Tanking with Flat Mitigation vs Percentage Mitigation and Enemy Critical Hits

[Yaffy]

Since enemy critical hits were added to the game there's been a lot of different view points on it, with some people claiming critical hits are unfair and way too strong, while other people don't seem to be very affected. I might be a bit late on discussing this, but I think these viewpoints stem from a problem in the game's design; The scaling on flat mitigation and % based mitigation compared to the damage enemies deal isn't done well. Flat mitigation is powerful early game while being extremely weak late game, while percentage based mitigation is extremely weak early game and powerful late game.

Basically, this issue is caused because flat damage mitigation doesn't scale nearly as fast as the damage mobs do as you fight higher level enemies, meaning flat damage mitigation becomes less effective overtime. On the other hand, percentage based mitigation bonuses are super low early game when you need very high amounts to see any actual effectiveness.

As an example, let's compare the mitigation given from two similar mods from two different skills at two different levels, both are passive effects that are on 24/7:
Level 1 Shield: +1 physical damage mitigation
Level 70 Shield: +6 physical damage mitigation (Actually a mix of 5 and 6 but let's just simplify it and say 6)
Level 1 unarmed: 3% physical damage mitigation
Level 70 unarmed: 18% physical damage mitigation

Now let's compare the level 1 mobs vs the kind of damage you'd expect to see around level 1-10, so let's say a low level enemy hits you for about 10 damage.
The shield user reduces the damage from 10 to 9, so they reduce the damage by 10%
The unarmed user reduces the damage by from 10 to 9.7, which is over 3 times less effective than the shield mod

Now on the other hand, let's compare the damage mitigation from the kind of mob you'd expect to solo at level 70. A level 70 Seething Citizen mob from Rahu attacks for 186 damage without any mitigation bonuses.
The shield user reduces the damage from 186 to 180, so they reduce the damage by 3.3%
The unarmed user reduces the damage from 186 to 152.5, so they reduce the damage by 33.5 points, which is 5.5 times more than the shield mod.

A comparison like this makes it blatantly clear that the flat mitigation is way better early game and percentage based is way better late game. It only gets worse when you consider mobs intended to be fought in groups like bosses or elites which can do several hundred damage per hit or when enemies crit (Or even worse when a boss/elite crits!). If an enemy crits you for 600 damage, the +6 physical damage reduction shield mod from level 70 would be three times worse than the level 1 unarmed % mod!

This sort of scaling has always been a problem, but critical hits make it an even bigger issue. Many players who have not built % based mitigation get completely obliterated by critical strikes because their flat mitigation essentially gets negated. Another problem this causes is that it heavily limits what skills are good for tanking at end game. Either you need percentage based mitigation or some way to negate damage entirely. Additionally it can be very difficult to get mitigation for certain damage types. For example elemental mitigation is very limited which means for the majority of tank builds the 20% fire resistance meditation is necessary to do well in higher level dungeons.

One thing to keep in mind though is that there is a reason why flat mitigation can't just be super buffed. If flat mitigation were balanced around elite mobs hitting for 600+ damage then players could easily stack enough flat mitigation to reduce normal mob damage to 0, which would cause a lot of other problems.

So because of this, I would like to suggest the proposed changes:
1. For lower levels, consider changing percentage based mitigation mods into flat damage mitigation, or have the lowest level mods bottom out at 10% so it does something even when enemies aren't doing much damage.
2. Give all "Tanky" skills some form of percentage based mitigation for the majority of damage types. It doesn't need to be super huge, but even something around 10-20% would help a lot of the weaker "Tank" skills. This would also be a good opportunity to change some weak flat mitigation bonuses into % based bonuses at higher levels.
3. For any direct flat mitigation bonuses that stay flat, boost the values at higher levels. A value of 6 is far too low when enemies are hitting for hundreds! I'd honestly say that doubling these values would be completely reasonable. Flat damage reduction for indirect damage is balanced very well though, so things like "Poison damage reduction" don't need to be changed.
4. Create armor pieces or armor enchantments that can reduce damage by a percentage. This would be a super great way to customize our characters more and there's a lot of super cool ideas that could be made here! For example you could enchant cloth armor with fire damage protection, or maybe there could be a plate mail made of ice that reduces cold damage. The values on these armor pieces don't need to be very high, even a value around 5% would be great. The Evasion and Nimble armor sets are a great example (In fact you could easily argue they can be better for tanking than pieces with high armor depending on the build due to being percentage based) but non-evasion pieces open a lot of good options.
5. Change crits so that damage gets reduced by flat mitigation BEFORE it gets doubled. This way percentage based mitigation isn't a complete necessity to survive ridiculous critical nukes since flat reduction will still help.

Anyways, I hope this post was helpful and not a bit too long winded! If anyone would like to share their opinion on this please do!

TL;DR Flat mitigation is bad late game and % mitigation is necessary late game. Crits blow up people without % mitigation.

[Aionlasting]

Great post. I love your suggestions.

I had some suggestions also.

1.Give shields and staffs mods that reduce crit damage by a % (this would be predictable).
2.Give shields and staffs a % chance to block incoming crit damage entirely (this would be more random).
3. Remove crit damage from non elite and non boss monsters. So non tank players can actually solo, solo content.

These changes make crit mechanic something that requires a tank and makes tanks mandatory for elite/monster content because tank equipment (whether in staff or shield form) would have inate abilities to reduce or negate entirely the crit damage while leaving solo mobs and therefor non group content unaffected so that non group content doesn't require a tank.

[Yaffy]

Great post. I love your suggestions.

I had some suggestions also.

1.Give shields and staffs mods that reduce crit damage by a % (this would be predictable).
2.Give shields and staffs a % chance to block incoming crit damage entirely (this would be more random).
3. Remove crit damage from non elite and non boss monsters. So non tank players can actually solo, solo content.

These changes make crit mechanic something that requires a tank and makes tanks mandatory for elite/monster content because tank equipment (whether in staff or shield form) would have inate abilities to reduce or negate entirely the crit damage while leaving solo mobs and therefor non group content unaffected so that non group content doesn't require a tank.

Although your idea of creating bonuses to reduce critical damage is neat, it shouldn't just be limited to shields and staves since other tank skills need some love too! Unless if you just mean a bonus from holding the equipment, which I think would be a good way to create some diversity between different staves/shields. Just keep in mind that reducing crit damage is significantly less helpful early game than late game because crit rate is based on enemy level, so something dedicated to reducing crit should only be for high level content.

[spider91301]

Since enemy critical hits were added to the game there's been a lot of different view points on it, with some people claiming critical hits are unfair and way too strong, while other people don't seem to be very affected. I might be a bit late on discussing this, but I think these viewpoints stem from a problem in the game's design; The scaling on flat mitigation and % based mitigation compared to the damage enemies deal isn't done well. Flat mitigation is powerful early game while being extremely weak late game, while percentage based mitigation is extremely weak early game and powerful late game.

Basically, this issue is caused because flat damage mitigation doesn't scale nearly as fast as the damage mobs do as you fight higher level enemies, meaning flat damage mitigation becomes less effective overtime. On the other hand, percentage based mitigation bonuses are super low early game when you need very high amounts to see any actual effectiveness.

As an example, let's compare the mitigation given from two similar mods from two different skills at two different levels, both are passive effects that are on 24/7:
Level 1 Shield: +1 physical damage mitigation
Level 70 Shield: +6 physical damage mitigation (Actually a mix of 5 and 6 but let's just simplify it and say 6)
Level 1 unarmed: 3% physical damage mitigation
Level 70 unarmed: 18% physical damage mitigation

Now let's compare the level 1 mobs vs the kind of damage you'd expect to see around level 1-10, so let's say a low level enemy hits you for about 10 damage.
The shield user reduces the damage from 10 to 9, so they reduce the damage by 10%
The unarmed user reduces the damage by from 10 to 9.7, which is over 3 times less effective than the shield mod

Now on the other hand, let's compare the damage mitigation from the kind of mob you'd expect to solo at level 70. A level 70 Seething Citizen mob from Rahu attacks for 186 damage without any mitigation bonuses.
The shield user reduces the damage from 186 to 180, so they reduce the damage by 3.3%
The unarmed user reduces the damage from 186 to 152.5, so they reduce the damage by 33.5 points, which is 5.5 times more than the shield mod.

A comparison like this makes it blatantly clear that the flat mitigation is way better early game and percentage based is way better late game. It only gets worse when you consider mobs intended to be fought in groups like bosses or elites which can do several hundred damage per hit or when enemies crit (Or even worse when a boss/elite crits!). If an enemy crits you for 600 damage, the +6 physical damage reduction shield mod from level 70 would be three times worse than the level 1 unarmed % mod!

This sort of scaling has always been a problem, but critical hits make it an even bigger issue. Many players who have not built % based mitigation get completely obliterated by critical strikes because their flat mitigation essentially gets negated. Another problem this causes is that it heavily limits what skills are good for tanking at end game. Either you need percentage based mitigation or some way to negate damage entirely. Additionally it can be very difficult to get mitigation for certain damage types. For example elemental mitigation is very limited which means for the majority of tank builds the 20% fire resistance meditation is necessary to do well in higher level dungeons.

One thing to keep in mind though is that there is a reason why flat mitigation can't just be super buffed. If flat mitigation were balanced around elite mobs hitting for 600+ damage then players could easily stack enough flat mitigation to reduce normal mob damage to 0, which would cause a lot of other problems.

So because of this, I would like to suggest the proposed changes:
1. For lower levels, consider changing percentage based mitigation mods into flat damage mitigation, or have the lowest level mods bottom out at 10% so it does something even when enemies aren't doing much damage.
2. Give all "Tanky" skills some form of percentage based mitigation for the majority of damage types. It doesn't need to be super huge, but even something around 10-20% would help a lot of the weaker "Tank" skills. This would also be a good opportunity to change some weak flat mitigation bonuses into % based bonuses at higher levels.
3. For any direct flat mitigation bonuses that stay flat, boost the values at higher levels. A value of 6 is far too low when enemies are hitting for hundreds! I'd honestly say that doubling these values would be completely reasonable. Flat damage reduction for indirect damage is balanced very well though, so things like "Poison damage reduction" don't need to be changed.
4. Create armor pieces or armor enchantments that can reduce damage by a percentage. This would be a super great way to customize our characters more and there's a lot of super cool ideas that could be made here! For example you could enchant cloth armor with fire damage protection, or maybe there could be a plate mail made of ice that reduces cold damage. The values on these armor pieces don't need to be very high, even a value around 5% would be great. The Evasion and Nimble armor sets are a great example (In fact you could easily argue they can be better for tanking than pieces with high armor depending on the build due to being percentage based) but non-evasion pieces open a lot of good options.
5. Change crits so that damage gets reduced by flat mitigation BEFORE it gets doubled. This way percentage based mitigation isn't a complete necessity to survive ridiculous critical nukes since flat reduction will still help.

