Armour needs a straight up numbers buff!

Change the "12" in the armour formula to 8.

Currently, armour on monsters does nothing.

Armour on player characters does nearly nothing either, unless you stack armour to the ceiling.

Just give it a numbers buff!

Changing the number won't do anything really, it's just a bad formula, it does not take into account the life being protected by the armour, so after it does its diminishing 12 to 1 reduction and you run out of armour, it does one to one damage on damage/life.

Which is poorly thought out.

IF you have a 10 pound chestpiece and a powerlifter inside it and hit him with a sledgehammer, he might look at you and laugh. Replace the powerlifter with a guy of average build, hit him with he same force and he might get knocked back or stunned and get hurt. Replace the average guy with a child, and the child might die.

The game can't account for muscle density or general durability, but it does have hitpoints, which should be a big factor into the equation of damage reduction. The existing system is pretty lacking in design.

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adghar wrote:

Armour on player characters does nearly nothing either, unless you stack armour to the ceiling.

Define what that is supposed to mean.

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nynyny wrote:

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adghar wrote:

Armour on player characters does nearly nothing either, unless you stack armour to the ceiling.

Define what that is supposed to mean.

exactly what he says

i dont build a marauder without a minimum of 60k armor on granite

thinking of worst case scenarios, like carnage with extra damage and vuln

he would hit for 4k, and 3300 with enfeeble (50% reduced curse effectiveness on bosses, -17.5%)

3300 --> 10k armor --> 2640 --> 3500 with vuln (endurance charges help reduce this, but its still wtf)
3300 --> 60k armor --> 1320 --> 1800 with vuln (endurance charges reduce this to close to 1000, much better)

But it took 50k armor ... holy crap

Then theres extra ele dmg (all his dmg as 80-100% ele), boss dmg, 50% phys dmg aura.

so they either buff armor nodes, and change the 12 to 8 as he said (freaky as I was going to suggest that and was thinking the same last night, and the number i settled on was 8), or both.

or if they dont buff armor, they buff life on gear (for example helms get 150max, and rings get 100), life nodes (+30-50% buff), and make str : life ratio 1:1 or close

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Powertrip wrote:

Changing the number won't do anything really

of course it does

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mvm199 wrote:

of course it does

Ok, true, it would. But all that does is shift around numbers in broken mechanics, which is all GGG have been doing so far. Life nerfs, Armour 'buffs', Axe/phys damage 'buffs'. All they do is shift around numbers but because some of the the systems that these numbers are working within are fundamentally broken, the gameplay remains the same.

Nudging numbers around is cool and all, but it's the equations that need looking at.

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Powertrip wrote:

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mvm199 wrote:

of course it does

Ok, true, it would. But all that does is shift around numbers in broken mechanics, which is all GGG have been doing so far. Life nerfs, Armour 'buffs', Axe/phys damage 'buffs'. All they do is shift around numbers but because some of the the systems that these numbers are working within are fundamentally broken, the gameplay remains the same.

Nudging numbers around is cool and all, but it's the equations that need looking at.

mind = blown

'its the equation that need to be looked at' --> yeah, thats what im on about here

if they change the number from 12 to 8, i dont think you realise what a huge impact that has... anyway that and buff armor and life nodes a bit, and buff life on items and str/life ratio. Even small changes will make a huge difference in the end, and could tip the balance to the other side.

could do math but cba atm because trying to hold back poop lmao

The difference wouldn't be that huge, biggest absolute difference is at the 1.2k hit with 10.1%.

The relative increase in effectiveness looks better, although it already needs a 1.5k hit to have 25% better reduction.

However there is one thing you shouldn't forget when talking about armour balance: Make it too efficient and evasion will be unplayable. The fact that big hits aren't reduced that much is exactly the reason why evasion works at all. If armour was much more effective, we would need bigger hits or you could faceroll in your heavy armour gear. Bigger hits in return would then destroy evasion chars, because if they get hit, they take the full blow. Not that easy too balance out.
Personally I'd be happy if they would buff armour and remove Iron Reflexes, having to get this node for reasonable high armour numbers is soooo annoying. But I don't think that is what the OP was after.

€dit: I used 12k armour as base for the graphs, seemed like a number you can get with ok, but not op gear.

Whats wrong with a 1k hit?

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Lord_of_Error wrote:

The difference wouldn't be that huge, biggest absolute difference is at the 1.2k hit with 10.1%.

reduction with current factor (12) and factor 8

The relative increase in effectiveness looks better, although it already needs a 1.5k hit to have 25% better reduction.

relative increase (divide dmg(8)/dmg(12))

However there is one thing you shouldn't forget when talking about armour balance: Make it too efficient and evasion will be unplayable. The fact that big hits aren't reduced that much is exactly the reason why evasion works at all. If armour was much more effective, we would need bigger hits or you could faceroll in your heavy armour gear. Bigger hits in return would then destroy evasion chars, because if they get hit, they take the full blow. Not that easy too balance out.
Personally I'd be happy if they would buff armour and remove Iron Reflexes, having to get this node for reasonable high armour numbers is soooo annoying. But I don't think that is what the OP was after.

€dit: I used 12k armour as base for the graphs, seemed like a number you can get with ok, but not op gear.

12k armor ... i get that pre granite ez

1 to 2k hits ... lol i only worry for worst case scenarios, extra dmg / boss dmg / vuln maps with stuff like rhoas, chargers, golems and damage auras and the bosses spinecrack, oak, kraityn, carnage, alira ce, blacksmith, massier, weaver, lord of the bow.

3-5k hits before crits man.

Everything else with max block and some armor / 6-7 endu charges is ez cake

40k armor, 5000 hit

12 factor --> 3000 dmg, 2000 with 5 charges
8 factor --> 2500 dmg, 1500 with 5 charges

40k armor, 4000 hit

12 factor --> 2200 dmg, 1400 with 5 charges
8 factor --> 1800 dmg, 1000 with 5 charges

40k armor, 3000 hit

12 factor --> 1440 dmg, 840 with 5 charges
8 factor --> 1140 dmg, 540 with 5 charges

60k armor, 5000 hit

12 factor --> 2500 dmg, 1500 with 5 charges
8 factor --> 2000 dmg, 1000 with 5 charges

60k armor, 4000 hit

12 factor --> 1800 dmg, 1000 with 5 charges
8 factor --> 1400 dmg, 600 with 5 charges

60k armor, 3000 hit

12 factor --> 1140 dmg, 540 with 5 charges
8 factor --> 870 dmg, 300 with 5 charges (90% cap reached)

I consider 300-500 hp a significant improvement on a big hit when not everyone can run kaoms or 4k hp pools. That, coupled with a few buffs to hp, would make stuff much easier to handle. And if armor is more effective and you get more of it on nodes and more hp from nodes/gear, you can invest in some more dps / whatever nodes and make builds get more dps with less need for xx exalt gear.

My suggestion would be

Change armor formula to 8 instead of 12 multiplier
Buff armor and hp nodes by 30-50%
Give hp : str a 0.75-1 : 1 ratio and / or +2 hp per level (8 instead of 6)
Buff hp by 50% on items
Give an extra skill point every 2 or 3 levels --> extra 30-50 points @ level 100

you cant do all of these as the way they would come together would make the game much easier, not to mention absolute faceroll for the rich geared guys. But some of them can be implemented and tested.

The problem is MVM, you are considering AR in a vaccuum.

Any significant buff of AR also needs a similar buff of EV, as you have to consider that EV is worse vs small hits, and better vs big hits.

So when you make the AR better in all areas, but mostly in the big hits, EV has a lesser margin in which it is 'better' than AR