance though. Shadows/Dualists aren't that weak, although they aren't the strongest. Shadows (especially CI ones due to how stun work) can easily kite and get out if you have good reaction time, and dualist can use things like totems to distract so they can kill in sane amount of time

Reliable tanking means having a big HP pool (allows you to better calculate how long you can survive and allows you to pot earlier) and flat damage reduction (not based on luck, again easy to estimate). Currently the only way to get the latter is endurance charges, which probably would need some slight nerf after armor gets buffed

But that doesn't solve anything. Effectively you're just saying again "Buff Armor." But what do we get if you buff armor? More power ground slam mauraders and lightning strike templars and bow mauraders. Etc.

It would only further tip the scale toward the side of the tree that is the tankiest due to the access to HP Nodes. There's a reason Mauraders and Templars are the most common classes, making Armor significantly better would just further tip the scale in their favor.

Essentially what you are saying is that only pure armor characters need to be buffed, melee witches, rangers, duelists, and shadows are powerful enough. But that isn't even remotely close to the case.

Remember, all skills and all gear is available to all characters. Improving the armor value of the pure armor items would just further push ranged characters to rely on armor as their primary or only defense, because that equipment will still be available to everyone.

Ultimately it's a complex problem caused by a combination of monster damage scaling, the passive tree setup, and the way player stats work. A solution will need much more finesse than just buffing armor. While armor may need a buff, that will be a global buff not just to melee characters, so it would do nothing to solve the current disparity between melee and range.

I agree that just adding a 'tank keystone' isn't ideal. It runs the risk of becoming a mandatory keystone for any melee build. It runs the risk of crowding out 'hybrid' ranged + melee builds. And it also may be problematic deciding where to place it (preferably near the middle). However, it would have significant upsides including making melee builds more viable for all classes rather than just strength based ones, and providing an alternative to Endurance Charge stacking.

"

evilcloud5 wrote:

You realize you can have just as must survivability as him if not more considering range, and noticeably more damage because of better skills and support gems available to ranged right?...

No, just no. Getting HP nodes compared to a marauder / templare / duelist is a joke (there are a lot of 8% nodes ... compared to 12% nodes). And better AOE skills like ground slam, leap slam or cleave (which have some crowd control too) - really? All ranged skills have a limited amount of units hit - well ... melee skills don't. In addition you have insane mana problems ... melee has blood magic! More damage - have you seen the base stats of a 2-hand melee weapon compared to a e.g. bow? In addition str gives you damage ... well, int and dex doesn't.

"

And while the game is still dangerous for ranged characters, it's significantly less so than melee.

No, just no. There are more dangerours situations for melee, yes. But melee still has usually a good escape and is more tanky. In ranged there are a few, but insanely hard situations! And well, at least in HC you don't want that ...

"

Furthermore, many of the support gems are specifically designed with ranged skills in mind - LMP, GMP, Chain, Fork, etc. While there are none that specifically buff melee skills. This means that ranged characters have better access to ways to increase their damage (or ability to do aoe damage) without actually having to sacrifice their passive skill points.

You ever played ranged? Try to use all "good" support gems with any skill and well , you won't ne able attack more than 2-3 times because of mana cost. Melee has Blood magic and because of that you can use all of the insane support gems. Btw, AOE melee skills usually hit ALL targets in an area, why would you ever need LMP / Fork / Chain?

Dont get me wrong, ranged is probably easier to play at the moment, but there are a few situations that are way harder to survive with ranged than with melee. Maybe in default it doesn't matter, but in HC it does. Don't forget, as melee you have your escape, as ranged you don't - which means a single wrong position kills you in HC.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

But that doesn't solve anything. Effectively you're just saying again "Buff Armor." But what do we get if you buff armor? More power ground slam mauraders and lightning strike templars and bow mauraders. Etc.

Do you realize the formula for armor and how it works (or did you watch the youtube video posted earlier). Armor sucks not because its weak, it sucks because of how its designed (i.e. the formula and how the damage mitigation is formulated). Long story short, the more damage you take from a hit, the less effective armor is. As shown in the video, if you take a 2.3k damage hit, your reduction from armor (even in extreme circumstances) will be around 8% (i.e. nothing), however if you take 200 damage, the reduction is around 50%

In other words its a design flaw. Armor is actually not doing anything past normal stage of the game because of this. When everything hits hard (as it does later on) the damage mitigation from armor becomes useless. In merciless, you have normal mobs hitting you for 0.5k+ minimum

Im saying that armor needs to be buffed because armor is the only problem. There currently isn't any viability issue with ES (its perfectly viable), there also isn't any viability issue with endurance

"

FamousTrip wrote:

It would only further tip the scale toward the side of the tree that is the tankiest due to the access to HP Nodes. There's a reason Mauraders and Templars are the most common classes, making Armor significantly better would just further tip the scale in their favor.

