Armor as a %

[Mushroomhermit]

I think its been brought up before but most people agree that its hard to stay "in the sweet spot" in terms of damage when armor functions as a straight subtraction. For example:

Beefy tanked out fighter wades through hordes taking ZERO damage from them because he has 100 armor. Then he runs into a boss. Boss swats him with assault or something similar for 500 base damage. FOUR HUNDRED still gets through to our super beefy, ensconced in mithril, uber-fighter. Thats a mere 20% reduction from the flimsiest of level 1 characters. Something here isn't right.

Say, instead, that 100 armor translates into 65% reduction. Now our fearless warrior takes 35 damage from each member of the aforementioned horde. Not an incredible amount by any means, but remember, this is a fighter. He doesn't have phase door except in scroll form, potions are fairly weak and he has no healing spells or magical shields (again except in the form of kinda weak scrolls). Anyway, he maintains a tactical advantage, manages his stamina and cooldowns through baddies who can suddenly hurt him, and eventually runs up against the boss again. Boss proceeds to swat him in the face once again. 500 base damage. However, with his spiffy new armor calculation, only 175 gets through to him. This is good because even unloading as hard as he can, it'll still take quite a few rounds to bring this boss down.


On a semi-related note, I would also like to propose making Defense MUCH rarer than it is now. Realistically I don't think anyone should be able to reach 25% avoidance except shield users and MAYBE rogues (obv monks too if they get included). This will help prevent the dodgedodgedodgedodgedodge*SPLAT* effect that has affected so many games in the past *cough*WoW*cough*. If this happens, damage will need to be toned down to compensate but it should make for a much less insta-gibby experience.

[Final Master]

Blur is the only non armor spell that I am aware of that grants a boost to defense, and in every case that includes both armor and defense shields and mummy wrappings are the only wearable armor that has greater defense than armor and in every other case armor greatly outclasses defense. AND there are more sources of armor boosting than of defense boosting.

... I don't know what else to say ...

[Repton]

Beefy tanked out fighter wades through hordes taking ZERO damage from them because he has 100 armor. Then he runs into a boss. Boss swats him with assault or something similar for 500 base damage. FOUR HUNDRED still gets through to our super beefy, ensconced in mithril, uber-fighter. Thats a mere 20% reduction from the flimsiest of level 1 characters. Something here isn't right.

500 base damage? Really? Remember that armour applies before modifiers due to critical hits, talents, etc. Assault is a shield bash, followed by two critical hits. The shield bash will be at something like 130%, so your 100 armour will subtract 130 from that damage. Criticals add, maybe, 50%? (not sure) So your armour is absorbing 150 damage from each of the criticals. Over the whole assault, your 100 armour has negated 430 damage. That's not bad

Don't expect to be able to stand next to a boss and just whack him until he dies -- you will need strategy, and healing potions, and a means of escape. But armour and defense is still very useful..

(well, for fighters anyway. I'm not sure if you can get armour/defense high as a class without shield wall..)

[Final Master]

(well, for fighters anyway. I'm not sure if you can get armour/defense high as a class without shield wall..)

There's been many times when I've gotten a strong archmage to easily exceed that of my dwarf fighters/sun paladins by use of blur, stone skin and feather wind.

[edge2054]

Armor as a % exists in the form of physical damage resistance. Making armor also a % of damage will make these values to similar.

[Grey]

I suppose the problem is that physical damage resistance only comes from magical means. Maybe it'd be nice for high Constitution scores to allow some small amount of physical damage resistance, or have a talent dependant on Co that grants this. Then fighter types (who need it most) would have a bit more balance.

[Final Master]

Well I already think that there should be more talents/trees that rely on con as the required stat; such as the combat talents tree with all the passive abilities. That really should be all con as it's almost all just regenerative abilities.