Anyways, I hope this post was helpful and not a bit too long winded! If anyone would like to share their opinion on this please do!

TL;DR Flat mitigation is bad late game and % mitigation is necessary late game. Crits blow up people without % mitigation.

Nice ideas I hope to be implemented one day in the next 1-5 years but at this point not holding my breath its probably at the end of the priority list if they cared about it majorly they would have done something by now.

Lol 1k armor 700 health will not save you from crit spam your essentially screwed if your rng/luck sucks when taking damage

[Niph]

I suspect that, in the case of % mitigation, the intent is to start low and cap early, for example start at 1%, reach 10% at mid level and stay at 10% throughout. The fixed mitigation can be adjusted later in the development stage, when the exact percentage is set in stone and they can be compared. It would be a waste of time to tune it before.

So your post makes sense, but it might be way too early to balance this particular feature of the game.

[spider91301]

I suspect that, in the case of % mitigation, the intent is to start low and cap early, for example start at 1%, reach 10% at mid level and stay at 10% throughout. The fixed mitigation can be adjusted later in the development stage, when the exact percentage is set in stone and they can be compared. It would be a waste of time to tune it before.

So your post makes sense, but it might be way too early to balance this particular feature of the game.

Exactly why I said 1-5 years coding is hard and they've got other stuff on their plate

[Yaffy]

I suspect that, in the case of % mitigation, the intent is to start low and cap early, for example start at 1%, reach 10% at mid level and stay at 10% throughout. The fixed mitigation can be adjusted later in the development stage, when the exact percentage is set in stone and they can be compared. It would be a waste of time to tune it before.

So your post makes sense, but it might be way too early to balance this particular feature of the game.

The issue is that it shouldn't start low, it needs to start higher. A 1% damage decrease does so little early game that it might as well not exist since enemies are hitting for so little damage anyways. If anything a better idea would be to start at 10% and cap at 10%. Also it's important to consider passive bonuses versus active bonuses as well. Some great examples of % based mitigation are much stronger, like Staff's deflective spin giving 40% reduction to all attacks and Cow's front kick going up to 72%, but being limited by cool downs.

Also, while I understand trying to balance flat damage reduction with % based, I think the flat damage reduction given at end game is so blatantly low that I can't see even doubling its values being bad. I could understand an issue with changing the flat mitigation given from armor since that's universal to all players, but mods or abilities dedicated to lowering flat damage are so bad I don't even think tanks should waste slots on them unless they have no other choice. The only exception is thick skin just because it's an hour long buff that can be given to a whole party. Unless if the devs decide to lower the scaling of enemy damage then I don't see anything wrong with increasing the current amount and then fine tuning it later.

[INXS]

As always thank you Yaffy for you dedication in the mechanics of the games, your findings always an eye opener and much appreciated.

[Mbaums]

With some skill revamps on the horizon this can be a very influential thread. I think you might be looking at the two mitigation systems factually correctly yet incorrectly in practice. The two mods don’t exist in a vacuum and you should look at everything the skill SET has to offer vs a single mod. The crit change is a challenge that I think players learned to work around. A significant change that I’ve seen is, people don’t pull ~5 mobs to AoE down anymore. The crit change is, I think, a change to the old AoE play style. Anyway, the post is about % reduction vs # mitigation and I think you need to look at it at the skill level.

The two tank builds I have ran are unarmed and psych: jp0insg9 and I’m working on staff/shield: jpocoj80. It looks like I’ve missed the animal-tanks and necro/ice magic tanks and so I am going to ignore them.
Overall, I am actually liking staff/shield more. I’ve handled repops on my group and even mis-positioned my group in ridiculously stupid places and lived (non stop hallway agro related). The unarmed build can solo mants, the zone in of GK and I can probably still do Pask. But in groups, I’m picking staff/shield. It works because of the average duration of a fight and blocking stance / elemental ward work out well. When I pull 4 things with my old build, it was an ‘oh shit’ situation. The new build isn’t much of an issue. If every dungeon fight was designed to be 1 mob vs my group and 2 minutes long, I might be saying something else.

Back to the topic, am I getting much of anything from all the +mitigation? The shield setup has ~860 armor, assuming I use a thick armor potion that’s 43 mitigation vs my unarmed tank with ~620 armor ->31 mitigation. 12 mitigation difference on top of…. Shield team +12, main/off mods+12, we’re looking at +36 mitigation difference. That’s a lot and not much at the same time. But the staff/shield feels so much more comfortable. Is it that I’m mitigating more upfront, so when the spike/crit happens I end up higher in HP?

I don’t think that’s it. I guess I want to argue that: physical damage is cheap. The most awful mobs in GK are the troopers because they strictly do fire damage and the infiltrators because they just hit so hard + poison. I’m not totally relying on staff to do that. Shield has strong passives and I see ‘you’ve avoided death’ spam all the time. I suspect the avoid death message is actually a hit absorb vs the 1 blow was actually going to kill me. Side note, I hope that isn’t a bug because it’s not easy to get the ability, but it's great.

Unarmed’s % miti vs physical is strong because it cannot totally negate anything. The # mitigation builds have negate sprinkled in, and that's really the magic right there. UA has holes vs fire and the NPC diversity with damage resistances / dealt makes a dungeon difficult.

I hope I don’t come off as bias, but I do not like the idea of people pulling like this is an action RPG. But I do like what this thread brings up. As levels increase, the increase in damage bump is not shared by +mitigation (see shield team’s grants all allies mitigation per tier mod, it’s crazy that it’s linear). Additionally, the negate abilities could maybe use a decrease in reuse per rank. But they’re so strong, so I don’t know if you can touch them. I look at this problem and think, well, what’s missing is a place where mitigation matters-- NPCs with a 40 point damage shield, or a rage debuff that make the tank take ~150 damage every attack.

Another note—before priest was added into the game, Eric talked about restoring the tank role in GK Here (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1231-Improving-on-the-solid-foundation-that-is-the-Combat-System/page4&p=9619#post9619)
Whatever happens, I just like the 'situational best' type of systems.

[Yaffy]

With some skill revamps on the horizon this can be a very influential thread. I think you might be looking at the two mitigation systems factually correctly yet incorrectly in practice. The two mods don’t exist in a vacuum and you should look at everything the skill SET has to offer vs a single mod.

That's definitely true, but I'm not trying to say shield is strictly worse than Unarmed because one mod is worse. In fact my favorite tanking build is actually unarmed/shield because shield offers a lot of utility and covers up unarmed's weaknesses. I'm arguing that things that offer flat damage mitigation such as armor mods are significantly weaker than things that give percentage based mitigation at late game and they should be changed so they can still be helpful.

If you want to look at the mods in a different way, then you can consider a situation where the +6 flat damage is better than the +18% physical mitigation. If you use the seething citizen as an example, then you would need 150 flat damage reduction before the +6 flat damage reduction becomes better than the +18% physical mitigation, which is an absurdly huge amount and will get even more ridiculous if you consider stronger elite or boss mobs. I think that alone proves that even outside of a vacuum that flat damage mitigation bonuses are too low in comparison to % based ones.

The skills I'm complaining about mostly are those who rely on flat damage mitigation and have to rely on other skills to give % based in order to be a good tanking skill. Shield is actually one of these skills so even though it can be a good support skill, it relies on something like staff or unarmed in order to fit in an appropriate tanking build because it doesn't have enough good mitigation by itself like a lot of other "Tanking" skills, which limits the amount of good tanking sets that can be made.

[Mbaums]

I'm not totally disagreeing with you or agreeing with you either, I think the "significantly worse" is just too strong of language for me. Solo mobs don't mean much for most people, but it's what you tested it on. I think most things in GK's basic hit lands for 200 on a nudist, so lets go with that number. On a single mod for UA (18% miti)'s plus mitigation equivalent would be 36 mitigation, which is really through the roof. Damage negate is usually an option though. Miti doesnt scale nearly as well, but there are more tricks to use. The bullet version:

1) the + # mitigation mods are treated too linearly, and I think we both agree on that.
2) negate damage as an effect make the +miti builds fall into balance. This could be something put more to the forefront for re-vamping some animal builds. This effect really makes large pulls comfortable.
3) (more from my other post) I don't want whatever change to essentially nullify the crit damage change.

[Yaffy]

I'm not totally disagreeing with you or agreeing with you either, I think the "significantly worse" is just too strong of language for me. Solo mobs don't mean much for most people, but it's what you tested it on. I think most things in GK's basic hit lands for 200 on a nudist, so lets go with that number. On a single mod for UA (18% miti)'s plus mitigation equivalent would be 36 mitigation, which is really through the roof. Damage negate is usually an option though. Miti doesnt scale nearly as well, but there are more tricks to use. The bullet version:

1) the + # mitigation mods are treated too linearly, and I think we both agree on that.
2) negate damage as an effect make the +miti builds fall into balance. This could be something put more to the forefront for re-vamping some animal builds. This effect really makes large pulls comfortable.
3) (more from my other post) I don't want whatever change to essentially nullify the crit damage change.

Relying on skills that negate damage can be fine, but that's assuming people are running staff or shield. If you're running something like Deer, which the devs seemed to intend to be able to tank, then you have nothing of the sort. That's why I'd like Deer to have an option of a skills or equipment mods that reduce damage by a percentage. If a "Tank build" has to resort to always using staff or shield to become completely invincible because they can't actually tank the damage, then that shows that building mitigation is extremely unhelpful on their build. I honestly believe Staff/shield is a perfect example of the flaws of building mitigation in PG, since you're almost entirely relying on cooldowns for mitigation rather than your actual build. I don't mind it being an option because relying on cooldowns can create an interesting tanking style, but if it's the only thing people ever think about when tanking is mentioned then something is wrong.

Also these proposed changes don't nullify the crit change, it's just giving certain tank builds a better way to deal with them. I get that the devs think that getting crit to death out in the middle of nowhere is funny, but when you can die from 80% life at the bottom of a dungeon then at the very least a dedicated tank player should be able to mitigate this somehow. After all a tank that isn't reliable isn't much of a tank at all.