No the reason they are famous has nothing to do with the fact that they are melee. Maraurders are famous because they can perma stun with ground slam, something that only requires a 4-5L gear and/or 4-5 nodes in the tree. Templars are famous because of catalyst nodes + aura stacking + scaling of elemental damage and using stuff like lightning strike or wands. None of that has anything to do with them tanking. If you watch high level games, none of those are either

1. Actual melee heroes (they both use ranged abilities. Ground slam is ranged, Lightning strike is ranged or they use a wand)
2. Do any actual tanking (tanking is not possible in merciless without endurance, and even then its quite risky)

Im sorry, but a character that uses ranged abilities is not god damn melee, regardless if they have the "templar" or "marauder" label on them.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

Essentially what you are saying is that only pure armor characters need to be buffed, melee witches, rangers, duelists, and shadows are powerful enough. But that isn't even remotely close to the case.

Its not "pure" armor. Its very difficult to get just pure armor (its also stupid because armor is damage mitigation, so its more effective the more health you have). I am saying the stat armor needs to be buffed, not pure armor characters. It just so happens that characters that rely on tanking (i.e. proper melee characters that need to tank) rely on armor and health. Health is fine, armor is not

Also there isn't any issue with survivability for any of the other types of characters you mentioned. Witches aren't meant to tank, full stop. If a witch is meant to tank, than they would be getting health/armor (in which case you are better of going templar because of tree placement) or they would be getting ES, which is fine (because you can both get much higher ES than health, and ES has a lot of perks which let you tank in different ways). Same deal with Shadow.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

Remember, all skills and all gear is available to all characters. Improving the armor value of the pure armor items would just further push ranged characters to rely on armor as their primary or only defense, because that equipment will still be available to everyone.

Actually this is where you are wrong

Ranged characters often have very little armor, its basically due to the equipment. Only stuff like tower shields, heavy chest armor and heavy head armor have good armor values. To equip these items you need either incredibly high STR (or a combination of STR and INT).

In other words, its not going to be viable for ranged heroes to get high armor without significant investment. There is also nothing wrong with this.

This is just a buff to pure "melee" characters because only pure "melee" characters actually get access to good armor, both through the armor increasing passives in the tree (very close to maraurder/templar) and the fact that the equipment with the most armor heavily favors characters with a lot of strength.

Furthermore, armor is useless (buffed or non buffed) if you have low ES/Health. Even if a high ranged character wants to get high armor, if they are just running on 1.5k HP, its going to mean little even if your damage reduction is high. Even at 50% damage reduction (which is ridiculous) you are still going to get one shot by any boss, and 3-4 shot by melees in merciless.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

I agree that just adding a 'tank keystone' isn't ideal. It runs the risk of becoming a mandatory keystone for any melee build. It runs the risk of crowding out 'hybrid' ranged + melee builds. And it also may be problematic deciding where to place it (preferably near the middle). However, it would have significant upsides including making melee builds more viable for all classes rather than just strength based ones, and providing an alternative to Endurance Charge stacking.

It would create so many issues its not worth considering

"

Thirion wrote:

Dont get me wrong, ranged is probably easier to play at the moment, but there are a few situations that are way harder to survive with ranged than with melee. Maybe in default it doesn't matter, but in HC it does. Don't forget, as melee you have your escape, as ranged you don't - which means a single wrong position kills you in HC.

In HC, proper melee characters are not viable. Anything in merciless can kill you in a blink of an eye (no matter how tank you are)

Blood magic may be used, but the melee heroes that are used in harcore are actually played as ranged ones. They use ranged abilities like ground slam and lightning strike (or even wands)

People should stop calling any character that happens to be a "templar" or a "marauder" ranged. What makes you melee or not in PoE is the abilities you use, not the class you picked.

In this case, not Templar and Marauder are played as ranged casters (that happen to be tanky) and not melee

"

deteego wrote:

Spoiler

"

FamousTrip wrote:

But that doesn't solve anything. Effectively you're just saying again "Buff Armor." But what do we get if you buff armor? More power ground slam mauraders and lightning strike templars and bow mauraders. Etc.

