Review of the Balance Update - Player perspective

[Iradtoki]

As I said, welcome to being a cookie cutter or LOL Die.

[The_Yellow_King]

Becuase other armor has inherent strengths like force armor has some inherent strengths. But it discourages any melee build that wants to use heavy armour, it discourages any caster build as they need force armor and it even discourages those who wish to use heavy armour for range builds. (They still exist)

What? Heavy armor is nigh unkillable especially at high grade, and if you add a shield it is even stronger.
Heavy Armor is probably the strongest on the server for 90% of the content because they take such greatly reduced damage, they don’t need the ac.
Having played a heavy armor pc, I can say that there are some mobs that could not even hurt me, and I have watched people in heavy armor out regen the damage they take.

To do non Cala safely you would need about +34 AC from items or Dex. Which means you need about 4 +17 Dex items or 2 +17 AC items if you have no Dex.

No you don’t, if you need enough ac to be unhittable

[Doofus]

An overreaction, you can be very not cookie cutter in this system, some of the strongest builds are very not popular. The most popular currently, also happen to be the easiest to level and get their power early on.

I will say that as the balance gets changed, that the devs should either get someone who understands balance or look over the mobs in-game currently. As the system isn’t static, neither should the mobs be.

[Iradtoki]

At lower levels, no you really can’t, I have a Jedi that cannot survive more then 1 on 1 on Mon Cala, shes got 60 in force armor, 52 in her weapons, and cannot survive more then a 1 on 1, because theres no AC for her she caps out at 28 which really is a joke, as for my current warrior build, he has 17 AC in heavy plate, the reduction is a joke because he is just crushed in 5 seconds. So unless I cookie cutter and max his dex…I am officially screwed for survival, meaning I have to focus on areas that make NO sense for my char.

[Ryudo]

You’re talking about low level content, taking 30% less of 30+ would only lose 9 damage, I’d your not constantly with 2 attacks a round you won’t out regen it. You will need AC at higher level content.

Players are eventually gonna our do lower level content which both viscara and mon Cala is, but the fact none of the armor scales like light does is a huge problem.

[Ryudo]

We have, put +AC gems into rotation. He’s just arguing against it and we’re explaining why he’s wrong

[Taelon]

AC doesn’t need to be in rotation the system was designed to not use it.

[zunath]

You can criticize ideas, but not people. There was a healthy amount of discussion happening in here before people started throwing punches. I’ve removed those posts and am reopening the thread. If it happens again, it’s going to get locked permanently.

[Ryudo]

The system isn’t designed to not use AC. Heavy armor doesn’t scale into the late game well at all, taking constant damage because of lack of AC kills you, especially when you can’t regen it. Force armor is a joke when force powers can’t even get you in range of them not needing a nat 1 to hit you. Without +AC mods things become increasinly more impossible. You could say you need a group but STR and Caster builds generate the most agro so anything they attack will attack them, thus killing them. The one who generates the least agro are the ones who have the most AC.

[The_Yellow_King]

That would just raise all creatures AB by a factor equal to the increase in ac from this.

[Ryudo]

No it doesn’t, because they can’t even do the current content when leveling withotu this.

[The_Yellow_King]

Ummm you should see what the heavy armor users can do.
Swollor with his armor was nigh unkillable.

[Ryudo]

I doubt that. With the way mobs are on tatooine you’re gonna be taking about 30 damage a hit, with the way heavy armor works you’d maybe be taking 16 of that per hit, they have 2 attacks a round, which means in 30 secs by the time you regen again that’s 160 damage you apparently would need to regen to be nigh unkillable which you can’t do and still have stats to hit your target.

Yeah earlier content becomes easier but that’s because of the way progression in NWN does. You’re gonna destroy early content later on, but that doesn’t mean you can really do later content well or at all.

[The_Yellow_King]

Heavy Armor IV
so 20% dr 10 soak 5 dr
This means at 30 damage a hit you reduce it by 6 to 24 -5 dr for 19 -10 soak for 9 damage, this is before putting in the bonus from the shield or force absorb.
Assuming they hit you with their second attack 100% of the time, this would be 80 damage per round, if you have a con mod of let’s say 20, you will be taking 59 damage per round, before other regen bonuses.

[Ryudo]

DI doesn’t stack, it only goes off the highest source.

[Kendaric]

I can’t really speak for the mobs on Tatooine, but up to Mon Cala you don’t need a really extraordinarliy high DEX and you can solo the mobs well enough even in Force armor.
Jaycen has 42 DEX currently and he very rarely gets hit on Mon Cala with an AC of 38 in Force armor (before using Force powers). Even if I get hit, I have Force Absorption active, so that damage is reduced.

For new players, who maybe hitting Mon Cala (or other areas) earlier than intended, I can see it being an issue but even a relavtively new character should have a higher AC than 17 generally. Even or, more precisely, especially in heavy armor, since it gets plenty of red slots to slot with + DEX mods.

[Doofus]

DI% Stacks, DR does not.

[Iradtoki]

Speaking as having a new char, I cant get my AC over 17 yet, and not for lack of trying and again this comes down to forcing Dex into chars…that normally would not build for dex, forcing the cookie cutter approach of “if your not taking dex, regardless of your build, your doing it wrong”