Heavy armor balance concerns

I'm not sure why in heavy armor I consistently take damage faster than those in light armor.

Heavy armor has a minor disadvantage and a really major disadvantage.

Minor - It weighs more, limiting how much you can gather and carry. I say minor, but it is still an important consideration because gathering less each adventuring session means less gold over time. Your progression in the economy (and your ability to buy more powerful gear) is slower. This is not a trivial concern, but I think the devs have completely overlooked this.

Major - You cannot use about 90%of the magic in the game. People say this is fine because heavy armor traditionally means you can't use magic from what players expect, but the expectation is also that heavy armor is supposed to provide by far the best protection. It does not.

If we're serious about combat balance, we should be testing this out.

Give someone 40 in every light armor skill and another player 40 in every heavy armor skill. In turn, pit them against the same mobs, having them use nothing by armor active and passive skills and measure how much damage they take over time.

Now repeat the same experiment with 100 in every light and 100 in every heavy armor skill. Measure how much damage they take.

From those numbers, adjust the skills until a tank feels like a tank and a mage in light armor is the one that crumbles quickly.

As it stands right now, it certainly seems light armor is every bit as good as heavy armor if not better at reducing overall damage because they have strong damage avoidance.

I was trying some PvP yesterday, and at melee range I could not hurt mages in light armor at all. But they were melting me in heavy armor consistently. Melee range should be a disadvantage for a mage, but it is not currently.

If heavy armor has disadvantages with zero advantages, then the system is broken. This has been reported for over a year. There are balance passes in other areas every month, but this is never addressed. We are persistent now. This was reported again last month, and it still hasn't been addressed. I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will be addressed at all.

 

I 100% agree with you on this. My "spellsword" currently wears a full suit of chain just so the fizzle isn't so out of control that I can't access the small handful of spells I like. Most of the time in battle I feel like I'm wearing nothing at all.. he just crumbles so quickly to archers. There was also a "stealth buff" to mages with R33 (I'm not actually sure if they told us about it or not) as I am now taking a TON of damage from skeleton mages as well, the lich mage in hilt is 100% impossible for me to kill as of now even though ive hunted there dozens of times before. I am currently sitting at 70 in heavy passives, 80 in sword skills and allot of other stuff in the 50-70 range - I still feel weak as crap.

I am waiting for the update that will bring melee monsters on the level of the archers and mages now so I can just stop hunting all together. It was bad enough when fighting 2 archers at a time was impossible but now the mages too? C'mon.

 

I'm going to start separate threads for blades, shield, earth magic, archery, etc. We need to discuss each of these separately, but a build of:

Plate + 1 handed sword + shield = particularly broken

You can't be a spell-sword. You're basically blocked off from all magic. Shields aren't beneficial enough. 1 handed swords are pretty terrible.

 

I don't know why you would say that. I'm 2h sword/chain with life(heal),death,air and earth (buff) magic. I have used magic up to the 3rd tier no issue. My fizzle rate for most of what I use is 20-30%.

 

I am finding that the armor itself is now pretty useless but the innates are controlling everything.
No numbers yet because with persistence I do not have the luxury of trying to test things anymore. If I had my multiple character, maybe.

 

You apparently quoted me but didn't read what I wrote about plate. Plate completely blocks off most magic.

People are saying heavy isn't as broken if you use only chain, or you only use chest piece and then do light elsewhere to get around fizzle limits. We're trying to cover up what is broken rather than fix it.

 

I did, the person you quoted is also In chain. And you said you can't be a spellsword.

 

I said specifically the plate build was broken where you can't be a spell-sword.

You quoted the line about plate and then ignored it.

 

Certain trees are more usable in plate than others.
E.g. I can rezz and cast all the heals just fine in full plate, and I'm not even spec'd to reduce fizzle, earth is also particularly nice for heavy armor.

All the trees seem that up to 3rd tier spells are completely usable in full plate after getting some skill up in the individual spells.

