Tanks take too much durability damage and Heavy armor skills are partially to blame.

Discussion in 'Feedback Archive' started by runicpaine, Apr 11, 2020.

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  1. runicpaine

    runicpaine Avatar

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    Tanks constantly take a beating so armor durability is already excessively painful for tanks. So why is it that one of the defensive skills - Absorb Impacts makes things even worse by making you take even more durability damage and which isn't even as good as the Earth magic defensive skill Earth's Embrace.

    Wouldn't someone skilled at wearing heavy armor take less armor durability damage the higher level they got as they are more familiar with how to move in armor and use it to its maximum efficiency? Seems like if anything you should get a bonus instead of a penalty to durability effectiveness.

    I understand you can reason that 'well you're intentionally choosing to sacrifice durability for more resist'... but I'd argue, no I just don't use that skill because it's too painful and probably never will until it changes.

    This also makes me wonder why body slam has such a steep durability cost. It's not even close to being the best stun available out there but it's the only one with such terrible negative effects associated with it. Literally the only skills that make your heavy armor suck more are heavy armor skills........ This is unnecessarily painful and punishing heavy armor users specifically for using heavy armor skills.

    If I tank zombies I already have to do field repairs on my armor 2-3 times per run which is brutal and I don't even use those crappy skills that make my durability worse, though I wish I could use them without utterly breaking my armor instantly. In fact I avoid going to despair as a tank if possible specifically because of how painful it is to my armor.

    Please stop punishing tanks for being tanks.
     
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  2. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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  3. OzzyOsbourne

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    There is a skill in tactics for armor durability.
    How about you get the people who you are tanking for to chip in some resources since you are saving them from durability damage?
     
  4. runicpaine

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    Yes I have both tactics and heavy armor specialization and I have the skills for less durability damage yet I still have to do on the fly repairs during combat in despair and after just a few runs through I either have to craft new armor or use COTOs to repair max durability. That is insanely too fast durability damage and insanely expensive.

    Yes I have that skill and have to repair constantly anyway. Sure tanking bosses isn't an issue, but control points or dungeons like despair where you get mobbed constantly is.
    I don't think working around the problem is the answer either. It's simple, being skilled at heavy armor should get bonuses not penalties to using heavy armor. I could understand if the skills gave penalties to movement speed, attack speed, attack damage, fizzle chance, etc. But successfully using skills shouldn't be counter-productive.

    If using a tanking skill breaks my armor and leaves me with no armor, then it's not a very good tanking skill in the long run. That makes it a terribly balanced skill if the 'class/role' it was designed for has more reason not to use it than to use it.
     
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  5. Nexus-6

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    You use 3-day buff +25% armor and weapon durability?

    I wear plate and dont have any problem with armor durability...
     
  6. runicpaine

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    There are lots of places like the Rise, the Fall, Dragon Encounters, Demons, etc that can be tanked with little issue/expected durability damage taken. If more dungeons like despair come out though and actually become hot spots, the issue/imbalance will become even more apparent. I'd rather not wait until that happens to have this issue addressed.

    The issues are:
    1: One of the core tanking HEAVY ARMOR SKILLS penalizes TANKS financially for using it. This leads me to simply just not want to use the skill.
    2: Quantity of mobs have a disproportionately larger impact on armor durability than actual strength/threat/damage of mobs. THUS leading to dungeons like Despair, that has endless waves of zombies in some areas, being a nightmare for tanks. I have no problems tanking most places but I really dread Despair because of the quantity of hits I take. I can tank all the dragons at ounce in there and even pick up some of the ghost corpids with no issue, but the zombie waves are what trashes my armor just due to quantity of hits taken.
    3: Absorb impacts doesn't make as much of difference vs single hard hitting mobs as it does large quantities of weaker mobs, But because of item number 2 above, that would only intensify the issue of quantity of hits and durability lost. So again makes me not want to use a core tanking ability from the heavy armor skill tree.

    If you can't stay on topic or want to make empty boasts, please take it and measure each other somewhere else.

    If you disagree with me, a valid disagreement would be - 1: 'I like that a tanking skill makes my armor break faster', or 2: 'I disagree about quantity of hits effecting durability more than harder hits and here's the proof'
    If you disagree with me, invalid arguments would be - 1: 'Nu-uh', or 2: 'I'm the most epic tank ever and I never have to repair' (take empty boasts and measure each other elsewhere please)
     
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  7. Adam Crow

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    When doing group content to gain large amounts of experience like despair and control points, it makes sense that you are taking damage to your armor so quickly. If you want to spend your time cranking out experience like that, there should be a drawback.