Do you realize the formula for armor and how it works (or did you watch the youtube video posted earlier). Armor sucks not because its weak, it sucks because of how its designed (i.e. the formula and how the damage mitigation is formulated). Long story short, the more damage you take from a hit, the less effective armor is. As shown in the video, if you take a 2.3k damage hit, your reduction from armor (even in extreme circumstances) will be around 8% (i.e. nothing), however if you take 200 damage, the reduction is around 50%

In other words its a design flaw. Armor is actually not doing anything past normal stage of the game because of this. When everything hits hard (as it does later on) the damage mitigation from armor becomes useless. In merciless, you have normal mobs hitting you for 0.5k+ minimum

Im saying that armor needs to be buffed because armor is the only problem. There currently isn't any viability issue with ES (its perfectly viable), there also isn't any viability issue with endurance

"

FamousTrip wrote:

It would only further tip the scale toward the side of the tree that is the tankiest due to the access to HP Nodes. There's a reason Mauraders and Templars are the most common classes, making Armor significantly better would just further tip the scale in their favor.

No the reason they are famous has nothing to do with the fact that they are melee. Maraurders are famous because they can perma stun with ground slam, something that only requires a 4-5L gear and/or 4-5 nodes in the tree. Templars are famous because of catalyst nodes + aura stacking + scaling of elemental damage and using stuff like lightning strike or wands. None of that has anything to do with them tanking. If you watch high level games, none of those are either

1. Actual melee heroes (they both use ranged abilities. Ground slam is ranged, Lightning strike is ranged or they use a wand)
2. Do any actual tanking (tanking is not possible in merciless without endurance, and even then its quite risky)

Im sorry, but a character that uses ranged abilities is not god damn melee, regardless if they have the "templar" or "marauder" label on them.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

Essentially what you are saying is that only pure armor characters need to be buffed, melee witches, rangers, duelists, and shadows are powerful enough. But that isn't even remotely close to the case.

Its not "pure" armor. Its very difficult to get just pure armor (its also stupid because armor is damage mitigation, so its more effective the more health you have). I am saying the stat armor needs to be buffed, not pure armor characters. It just so happens that characters that rely on tanking (i.e. proper melee characters that need to tank) rely on armor and health. Health is fine, armor is not

Also there isn't any issue with survivability for any of the other types of characters you mentioned. Witches aren't meant to tank, full stop. If a witch is meant to tank, than they would be getting health/armor (in which case you are better of going templar because of tree placement) or they would be getting ES, which is fine (because you can both get much higher ES than health, and ES has a lot of perks which let you tank in different ways). Same deal with Shadow.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

Remember, all skills and all gear is available to all characters. Improving the armor value of the pure armor items would just further push ranged characters to rely on armor as their primary or only defense, because that equipment will still be available to everyone.

Actually this is where you are wrong

Ranged characters often have very little armor, its basically due to the equipment. Only stuff like tower shields, heavy chest armor and heavy head armor have good armor values. To equip these items you need either incredibly high STR (or a combination of STR and INT).

In other words, its not going to be viable for ranged heroes to get high armor without significant investment. There is also nothing wrong with this.

This is just a buff to pure "melee" characters because only pure "melee" characters actually get access to good armor, both through the armor increasing passives in the tree (very close to maraurder/templar) and the fact that the equipment with the most armor heavily favors characters with a lot of strength.

Furthermore, armor is useless (buffed or non buffed) if you have low ES/Health. Even if a high ranged character wants to get high armor, if they are just running on 1.5k HP, its going to mean little even if your damage reduction is high. Even at 50% damage reduction (which is ridiculous) you are still going to get one shot by any boss, and 3-4 shot by melees in merciless.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

I agree that just adding a 'tank keystone' isn't ideal. It runs the risk of becoming a mandatory keystone for any melee build. It runs the risk of crowding out 'hybrid' ranged + melee builds. And it also may be problematic deciding where to place it (preferably near the middle). However, it would have significant upsides including making melee builds more viable for all classes rather than just strength based ones, and providing an alternative to Endurance Charge stacking.

It would create so many issues its not worth considering

"

Thirion wrote:

Dont get me wrong, ranged is probably easier to play at the moment, but there are a few situations that are way harder to survive with ranged than with melee. Maybe in default it doesn't matter, but in HC it does. Don't forget, as melee you have your escape, as ranged you don't - which means a single wrong position kills you in HC.

