Critical hits, bad behavior & "end game" content

[Golliathe]

Also, just in case if some smarty decides to point out that I was naked vs Pask and of course I should die, I would like to point out that unless if I had over 1725 armor AND full HP I would have died anyways because 700 of that damage is going towards my health even with armor.

I'd like to ask a simple question at this point. Why are crits ever ignoring armor? I've never seen a balanced game do this.


The tanky character who invests a great deal of his gear resources to have armor should never have that benefit just thrown out the window. But currently that is what crits seem to be doing. There are already mechanics in the game as a 'wakeup' as we already have poison and pierce attacks that go straight to health.

Oh you have more than 1000 armor? Well that's too bad; maybe you should have picked a different class whose abilities I can't 100% bypass.


I put this on the level of bad design with diablo 2. From day 1 they made a promise that there would be no fire/ice/lit/etc immune enemies that were part of the first game. This was true until they added a dlc and they said well we changed our mind. Sorry, the character you invtested 200-800 hours playing is now worthless (because if you only dealt ice damage you have no chance at killing an enemy that is 100% resistant to ice - oh and by the way you might have to clear a few hundred trash mobs to get to the elite boss that actually can drop loot only to find you have a 0% chance of killing it).


As it stands right now it seems clear armor is pretty worthless compared to other defenses when it comes to surviving critical hits. What seems to be valuable (and what allows people to solo) are buffs that allow them to take % reduced damage.

The devs wanted details: When I tank I use the thick armor potions and meditation buff and about 660 HP. My unarmed/psych build is low armor by most standards (572) needs time to get started, and absolutely needs me to get off ‘but I love you’ and ‘tell me about your mother’ for -25% and -32 dmg to the big hitters.

So if this discussion is about high level balancing of 'tanking' in general I want to call foul on the thick armor potion.

Where is the 'kung fu' potion : 18% of all Slashing, Piercing, and Crushing damage you take is mitigated and added to the damage done by your next Punch or Jab. (normally you would find this text prefaced with: While using Unarmed skill). Essentially this would just be a 18% slashing, piercing, and crushing damage reduction buff. This is the special thing unarmed gets; it would be ridiculous to allow other players to get this from a potion. But you allow everyone to get thick armor. Why?


If you want to play with shield mods you use a shield. But here drink this potion and you have have shield's literal best treasure mod (let us consider a less critty world where you don't need avoid death to survive random rage crits). That doesn't seem right.

Moreover you can't drink this potion and have any benefit when playing shield. Um what?

So looking at the math the shield mod does this:

If you have 1000 armor you have 40% damage mitigation.

If you have 1000 armor with the shield mod you have 50% mitigation

If you could have double thick armor you would have 66% mitigation.


That might sound supremely overpowered but remember that once your armor goes down significantly (like the first two hits) you start losing mitigation extremely quickly.


I also want to point out that just recently you removed the ability to have fire mods (without needing fire magic active). Why? Because it was abusive and let people get an insane dps boost without having fire magic active.

This potion lets you get an insane defensive boost and it is literally opening the door for people to solo.

What's the point of playing shield if I can get the best treasure effect of shield from a potion ?

Clearly the more optimal path would be to play a tank, not use a shield AND get the benefit of thick armor.


Let us remember too that 'kung fu' % mitigation doesn't ever run out. It is always there as a damage reduction modifier. But sure as hell armor does run out and offers nothing when it is depleted.


In order to achieve fair play (pick one):

1) allow thick potion to stack with thick armor granted via shield mod
2) start making kung fu potions drop (please dont do this - it would be so damn broken)
3) Make thick armor potion have no effect if you have any % mitigation active (like from unarmed)
4) Make thick armor potion last 2 minutes (aka use this before a boss fight)
5) this might be the most dangerous one but best for balance overall - limit % damage reduction