    I would just bring multiple sets of mid quality armor to battle that issue. This way you aren't damaging anything super valuable and you can still crank out experience like crazy.

    With the specs you have, they already reduce the amount of damage to armor on both of the skills you mentioned. I personally think with heavy armor spec at 100 though, you should take no additional durability damage for using those skills.

    But with that change, (since you don't use those skills anyway) your still going to be going through durability really fast, and that's a reasonable drawback of running groups for that type of content in my opinion.
     
  8. Drilikath

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    I hate miss information. As the Tank we should not lose as much durability as we do, Regs are cheap/grow, once ya have a set of armor the way you want get lucky with MW/Enchants, make you the best tank you can, have 10 mil into a suit that makes you decent. Then it gets destroyed in a week or two of game play.. Just no.

    I know mages that have had the same gear + or - new MW/Enchants etc, but overall for YEARS because they don't take damage. You are at the SAME CP, same instance getting SAME xp as the guy tanking....

    Wearing junk armor does not make you a tank, it actually risks the entire party and a wipe.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2020
  9. Violet Ronso

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    Ohh? And why not? Aren't you the one getting bashed in by multiple mobs at a time? Aren't you the one pulling all the mobs and accepting to take a beating?

    You know, reading this thread I don't feel like your durability issues should be fixed, but I do think that I should ask my tank if his armor is getting shred that much, and pay him a coto repair once per few times (maybe once per 10 runs, since we are usually 10 or more, it's my turn then!). It simply help him with replacing his armor from time to time, but actually reducing his durability cost for getting hit by 20+ mobs at a time? Nope!
     
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  10. Adam Crow

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    So you're telling me you need a 10 mil suit to run tank at a control point? And your complaining about my post with misinformation???
     
  11. Drilikath

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    Glad that is what you got out of it.
     
  12. GMDavros

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    By that argument, those same people should chip in for my regs. Healing/lightning ain't cheap anymore. I operate at a loss during control points keeping the tank alive. We all play our parts an those parts come at different costs based on the style of characters we choose to play.

    Fenris
     
  13. Drilikath

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    Logic is broken, Bard ruined all logic, heals/dmg are free..
    If you got heal cost that is on you, Healing touch/ray = free.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2020
  14. BrilLLTS

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    Tanks do take Armor durability hits, yes I use COTOs to restore my armor, yes I repair on the fly, and yes I would like to see an increase in durability. It would be nice if the durability skills were more effective.
     
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  15. kaeshiva

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    Indeed, we all have our 'costs'. Reagent costs are absolutely absurd now and we all have to deal with gear repair.
    I agree the tank gets overpenalized, the -dura skills are a bit unnecessary because they're getting shredded anyway.
    This wouldn't be as much of an issue if it was just a matter of gold/repair kits, but replacing good armor can take weeks/months of farming materials.

    This is a problem with the crafting system though, not with the adventuring system.
    I absolutely feel disincentivized to play anything 'tanky' precisely because I spend too much effort getting the gear how I want it to see it turn into swish cheese.
    You either need gear to be destroyed, and replaceable (consumption -> crafter economy), or stop it from getting perma-destroyed.
    At the moment we have destruction without replace-ability, which leads to these sorts of problems/frustrations.

    Following this through, I've had people ask me recently to craft them alternate gear for use in 12-man-zerg control points where having 'good stuff' just isn't as important. Ashen wands/staffs to reduce reg use, mid-grade heavy armor sets for tanking, cheapo necklaces so you're not throwing money at the mobs with every spellcast by using a warlock chain, and so on. Its like we have this crafting system that lets us make really cool stuff, but nobody wants to actually use it for fighting because its too expensive and too disposable. The entire thing is ludicrous.

    Getting rid of penalties for using skills would be a start.
    Improving the effectiveness of the passive skills would be another good start.
    Both of these should be fairly easy from a technical perspective.
     
  16. Adam Crow

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    I also got out of it - you are comparing durability loss for a tank, a player taking damage for an entire group... to a mage? That doesn't seem like a very logical argument.

    There is a huge price difference between armor that is super expensive with near perfect enchant/mws and something very close. Sure you get an edge with the super expensive stuff, but you can still perform really well with an above average set of armor. And you can probably buy 2 or 3 sets of above average armor for the same price as that super expensive set.
     
  17. Drilikath

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    I been a tank since I started this game, I have been here since Day 1. You can argue about how a piece of +10 compares to a +20 all day and you would be wrong. Not small changes HUGE changes, and that is per piece.

