Dear GGG: Armour is trash! If you are going to fix it do it better than PoE1. Here's how!

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LVSviral#3689 wrote:

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On top of that, why is Armour physical only? If a mage throws a ice bolt at me and hits my breastplate, what gets hit first, the plate or my body underneath it? Resistances should be counted as if you were taking a hit to naked skin. That is your body's natural resistance. Then actual armor on top of that mitigates stuff before your body does.

100%. It's super weird thematically AND poorly balanced that armour doesn't do anything against elemental+chaos hits too by default. It also makes sense that armour should apply to all damaging hits before resistances.

Thirded. It seems like armor is acting more like elemental pierce should, just bypassing armor protection completely. At this point, it feels like every attack just goes right through your armor, making the whole mechanic pointless.

No defenses matter in this game. You'll die from one shot anyway.
This game is focused on building overpower, to kill everything in seconds or die.

I have 20k ES, 90% Evasion, all resistances at max + CI. Even so, I die with one hit from several random mobs, I don't even know how I died, the pinnacle bosses are the same thing, you either kill them in seconds or you die in seconds.

Is this a challenging game full of mechanics that first came out? No, not in 10 years.

Spend your divines on strengthening your attack, make everything die just by touching it.

Make meta builds, there is no variety in this game.

Bump has been cast.

Also, i added a small clarification to the recommended formula change section of the OP.

been a while so BUMP

bump

Added a new keystone "Entrenched Force":

10% more armour.
5% less movement speed.

Flavour text:

"Spread your roots close to home if you want to stay safe."

this is a buff.

Because armor is mostly used by melee character I would love to see it as some kind of 1-hit protection.

And as more armor you stack as harder hits can your character take without getting 1-shot (also non physiacal).....at some point and with very high investment you could practicaly survive almost every 1-shot mechanic in the game with armor (only those not who always 1-shot becasue of boss mechanic).

Noticed the Merc I made for melee use, where I stacked armor gets 1 shot by big attacks. Looked up the issue, found there is a ramp down(?) in effectiveness of armor based on the hit damage.

I'm sorry, but K.I.S.S seems to be the answer. Stack armor = stack physical mitigation. That % reduced number should count for ALL physical damage incoming (from enemies of your level); not just small hits.

Reasoning being that if you are stacking armor like that, you are likely skipping ES and/or evasion, but getting lots of health in return. The tradeoff would be that you then have to use sockets and/or modifiers to stack elemental resistances. And, if you are focused primarily on stacking defenses, your damage will suffer. However, that would be a gameplay choice - slow and steady, tank walk through encounters.

If the issue becomes "well end-game, a good geared tank character will just walk through the game", tweak the formula for how much armor is required to reach specific % reduction thresholds for enemies of your level. Don't make it so heavy hits ignore armor - that's overly complicating the stat.

There are also enemies with armor break, and resistance debuffs. Increase the variability of enemies in end-game maps and such so that players need to build balanced builds, and make it so that stacking 1 thing for end-game isn't the end all, be all.

anyway, rant over. Hopefully GGG sees this thread or others like it and do SOMETHING to make armor viable without needing stupid high numbers.

Armor is completely fine as it is tbh. People are just bad at playing it.

I was keep wondering. Is armor the problem or the powerescalation?

Because Early game is balanced around and feels good because everyone has 0% resist.

Cruelty difficulty seems where each class have their own identity

But endgame escalates to a disaster, because everyone MUST have
- all 4 resistance at 75%
- your main damage mitigation stat capped (block or evasion)
and insase hitpoint.
- massive health regen

So how can you make the game challenging if any damage is regenerated completely?

A warrior with 3k hp and 75% lightning res will take the same damage as a sorcerer with 7k ES with 75% lightning resist.

Armor however feels weird, because ranged characters just don't let enemies get close.
Mercenary and Monk have evasion.

Block is a weird mechanic, because I keep saying it should reduce damage, nut nullify it. Block is technically an evasion that can trigger thorn.

So you have 75% chance to nullify damage and retaliate with thorn.
Armor was so bad in 0.1 that some tried to stack it to insane level. However when you see even 20k armor oneshots you, people started to drop and change their armor to evasion.
And in that case how can you kill someone who have 50% chance to dodge the damage, rendering it to 0
have 75% chance to block the damage, making it hit 0
and having 2k hp per second regeneration?

Tbh in the endgame the difference between classes are those increased max resist point now.


I gave people two questions about armors:
1) how many players use [Iron Reflexes] - converts all evasion to armor

2) How many warriors play without shield?
I think in 0.1 the only walid option was Giants blood + shield.

Are they even players who dual wield?

I tempted to try outhow viable it is, but I was thinking there should be a berserker playstyle:
- dual wield
- get Vengeful Fury so rage increase armor too
- and Berzerker spirit gem should give Overheal guard

But I don't see anyone is doing this, most possibly because as soon as you put your shield away you feel extremely exposed.
I think the only players who even use 2handed weapons are combined with stun. So when you make your enemy immobile you use your offset 2h weapon with perfect strike for burst damage.