[spider91301]

If a "Tank build" has to resort to always using staff or shield to become completely invincible because they can't actually tank the damage, then that shows that building mitigation is extremely unhelpful on their build. I honestly believe Staff/shield is a perfect example of the flaws of building mitigation in PG, since you're almost entirely relying on cooldowns for mitigation rather than your actual build. I don't mind it being an option because relying on cooldowns can create an interesting tanking style, but if it's the only thing people ever think about when tanking is mentioned then something is wrong.

Also these proposed changes don't nullify the crit change, it's just giving certain tank builds a better way to deal with them. I get that the devs think that getting crit to death out in the middle of nowhere is funny, but when you can die from 80% life at the bottom of a dungeon then at the very least a dedicated tank player should be able to mitigate this somehow. After all a tank that isn't reliable isn't much of a tank at all.


Couldn't have said it better myself



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW68goC4_es

[HardRock]

What I do to mitigate the damage from the GK mobs, and this is what worked for me pre crit patch, and also works post crit patch is this.I use two debuff damage by -25% in the form of debilitating blow (Sword skill) and but I love you (Psyc skill). Then from there I use tell me about your mother which reduces the damage a flat 16 damage for 1 min and can be recast every 30. Mind you its rare that a mob last long enough to get it double cast on it. other than bosses. I would also like to point out that tell me about your mum can be double modded to reduce damage by a flat 32 every 30 seconds with a total time of 60. So you can double cast that on bosses to reduce their damage by a flat 64.

Now obviously this is 1vs1 and the technique does nothing to mitigate damage from mobs hitting you that you haven't debuffed. Even with crits though, I can still take 2 mobs at a time . Mez 1 mob , debuff other, work its health down with a mixture of attacks that either stun, or reduce rage as to not be critted by a rage attack. I can usually kill the one before the other comes out of mez and not take a rage attack.

I have 780 health, and roughly 537 armor while wearing my max enchant cloth with +inventory mods on the top and bottom.
Sometimes I will use poison resist pots and stone skin pots. but it isn't crucial, just nice.

Disables are the new form of damage mitigation. What doesn't attack cant hurt you. So that leaves us with stuns. mesmerize and fears and movement disables.

[cr00cy]

I think it's not really posisble to make falt mitigation as good as % in late game, simply due the balance issues. Like it was already mentioned - if we could stack enough flat mitigation for it to matter vs bosses, it would be op vs normal mobs.

I think best(only?) way to make flat mitigation revelant in late/end game is to make it work well with % based mitigation. Right now, flat is calcualted before %, therefore makign stackign both types pointless. If ti woudl be switche daorund, so flat is calculated after %, it would made it more revelant.

Other options that could work:

- Aoe %dmg debuffs - I know we have few St dmg debuffs, but I don't think there is any AoE.

- Make some mobs attack at faster rate, but deal less damage per hit.

[ErDrick]

My question is, what skill besides unarmed can give you a meaningful amount of percent based mitigation? There may be an animal version I'm forgetting but that's still kind of besides the point because :

What If you don't want to use unarmed to tank? Also what will you do when Citan realizes how overpowered the unarmed mods are compared to regular "tanking" skills? ( I am 99.9999% sure unarmed was never meant to be the "tank" skill in this game.)

In the thread I basically hijacked for a few days discussing group combat( quite a while ago), I didn't really talk about or include unarmed mitigation because I honestly assumed it would have been nerfed by this point already. Combat that is balanced around that much % mitigation isn't really balanced at all...Unless that list is hugely expanded to include stuff like ...I dunno, how about shield...you know, the one skill it would actually make sense for.

As far as mob criticals I don't know what he was thinking, combat was already way to fast and furious for a tab-target game prior to that. One of my biggest complaints with combat in PG is that it is approaching action-combat scales of damage, but this isn't an action combat game....being 1 shotted is only acceptable when a player can actually dodge that with skill reliably. My 2nd biggest gripe is still the forced dps checks of how mobs respawn in groups....But it doesn't feel like they have any intention of reverting that which is mainly why I haven't been around. The only other complaint I have is that the same rules that apply to players do not apply to mobs( forced immunity to effects for 60 secs after being hit with one, chain stuns etc).....can players now crit with any skill or is it still only mentalism/archery? cause that's another example if not.

I hate to say anything bad about this game because I love Citan( and srand) and I also love most of his ideas...and when new actual content is added I'll most likely be around for a bit again( I'd still be around now though if the combat was engaging and enjoyable). Because ignoring the few things I have grown to dislike about combat, the game has a ton of potential still...it's also why I still check the forums at least once a week.

It's just.... I ask myself why they would use those systems in my head and the only reply I get back is "because fuck you, that's why"...That's not to say that's their actual reasoning...it's just all I can come up with for it unless they actually explain it.

It's not as if the combat is so brutal that i can't handle it, I for sure can ...but it's not much fun for me. I like a challenge, but there is a difference between that and it being totally out of your hands with the random-number-generator. Critcal mob hits do the same thing as evasion did, take things out of our hands and turn it into random stuff that's almost unavoidable. And as I said above I still feel as if the combat got way too fast paced before even including criticals to the mix.

I should also clarify that i mean combat balanced for groups, solo content ( outdoors) has always been fine in my opinion.

Side question: can bears rage attack critical? because lol if it can.

[cr00cy]

Side question: can bears rage attack critical? because lol if it can.

I don't think so. From what I understand Bears rage attack removes certain amount of your Hp, rather than dealing typicla damge. So it shouldn't be bae to crit - well, at least i wasn't critted by one yet.

[Mbaums]

As far as mob criticals I don't know what he was thinking, combat was already way to fast and furious for a tab-target game prior to that. One of my biggest complaints with combat in PG is that it is approaching action-combat scales of damage, but this isn't an action combat game....being 1 shotted is only acceptable when a player can actually dodge that with skill reliably. My 2nd biggest gripe is still the forced dps checks of how mobs respawn in groups....But it doesn't feel like they have any intention of reverting that which is mainly why I haven't been around. The only other complaint I have is that the same rules that apply to players do not apply to mobs( forced immunity to effects for 60 secs after being hit with one, chain stuns etc).....can players now crit with any skill or is it still only mentalism/archery? cause that's another example if not.

Being 1 shot from a non-rage attacks is probably impossible. Rage attacks are a different story. The infiltrators in GK (archer elites) from a range get really close to 1 shotting though. The crit change, I think, slowed down the size of pulls in GK, but made it so that healers are less important because people would rather stack up on DPS as much as possible. I need to test death prevent more, but I'm 80% sure it's triggered purely based on HP, after % mitigation but before armor and +mitigation. So, after vulnerability, which is what we & every mod should have been calling it this time, but before +mitigation. But like I said, un-finished theory here, but something so important animal tanks should have access to it via gear (taunt mod buff?).

Respawn continues to be baffling. How people expect it to work: EQ-style, you kill a mob, it respawns X mins after it's death. How I think it works: Each zone has a number of "no-spawn" slots that must move around, this is likely to prevent people from farming a specific area in an open world. IE, tons of bears in a zone and you keep on killing them? less total bears in that area, making farming not worth it as eventually the max number of bears will drop as the 'empty spawn' moves there leaving a thicker spawn somewhere else. Another way to think of it, NPC dies and he/she gets reincarnated somewhere else in the zone.

In GK my method of dealing with it is be wary of empty halls, welcome weird pull spots with pathers strolling in and never stay in 1 place very long. Any strategy hardly matters because I've pulled stuff then seconds after it dies new mobs respawn on that very spot. Maybe more of a "cool down" on a recently emptied spot would be helpful. Or if the "empty spots" we're put into quarter percentiles by last-clear, and everything in the oldest quarter had to be filled before the newer ones. Some randomness but a little more control. If this is ever changed, I really expect it'll only exist as a silent change never put in the notes.

And I will admit most NPC rules do actually apply to players. More players getting AOE'd = less damage from the NPC AOE. Animal handling has a relatively bad reputation but the pets do crit and it does make a difference. I can live without all player crits, because of the DPS singularity. But it would be nice if players had some level of stun-immunity after being chain-stunned because if you are being hit by chain-stuns/knock downs, you have a lot of incoming damage to worry about. Boom, suggested, equality between NPCs and players.

[Aionlasting]

My question is, what skill besides unarmed can give you a meaningful amount of percent based mitigation? There may be an animal version I'm forgetting but that's still kind of besides the point because :

What If you don't want to use unarmed to tank? Also what will you do when Citan realizes how overpowered the unarmed mods are compared to regular "tanking" skills? ( I am 99.9999% sure unarmed was never meant to be the "tank" skill in this game.)

In the thread I basically hijacked for a few days discussing group combat( quite a while ago), I didn't really talk about or include unarmed mitigation because I honestly assumed it would have been nerfed by this point already. Combat that is balanced around that much % mitigation isn't really balanced at all...Unless that list is hugely expanded to include stuff like ...I dunno, how about shield...you know, the one skill it would actually make sense for.

As far as mob criticals I don't know what he was thinking, combat was already way to fast and furious for a tab-target game prior to that. One of my biggest complaints with combat in PG is that it is approaching action-combat scales of damage, but this isn't an action combat game....being 1 shotted is only acceptable when a player can actually dodge that with skill reliably. My 2nd biggest gripe is still the forced dps checks of how mobs respawn in groups....But it doesn't feel like they have any intention of reverting that which is mainly why I haven't been around. The only other complaint I have is that the same rules that apply to players do not apply to mobs( forced immunity to effects for 60 secs after being hit with one, chain stuns etc).....can players now crit with any skill or is it still only mentalism/archery? cause that's another example if not.

I hate to say anything bad about this game because I love Citan( and srand) and I also love most of his ideas...and when new actual content is added I'll most likely be around for a bit again( I'd still be around now though if the combat was engaging and enjoyable). Because ignoring the few things I have grown to dislike about combat, the game has a ton of potential still...it's also why I still check the forums at least once a week.

It's just.... I ask myself why they would use those systems in my head and the only reply I get back is "because fuck you, that's why"...That's not to say that's their actual reasoning...it's just all I can come up with for it unless they actually explain it.

It's not as if the combat is so brutal that i can't handle it, I for sure can ...but it's not much fun for me. I like a challenge, but there is a difference between that and it being totally out of your hands with the random-number-generator. Critcal mob hits do the same thing as evasion did, take things out of our hands and turn it into random stuff that's almost unavoidable. And as I said above I still feel as if the combat got way too fast paced before even including criticals to the mix.

