Tanking with Flat Mitigation vs Percentage Mitigation and Enemy Critical Hits

[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.