In HC, proper melee characters are not viable. Anything in merciless can kill you in a blink of an eye (no matter how tank you are)

Blood magic may be used, but the melee heroes that are used in harcore are actually played as ranged ones. They use ranged abilities like ground slam and lightning strike (or even wands)

People should stop calling any character that happens to be a "templar" or a "marauder" ranged. What makes you melee or not in PoE is the abilities you use, not the class you picked.

In this case, not Templar and Marauder are played as ranged casters (that happen to be tanky) and not melee

You seem to be making contradictory arguments. You're arguing that Marauders using GS and Templars using LS aren't "melee" characters, yet you continue to argue that only melee characters can use the str based armor.

Those are contradictory points of view, you are holding.

Aside from that, it's extremely easy for a bow character to obtain enough strength to use the "heaviest" pure armor gear (and when I say pure armor I mean armor that only requires strength and provides no evasion or ES). It would be very easy to make a pure armor archer as a maurader.

It would be even easier for an elemental archer templar to get enough strength to use the pure armor gear, while still having very easy access to all the HP nodes that they could want, and additionally having access to RT.

I pretty much disagree with everything you've said though and I'll just leave it at this. The solution to make 'tanking' and melee characters viable has to be more than just blanket buffs to STR builds. That's just going to make tankier templar casters and maurader ranged characters.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

You seem to be making contradictory arguments. You're arguing that Marauders using GS and Templars using LS aren't "melee" characters, yet you continue to argue that only melee characters can use the str based armor.

Those are contradictory points of view, you are holding.

Aside from that, it's extremely easy for a bow character to obtain enough strength to use the "heaviest" pure armor gear (and when I say pure armor I mean armor that only requires strength and provides no evasion or ES). It would be very easy to make a pure armor archer as a maurader.

It would be even easier for an elemental archer templar to get enough strength to use the pure armor gear, while still having very easy access to all the HP nodes that they could want, and additionally having access to RT.

I pretty much disagree with everything you've said though and I'll just leave it at this. The solution to make 'tanking' and melee characters viable has to be more than just blanket buffs to STR builds. That's just going to make tankier templar casters and maurader ranged characters.

There not contradictory, you can't read

Whether you are "melee" or not has little (directly) to do with whether you are a templar or a maruadar, its completely based on your playstyle. If you spend your whole time ground slamming enemies from range, or hitting enemies with your wand, guess what, you are not melee, you are a caster (or a ranged DPS or whatever you want to call it).

If you are wacking things in melee range, then yes, you are a melee (and to do this you need to be tanky). If you we use this definition, then melee characters are not viable in HC and/or merciless. Viable Templars/maraders use wands/Lightning strike, marauders use ground slam. This thread is not about these types of builds. It just so happens that to be tanky, you need a lot of STR, which is much easier if you start off as Maraduers/Templar/Duelist (but it can be done with anyone, a witch can be melee in this game if they use enough orb of regrets and go down south from the passive tree, although its ridiculously stupid).

Even if it was easy for ranged heroes to get armor (when its fixed) why would they? Im not asking for armor to be broken overpowered, I am asking for armor to be useful. Sure a ranger could get armor, but it would still be a pretty shitty decision unless they have a lot of health and/or ES (which rangers are not likely to have). They would be better off just getting more evasion or ES rather than armor. Armor is just damage mitigation, it follows the square rule, having armor is not very effective unless you have a lot of it (and a lot of health). Ranged heroes do not fall into this category. Unless armor overpowerdly broken, its simply not every going to be ideal for ranged heroes to get.

Im not asking to make armor broken overpowered, im asking for armor to be useful. Currently past mid cruel, armor is useless stat due to how its formulated. This isn't really debatable, its actually a mathematical fact, and so its the first place we should look for to fix this problem.

If a stat is useless, thats the first place to look in order to fix problems. Then if the problem still exists, we can look in other areas. And btw, useless is not the same thing as "fine", useless means that its underpowered, most other stats are either "fine", hence why we are not complaining about them

I think you don't understand where you are being contradictory. I definitely understand how armor works, and despite your claim it DOES work right now, it just doesn't work well enough when enemies do high damage - there needs to be another way to mitigate high damage hits so they don't 1-shot players as easily. We definitely agree on that point, however we disagree on how it should be achieved because you think it should be achieved by making are more effective against high damage hits.