I should also clarify that i mean combat balanced for groups, solo content ( outdoors) has always been fine in my opinion.

Side question: can bears rage attack critical? because lol if it can.

Good post friend.

I think the problem is trying to get group play right and solo play right.

Right now the game relies on random mechanics to create artificial difficulty. Like you pointed out, this is no fun. It removes the control the player should have and puts them at the mercy of randomness (i.e. tank being one shotted). Like you also said, one shot mechanics or close to them, should be limited to abilities the player is warned of and has the opportunity to avoid.

The ideal solution, in my mind to fix this problem, is to reward player preparation. Currently group content and all combat is based on most damage as quickly as possible. This is because combat in this game , especially group combat, does not force players to prepare. For example, group mobs differ only from solo mobs in their HP pool. They have no other intrinsic properties that set them apart from their solo counterparts, so what is the end result? Bring more DPS.

I assume, in order to fix this problem, citan implemented crit damage. Force players to have tanks. The problem is there is no way to mitigate crit damage reliably and the damage is so severe even tanks are killed in one attack.

The solution would seem, not to introduce a random system that players cannot predict and avoid reliably, but rather, to create distinction between group mobs and solo mobs that is consistant across the board and that players can reliably prepare for and counter through proper group composition.

For example, if group mobs had evasion , and solo mobs didn't, but a player class existed that removed evasion through some debuff, this would force groups to bring that support class along to counter the group mobs buff and allow the group to kill it.

Another example would be to increase group mob armor far above that of solo mobs so that reliable damage on group mobs would require a support class that could break a % of that armor off allowing reliable damage to occur.

Remove critical damage which is random and give group mobs a higher base damage than solo mobs but one that doesn't fluctuate so that tanks are required but the damage is predictable. Maybe make group mobs have a much faster attack speed but give a player class the ability to decrease monster attack speed so that this support class is valuable and coveted by groups. Etc...

These are some changes that force groups to bring healers, to bring unique support classes, to bring tanks, etc... without the frustrating random elements such as critical damage.


Tldr; Remove random unavoidable attributes from all monsters and create attributes that make group mobs distinct from solo mobs eliminating the desire to bring more and more dps and thereby forcing groups to prepare accordingly through more appropriate group compositions.

[Yaffy]

While I like the idea of rewarding preparation, I don't agree with some of the examples you've given. Players being "Forced" to bring a certain class to counter specific mobs is something I dislike heavily in MMORPGs because it's just a gimmicky way to force a certain class into every party, usually because no one would bring it otherwise or it becomes incredibly powerful. There are actually a few enemies in game which are close to this, such as the Beholders at the bottom of Gazluk which require a Druid to Rotskin them, but Rotskin just cuts their defense in half, rather than being impossible/extremely difficult to destroy without it.

Using your example of evasion mobs, I believe a better way of rewarding preparation would be to reward players for getting accuracy instead of bringing a certain class, because there are a lot more ways to go about it. For example players could build accuracy on their gear, bring accuracy boosting items, use skills which have an accuracy bonus or maybe a dedicated support could boost everyone's accuracy/lower the enemy's evasion. This makes players have to prepare, but gives players options rather than forcing them lug over a player of a specific class. You could make it so one skill is particularly good at buffing the party's accuracy and that's great, but it shouldn't ever be the only option.
I believe this may be the intended mechanic of Dark Chapel... but currently the calculation for hit chance is bugged and it's pointless to build accuracy on your character to counteract the evasion mobs have there. Any evasion a mob gains through a buff/player debuff cannot be mitigated with accuracy, and every mob in Dark Chapel gets its evasion this way.

Also I do disagree about tanks being unhelpful. Even before the crit change tanks could make going through dungeons significantly faster, and even with crits a proper tank can shrug off crits. The issue is just that what falls under "a proper tank" is extremely limited due to percentage based mitigation being so limited in the game hence why I made this thread in the first place.

[Aionlasting]

While I like the idea of rewarding preparation, I don't agree with some of the examples you've given. Players being "Forced" to bring a certain class to counter specific mobs is something I dislike heavily in MMORPGs because it's just a gimmicky way to force a certain class into every party, usually because no one would bring it otherwise or it becomes incredibly powerful. There are actually a few enemies in game which are close to this, such as the Beholders at the bottom of Gazluk which require a Druid to Rotskin them, but Rotskin just cuts their defense in half, rather than being impossible/extremely difficult to destroy without it.

Using your example of evasion mobs, I believe a better way of rewarding preparation would be to reward players for getting accuracy instead of bringing a certain class, because there are a lot more ways to go about it. For example players could build accuracy on their gear, bring accuracy boosting items, use skills which have an accuracy bonus or maybe a dedicated support could boost everyone's accuracy/lower the enemy's evasion. This makes players have to prepare, but gives players options rather than forcing them lug over a player of a specific class. You could make it so one skill is particularly good at buffing the party's accuracy and that's great, but it shouldn't ever be the only option.
I believe this may be the intended mechanic of Dark Chapel... but currently the calculation for hit chance is bugged and it's pointless to build accuracy on your character to counteract the evasion mobs have there. Any evasion a mob gains through a buff/player debuff cannot be mitigated with accuracy, and every mob in Dark Chapel gets its evasion this way.

Also I do disagree about tanks being unhelpful. Even before the crit change tanks could make going through dungeons significantly faster, and even with crits a proper tank can shrug off crits. The issue is just that what falls under "a proper tank" is extremely limited due to percentage based mitigation being so limited in the game hence why I made this thread in the first place.

I suppose you could build the requirement into the gear. The other solution would be to give multiple support classes the ability to remove armor (such as rotskin but obviously the name would different to fit the class it belongs to), the ability reduce attack speed, the ability to weaken evasion etc... that way no one specific support class is required because the abilities are shared amongst the support classes. So say the game has 4 or 5 support classes, give 2 of them one ability that's shared, give the other two another, etc... that way to you spread it across.

In the same vein, sprinkle the ability to mitigate damage across the various tanking classes.

tldr; spread the love around, allow multiple classes to peform similar functions that way no one class is always required but multiple classes can peform the needed function (i.e. debuffing armor, attackspeed, evasion, etc..)

[cr00cy]

I suppose you could build the requirement into the gear. The other solution would be to give multiple support classes the ability to remove armor (such as rotskin but obviously the name would different to fit the class it belongs to), the ability reduce attack speed, the ability to weaken evasion etc... that way no one specific support class is required because the abilities are shared amongst the support classes. So say the game has 4 or 5 support classes, give 2 of them one ability that's shared, give the other two another, etc... that way to you spread it across.

In the same vein, sprinkle the ability to mitigate damage across the various tanking classes.

tldr; spread the love around, allow multiple classes to peform similar functions that way no one class is always required but multiple classes can peform the needed function (i.e. debuffing armor, attackspeed, evasion, etc..)

As mucha s I agree with what you say, I think I would prefer to see it doen differently. Instaed of giving every skill from the same category (tank/support/dps etc) abilites with the same effects, make them more uniqe. For example - dungeon has a lot of mobs with storng armor? You can bring eitehr this skill that can shread they armor faster, or you cna brign this one, that can debuff them so tehy atke direct helath damge each tiem they are damaged.

Similary with tanking. To be fair, I din't tried to build tank in PG yet (which is starnge now that I think about it. Tanks are usually my favorite role in any MMO...) based on my perosnal experience,a dn this threat, currently only option for tankign is becomimg biggets meatshield you can (aka - stackign as much effectiev HP as you can). I think it woudl be interestign if we coudl amke build that can tank trough sustain (basicly have just enough damge reductin to nt be one-shoted, but dont need as much/any outisde heal).

[Jarlaxle]

Since enemy critical hits were added to the game there's been a lot of different view points on it, with some people claiming critical hits are unfair and way too strong, while other people don't seem to be very affected. I might be a bit late on discussing this, but I think these viewpoints stem from a problem in the game's design; The scaling on flat mitigation and % based mitigation compared to the damage enemies deal isn't done well. Flat mitigation is powerful early game while being extremely weak late game, while percentage based mitigation is extremely weak early game and powerful late game.

Basically, this issue is caused because flat damage mitigation doesn't scale nearly as fast as the damage mobs do as you fight higher level enemies, meaning flat damage mitigation becomes less effective overtime. On the other hand, percentage based mitigation bonuses are super low early game when you need very high amounts to see any actual effectiveness.

As an example, let's compare the mitigation given from two similar mods from two different skills at two different levels, both are passive effects that are on 24/7:
Level 1 Shield: +1 physical damage mitigation
Level 70 Shield: +6 physical damage mitigation (Actually a mix of 5 and 6 but let's just simplify it and say 6)
Level 1 unarmed: 3% physical damage mitigation
Level 70 unarmed: 18% physical damage mitigation

Now let's compare the level 1 mobs vs the kind of damage you'd expect to see around level 1-10, so let's say a low level enemy hits you for about 10 damage.
The shield user reduces the damage from 10 to 9, so they reduce the damage by 10%
The unarmed user reduces the damage by from 10 to 9.7, which is over 3 times less effective than the shield mod

Now on the other hand, let's compare the damage mitigation from the kind of mob you'd expect to solo at level 70. A level 70 Seething Citizen mob from Rahu attacks for 186 damage without any mitigation bonuses.
The shield user reduces the damage from 186 to 180, so they reduce the damage by 3.3%
The unarmed user reduces the damage from 186 to 152.5, so they reduce the damage by 33.5 points, which is 5.5 times more than the shield mod.

A comparison like this makes it blatantly clear that the flat mitigation is way better early game and percentage based is way better late game. It only gets worse when you consider mobs intended to be fought in groups like bosses or elites which can do several hundred damage per hit or when enemies crit (Or even worse when a boss/elite crits!). If an enemy crits you for 600 damage, the +6 physical damage reduction shield mod from level 70 would be three times worse than the level 1 unarmed % mod!

This sort of scaling has always been a problem, but critical hits make it an even bigger issue. Many players who have not built % based mitigation get completely obliterated by critical strikes because their flat mitigation essentially gets negated. Another problem this causes is that it heavily limits what skills are good for tanking at end game. Either you need percentage based mitigation or some way to negate damage entirely. Additionally it can be very difficult to get mitigation for certain damage types. For example elemental mitigation is very limited which means for the majority of tank builds the 20% fire resistance meditation is necessary to do well in higher level dungeons.

One thing to keep in mind though is that there is a reason why flat mitigation can't just be super buffed. If flat mitigation were balanced around elite mobs hitting for 600+ damage then players could easily stack enough flat mitigation to reduce normal mob damage to 0, which would cause a lot of other problems.