    Crap armor is when the party wipes/ healers have to heal constant, because your tank has garbage armor. Sounds good to me...
     
  18. Violet Ronso

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    Funny how now one said to use garbage armor, but simply less "perfect" armor. You are far from needing perfect armor in control points, in fact I tanked in "mage" chainmail armor the other day, what you need is a specialised healer focusing on the tank, and an off-healer that will do damage and heal the rest of the group if need be. In parties of 10+, that is actually very easy to have : 1 tank, 1 Healer, 1 off-healer, 7+ DPS's. I don't really understand where the "Party wipes" comes from, especially when talking about control points, because we do control points with 1 healer, 1 tank, and our main mage as a DPS, I can often spend more than half of the control point simply typing to someone, and we still end up getting our 8m exp and run out without more than maybe one or 2 occasional deaths. And you know what? We usually have 1 or 2 people who barely have enough experience to do higher than 10 dps in our runs, so I really don't understand how/why this seems so damn important to have the most perfect tanking gear possible, especially since our tank has some Ok gear, and he never complains about his durability...

    Sometimes I really wonder what it is that people really want, to have the most op stuff at barely any cost, or to have a balanced game where things make sense and an economy can happen thanks to it... Guess the 2nd option is not the one people want right?
     
  19. kaeshiva

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    I don't disagree with your assessment of the way things are - as I mentioned in my above post, I've been getting requests for "mediocre armor" rather than "good armor" lately precisely for this reason, its more economic, its disposable, and it simply isn't necessary for the "exp grind" content. You don't put on your best party dress to go work in the field. That's just practicality.

    That being said, it is a game. And a big part of the game is progression, growth, character development. Having to deliberately and purposefully diminish yourself by embracing mediocrity, putting your nice stuff on the shelf, due to an arbitrary destruction mechanic that actually serves no meaningful purpose, can be frustrating or call into question the very effort/expense of trying to get nice things to begin with.

    Because the reality is that armor durability loss / destruction is not helping crafters. I'm a crafter and I hate it. It does the opposite of what it is intended to do - because good gear is such a ...process....you can rarely if ever actually sell it for what it cost you in materials and failed pieces. Most veteran players understand this, but I recently had a friend come to the game who wanted some nice things, because I knew the guy we agreed to "pay it forward" - get him the gear, and he'd farm the materials. As a veteran MMO player he was absolutely floored at how much was used(wasted) to even make a -decent- (not "perfect") set. To his credit, he paid it all back - and after spending over a month doing nothing but mining/farming gold 10 hours a day to do so, he hasn't logged in since.

    And the other reality - People very rarely need to replace gear as it is, most of my 'business' comes from people wanting better gear, upgrading the pieces 1 by 1 where the RNG screwed them last time. Or people wanting different gear, for different builds/setups. Because of this, very very rarely is it "my boots are worn out, I need replacements." And its a good thing too, since there is no reliable way to replace gear other than starting the same RNG nonsense all over again. As I say, its a crafting problem, not an adventuring problem.

    I'm not saying good gear shouldn't have a cost. I'm saying the cost is way out of whack because it is inconsistent and unpredictable to the point where the game pushes you to accept "good enough" and honestly, if my goal/expectation was to achieve "good enough" I could have quit years ago.

    There's basically two ways this can (should) work.

    Method A: Extremely difficult to acquire good pieces, but once acquired, they are yours now. Most games achieve this via some sort of bind-on-equip system to take them out of circulation and there are cash sink repairs for ongoing use but never permanent loss.

    Method B: Reliable, predictable, costable production ---> Destruction ---> Replacement

    We see these methods over and over again in game after game because for the most part, they work. The first is more common in MMOs, the second more common in survival type games. Either one of these works. What doesn't work is what we have here in Shroud, which is the punishment from both methods with the rewards of neither. We have extremely difficult to acquire gear, that is unreliable, unpredictable, and uncostable, that also permanently breaks. It doesn't permanently break particularly quickly, but you'll often use something up quicker than you could farm materials to replace it, which is silly. Unless you know, you just abandon the pursuit of nice things.

    What would make more sense, would be to get rid of max durability entirely, and the nicer the gear, the more difficult it is to repair, the more kits (cash sink) it takes. That is an example of paying for power that I think we could all live with.
     
  20. Adam Crow

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    Hmm i never said anything about +10 or +20. Where did you come up with that? Try reading what I wrote again. You don't need perfect gear to run a tank at a control point. Try using a nice set and see how you do.

    If you've been doing this from day one, and you use your best gear for something like that, then you're just shooting yourself in the foot. I can see why your upset.
     
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