Also if you look at the spread sheet you will see just plain unspec'd plate offers more damage absorbtion/resistance/avoidance.
Currently min/maxers are going full plate, with cloth chest and cloth or leather gloves, for the most balanced protection verus fizzle rate, and perma sprint.

Currently you can play this game in your underwear with no armor at all, your level, dex, and total health matters far more than the armor you are wearing.
(excluding the bonuses from exceptional crafted armor with amazingly lucky roles in masterwork or enchant)

 

The only magic you have access to is Earth and Life.

I haven't gotten down to Ressurrect yet, but right now it shows that even if I had the reagents, it would be over a 60% fizzle for me, and that is with me having spent points in the Focus tree to lower fizzle.

Likewise, I can cast the weakest Earth spells, but I haven't trained down to Summon Earth Elemental because that shows over 60% fizzle even with reagents.

Other magic trees? No chance at all.

Your comment on Dex is particularly telling. Dex gives you damage avoidance, which seems really overpowered compared to damage resistance from the heavy armor tree. That is part of the point.

If someone in underwear is better at mitigating damage than someone in heavy armor, the tree is completely broken.

 

If your expecting to wear full plate and only partially spec into a magic tree and be competitive your kidding yourself.
Pure mages, spec the whole tree for the attunement bonuses, they raise their skills high, they pay to play.

If you want to use a magic line,your going to need to spec the entire tree, and raise it high for the attunement bonus just like a pure mage does.
As you spec the skills higher and higher your fizzle gets lower and lower, until the skills become usable even in full plate.
Some top tier spells are clearly not going to work in full plate, no matter how high you spec them or the no-fizzle skill, but the vast majority are completely useable.

 

I am trying to train the entire Earth and Life trees, including the passives and into the Focus tree to lower fizzle.

The problem is that in plate I'm particularly weak. Everything kills me and I can't get XP to level. Either way, if plate only gives disadvantages and provides worse damage mitigation than light armor, then the system is still entirely broken.

When we tell players to pick different skills and play a different build rather than fix broken builds, we're not helping the game.

 

Well, you probably should have named your post: "Plate armor balance concerns" if you're discounting Chain.
Having said that, I'm going to change into Leather and then Cloth (wearing Chain now) and look at the differences regarding damage taken.

 

Me and you have discussed this before.
Your problem is your shield, I have no trouble supporting a crusade to fix shields, they are useless fizzle magnets that offer no real protection for the dps they cost you. (they actually cause you to take more damage because you have to fight the mobs longer)
My offer still stands, I'll give you a nice two handed sword and take you out for a few hours to help you level past the lowbie level hump.

P.S. If your gonna use a shield and cast magic use a wooden shield to reduce your fizzle, they can be looted in many starting places as deco, so they are free to use and replace.

 

I appreciate your generosity, but abandoning the shield is covering up broken mechanics rather than trying to get them fixed.

 

I use leather armor for months ) Not able to tank at all any high level target. Helps only high dps and healing. If it is 3 high level target healing and dps doesn`t help )

They have great aoe buffs which are very usefull in point defence.

 

I can give you stats of a shield mage in cloth with 80 in every defensive ability. I have acrobatics for 5 damage res, shield angels and redirection for 5 damage res and avoidance, bulwark of earth for 1.6 damage res, sympathy of stone for 8% maximum damage res and 2.5 damage avoid. Then for defensive skills I have defensive stance for 18 damage res and 14.4% maximum damage res, ice shield for 13% avoidance and death shield for 23.3 damage transfer into health. My unbuffed stats are 26.3 damage res max 28% and 14% avoidance but I have some masterworks on my gear enhancing that.

 

Ok so I'm not halucinating. After the patch mage type mobs do considerably more dmg on my full plate wearer.

 

No doubt. It seems to be largely their ability to crit.

 

Although to be honest and clear, prepatch they weren't much of a challenge compared to archers, so this could be a balance in proper direction.