So because of this, I would like to suggest the proposed changes:
1. For lower levels, consider changing percentage based mitigation mods into flat damage mitigation, or have the lowest level mods bottom out at 10% so it does something even when enemies aren't doing much damage.
2. Give all "Tanky" skills some form of percentage based mitigation for the majority of damage types. It doesn't need to be super huge, but even something around 10-20% would help a lot of the weaker "Tank" skills. This would also be a good opportunity to change some weak flat mitigation bonuses into % based bonuses at higher levels.
3. For any direct flat mitigation bonuses that stay flat, boost the values at higher levels. A value of 6 is far too low when enemies are hitting for hundreds! I'd honestly say that doubling these values would be completely reasonable. Flat damage reduction for indirect damage is balanced very well though, so things like "Poison damage reduction" don't need to be changed.
4. Create armor pieces or armor enchantments that can reduce damage by a percentage. This would be a super great way to customize our characters more and there's a lot of super cool ideas that could be made here! For example you could enchant cloth armor with fire damage protection, or maybe there could be a plate mail made of ice that reduces cold damage. The values on these armor pieces don't need to be very high, even a value around 5% would be great. The Evasion and Nimble armor sets are a great example (In fact you could easily argue they can be better for tanking than pieces with high armor depending on the build due to being percentage based) but non-evasion pieces open a lot of good options.
5. Change crits so that damage gets reduced by flat mitigation BEFORE it gets doubled. This way percentage based mitigation isn't a complete necessity to survive ridiculous critical nukes since flat reduction will still help.

Anyways, I hope this post was helpful and not a bit too long winded! If anyone would like to share their opinion on this please do!

TL;DR Flat mitigation is bad late game and % mitigation is necessary late game. Crits blow up people without % mitigation.

Nice examples and numbers but they completely neglect armor values. Now let's throw in 1200 armor into the calculation. Flat mitigation works way better with armor compared to % mitigation. I'd say flat mitigation works better vs non crit attacks and percentage mit might have the edge in crits (now I say might because I didn't run any min max numbers), tho both are probably screwed if they get hit with multiple. Just the nature of the beast since it's Citan's intent that GK don't become a cakewalk like it was, though I would argue that with the right group set up it's still pretty easy where you can pull 5+ at a time and not even flinch.

[Yaffy]

Nice examples and numbers but they completely neglect armor values. Now let's throw in 1200 armor into the calculation. Flat mitigation works way better with armor compared to % mitigation.

If you added 1200 armor into the example the percentage based mitigation user would still take less damage. 1200 armor is equal to 48 damage reduction.

Flat: 186-54=132
Percentage: (186-48)-18% =113.16

Since the time I made this post, the shield mod used in the example has been buffed to be twice as strong, but that's still 126 damage vs 113 damage. The enemy would need to deal 67 damage in order for 12 flat mitigation to equal 18% mitigation, in which case both players would need 2975 armor for it to be equal. You are correct in that flat mitigation damage can potentially reduce damage more, but that is mostly dependent on the enemy's damage as flat damage mitigation cannot be stacked very high. You would need thousands of armor points before flat mitigation and percentage based mitigation become close to equal if you're using level 70 mobs as an example.



I'd say flat mitigation works better vs non crit attacks and percentage mit might have the edge in crits


It depends on the strength of the attacks, but for level 70 monsters, percentage based is still better in both situations, and it's not even a contest in the case of crits. It's not uncommon for monsters to be hitting you for 300+ damage with rage attacks, or close to 1000 damage with crit rage attacks. If I used Pask's 1400 damage rage crit as an example above instead of a seething citizen's normal attack, they would need 33325 armor in order for the mitigation to be equal. The only thing flat mitigation is better at is reducing DoT damage since the tick damage is low in comparison.

I would also just like to add that the reason for these extreme armor numbers is mostly because the mitigation armor offers is very small, even with the thick armor potion/mod. 1-3 defense mods can give you the same flat damage mitigation armor offers. Armor shouldn't be considered when discussing how to build damage reduction, as it is more helpful when talking about the damage monsters deal in general since it's available to all players. That's not to say it isn't helpful, as armor also acts as additional hitpoints, but in terms of reducing damage it's not worth considering at this time unless if you're talking about lower level content.

[Jarlaxle]

If you added 1200 armor into the example the percentage based mitigation user would still take less damage. 1200 armor is equal to 48 damage reduction.

Flat: 186-54=132
Percentage: (186-48)-18% =113.16

Since the time I made this post, the shield mod used in the example has been buffed to be twice as strong, but that's still 126 damage vs 113 damage. The enemy would need to deal 67 damage in order for 12 flat mitigation to equal 18% mitigation, in which case both players would need 2975 armor for it to be equal. You are correct in that flat mitigation damage can potentially reduce damage more, but that is mostly dependent on the enemy's damage as flat damage mitigation cannot be stacked very high. You would need thousands of armor points before flat mitigation and percentage based mitigation become close to equal if you're using level 70 mobs as an example.



It depends on the strength of the attacks, but for level 70 monsters, percentage based is still better in both situations, and it's not even a contest in the case of crits. It's not uncommon for monsters to be hitting you for 300+ damage with rage attacks, or close to 1000 damage with crit rage attacks. If I used Pask's 1400 damage rage crit as an example above instead of a seething citizen's normal attack, they would need 33325 armor in order for the mitigation to be equal. The only thing flat mitigation is better at is reducing DoT damage since the tick damage is low in comparison.

I would also just like to add that the reason for these extreme armor numbers is mostly because the mitigation armor offers is very small, even with the thick armor potion/mod. 1-3 defense mods can give you the same flat damage mitigation armor offers. Armor shouldn't be considered when discussing how to build damage reduction, as it is more helpful when talking about the damage monsters deal in general since it's available to all players. That's not to say it isn't helpful, as armor also acts as additional hitpoints, but in terms of reducing damage it's not worth considering at this time unless if you're talking about lower level content.

True but if you throw in higher armor (from shield mods and just using a shield item), armor healing, death saves, utility like speed buffs, faster cd stun, then things become alot closer on for average. Sometimes shield will reduce more, sometimes unarmed will reduce more. Especially when you further stack things like bc buffs, orcish thickskin pots, stoneskin pots, etc. I agree that the numbers still won't be the same (in who's favor?) but unless they make two classes the same, how can it be?

[Yaffy]

True but if you throw in higher armor (from shield mods and just using a shield item), armor healing, death saves, utility like speed buffs, faster cd stun, then things become alot closer on for average. Sometimes shield will reduce more, sometimes unarmed will reduce more. Especially when you further stack things like bc buffs, orcish thickskin pots, stoneskin pots, etc. I agree that the numbers still won't be the same (in who's favor?) but unless they make two classes the same, how can it be?

I want to state that the purpose of this thread wasn't to talk about the strength of Shield vs Unarmed, but instead the value of flat mitigation and percentage based mitigation. Shield still has great utility skills like Take the Lead, Fight me You Fools, Elemental ward, etc. The issue is that you will NEVER find a reasonable situation at end game where Shield's +12 physical mitigation mod will be better than Unarmed's 18% mitigation. I wanted to use this as an example to show how important it is to have percentage based mitigation to tank at end game, especially with the inclusion of enemy crits, and how it limits building a tank build. I just used these two mods as an example because they're passive effects, but the disparity between flat and percentage mitigation is still present on non-passive sources as well.

If you want to talk about the strength of Shield vs Unarmed in a tanking scenario, the issue is obvious if you talk about tanking certain damage types.

If we're talking tanking physical damage, Shield is unviable for tanking physical attacks from level 70 elites. Even if the Shield user somehow stacks 1500 armor and every physical mitigation mod, they will only reduce damage by 115 (With 50% upkeep). Level 70 elites are capable of hitting over 900 physical damage, so it is unreasonable to use shield to tank physical damage. Unarmed on the other hand can reduce that damage by 162 with a single 18% mod, and by stacking more can reduce the damage much further.

On the other hand, if you're talking about elemental damage, Unarmed has nothing to reduce elemental damage so it is unviable to tank elemental damage with Unarmed. Shield doesn't normally have elemental mitigation, but Elemental Ward gives 100% mitigation to elemental attacks for 10 seconds, so therefore Shield can tank elemental mobs significantly better. I wouldn't really call this a real tank build to mitigate elemental damage since the moment elemental ward wears off you die just as fast as anyone else, but elemental resistances are incredibly rare and/or limited in general so this still makes Shield very valuable.

Now of course, you're probably thinking "Wait a minute, you're supposed to run two skills at once. Why not run another skill to deal with the other damage type?" And that's exactly my point. Tank skills are only good at dealing with damage types that they have percentage based mitigation for. The thing is, percentage based mitigation is very rare. If you're thinking about playing Unarmed as a tank, you want something to negate elemental damage for your second skill since unarmed doesn't offer elemental resistances. Your choices are very limited, and Shield is the only one that's actually reliable. If you were building around Shield you would have the same issue, which is why most people bring up Staff when talking about Shield for Staff's physical damage immunity (Although physical percentage mitigation is thankfully more common so it's not as bad as Unarmed's situation).

Of course, that's just skimming the top of the issue. In reality there are many additional layers under making a good tank build, with certain buffs/mods, etc being necessities in order to create a good tank. In fact, for the longest time many people considered building a tank build pointless, just because it was so restrictive to make a good one that most people didn't have experience with a "Real" tank build, only a player using Staff/Shield juggling immunity.

I bring all of this up just because I want the devs to help make building a tank build just a little bit more flexible, because currently as someone who loves to play tank, I don't feel like I have any real choices (Although it is still kinda fun figuring all this out). Recently the devs have been giving a bit more leniency to tanking... but by giving supports more options like Priest, not by helping out the tanks themselves. Not that priest isn't cool of course, but it would be nice if players who wanted to build tanky had some more options too.

[Jarlaxle]

I want to state that the purpose of this thread wasn't to talk about the strength of Shield vs Unarmed, but instead the value of flat mitigation and percentage based mitigation. Shield still has great utility skills like Take the Lead, Fight me You Fools, Elemental ward, etc. The issue is that you will NEVER find a reasonable situation at end game where Shield's +12 physical mitigation mod will be better than Unarmed's 18% mitigation. I wanted to use this as an example to show how important it is to have percentage based mitigation to tank at end game, especially with the inclusion of enemy crits, and how it limits building a tank build. I just used these two mods as an example because they're passive effects, but the disparity between flat and percentage mitigation is still present on non-passive sources as well.