Where you are coming to the contradiction is your conclusion that improving armor will primarily help melee characters. The problem is that your solution will just a) make Iron Reflexes even more mandatory for all ranger and duelist builds, not just melee ones, and b) it will make all Ground Slam Marauder and Elemental Templar builds even stronger by giving them much more mitigation.

Why would such a character use armor? Why wouldn't they? There's no real trade-off for any such character using strength armor because by the time they are seeing the highest level strength armor drop they will have the strength to use them. So if they 'fix' armor to be better you are doing nothing to close the gap between melee and ranger characters, you're just effectively making ranged and melee characters more tanky. And what's worse, you're only making characters that can utilize armor (the stat) more tanky, which leaves Evasion / ES and pure ES equipment at a significant disadvantage.

I don't know if you do or don't play HC, but having high health is pretty much mandatory for any non-CI character. Current rangers are already stacking HP while utilizing armor via IR. Simply buffing armor would be a blanket buff to any character that uses armor, and since there is nothing stopping ranged characters from utilizing armor as a stat, and such buffing armor will just shift the parity in a way that will just put ES / Evasion based characters at a significant disadvantage regardless of whether they are melee or ranged.

"

FamousTrip wrote:

I think you don't understand where you are being contradictory. I definitely understand how armor works, and despite your claim it DOES work right now, it just doesn't work well enough when enemies do high damage - there needs to be another way to mitigate high damage hits so they don't 1-shot players as easily. We definitely agree on that point, however we disagree on how it should be achieved because you think it should be achieved by making are more effective against high damage hits.

No I think you are confusing cause and effect

"

FamousTrip wrote:

Where you are coming to the contradiction is your conclusion that improving armor will primarily help melee characters. The problem is that your solution will just a) make Iron Reflexes even more mandatory for all ranger and duelist builds, not just melee ones, and b) it will make all Ground Slam Marauder and Elemental Templar builds even stronger by giving them much more mitigation.

Iron Will is probably going to be redone (heard this from GGG somewhere).

The issue with ground slam and elemental templar builds is a seperate issue completely. They are probably too strong, which means that nerfs may be needed in (other areas). Again this is a seperate issue, stop conflating them

"

FamousTrip wrote:

Why would such a character use armor? Why wouldn't they? There's no real trade-off for any such character using strength armor because by the time they are seeing the highest level strength armor drop they will have the strength to use them. So if they 'fix' armor to be better you are doing nothing to close the gap between melee and ranger characters, you're just effectively making ranged and melee characters more tanky. And what's worse, you're only making characters that can utilize armor (the stat) more tanky, which leaves Evasion / ES and pure ES equipment at a significant disadvantage.

There is a trade off, its called synergy. Armor only really synergies when you have high health, because thats how damage mitigation works, especially when combined with pot usage. Again its a question of what people find effective, getting high amount (note, not moderate) amount of armor simply wouldn't synergise with any ranged heroes playstyle. Their natural health/ES would be low that it would be less than ideal. Again this is part of mathematics, damage mitigation only works when you have a large enough pool of HP or ES (or w/e is being mitigated)

"

FamousTrip wrote:

I don't know if you do or don't play HC, but having high health is pretty much mandatory for any non-CI character. Current rangers are already stacking HP while utilizing armor via IR. Simply buffing armor would be a blanket buff to any character that uses armor, and since there is nothing stopping ranged characters from utilizing armor as a stat, and such buffing armor will just shift the parity in a way that will just put ES / Evasion based characters at a significant disadvantage regardless of whether they are melee or ranged.

Yes I do realize that stacking health is mandatory in HC, and thats actually more of a result of the burst nature of damage of monsters. The reason why, as explained by Kripp very well, you need to get survivability in HC, is that you can get one/two shot. The damage being so ridiculously high is primarily a result of armor being so crap. If for example the armor didn't formulate depending on how much damage you take, rangers wouldn't need to start playing tanky.

To be clear I don't want high amounts of armor to be mandatory on rangers, however some armor should be mandatory (just as some amount of health needs to be mandatory).

My biggest issue is targeting by far. I often have to resort to slamming to dps because I have such difficulty acquiring single targets in group play. Obviously for soloing its not as much of an issue, but still hard to pick specific targets out of a pack of mobs.
I wasnt aware of the issues regarding armor and other points brought up in the thread so parts were an eye opener.