If you want to talk about the strength of Shield vs Unarmed in a tanking scenario, the issue is obvious if you talk about tanking certain damage types.

If we're talking tanking physical damage, Shield is unviable for tanking physical attacks from level 70 elites. Even if the Shield user somehow stacks 1500 armor and every physical mitigation mod, they will only reduce damage by 115 (With 50% upkeep). Level 70 elites are capable of hitting over 900 physical damage, so it is unreasonable to use shield to tank physical damage. Unarmed on the other hand can reduce that damage by 162 with a single 18% mod, and by stacking more can reduce the damage much further.

On the other hand, if you're talking about elemental damage, Unarmed has nothing to reduce elemental damage so it is unviable to tank elemental damage with Unarmed. Shield doesn't normally have elemental mitigation, but Elemental Ward gives 100% mitigation to elemental attacks for 10 seconds, so therefore Shield can tank elemental mobs significantly better. I wouldn't really call this a real tank build to mitigate elemental damage since the moment elemental ward wears off you die just as fast as anyone else, but elemental resistances are incredibly rare and/or limited in general so this still makes Shield very valuable.

Now of course, you're probably thinking "Wait a minute, you're supposed to run two skills at once. Why not run another skill to deal with the other damage type?" And that's exactly my point. Tank skills are only good at dealing with damage types that they have percentage based mitigation for. The thing is, percentage based mitigation is very rare. If you're thinking about playing Unarmed as a tank, you want something to negate elemental damage for your second skill since unarmed doesn't offer elemental resistances. Your choices are very limited, and Shield is the only one that's actually reliable. If you were building around Shield you would have the same issue, which is why most people bring up Staff when talking about Shield for Staff's physical damage immunity (Although physical percentage mitigation is thankfully more common so it's not as bad as Unarmed's situation).

Of course, that's just skimming the top of the issue. In reality there are many additional layers under making a good tank build, with certain buffs/mods, etc being necessities in order to create a good tank. In fact, for the longest time many people considered building a tank build pointless, just because it was so restrictive to make a good one that most people didn't have experience with a "Real" tank build, only a player using Staff/Shield juggling immunity.

I bring all of this up just because I want the devs to help make building a tank build just a little bit more flexible, because currently as someone who loves to play tank, I don't feel like I have any real choices (Although it is still kinda fun figuring all this out). Recently the devs have been giving a bit more leniency to tanking... but by giving supports more options like Priest, not by helping out the tanks themselves. Not that priest isn't cool of course, but it would be nice if players who wanted to build tanky had some more options too.

Ahh yes I think the problem mainly arises because you're looking at this game like your typical mmorpg with the holy trinity (tank, healer, dps) where tank takes all the hits, healer keeps tank up, dps go to work without a scratch or fear of pulling aggro. I don't think it works anywhere close to that in this game. Like you just can't get all the mobs to focus the tank (aggro generation of dps too high or threat generation too low for tank) while he's standing there tanking all the hits (elite damage too high for any class to handle, unarmed included) with healers spamming heals on him (higher cd heals, and just not spammable) while dps destroys them. Even if you can tank all that damage by adding in more mitigation for tanks, whats the point when you're the last to die? I think the main difference of PG and other mmorpg end game is that things just die too fast here (both mobs and players) for the holy trinity to matter. Would you even need to hold aggro if each mob die in 2 seconds?

And if they were to say add percentage mit to shield also (as an example), what's to stop players from using both the classes at the same time to stack the percentages? And 10 seconds of elemental mit is very valuable considering the average time of fights in this game. I guess different classes are just better at different things?

[Yaffy]

Ahh yes I think the problem mainly arises because you're looking at this game like your typical mmorpg with the holy trinity (tank, healer, dps) where tank takes all the hits, healer keeps tank up, dps go to work without a scratch or fear of pulling aggro. I don't think it works anywhere close to that in this game. Like you just can't get all the mobs to focus the tank (aggro generation of dps too high or threat generation too low for tank) while he's standing there tanking all the hits (elite damage too high for any class to handle, unarmed included) with healers spamming heals on him (higher cd heals, and just not spammable) while dps destroys them. Even if you can tank all that damage by adding in more mitigation for tanks, whats the point when you're the last to die? I think the main difference of PG and other mmorpg end game is that things just die too fast here (both mobs and players) for the holy trinity to matter. Would you even need to hold aggro if each mob die in 2 seconds?

I am not talking about holy trinity gameplay, nor am I assuming the game must be played as such. This is me talking about balance and having more options to build survivability. If the game has options that are clearly intended to increase your survivability but a majority of them are highly ineffective, that's an issue no matter what the style of gameplay is supposed to be. Putting things into perspective by talking about "Tanks", aka players who are striving to build a large amount of mitigation is an easy way to see the issue. If flat mitigation is ineffective even when a tank is stacking it, why should it be used for any other builds including those outside of a specific trinity build?



And if they were to say add percentage mit to shield also (as an example), what's to stop players from using both the classes at the same time to stack the percentages?

There's nothing wrong with this, assuming the game is balanced around such. I would have no qualms if Unarmed's mitigation was nerfed if it was available to other skills such as through armor.

[Golliathe]

I want to state that the purpose of this thread wasn't to talk about the strength of Shield vs Unarmed, but instead the value of flat mitigation and percentage based mitigation. Shield still has great utility skills like Take the Lead, Fight me You Fools, Elemental ward, etc. The issue is that you will NEVER find a reasonable situation at end game where Shield's +12 physical mitigation mod will be better than Unarmed's 18% mitigation. I wanted to use this as an example to show how important it is to have percentage based mitigation to tank at end game, especially with the inclusion of enemy crits, and how it limits building a tank build. I just used these two mods as an example because they're passive effects, but the disparity between flat and percentage mitigation is still present on non-passive sources as well.

If you want to talk about the strength of Shield vs Unarmed in a tanking scenario, the issue is obvious if you talk about tanking certain damage types.

If we're talking tanking physical damage, Shield is unviable for tanking physical attacks from level 70 elites. Even if the Shield user somehow stacks 1500 armor and every physical mitigation mod, they will only reduce damage by 115 (With 50% upkeep). Level 70 elites are capable of hitting over 900 physical damage, so it is unreasonable to use shield to tank physical damage. Unarmed on the other hand can reduce that damage by 162 with a single 18% mod, and by stacking more can reduce the damage much further.


There's really one simple solution for this... change one of the shield mods to give 18% mitigation that would not stack with the unarmed version (or nerf the shit out of unarmed's % bonus).

A more complicated solution would be to balance out flat mitigation in some way so that the shield user has some kind of advantage as a choice over unarmed for tanking mitigation; currently there is none for fighting equal tier elite content and that is a huge problem. There is an issue with game mechanics for ranged mobs (including spellcasters) in that Gazluk keep is a series of sight blocking engagement points. Elemental ward looks cool on paper but it is very easy for unarmed to be able to run fast and hide (avoiding the dps of ranged mobs).

When option A is better in every way for mitigation it makes option B not really be an option.


I'd say flat mitigation works better vs non crit attacks and percentage mit might have the edge in crits

You would be dead wrong.

You always have % mitigation from unarmed. You do not always have the flat mitigation from armor.

To make those two things be relatively equal flat mitigation would need to be better than unarmed's % mitigation bonus because you lose armor during the fight.

If you had a magic wand you could make a system where flat mitigation absorbed say the equivalent of 36% dmg at the start of the fight with full stats (and did not stack with unarmed's 18%). As the fight progressed you would slowly lose flat mitigation bonuses. Somewhere in the midst of battle the 18% of unarmed would become better than the mitigation than the flat mitigation due to armor (and if you had both that bonus would take over).


What citan needs is a simple way to make shield attractive as a choice for a tank.

If you look at lvl 70 shield mods (neck/shield) you will find one that says : Max Armor +56 when Shield is active.

What if we change this treasure effect to also have: +18% mitigation from critical hits?


This would mean that a shield user would have 36% mitigation from critical hits vs an unarmed user who would have 18% mitigation from all damage. Obviously in order to be competitive you can't have both bonuses so the system would use the bonus from the top skill on your bar if you had both active.

If that's too much what if we changed this treasure effect to include 10 universal damage reduction WITH a change in how damage from critical hits is calculated so that mitigation reduces incoming extra damage on the front end before any multiplication happens.

[Golliathe]

Ahh yes I think the problem mainly arises because you're looking at this game like your typical mmorpg with the holy trinity (tank, healer, dps) where tank takes all the hits, healer keeps tank up, dps go to work without a scratch or fear of pulling aggro. I don't think it works anywhere close to that in this game. Like you just can't get all the mobs to focus the tank while dps destroys them.

There was another thread where we mentioned all the ways you can cheat the combat mechanics. In short you absolutely can make the mobs never leave the tank's aggro. Yaffy for example I have been told has a massive +12k taunt button or something similar.

If he presses that button combo and the mob has less health than that he could go afk and the mob would never hit him before it died. This is the idea of overtaunt.

The basic exploit for gazluk keep right now is:

1. tank pulls.
2. tank does aoe taunt.
3. nobs get rooted
4. tank runs out of aggro radius
5. mobs stand there passively and die to dps

Citan replied in the thread so he is fully aware of the problem and is hopefully working on a fix.


But say you are not rooting and abusing.... a tank can pretty readily press an 8k taunt button. Consider something that has 12,000 life and is being killed by 6 people. Say the healer does zero damage you are diving that life by 5 attackers; what is the chance that one of those dps characters does 8001 damage before the rest of the group deals the other 3999 damage? The odds are probably near zero in a balanced group. Until someone does more damage than the tank's taunt it will ignore them. This game actually has some of the most brainless taunting I've seen in a very long time.

In other words tanks for PG are built on their ability to tank damage with massive taunt values.



And if they were to say add percentage mit to shield also (as an example), what's to stop players from using both the classes at the same time to stack the percentages? And 10 seconds of elemental mit is very valuable considering the average time of fights in this game. I guess different classes are just better at different things?

You could easily add a limitation where the max % mitigation you can have is 18% so that if you had it from two sources it wouldn't stack.

Different classes should be better at different things.... but this is on the level with the days before the AoE nerf. Should AoE builds be able to kill 10+ things while single target builds kill 1-2 things? No.

Shield just simply can't be as far behind as it currently is with unarmed for it to be a viable tank.

[Jarlaxle]

The basic exploit for gazluk keep right now is:

1. tank pulls.
2. tank does aoe taunt.
3. nobs get rooted
4. tank runs out of aggro radius
5. mobs stand there passively and die to dps


Then thank god tanks aren't given even more mitigation. Otherwise #3 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=3) and #4 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=4) wouldn't even be necessary. I'm guessing unarmed doesn't have the "super taunt" which is why it's being asked to be given to shield? Also, staff also has percentage mitigation. So that's an option besides unarmed. It seems only the main weapon attack skills have it and not so much the "support" skills. Maybe it's balance issues where he doesn't want that kind of damage mitigation for any character. I mean if you add that much more mitigation, then you'd have to up the damage of mobs even more and then other classes would just drop like flies.

[Jarlaxle]

There's really one simple solution for this... change one of the shield mods to give 18% mitigation that would not stack with the unarmed version (or nerf the shit out of unarmed's % bonus).

A more complicated solution would be to balance out flat mitigation in some way so that the shield user has some kind of advantage as a choice over unarmed for tanking mitigation; currently there is none for fighting equal tier elite content and that is a huge problem. There is an issue with game mechanics for ranged mobs (including spellcasters) in that Gazluk keep is a series of sight blocking engagement points. Elemental ward looks cool on paper but it is very easy for unarmed to be able to run fast and hide (avoiding the dps of ranged mobs).

When option A is better in every way for mitigation it makes option B not really be an option.



You would be dead wrong.

You always have % mitigation from unarmed. You do not always have the flat mitigation from armor.

To make those two things be relatively equal flat mitigation would need to be better than unarmed's % mitigation bonus because you lose armor during the fight.

If you had a magic wand you could make a system where flat mitigation absorbed say the equivalent of 36% dmg at the start of the fight with full stats (and did not stack with unarmed's 18%). As the fight progressed you would slowly lose flat mitigation bonuses. Somewhere in the midst of battle the 18% of unarmed would become better than the mitigation than the flat mitigation due to armor (and if you had both that bonus would take over).


What citan needs is a simple way to make shield attractive as a choice for a tank.

If you look at lvl 70 shield mods (neck/shield) you will find one that says : Max Armor +56 when Shield is active.

What if we change this treasure effect to also have: +18% mitigation from critical hits?


This would mean that a shield user would have 36% mitigation from critical hits vs an unarmed user who would have 18% mitigation from all damage. Obviously in order to be competitive you can't have both bonuses so the system would use the bonus from the top skill on your bar if you had both active.

If that's too much what if we changed this treasure effect to include 10 universal damage reduction WITH a change in how damage from critical hits is calculated so that mitigation reduces incoming extra damage on the front end before any multiplication happens.

If you must use shield to be "tank" and want the percent mitigation then probably better that you pair the shield with unarmed or staff. Otherwise we will have fire mage tanks, druid tanks, sword tanks, hammer tanks, etc. It's like ice mage saying, why I can't dps like fire can. Just roll fire mage then? Like you can't have all the cc/tools that ice mage or shield has + the same mitigation that another class without any of tools have and be even close to the same.

[Golliathe]

If you must use shield to be "tank" and want the percent mitigation then probably better that you pair the shield with unarmed or staff.

No. Look at shield's treasure layout... it is designed to be a tank (rage control, dmg reduction, stun, taunt). But the design is a complete failure compared to say staff or unarmed. This means shield needs a rework because the other two are functional vs same level content with appropriate layouts.

If the monster isn't hitting you with fire shield active then your damage with shield is quite terrible compared to most damage specs. If the monster is hitting you (like in a solo build setup) then the damage is decent.




Otherwise we will have fire mage tanks, druid tanks, sword tanks, hammer tanks, etc. It's like ice mage saying, why I can't dps like fire can. Just roll fire mage then? Like you can't have all the cc/tools that ice mage or shield has + the same mitigation that another class without any of tools have and be even close to the same.

So what? Why would that be bad? You give up the option to mix fire with say BC where you have 6+ aoes, big nukes and the 2 heals from battlechem.

Crit mitigation overall would still be worse than always 18% mitigation. The reason why is because most crits outside gazluk keep don't matter (few exceptions like the general).



While there is no need to make every class identical there is an inherent need to make every class option viable. Shield is not viable for dps (*except maybe solo) when compared to other choices - fire, archery, bc, priest mentalism, druid, etc. Likewise shield is massively worse than unarmed and staff when it comes to defensive tanking. Are you one of those people who thinks it's fine for priest to be an extremely OP solo (do literally everything well) class while its foil necromancer sucks at pretty much everything by comparison?

The only thing you can do with shield at the moment from a defensive point of view is stack lots of flat mitigation and be nearly invulnerable to super weak monsters 20 levels beneath you or more. Fire has the same benefit for example.... you have a damage shield just like shield AND you have super powerful AoEs so you can just point your finger and disintegrate enemies en masse before they have the chance to bother you. You even have a move speed power too!

[Golliathe]

Then thank god tanks aren't given even more mitigation.

...

I mean if you add that much more mitigation, then you'd have to up the damage of mobs even more and then other classes would just drop like flies.

The reason people pull this way in Gazluk is because many of the monsters can kill you outright with a critical hit unless you are sitting on something stupid like 1k health/armor. Critical hits being bumped up to what they are currently encourage people to subvert the mechanics.

The reality is that if you are in perfect rolled armor in a strong group (with the trinity) then Gazluk should probably be easy to clear and relatively boring.

#3-4 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=3-4) wouldn't be an issue if the monsters had code to detect their primary target was out of range and would immediately spin to something in range (already covered in previously mentioned thread). So that will get fixed in time.

What doesn't seem to have a viable fix anytime soon are changes that would make shield be a viable tank (because flat mitigation doesn't scale).


It is quite common in other games like this to see a tank with 60% mitigation. Citan said he doesn't want anything like that but he has crits tuned to a point where that much mitigation on a tank would actually make sense. On the bright side it seems that he decided that crits might be too high (because so many people were bitching about being full hp and then dead).

[Jarlaxle]

No. Look at shield's treasure layout... it is designed to be a tank (rage control, dmg reduction, stun, taunt). But the design is a complete failure compared to say staff or unarmed. This means shield needs a rework because the other two are functional vs same level content with appropriate layouts.

If the monster isn't hitting you with fire shield active then your damage with shield is quite terrible compared to most damage specs. If the monster is hitting you (like in a solo build setup) then the damage is decent.




So what? Why would that be bad? You give up the option to mix fire with say BC where you have 6+ aoes, big nukes and the 2 heals from battlechem.

Crit mitigation overall would still be worse than always 18% mitigation. The reason why is because most crits outside gazluk keep don't matter (few exceptions like the general).



While there is no need to make every class identical there is an inherent need to make every class option viable. Shield is not viable for dps (*except maybe solo) when compared to other choices - fire, archery, bc, priest mentalism, druid, etc. Likewise shield is massively worse than unarmed and staff when it comes to defensive tanking. Are you one of those people who thinks it's fine for priest to be an extremely OP solo (do literally everything well) class while its foil necromancer sucks at pretty much everything by comparison?

The only thing you can do with shield at the moment from a defensive point of view is stack lots of flat mitigation and be nearly invulnerable to super weak monsters 20 levels beneath you or more. Fire has the same benefit for example.... you have a damage shield just like shield AND you have super powerful AoEs so you can just point your finger and disintegrate enemies en masse before they have the chance to bother you. You even have a move speed power too!

Oh in that case, I'm guessing psychology was also meant to tank since they also have rage control, dmg reduction, stun, taunt. Just give them percentage mit as well. Same with druids and sword? Oh wait they have rage control, damage reduction, taunt but missing the stun, so I'm guessing not tank? Lol is that what defines which class is supposed to be a tank nowadays?

Well necromancers are in a bad state that's why there are so few in GK. Same cannot be said of shield though. There's about 5 shield users to every necromancer I see in GK. A lot of veterans are utilizing shield in GK. If it sucked, I doubt that would happen. I see more shield users than unarmed and staff even. How about remove shields temp elemental immunity and add more mitigation for physical? Or just change it to physical mitigation %. That would be fine then?

[Jarlaxle]

The reason people pull this way in Gazluk is because many of the monsters can kill you outright with a critical hit unless you are sitting on something stupid like 1k health/armor. Critical hits being bumped up to what they are currently encourage people to subvert the mechanics.

The reality is that if you are in perfect rolled armor in a strong group (with the trinity) then Gazluk should probably be easy to clear and relatively boring.

#3-4 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=3-4) wouldn't be an issue if the monsters had code to detect their primary target was out of range and would immediately spin to something in range (already covered in previously mentioned thread). So that will get fixed in time.

It is quite common in other games like this to see a tank with 60% mitigation. Citan said he doesn't want anything like that but he has crits tuned to a point where that much mitigation on a tank would actually make sense. On the bright side it seems that he decided that crits might be too high (because so many people were bitching about being full hp and then dead).



By subverting mechanics, do you means it's intended in this game for the tank character to sit there and take the hits instead? I actually remember that thread and if I call correctly, it wasn't stated that it would be fixed. Maybe you were mistaken. He said something along the lines of if new behavior was added where if mobs can't reach target, it would hit the nearest target, then wouldn't that make snares and high movement speed too powerful in replacement of root being too powerful? But I do agree that being rooted and not fighting back because top aggro is out of range needs to be changed. Even trying to chase down the high speed player or crawling to the top aggro player because of snares is better than standing there and doing nothing and would actually make more sense.

And you really can't compare the % mitigation of this game to other games with whole different systems. Some games you might die faster with 80% mitigation compared to another game where you can survive well with just 20% mitigation. It just doesn't make sense to compare across games with different damage numbers, mob health, player health, etc like that.

[spider91301]

I feel like I need popcorn in debates like this lol but on a serous note crits suck in general you basicly get told hmmm you want to avoid a 1 shot go with staff and shield be completely immune to damage or rng instant kills you mitagation wont save you from 1 shots, you ether become completely immune to damage or die inless you have certain mods for shield like 101% avoid death



Still find it funny how I can't crit with my sword like enemies can


PS: This is the only game I have ever seen with a 1 shot mechanic but at least it keeps it interesting gk was getting to easy and currently until they find a more permanent solution this will work for now

Edit: you can survive a crit by adding generic health mods and other mods that add health but even then your hanging on a thread of life and crits normally don't come in sets of ones



Also this is me when I either I get one shot or see someone else get 1 shot and shrug it off as bad rng and tell myself or the other person who I am in a party with those things happen alot


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPh7y-6C3kA


Lol sorry really had to add this as the salt to the conversation because I had to explain one day what 1 shots were to someone else that was in a party with me and why they can happen to pretty much anyone and told him/her not to feel bad about it

[Golliathe]

There is a real problem when people start putting their interests above everything else (be it level of wealth, character class power, etc).

I'm not asking for any class to be nerfed because it is "better than mine". I'd like to see all the class options be equally awesome. But that is 100% not what we have right now. In a perfect game world we might have a point system where all classes have balanced ratings for: defense, offense, utility, healing. There is a huge problem when you can build for 10,10,10,4 vs 4,8,6,6. This game currently is quite unbalanced and many classes are just simply 'not as good' as other options. Some people think this is fine but I do not. I quite often heard people say, "Lycan is balanced because it is a permanent choice and has negatives; therefore my broken combo that makes your damage trivial is perfectly justified." Citan thankfully did not agree with that assessment.

As you point out necro is a perfect exmaple of a not fun experience vs the next dps class on the list. I suspect necro would be decent if not outright good assuming : all heals healed necro pets (imagine the goodness of bc/necro), graveyard summon requirements were removed , pet owners had a 'cycle through my pets' button for easy targeting, pets could be forced to attack a target via a sidebar button, pets did not lag behind the user so much (maybe inherent +4 movespeed faster than the owner no matter what) and necro pets in general had slightly better stats.


Oh in that case, I'm guessing psychology was also meant to tank since they also have rage control, dmg reduction, stun, taunt. Just give them percentage mit as well. Same with druids and sword? Oh wait they have rage control, damage reduction, taunt but missing the stun, so I'm guessing not tank? Lol is that what defines which class is supposed to be a tank nowadays?

Where's the taunt on druid/sword? They don't have it. Sword is rather clearly a rage control and dps class. Druid is a support healer/dps class. It's quite ridiculous to claim they are meant to be tanks. I will point out to you that druid has a -taunt mod to reduce aggro (not increase it).

Psychology is at least a pseudo tank. It has all the necessary parts : taunt, rage control , dmg reduction. It has armor restoration and some healing too.

There is a decided difference when you can build mock for +940 taunt (with +65 damage) vs a class that only has mods that reduce taunt.

Is psych as good a tank as unarmed? No. Nothing is quite frankly.

How do you compete with this mod form unarmed that you can stack twice? Taunt From Attack Damage +70% when Unarmed is active





Well necromancers are in a bad state that's why there are so few in GK. Same cannot be said of shield though. There's about 5 shield users to every necromancer I see in GK. A lot of veterans are utilizing shield in GK. If it sucked, I doubt that would happen. I see more shield users than unarmed and staff even. How about remove shields temp elemental immunity and add more mitigation for physical? Or just change it to physical mitigation %. That would be fine then?

Just because people are using in shield in Gazluk Keep does not mean shield is good inside that zone. Many people go to this zone to farm the jewelry/offhands they need and then leave never to return.

There is a very real concept that many builds work just fine outside of GK but are kinda trash inside. Shield happens to be one of them as it tanks just fine vs lower tier content (as you can stack enough flat mitigation to make 50-60 enemies attacks to be trivial). But the scaling for shield fails vs equal tier content.

What is shield good for?

Is it a damage spec with lots of high hitting damage moves? No.
Does it have lots of AoEs? No it has one.
Is it a survivability spec with nice utility? Yes (stuns, knockback, avoid death, move speed, taunt)
Can it build for lots of taunt? Yes
Does it offer healing to anyone other than itself? No
Can it build for lots of buffs to help vs getting hit? Yes.

You can call that powerset whatever you want but most games will call it a tank class because it has taunt, low dmg and theoretically high survivability.

If shield is not a tank, then what do you consider it to be? DPS? Hah.

You could argue make shift support and I would accept that as I have heard of people using the shield mitigation buffs as a support class.

[Golliathe]

Hypothesis: Taunt is currently too high.

Have you been through gazluk with a tank that can taunt for 50% of a mob's health or more with a one button press? Overall it makes the content trivial and routine. It is a night and day different experience than going through with no tank (in the same way that killing mobs with 2-3 people is way more difficult than playing with a full group).


Let me take a moment to compare Everquest tanking and how that differs with this game. Building taunt in EQ was a slow process and essentially every 6-8 seconds you pressed your taunt button. Fights were long and essentially dps characters did a slow build on damage while the tank built up aggro slowly. Only at the end of the fight did you have the opportunity to unload with your highest damage attacks.

That is the polar opposite of PG where fights are short and the tank can build so much aggro instantaneously that he can taunt for more damage than the mob has health with one or two applications of taunt. DPS characters can just go through all their attacks starting with those dealing the highest damage with zero consequence.

1. I suspect that Citan felt the game was boring because it is too easy to build taunt.
2. He then built crits as a way to make the game exciting again.
3. But everyone hated that application because it isn't fun when you go from 100% being alive to dead with zero chance to react.
4. What if we removed crits (or effectively nerfed them down to like 5% more damage) and instead made the game slower paced for group play?

a. On this end give dungeon group mobs way more health. How much more? Maybe Double!
b. Nerf taunt % so that a tank has to build taunt slowly (this would nerf the lolz of 6-10 mob pulls)
c. Massively increase drop rates because you kill much slower and should be better rewarded. As we mention everquest I have to say one of the cool things about that game was that big named bosses always dropped end game loot. What if high tier curse bosses like Zuke dropped one piece of 'shared' loot that was a guaranteed yellow drop for one of the player's current build in the party?
d. Make rage bar attacks in 'group play loot dungeons' the current equivalent of rage crits. Make them devastating and punishing so that players try very hard to not fill rage bars. I feel this would encourage more active team play in end tier dungeons with specific build needs rather than just building for max dps.
e. Note that longer fights would make dungeons harder as there would be many more chances for adds (that can't be killed in 10 seconds or less). Once again this would shift group play to more specific builds designed around difficult gameplay rather than just building for max dps.

5. Everyone would need to pay attention because they have to pace the fight with their attacks instead of firing off massive damage down to lower attacks.

[Jarlaxle]

There is a real problem when people start putting their interests above everything else (be it level of wealth, character class power, etc).



There is a very real concept that many builds work just fine outside of GK but are kinda trash inside. Shield happens to be one of them as it tanks just fine vs lower tier content (as you can stack enough flat mitigation to make 50-60 enemies attacks to be trivial). But the scaling for shield fails vs equal tier content.

What is shield good for?

Is it a damage spec with lots of high hitting damage moves? No.
Does it have lots of AoEs? No it has one.
Is it a survivability spec with nice utility? Yes (stuns, knockback, avoid death, move speed, taunt)
Can it build for lots of taunt? Yes
Does it offer healing to anyone other than itself? No
Can it build for lots of buffs to help vs getting hit? Yes.

You can call that powerset whatever you want but most games will call it a tank class because it has taunt, low dmg and theoretically high survivability.

If shield is not a tank, then what do you consider it to be? DPS? Hah.

You could argue make shift support and I would accept that as I have heard of people using the shield mitigation buffs as a support class.

Shield is obviously not a dps class. It is a utility class and definitely not trash in GK. Do you even play shield? Among the utility/support classes it ranks at least average if not above average. Whether you want to call it a tank or not does not mean it is a good tank in every situation. That's why there are different classes that do different things better than others and you have access to those classes just like everyone else. Stop trying to create new roles for the classes. It's like the dot classes coming out to say dots aren't as good as the burst classes due to the length of the average fight. Well the burst options are available, just pick those options. No classes will ever be 100% equal in everything unless every class is the exact same.

Since you like to make your points as biased as possible, let me redo your arguments for you.

Is it a damage spec with lots of high hitting damage moves? No.
Does it have lots of AoEs? No it has one.
Is it a survivability spec with nice utility? Yes
Does it have a low cool down stun? Yes
Does it have knockbacks? Yes
Is it the only class with have death avoidance? Yes
Is it the only class with elemental damage immunity? Yes
Does it have move speed? Yes
Does it have taunt? Yes
Can it build for lots of taunt? Yes
Does it offer healing to anyone other than itself? No
Does it have a lot of armor healing? yes
Can it build for lots of buffs to help vs getting hit? Yes.
Is it good in every situation? No
Can it be a viable tank in every situation? No
Does it offer things that unarmed and staff doesn't? Yes
Does it offer rage reduction? Yes
Does it offer group armor heal? Yes
Does it have a self buff for slashing damage? yes
Do you have access to those classes you deem "viable" for gk content? Yes
Should we stop making shield invincible in lower level content? No


Would you like to remove the elemental damage immunity and death avoidance and add in more physical percent mitigation? Be more like the physical mitigation classes and less like what the shield class was created as. We can do that with psychology as well since you said they're tanks also. Add physical mit and remove the mez or their other utility.

[Golliathe]

Shield is obviously not a dps class. It is a utility class and definitely not trash in GK.


Shield 'survives' in GK because most of the time it avoids death when you get critically hit - but not always. That mechanic however is mostly a gimmick and I would love to see the need for it be gone because you can actually (/gasp) tank damage like unarmed or psychology.

The joke with shield is that it can tank 50 or 60 content in the same way that unarmed can tank level 70 content. Why is the game balanced like that? The inherent problem - which this thread was meant to discuss is the power imbalance between flat mitigation and percent mitigation.

I don't want to continue conversing with you as it feels like you are bating rather than debating.



Would you like to remove the elemental damage immunity and death avoidance and add in more physical percent mitigation? Be more like the physical mitigation classes and less like what the shield class was created as. We can do that with psychology as well since you said they're tanks also. Add physical mit and remove the mez or their other utility.

Unarmed can already circumvent game mechanics to ignore most of the elemental damage by line of sight/positioning (without even needing to mention the game breaking exploit). Did you know everyone can have unlimited elemental immunity without needing a power on their bar? Im guessing you didn't. Oops... the cat is out of the bag.

[Sims]

Unarmed can already circumvent game mechanics to ignore most of the elemental damage by line of sight/positioning (without even needing to mention the game breaking exploit). Did you know everyone can have unlimited elemental immunity without needing a power on their bar? Im guessing you didn't. Oops... the cat is out of the bag.

Could you elaborate on that in an in-game bug report? If you need to include anything like screenshots, videos, etc. you can e-mail those to support@projectgorgon.com. I'd really appreciate it. :)

[Yaffy]

I wish there was a button to murder your own thread so you could put it out of its misery.